Shorter is the way to go!

Just out of interest, y'all know what playing length your drivers are?

Just cut 1" off mine to make it 44" overall and after two practice sessions, it's looking very promising. No noticeable distance decrease (maybe hitting CoG more consistently?) and definitely more accurate. Who said a big one is better?

Cant remember exactly how much but the length of the average driver on the pro tours is something like 1" (or more?) shorter than what we buy off the shelves. Every year we get suckered by the manufacturers claims of their longest driver yet, which may be true in terms of both physical length of the club and the distance it can hit the ball, but in reality it is more difficult to catch out the centre/sweetspot because of club length. Its longer in the clutches of their test robot but in the hands of an amateur its inconsistent.

Lopping inches off the driver can change the stiffness of the shaft and the feel of the club so be careful.

I read an interesting article about driver shaft length recently. Seemingly the average difference in tee shot length between 45" and 43" shafts is only 2-3 yards. It may have been in last months edition of Todays Golfer.

Actually I think I read that on a link on here, it was about club fitting!

Mine is an inch shorter than standard as well.

Not that it helps.

What about your driver though?

super_realist wrote:What about your driver though?

He's 5 foot 8. So fairly average.

LondonJonnyO wrote:

super_realist wrote:What about your driver though?

He's 5 foot 8. So fairly average.

That's another mouthful of tea over a keyboard!

Mines, 45.75, a ping G15...

My G15 3 Wood is 43 though, so taking it to 44 might be a bit extreme, could roll that back an inch as well though... may pop to my local club fitters for a chat...

drive4show wrote:

LondonJonnyO wrote:

super_realist wrote:What about your driver though?

He's 5 foot 8. So fairly average.

That's another mouthful of tea over a keyboard!

Ditto!

Lairdy wrote:...Lopping inches off the driver can change the stiffness of the shaft and the feel of the club so be careful.

True. It's probably a bit lighter swingweight now, maybe D2ish instead of D3 which doesn't feel that different to be honest. Taking the butt end down may make it feel a bit less stiff but the tip end is the critical bit re. flight characteristics etc and I haven't touched that.

Rossa wrote:Mines, 45.75, a ping G15...

My G15 3 Wood is 43 though, so taking it to 44 might be a bit extreme, could roll that back an inch as well though... may pop to my local club fitters for a chat...

I've recently gone back to a TT DGS300 steel 4-wood (Mizuno MP-001; eBay £20 all in - bargain) as well which is a bit short (cf. typical graphite-shafted) coz of the steel shaft but I was thinking about what I wanted from my fairway - distance or accuracy? Once I realised accuracy by a long chalk, a steel shaft seemed perfectly sensible. The MP-001 goes like a bomb anyway so I haven't lost much distance either. Win-win!

As Navy says trimming the butt end doesn't change the flex of the shaft. It might feel slightly firmer due to a difference in the sw but that is easily fixed with a little bit of lead in the right place.

Trimming the tip is a different matter however. But you're not going to be doing that unless you have a lot of specialised equipment to extract it properly...

So what is the difference between cutting and 2 inches inch off your driver and just gripping the club 2 inches further down the shaft? If I am having a wild day off the tee I find just gripping further down the shaft normally helps.

hogie wrote:So what is the difference between cutting and 2 inches inch off your driver and just gripping the club 2 inches further down the shaft? If I am having a wild day off the tee I find just gripping further down the shaft normally helps.

Not a lot. I used to do that but the temptation was always to use it full length; can't do that now!

gripping it down the shaft doesn't alter the swingweight.