Fixing the swing of things

Moses Lake resident offers custom-fit golf clubs

MOSES LAKE — Before he went to golf club building school, Ken Schnirring was hitting two degrees towards the toe on virtually every shot.

Now, all of Schnirring's golf clubs are custom fit, and the lie has been changed two degrees.

"I golf as much as I possibly can," Schnirring said, before offering the proviso, "Not that I'm a great golfer. I'm a better golf maker than I am a golfer."

Schnirring started at a club building school based out of Austin, Texas, originally beginning in the late 1990s and then decided he wanted to complete his education, finishing his qualification in June 2005.

Schnirring goes through several steps to professionally fit a club for someone, checking for swing analysis, swing tendencies and such factors as height, weight and arm length.

"There's a whole series of things we go through to fit you professionally to make sure you get the right club in your hand," Schnirring said, adding most clubs available are made for the standard American male. "Even though that does fit a lot of people, the lie and the loft typically will not fit most of the people."

Most people do not have the standard swing, he added, and have a tendency to hit off the toe or off the heel.

Schnirring has always been an avid golfer and wanted to get into the more technical aspect of the clubs.

"I thought it would be a great business for the community," he said. Ken's Custom Clubs opened in July 2005, and was originally located on a storefront, until Schnirring decided that was too big a burden to handle, although he would like to return to a store location in the future. Business has been picking up again as the golf season picks up.

Schnirring enjoys building custom clubs, and enjoys the idea of making custom-made clubs "perfectly suited" for an individual's height and swing.

"Of course, I think golf clubs are beautiful anyway," he said, "but it's nice that I can give somebody a product that we know that fits them. And when they swing, they know the club is built for them, exactly for their height. A quarter of an inch can make a big difference. Most people don't think that it does, when you can always choke up or choke down, but if you've got the ability to have the club fitted to you, why not utilize that?"

The repair side of the business is probably the largest, Schnirring said, and keeps him busiest.

"People that need their clubs regripped, need broken shafts replaced or want to change from a regular shaft to a stiff shaft or vice versa, that type of thing," he said. "Most of it is regripping, broken shaft repair. There are a lot of changing the lie of the club, but the repair part of the business is probably about 75 percent of my business."

Schnirring sees Moses Lake as growing and an avid golfing community, which he hopes translate into a good future for his business.

"With 300 days of sunshine a year, we're attracting more and more golfers from the other side of the mountains," he said. "Early in the season and late in the season, we get them from Spokane and Coeur d'Alene, that come over here because we have sunshine and drier weather. I can only anticipate that the business would get better."

Schnirring operates Monday through Sunday, and is available at (509) 855-3176.