Is anyone experimenting with longer driver shafts?

[EDT501]

In light of the potential rule change by the USGA and R&A, I wonder if anyone here is rethinking their approach? A shift in max length from 48" to 46" doesn't seem likely to me to get pushback from the OEMs. I want to get back into competitive golf over the next few years and don't want to spend much time playing around with a 48" setup if 46" is going to be the longer term limit.

[Alan Pllu]

12 minutes ago, EDT501 said:

In light of the potential rule change by the USGA and R&A, I wonder if anyone here is rethinking their approach? A shift in max length from 48" to 46" doesn't seem likely to me to get pushback from the OEMs. I want to get back into competitive golf over the next few years and don't want to spend much time playing around with a 48" setup if 46" is going to be the longer term limit.

Just read the same thing an hour or so ago. Looks like my long driver shaft is blown out the water before I have even hit a ball with it. 

 

I'm not actually sure that my standard driver shaft is 46 inches i think it might be 46.25? 

[Alan Pllu]

Just googled it, its 45.5 so I am ok. Might just cut my longer shaft down to 46 and see how that goes then. 

[3_Jack_Par]

14 hours ago, EDT501 said:

In light of the potential rule change by the USGA and R&A, I wonder if anyone here is rethinking their approach? A shift in max length from 48" to 46" doesn't seem likely to me to get pushback from the OEMs. I want to get back into competitive golf over the next few years and don't want to spend much time playing around with a 48" setup if 46" is going to be the longer term limit.

I ended up ordering a shaft and a lighter head with some additional weights for tuning to use for my overlength experiment, and it came in at around 46.5-46.75". Assuming this rule change happens, and the overlength driver is playable for me (I haven't had a chance to try it out yet) I'll cut it down to 46" and play it at that length. 

[3_Jack_Par]

I finally got a chance to try the overlength driver at the range today, and it's looking like my instincts were right when I started playing my driver at shorter than standard length. It's a very small sample size of about 8 shots after not hitting a ball in close to 3 months, so I haven't totally written it off yet, but I don't think I hit the center of the face once, and directionally, it was not good. The swingweight felt fine, and the misses were all in the same direction (left), so that does give me something to work with once I've gotten my swing back into some type of groove, but if it doesn't seem like I can hit it after another range session or two, I'll probably cut it down or sell it.

[3_Jack_Par]

I ended up putting the long driver into play today unexpectedly, because something happened with my shorter shaft where the tip came loose in the adapter. I ended up using the long driver on the back 9 today, and I actually hit it pretty well. I choked down on it on most shots just a little, and I pretty much hit it where I was looking. I’m thinking that the proposed 46” limit may be kind of saving me from myself, and if I continue to see decent performance on the course, I might cut it down to that length and give myself the option to choke down or air it out depending on the hole. I thought swingweight might be an issue if I tried to do that much, but I really had no issue with feel when I choked down on the longer driver today. Again, it’s a small sample size, so nothing definite yet, but I’m usually pretty quick to know if something will or won’t work for me, and this definitely shows promise.

[MPAndreassi]

I experimented with 46 3/4” settled on 46”. Up until this season I have always played at 44-44 1/2”

 

 I’ve picked up a worthwhile amount of yards and haven’t lost much consistency. I do have a second shaft that plays 44 1/2” off that I’ll use at other certain courses 

[BREWMASTER95060]

On 1/8/2021 at 5:43 AM, 3_Jack_Par said:

 

This is something that I think will make it difficult for someone like me to do this type of experiment. I already play the lowest-lofted, lowest spin retail head that Ping makes, in the lowest loft setting (so, playing 7.5*, if the stamped loft is accurate, which I have not had checked) and I have a Ventus Black 6x in it. Since I don't have access to a tour van, it would be difficult to find a lower-lofted head. I know there are some lighter shaft options out there, but I do really like the Ventus Black, so a different shaft would be an adjustment and I feel like I'd be starting from square one on a shaft choice. I'd be interested to hear how anyone has dealt with these challenges in trying to build an over-length driver.

http://www.supergolfstore.com/compitem.asp?n2=CDRV&id=W430

[BREWMASTER95060]

length 51+ to 47.5
loft 4 to 9

[Red4282]

Wow hope the rule doesnt go through, i just ordered a brand new uncut ventus black to try at 46.5”. I guess if i had to trim 1/2”, not the end of the world.

[BREWMASTER95060]

4 deg aldila longwood 

Edited March 13, 2021 by BREWMASTER95060

[BREWMASTER95060]

7.5 deg aldila longwood
 

Edited March 13, 2021 by BREWMASTER95060

[BREWMASTER95060]

 

 

 

[agolfman]

I'm a few months into a 47.5" experiment with my Cobra F8.  Went from an Atmos TS backwards into an older Fuji Motore TS 6.1.  There's some learnings above that are spot on, and this has definitely worked for me, but as is so often the case, YMMV.

