The Golf Ball Fitter LLC
A tour-level fitting, engineered around your swing.
Most golfers play clubs that were never truly matched to them. We fix that. Answer a short, guided set of questions about your swing, your build and your goals — and our engine assembles a complete, build-ready set: every head, shaft and grip, plus the ball, dialed to your numbers. Then it hands you the documents to play it and to build it.
From your swing to a set you can build
Miura GolfFeatured Dealer
Precision craftsmanship meets engineering-driven club fitting.
Japanese golf club manufacturer Miura Golf, known for making premium forged irons, named California PGA Master Clubfitter David Butler its first Featured Dealer.
Butler, also known as “Doctor Grip,” was featured on the Miura Golf website with photographs of his custom fitting and clubmaking facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Miura described the recognition as a way to honor dealers who do an exceptional job representing the product and helping golfers understand the value of custom fitting.
Miura representatives emphasized that Butler not only personified the kind of clubfitter the company wanted associated with its brand, but also showed an unusual level of commitment by focusing entirely on Miura products rather than mixing in off-the-shelf retail offerings.
His fitting sessions typically lasted between two and five hours, during which golfers learned how shafts bend, twist, droop and kick through the swing. Butler used technologies such as TrackMan and True Temper’s computerized Shaft Lab to analyze swing behavior and build clubs with tight tolerances in shaft selection, length, swing weight, kick point, loft, lie angle and grip.
Miura highlighted Butler’s engineering background, his history of technical leadership and his passion for golf as the reasons he could create such a disciplined fitting process — a combination of engineering, craftsmanship and commitment to feel that was a natural match for the Miura philosophy.
ABC NewsCustom Club Fitting
A deeper look at the science and patience behind true custom fitting.
Wayne Freeman’s ABC News piece described a custom fitting experience very different from buying golf clubs off a rack or out of a box. Instead of relying on stock assumptions, the process centered on detailed launch-monitor analysis and patient observation of ball flight.
Freeman explained that David Butler used a TrackMan launch monitor to study many elements of the golf swing — shaft and club angles, swing speed, ball speed, spin, descent and other factors that affect how the ball actually travels. The process took hours, not minutes.
The article described how Butler built a set of Miura irons that felt balanced and efficient while producing impressive TrackMan numbers, noting especially strong smash-factor readings, improved consistency, straighter shots and additional distance compared with previous sets built using other clubheads.
He also described the trajectory of the irons as ideal: high enough to hold greens, stable enough in wind and controlled enough to avoid ballooning — with even the longer irons performing with surprising ease and reliability.
The story’s point was that true custom fitting is not marketing language. It is a disciplined process of measuring performance, understanding ball flight and selecting equipment that works with the golfer rather than against the golfer.
Jay StullerMaking Error-Free Arrows
The craft, technology and patience behind a world-class fitting with “Dr. Grip.”
Writer Jay Stuller profiled David Butler and the singular experience of one of his fittings — which begins not at a hitting bay but over breakfast, as Butler reads the golfer’s game, personality and goals before a club is ever swung.
A former chief engineer at Chrysler, Butler approaches clubmaking as precision engineering: each shaft chosen for the exact length, weight, stiffness, kick-point and spine alignment that transfers the most energy to the head, guided by data from a TrackMan launch monitor and decades of craft.
The feature captures how that discipline — what Butler calls a three-axis alignment, “foundational for launching missiles and golf balls alike” — turns an assembled set into a finely tuned instrument, with lofts, lies and gapping refined club by club until every one is pure.
Engineer, aerospace contributor, racer — and the mind behind the fitting philosophy.
David Butler — “Dr. Grip” — is a BSME and MBA whose career spans engineering, aerospace, automotive, semiconductor operations and high-performance competition. That rare combination of technical discipline and competitive insight shapes the philosophy behind this brand.
His background includes serving as Chief Engineer with Chrysler Corporation, contributing problem-solving tools to the Magellan 2 Venus probe mission, spending 25 years in Silicon Valley as an engineering consultant, and serving as VP of Operations at National Semiconductor.
He also flies airplanes, is a national champion in NHRA fuel dragster racing, and loves dogs.
