The Perfect Lie

Tucked into a nondescript storefront along Engle Road, Touchet Performance Golf attracts a steady stream of clients all looking for the same thing: a way to improve their golf game. With a solid portfolio of services unhindered by weather and seasonality, Touchet Golf offers exactly that. 

It all starts with finding the right fit, says owner Eric Touchet. It’s not just for serious golfers with a plus handicap.

“No one is too good or too bad,” says Touchet. “Even a beginner would benefit from a fitting.”

Touchet uses a high tech simulator equipped with TrackMan radar technology to map twenty-six key parameters associated with a person’s swing, such as ball speed, attack angle, club path, face angle and more. Proprietary software called BGF (Better Golf Faster) then assimilates and interprets the data to provide feedback, which Touchet uses in his fittings. 

The feedback provided by TrackMan and BGF is critical to performance because often a golfer may think his or her swing feels one way, but the data contradicts that. In the end, the data doesn’t lie.

“The TrackMan will tell you so many different things about your golf swing,” says Touchet. “I trust it wholeheartedly, and it has equated to my game outside.”

Touchet can fit clients for everything from a golf ball to a driver and everything in between, says Touchet. And when a client buys clubs from Touchet, the fitting comes at no charge.

“We sell only name-brand clubs at the same prices as everyone else,” says Touchet. “The fitting is free and we don’t build it into the price.”

Touchet clearly knows what he is doing. Touchet Golf has been named one of America’s 100 Best Clubfitters by Golf Digest since 2015. The company has also been a Mizuno Top 100 Fitter since 2012, and it was designated as Clubfitter of the Year for Indiana in 2016 by Ping. Even so, it’s the feedback from his customers that Touchet values most.

“I love fitting customers and I love it when they tell me they’ve never played this well before,” says Touchet.

To support his clients’ continued improvement beyond the fitting, Touchet also makes his simulators available on a rental basis. People can take a lesson from full-time teaching pro Craig Isabel, practice their swing on a driving range, and even play on world-renowned courses. In the fall and winter, Touchet offers an indoor league which consists of two-person teams logging nine holes per week.

“We’ve been offering two leagues a year for eight years,” says Touchet. “This past fall, we had 78 teams playing.”

Anyone can book time on a simulator through the Touchet Golf website or Facebook page. The only thing the simulator does not replicate for a golfer is ambient weather conditions, which some people may think makes it less realistic. Even so, notes Touchet, the simulator offers a significant benefit.

“It may be a little easier in the simulator because you have a perfect lie every time,” says Touchet, “but you’re swinging when you otherwise can’t outside. You can play all twelve months with no down time.”

Touchet isn’t just selling a product, he is living his passion. As a lifelong golfer himself, the business comes naturally to him. Since he and his father started the company in 2011, the business has increased its physical size, added and improved equipment, and grown its clientele, all while collecting accolades along the way. Often, says Touchet, he gains new customers after they’ve seen improvement in the golf games of their friends.

People not only from Indiana, but also Illinois, Michigan and Ohio come to Touchet Golf to improve their game. That is exactly the kind of business Touchet wants to build.

“We’re a destination, not a drive-by,” he says.

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