-  Keep it simple.  I used a 2.5" butt extension epoxied into an older shaft I wasn't using.  Cheap, easy, one night of drying time and a spare grip and you're done.  Test it and then see what you find before over thinking it.  Make changes, rinse and repeat.

-  Conventional thinking from "fitters" about dispersion that I've been reading for twenty years is mostly BS, particularly if you're a lower handicap and are capable of putting a decent swing on the ball.  We can learn to hit anything, but need to put in the work.  There's a major timing adjustment to the swing and it just takes time to get it figured out.  I can see why this fails in a fitting session environment.  After 10 balls, there's no doubt a fitter would conclude dispersion is suffering, but stick it out and I think most players can overcome it.  No disrespect to fitters here but, give us a chance to learn this "new shot" before you rule it out for us.  Might take a month or longer, but most of us will get over the hump.

-  I have a mild case of OTT, getting a bit steep at times.  Guess what?  It's pretty tough to be steep with a longer shaft (not impossible, but tough).  I've seen a major reduction in losing balls right with the kind of ball flight (higher) that I was lacking with my standard length shaft.  Shallowing the shaft, regardless of how you get there, is going to get you speed and dispersion gains, all day long.

- No doubt this will feel "softer" than a current shaft you may be playing.  So what?  SW is heavier?  So what?  I'll take 8-10 mph of ball speed over those feels any day.  I'm back to places on the golf course where I haven't been in 10 years.  I'd argue my dispersion is even better and am not going back to standard.

 

There's not a single traditional fitter that would say Bryson is doing this wrong.  What have we learned?  Length matters, fairways do not (from a strokes gained perspective).  He's been several months of testing and refining his approach...we need to do the same and more, given his talent that far exceeds ours.  

 

Put the work in and this can work for many. 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by agolfman
correction

[Lasorcier]

I'm 2 rounds into my 47 inch experiment.  TSi3 with MotoreX F3 stiff.

 

Huge difference.   I can also get OTT at times.  The longer shaft basically precludes it or greatly reduces it.  It helped me even out tempo.  Ball speed and distance is Significantly better.  Dispersion is also better actually. 

 

 My irons are +1".  The PXG dude asked about my driver, which was 44.5, and why was it short when every other club I had was longer.  That seemed like a fair question.   So I put an extender in and regripped it (jumbomax).  

 

Immediate difference.   Going to play this way for the foreseeable future. 

[MPAndreassi]

On 3/10/2021 at 2:25 AM, Red4282 said:

Wow hope the rule doesnt go through, i just ordered a brand new uncut ventus black to try at 46.5”. I guess if i had to trim 1/2”, not the end of the world.

 

You'll like it. I'm playing mine at 46" and I dropped from 7x to 6x. It's just as straight hitting as my 7x was at 44 1/2"

[Red4282]

1 hour ago, MPAndreassi said:

 

You'll like it. I'm playing mine at 46" and I dropped from 7x to 6x. It's just as straight hitting as my 7x was at 44 1/2"

Did you notice any difference in launch when changing lengths? How about going from 7x to 6x?

[MPAndreassi]

11 minutes ago, Red4282 said:

Did you notice any difference in launch when changing lengths? How about going from 7x to 6x?

I haven’t hit them side by side yet, but courses and ranges in my area are fully opening between now and the weekend. I’ll be able to test for that kind of stuff in the next week or so. 

[EDT501]

18 minutes ago, Red4282 said:

Did you notice any difference in launch when changing lengths?

Anecdotally, I noticed a several degree uptick in launch when I went from 44.5"  to 47.75" in the same shaft. It wasn't balloon-y, but definitely higher and I had a hard time keeping it low when needed. This was consistent across many practice sessions and multiple rounds. I'll echo the above posters who said that the dispersion losses weren't as high as one might think. It didn't take me too long to figure out the long shaft and start hitting some bigly bombs with it. 

 

That said, I ended up cutting it down to 46". Even after a few months, I just couldn't get to where I could get the timing of my irons and a 48" driver right on the same day on the course. If I was hitting one well, I was invariably hitting the other poorly. At 46" I'm having a far easier time getting it done on the course where it matters. Dispersion is no different than it was at 44.5" based on my stats from the last 4 rounds and I've picked up 6ish yards of distance. 

[Red4282]

13 minutes ago, EDT501 said:

Anecdotally, I noticed a several degree uptick in launch when I went from 44.5"  to 47.75" in the same shaft. It wasn't balloon-y, but definitely higher and I had a hard time keeping it low when needed. This was consistent across many practice sessions and multiple rounds. I'll echo the above posters who said that the dispersion losses weren't as high as one might think. It didn't take me too long to figure out the long shaft and start hitting some bigly bombs with it. 

