More Distance, Shorter Shaft

[IONEPUTT]

There is a website by an instructor that teaches his students to use shorter shaft driver and how it can mean more yardage and more fairways hit. 

A few years ago I built a 3 irons to a 7 iron length to see what would happen. What I found was that I lost about 5 yards with the shorter 3 iron, but I was hititng it  a good bit straigher. And after a bit to get used to the shorter club, I was on AVERAGE, not losing much at all. Longest shots WERE shorter, but my average was not much shorter at all. Just better ball striking and less off-line with the shorter shaft. So I ended up builting an entire set of irons with 1/4" between clubs instead of the usual 12". I started with the standard 9 iron length of 36" and than added 1/4" per club instead of the normal 1/2". What little distance I lose now on my best shots are made up for with more consistant ball striking and more accuracy with all of my iron shots. 

[GPS111]

I'm retired AF and was sent to Barksdale for six weeks of classes at the old SAC NCO Academy.  I don't know about other courses in the area but there is a golf course on base and I've played it.  Look it up or see if your son can send some information.  He should be able to get you on base to play it.  

[braveheart]

I will agree with the shorter shaft being easier to hit the center or sweet spot. Another thing to take in account is the the type of swing you have. If you are of the variety that has a long, languid swing then usually you can handle the longer club length. If you have a short, quick backswing and an aggressive transition like myself, then the shorter club length usually works better. At least that has been found in my experimentation. If it works choking up, then don’t change the club. Find an inexpensive shorter one from the past and mess around. It can be a fun winter project.

[GolfSpy MPR]

Reviving an old thread just to say that I'm going to tinker with this. My driving struggles are well-documented on various threads on this Forum. I just ordered a 50g Riptide CB shaft that was taken from a Cobra FW to use in my Cobra Rad Speed driver.

I'm hoping that this will accomplish two things for me. The first, as is the common theme of this thread, is that I hope to make better centered contact more consistently with the short shaft.

The second, though, is tied to my Stack System training. In the Stack statistics, you can not only see your speed with differing weights, but you can see (on a percentile basis) how you compare in speed to others in your demographic. So in an absolute mph sense, I swing lighter weights faster than heavier, which is obvious. But in a relative sense, I'm in the 90–95 percentile of speed for lighter weights, and that drops to 70–75 percentile for the heavier weights.

So swapping out my driver shaft with a very light, counter-balanced shaft like the Riptide CB should allow me to swing fast and (ideally) also hit the center of the face more regularly. Logically, this is sound, we'll see if the experiment works in practice. Stay tuned...

[richk9holes]

I'm curious here. I hit my 17° 4w further than my driver often. The one thought I had to explain it is 43' might be the optimal length for me to boom smash the ball. My driver is 45" if I'm not mistaken. I wonder how it would do at 43.5" but don't want to cut my MCA tensei shaft on a whim.

[Moraga.Mike]

Did you get fitted for this shaft? For someone that has bought clubs both fitted and unfitted, would think a fitting would be a necessity for a shaft. 

[CbusGolf]

Richk9holes, not to be stupid, but I’ve often wondered if choking down would accomplish the same thing with having to cut the shaft? Have you tried that? 

[GolfSpy MPR]

4 minutes ago, richk9holes said:

I'm curious here. I hit my 17° 4w further than my driver often. The one thought I had to explain it is 43' might be the optimal length for me to boom smash the ball. My driver is 45" if I'm not mistaken. I wonder how it would do at 43.5" but don't want to cut my MCA tensei shaft on a whim.

It's hard to know definitively from this information alone. It could be shaft length (as a proxy for centered content, which leads to increased ball speed). It could also be angle of attack and/or swing speed. From your signature, it appears you already use a fairly high lofted driver. But if you're often carrying your 17° FW further than your driver, it may mean that based on other aspects of your delivery, you simply need a significant amount of loft to keep the ball in the air.

Again, I'm just spitballing. 

I think you're right to hesitate before doing club surgery. As others have suggested: the better place to start is to do some testing (either on a LM or on course) by choking down an inch or two and seeing what that does to your results.

[richk9holes]

Yes, I'm excited to see someone else try a shorter driver so I can do it vicariously. 

For gripping down, that might work but I like the feel of the texture in my Iomic grip that's on the driver. It has an X pattern that feels way more comfortable if you have the cap where it should be.

[richk9holes]

I think later today I'll practice with the driver at A4 setting (12° standard lie). Only +.75 from the current setting, but maybe there's something to the added loft getting the optimal trajectory.

[John W Sutch]

Playing a 9deg Callaway  2013 Big Bertha with a 44.5 in lite shaft which works well for me. I have better control of the club and make more solid contact then with std length shaft. Put the ball in the fairway most of the time with a good swing. At 77 yrs of age distance is 220yds plus or minus.  Just ordered a  PXG 211 in same configuration. Am anxious to see ihow it copares.

