Shaft Length

I've just had my shaft chopped down an inch or two as it was far too long for my preferences. I had trouble keeping in the target hole at times and it was at times so much of a hard miss that it caused pain.

So I'm wondering if anyone else has had trouble keeping their shaft under control of late and what the bad misses have caused.

Ooer Missus!

Hope you remembered to add the appropriate swing weight by virtue of a ring or two around the base!!

But I do understand your dilemma, a shorter shaft is much easier to control than one that just flaps about in the breeze.

I seem to remember your are also an exponent of a slim grip rather than the recent rash of thick girths seen on tour. I  prefer a jumbo myself.

Just over a year ago I went to see a fitter for some new bats. The irons were made exactly to my specification and are brilliant. However the fitter said he wanted to increase my distance off the tee with the driver, so gave me a standard length. I'm 5'6" and when stood on the tee with this thing, I have to stand what seems like a mile away from the clubhead. In fact on a tee mat I'm stood off the mat which is crazy. Yes if I catch the ball just right I can get a few more yards, but not worth it. I had another driver made as I wasn't able to swap the shafts on the Cleveland as its a special low weight shaft. So the new driver with a shorter shaft sees me have control and still get plenty of distance for a short guy.

seems to be a popular thing with most companies these days. Make it longer and the pure one will go a mile... but that's no good if 95% of them are in the crap. I've been hitting 2 irons everywhere and thinking about getting an older model driver as I remember being much more accurate when I started. (my first driver was a second hand mizuno t-zoid that hit pretty much everything I aimed at).

Seems that the shaft length was the issue rather than the massive head that most drivers have these days.

Shorter is better I have decided. And my 3 wood might get the same treatment shortly as it's only an inch off the driver now shaft length now.

LJ the wife was having trouble getting her 3-wood away off the deck, so my bloke made her a 4-wood with a slightly longer shaft, she now hits that club much further than she was ever hitting her old club.

Big Phil recently decided that he was having trouble controling his driver, so he had one that went left and one that went right, he then had a 3-wood made and put a longer shaft in it, so he could use it as a driver. Outhitting his driver distances with this club, but more control

easy to see how it happened with lighter graphite shafts and titanium heads coming along. The swingweight changed so the shaft got longer.

Then Taylormades marketing pricks made the statement about length and the whole bandwagon starts.

Thinking about it from my side I'm not sure I want a D2 or D3 weighted driver. You have wedges setup to around D6 or something and your longer irons at D3... From the progression and for the sake of feel I want a light feeling driver that allows that progressive move as I step back from the ball... So I'm leaving mine as it is for the moment in terms of the head weight.

Of course the fact that I hit it well first time has nothing to do with it. It's all based on my logic as outlined above.

I was told I should have my shafts cut down.

Makes it easier to get them in the bin afterwards apparently ;-)

I just use a wheely bin. Much easier and I don't need to try snapping the thing. Which just hurts my leg.

I seriously question whether the large-headed drivers are all they are cracked up to be. Even those in the world top 50 struggle on many occasion. A decent 3-wood or equivalent hybrid with about 15deg loft seems to be far more consistent for most of us; with not that much loss in distance.

The thing is that suffering from a hangover early on a Sunday morning, with a large-headed driver you have got a better chance of actually making contact with the little white ball!

BlueCoverman wrote:The thing is that suffering from a hangover early on a Sunday morning, with a large-headed driver you have got a better chance of actually making contact with the little white ball!

I agree entirely bcm - I find the large headed drivers much easier to hit consistently straight than the old persimmon headed kind, so I can see no reason why I would consider using a 3 wood off the tee regularly.

The only problem is the SOUND!!!  

CLANG

Clang would be the sound of the car that has just been wrecked in the car park 50 yards offline... That is of course before I shortened the thing. I hit driver 6 times today. Missed two of them by no more than a yard or two on the right. And both of those on par 5's over 300 yards in length. I was pretty pleased and now thoroughly convinced that these longer shafts are a waste of time.

Yardage and consistency is easier to attain by putting the ball in the middle of the club. As shafts get longer it just gets harder to square the thing up properly through impact.

I also wonder whether the larger clubhead lulls you into a false sense of security and you don't pay the same attention as you would with a smaller headed shorter shafted weapon.

I thought about that but don't think it's true. The fact that I am hitting drives that are carrying good yardage with almost no side spin at all tends to suggest to me that the length of the shaft is encouraging too much rotation of the clubface through impact with discernable differences in the impact position. Couple that with the increased length of the swing as a result of that and you have a longer, more rounded swing, with a clubface that is rotating through impact in a more unpredictable manner due to increased shaft deformation and torque.

That's going to lead to a huge amount of additional spin into the back of the ball even out of a middled shot.

It's interesting to not that spinrate is a much higher number the more rotational the swingplane/body movement becomes for the same loft angle on the club. So that longer shaft will naturally produce more spin and a lot of that is going to be sidespn unless the face is returned perfectly square every time.

That will be true regardless of the size of the head I'm thinking.

I've just read through all that and discovered you were talking about golf clubs. I was just getting excited

LadyPutt wrote:I've just read through all that and discovered you were talking about golf clubs. I was just getting excited

Honestly you read all that in excitement and didn't realise it was about gofl clubs?!

What self respecting bloke has a reduction eh?!