Get thorough fittings from Max Out Golf's Chris Mullane (left) and Mitch Voges. Courtesy of Max Out Golf

Santa knows little about golf, and even less about your swing. The clubs he left under your tree should therefore be viewed with circumspection. Who's to say they're right for you? Chances are they should have been delivered down the street, to the homes of scratch-handicap Sid or slice-prone Bob.

Even if the Red Round Guy left you no clubs but merely permission to go out and buy some new ones, you should never trust anyone other than an expert club fitter to fill your golf bag. By "expert" I mean someone trained not just to understand your unique way of putting stick to ball but also to use motion sensors, launch monitors and the like -- the kind of new-age swing analysis equipment that's made club fitting a science.

Could be this newfangled gadgetry isn't news to you. Although hard stats are unavailable, anecdotal evidence suggests that about 40 percent of today's golfers have their clubs custom-fit, many with the latest high-tech fitting apparatus.

It's the other 60 percent I worry about. The unconverted among you may not know it, but investing a little time and money can land you in gearhead nirvana, experiencing the same treatment tour pros get from their equipment reps: hitting a wide variety of clubheads with every possible permutation of shaft, length and lie, under the unerring eye of NASA-worthy technology. In fact, we amateurs can have it better than the pros, since the equipment you can try isn't limited by contractual arrangements with particular sponsor-brands.

The only hard part is finding a state-of-the-art club fitter, someone who can bring all the latest gizmos to bear on you game. But that's where I come in. Over the past few months I've spanned the globe -- or at least the continental United States -- seeking out our most expert, most trustworthy stick-tailors. True, the golf shop at the local mall probably possesses some of the new fitting technology. But if you want top-shelf treatment, then harness up your reindeer and pay a visit to one of our nation's three best club fitting operations.

The first two, Los Angeles's Max Out Golf and Scottsdale's Hot Stix, reside in warm weather climes. That makes perfect sense, since no smart club fitter would put up a shingle that's going to be covered in snow for a third of the year.

The other, GolfTec, has a broad geographical reach, with shops scattered from Atlanta and Chicago to Denver and Irvine, Calif. GolfTec's primary mission is instruction. Indeed, about half of its two dozen branches (notably, those housed within Golfsmith mega-stores) only do lessons. But 10 franchises do club fitting as well. (A deal with Golfsmith, the company says, should soon make all their locations full-service.)

GolfTec's teaching emphasis is an advantage, since every club fitting should begin with savvy instruction. Simply building clubs to accommodate bad habits is a wretched idea. A good fitter will first try to identify flaws and help you make some adjustments. The fitter will then put you in clubs that suit the best swing you're capable of making.

That's precisely what happened during my recent GolfTec session. Andrew Braley, my fitter (and a PGA teaching professional) began by analyzing my swing with a GolfTec-unique, motion sensor-studded waist-and-shoulder harness. Its purpose is tracking body positions throughout the swing, so they can be compared, via computer, to the ideal positions of model pros.

The lesson, as unusual as it was, was the best I'd ever had -- and a guy in my profession gets some pretty good lessons. In short order I learned about inadequacies in my stance (shoulders too far back), ball position (too close to my body) and takeaway (insufficient hip- and shoulder-turn). After a few adjustments, my club and ball speed increased dramatically, recommending shaft changes through the bag.

Sadly, our club fitting work was limited, as Braley's branch, in Woodland Hills, Calif., is one of GolfTec's lessons-only shops. A fuller treatment awaited me at Max Out Golf.

Max Out's proprietor is Mitch Voges, who not so long ago -- 1991, to be precise -- won the U.S. Amateur. A lifelong garage tinkerer, Voges had always been curious about a perceived miasma of confusion surrounding golf equipment.

At a function preceding the '91 Walker Cup matches, Voges was seated next to Frank Thomas, then the USGA's club and ball overlord. Voges asked Thomas why it was so hard, back in those days, to match a player with his optimal equipment. Thomas didn't have an answer, so Voges set about finding one himself.

Six years later, Max Out opened for business, and it's now, for my money, the best place in Southern California -- or anywhere else, for that matter -- to buy golf clubs. Max Out is as techy as any place you'll find. Indeed, each of its hitting bays looks like the server room at a web-hosting company.

But it's thoroughness that truly sets it apart. At your fingertips is a dizzying array of gear from every manufacturer imaginable. And Max Out doesn't stop at the full swing -- the fitters also check your putting stroke, and make a studious ball recommendation. Best of all is the care and patience that goes into their fittings. When you walk into Max Out, you'd better be prepared to commit the time it takes to get everything exactly right. My fitting, taking place over two days, lasted more than three hours. What kept me motivated? All the recent customers coming in to see Voges for a quick chat or thank you, each wearing the dopey grin that comes with having recently gotten thirty yards longer.

The third of the trio is Hot Stix, a Scottsdale, Ariz., shop now in its fourth year. I haven't yet stopped in but word of mouth is excellent: some Phoenician friends of mine swear by the place, and provide independent testimony that real-life tour pros pay actual offseason visits.

Hot Stix' method is a little different: stepping before its battery of sensors and computers, clients makes their swings, then watch as the machines crunch their numbers and spit out ideal shaft and club combos (as well as optimal lengths, lofts and lies). And those machines, or at least their software, are beyond reproach -- the company writes its own code, and the software is used by OEMs (for instance, top shaft manufacturer Fujikura) when they fit PGA Tour players -- which is a pretty good indication that the folks at Hot Stix know what they're doing.

Be advised: patronizing these businesses is not cheap. A Max Out fitting, for example, will run you a couple of hundred dollars. But it's well worth the money. What you get in return isn't just a bagful of quality, personally tailored clubs. It's the satisfaction of halting the otherwise endless cycle of dumping old clubs in favor of new ones that'll ostensibly perform better for you. Rest assured, you'll always be able to hit bad golf shots. But after an expert fitting, you'll at least know that it's not your gear.