- Engineering foundation — BSME & MBA
- Chrysler Corporation — 15 years as Chief Engineer & Manufacturing Executive, including 8 years of assignments in South America and Europe
- NASA / Lockheed Honorary Member — Magellan 2 Venus probe
- Silicon Valley — 25 years of engineering consulting & quality-improvement implementation
- National Semiconductor — VP of Operations
How The Golf Ball Fitter was born — from gripping clubs, to building them, to fitting the ball itself.
The idea that eventually became The Golf Ball Fitter started a long time ago — back when I was attending Ohio State University in the 1950s. During that time, I had the opportunity to meet Jack Nicklaus and watch him play at the Scarlet and Gray Course in Columbus, and I also saw him play at Pebble Beach and St Andrews in Scotland. Seeing golf played at that level left a lasting impression on me.
Throughout my professional career, golf remained a passion. I wasn’t a great golfer, but I was always experimenting — re-gripping clubs, replacing shafts, and repairing clubs for myself and for others. It was a hobby that followed me everywhere.
In 2003, my wife Mary told me she wasn’t going to have lunch with me every day — and that I needed to find something to do. So I went to the driving range, started hitting balls, and realized I needed new grips. To my surprise, there was no place in Half Moon Bay to buy grips, so I drove to a golf store in San Mateo, California. There, I saw a sign: “Help Wanted.” I took the job.
That’s where I learned how to properly install grips — and that’s where the name “Dr. Grip” came to be, thanks to the store’s owner, Nancy Lee.
I went back to the driving range and told people I did grips. Orders started coming in. I contacted GolfWorks and spoke with Mark Masters, who made me a serious offer to buy grips in bulk. I took it. Soon I was back at the course doing re-grips, and business grew quickly.
To expand, I rented a small shop in Half Moon Bay, selling grips and doing minor club work. People started stopping just to see what I was doing — even Neil Young came in one day. Eventually I outgrew that space and rented a trailer at the Half Moon Bay driving range.
While working with Mark Masters at GolfWorks, we designed a set of Butler Irons. I ordered several hundred sets, and they were extremely successful. During that time I returned to GolfWorks, took all the fitting and other classes they offered, and officially became a certified club fitter.
My son Bob is the real golfer in the family. I built a set of clubs specifically for him, and we went out to the Half Moon Bay Golf Links Ocean Course to play his first round with them. He shot a 68 — with a hole-in-one. I’ll never forget that day. I even fell into a ditch and Bob had to pull me out. I’ve never been a great golfer myself — Bob used to say, “I don’t really want to watch that swing.”
Later, I moved into a shopping mall location. When I ran out of Butler Irons, I contacted Bill Holowaty at Miura Golf, who made me a dealer. Based on my engineering background, I was so impressed with the design and precision that Miura irons became the only irons I sold.
I also worked closely with Bill Lange at True Temper, and purchased the entire inventory of a lightweight shaft line that was in production at the time. I invested in TrackMan, which took my fitting knowledge to an entirely new level. I learned extensively about fitting, club dynamics, and golf-ball behavior from leaders like Mr. Miura and others in the industry. I was lucky enough to have an up-and-coming, very talented golfer named Tracy Nichols join me. I could do the fittings, Tracy and I could build the clubs, and then Tracy could teach people how to hit them. We made quite a team. I was even mentioned in Golf Digest as one of the top club fitters in the United States.
But one question always bothered me: fitting the clubs is great — but what golf ball should the player use? The only real answer at the time was trial and error. During fittings, I would bring out a wide selection of golf balls and have players hit them while TrackMan collected data. It may have worked — but it wasn’t scientific enough. That question stayed with me for years.
Eventually I developed an optimizer using highly advanced technology, first built in Excel, using published launch data from players like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. When I ran the numbers, my model produced the same distances, peak heights, and angles of descent as the published data. The problem was simple: you can’t put an Excel worksheet on the internet and make it interactive.
So, using artificial intelligence — combined with decades of inputs, fitting experience, and engineering knowledge — we built the optimizer for real. Today it can predict the optimal golf ball based on temperature, altitude, ball launch speed, and ball launch angle. Players can now carry a yardage card in their pocket that shows exact distances for every club and every ball in their bag.
That’s how I went from gripping clubs, to designing clubs, to manufacturing clubs, to club fitting, to golf-ball fitting. And that’s how The Golf Ball Fitter was born.