[chisag]

53 minutes ago, Moraga.Mike said:

Did you get fitted for this shaft? For someone that has bought clubs both fitted and unfitted, would think a fitting would be a necessity for a shaft. 

 

... I think once you know what works well for your swing, choosing a shaft is much easier. I already knew what works best for my swing through many years of trial and error that was a lot of expensive fun, but could have been avoided with a good fitting earlier in my golf life. Even knowing what shafts work best for me, at my last several fittings a stock shaft performed better than an upgrade shaft. Performance was very close but nice to know a Tensei AV Blue and Speeder NX Red barely nosed out the $250 upgrade Graphite Design option. That was a little surprising and something I would not have discovered without a fitting. 

[IndyBonzo]

I am repeating myself from other forums, but I want to chime in with agreement here - a shaft fitting will help immensely in my experience,  And I had outstanding results with dispersion *and* added distance when I reduced my driver shaft length by 1".  Be mindful of swing weight if you shorten the shaft; weight will decrease with a shorter shaft.

[richk9holes]

I guess my answer for whether I was fitted for my driver is hazy at best. I was testing my driver at a indoor place on Trackman. Jumped into a sim round and hole #2 I use driver for the first time, head snaps off my Tour Edge EXS about an inch above the hosel the shaft snapped.

After commenting to the salesperson I'd have to play the rest no driver but at least the head rolled away from the screen and didn't damage anything with it's sharp graphite dagger it now sports, he came back with a TS2 prior Gen marked demo but still in the plastic. Told me I could use it to finish the round. After hitting 11/13 fairways to finish I had 5 extra minutes to put it through some paces on the practice range. 

When I got home I had the data from both drivers to look at and found distance went down from 245 avg to 215 avg going from EXS to TS2, but the tight dispersion meant the extra 30-35 yards from the Tour Edge was often in the wrong direction or with side carry into an area right of the fairway. 

The TS2 takes those swings and turns them into fairway finders for me, or they roll a few yards off into the rough. Never 35 yards into whatever mess I wanted to avoid.

I went back and asked the owner for his cheapest price and being I devalued it the previous day smashing it a dozen times like a hack he gave it to me $120 less than original msrp. Keep in mind I was the one who took the plastic off, that was a great price.

[richk9holes]

I definitely could have given club champion $600 to get the same thing maybe slightly tuned to my swing along with some swing tips for free, but with my budget my way works great I think.

[BobBC78]

The Ping G400 Max has a standard length of 45.75". As an experiment, I had Golfworks make me a Kuro Kage HBP Gen 2 shaft with the G400 series adapter at a length such that my final driver length is 44.5". No Trackman data yet, but Shot Scope data for two rounds suggests that I have picked up distance. Will get Trackman data soon, but so far it looks really promising. 

[JFish350]

Glad this thread came around again. I bought a new driver last October and I’ve loved it ever since till last weekend. Went to the range the other day and fell right back in love with it, I really need to watch where I line the club and the ball up. When I mess with the driver, everything is on the toe

. When I mess with the driver, everything is on the tow. So now this thread is making me think I should look at either choking down on the club or try to find a shorter shaft.

 

Good luck with all of the experiments

[JFish350]

Question on cutting down a shaft vs playing it by choking down. 

If a person cuts down the shaft, does that change dynamics of the shaft? meaning how much if at all does it change the flex/kick point and any other metrics I know nothing about.

Loaded question I know. 

[GolfSpy MPR]

2 minutes ago, JFish350 said:

Question on cutting down a shaft vs playing it by choking down. 

If a person cuts down the shaft, does that change dynamics of the shaft? meaning how much if at all does it change the flex/kick point and any other metrics I know nothing about.

Loaded question I know. 

In general, if a shaft is trimmed at the tip end, it will play more stiff. Presumably, trimming from the butt end (which you'd do with an already installed shaft) might make it slightly less stiff.

Again, in general, shortening the shaft should decrease the swing weight; the head will feel lighter.

I don't know that I know how (if at all) the kick point might change.

[BobBC78]

10 minutes ago, JFish350 said:

Question on cutting down a shaft vs playing it by choking down. 

If a person cuts down the shaft, does that change dynamics of the shaft? meaning how much if at all does it change the flex/kick point and any other metrics I know nothing about.

Loaded question I know. approximately 3 swing weights. I haven't had the swing weight on mine measured yet, but did swap the 7 gram back weight for a 13 gram weight. The 6 gram increase at the head would add back 3 swing weights. 

For every half inch which the shaft is shortened, the swing weight drops by about 3 swing weights so shortening the shaft by 1.25" should be about 7 swing weights. To compensate, I swapped the 7 gram weight the G400 Max came with for a 13 gram weight which I happened to have, adding back about 3 swing weights. It feels pretty good as is, but I may experiment with a 16 gram weight. 

Edited March 24 by BobBC78