 

That said, I ended up cutting it down to 46". Even after a few months, I just couldn't get to where I could get the timing of my irons and a 48" driver right on the same day on the course. If I was hitting one well, I was invariably hitting the other poorly. At 46" I'm having a far easier time getting it done on the course where it matters. Dispersion is no different than it was at 44.5" based on my stats from the last 4 rounds and I've picked up 6ish yards of distance. 

Yea i was thinking longer and lighter would create added launch. Im installing an adapter, and am planning on using the loft down settings to counter it.

Edited March 11, 2021 by Red4282

[3_Jack_Par]

I'm definitely starting to get more comfortable after a round and a half with mine. I've been finding that dispersion is pretty much what I'm used to, and I'm hitting it solidly most of the time. It turns out that judging a club after less than 10 range balls my first time swinging a club in about 2.5 months probably would have been a mistake. One shot that I'm noticing that I can hit with the longer shaft that I've not been able to pull off very often with a shorter club is the high draw. I hit a couple today that were quite long for me, including one that I flushed on a hole that was downwind on firm Texas fairways and it went 360. I may be giving up a little bit of workability -- that remains to be seen over a longer period of time -- but if I'm picking up a significant amount of extra distance, I'll make that trade any day. I am noticing a tendency for my misses to go left, so if that continues, I may need to adjust some weights or something, but all in all, this is showing promise. 

[MPAndreassi]

1 hour ago, Red4282 said:

Did you notice any difference in launch when changing lengths? How about going from 7x to 6x?

So... I snuck out to the range and I’m hitting them side by side right now. The 6x definitely launches higher but spin is still in a good window. The flight is very flat. One thing I’ve noticed that I haven’t before is that the timing is a bit different when hitting them side by side. My translation needs to be a bit more patient with the longer shaft. I don’t notice that when I’m hitting it by itself though. It’s just natural when it’s the only one I’m hitting. 

[Red4282]

My driver build is done. Couple of thoughts without hitting a single ball:

 

My previous setup was a SIM at 45.25” and had two sliding weights, 9g, 4g. Backweight upped from 10g to 13g so it played at 203g and at d5. Shaft was a 77g motore vc 7.3x

 

New setup: kept head and weight same, and put in a ventus black 6x (65g), cut to play 46.5”. 
 

right away, i could tell 46.5 may be a bit too much. 46” seems like the sweet spot. I could definitely feel the lower balance point or heavier swingweight. It came in at E1.75.

 

Dropped the 9g weight and it felt much much better. I will test the heck out of this setup-gained 1.25” and lost nearly 20g in static weight from the old setup. 
 

i think ultimately im headed to 46” and dropping the 4g weight. 

[Red4282]

Had some range time today, here are some of my results:

 

First, unfortunately, I had a 20mph tailwind and dirty range balls...it was knuckle ball city. A little tougher to decipher ball flights, but still got some valuable information.

 

Started out with 46.5”, heavy headweight as i could stand, at 199g, E0. Was pleasantly surprised with the results. My face contact wasnt terrible, even face contact dispersion was decent. Ball dispersion seemed a little worse than Id typically like, mainly due to what seemed like a two way miss. The real dagger tho, was had made a bad swing and dropped kicked one. I cant remember ever drop kicking one that bad when fully warmed up.  Bad swings happen, but it seems to me that the longer length/or heavy swingweight seemed to punish the bad swing alot more. All in all the results werent terrible, and perhaps i could put more time in to get accustomed to the setup. 
 

From here I could either drop headweight or drop length. I chose to keep headweight and choke down 1/2 inch and test it at 46”.  Much much better. Ball flight actually seemed to launch a little bit higher, which surprised me. The velocore really seemed to shine now, as my strike dispersion was pretty amazing and shot dispersion seemed to really tighten up as well. Sold, going with this set up.

 

After its all said and done, added  3/4” playing length, while dropping 15g static weight. I cant confirm but i would think this would result in 2-4mph more ball speed and an additional 5-10 yards, while *hopefully* (so far)not losing accuracy. Nothing  earth shattering but Ill gladly take it. Next time i get some LM time, I will update.

[skraly]

I bought a Fuji Pro 53 r2 shaft for cheap on ebay.  Paired that with a PXG gen2 0811XF driver.  Using the lightest weights possible the head weighed 191 gms. Without the adapter.  I built the driver to 46 1/4” and it swing weights at a d0.  Due to weather, I’ve only had a chance to take it to the course once.  First, it’s much easier to keep control of it than I thought it would be.  I get my normal ball flight.  Just a little higher than usual.  Second, as far as distance, I can’t really tell yet.  The ground has been quite wet.  I will say distance certainly isn’t shorter than I would expect.  I used my normal driver, a Ping G425, 45.5” and d3 swing weight with the Alta stiff , on the front nine and the PXG on the back nine.  Distances seemed about the same.  Except on 18, my well hit drive ended up where I would expect on a warm summer day with firm fairways.  This was about 20-25 yds. farther than I would expect to get under the cool, damp conditions I was playing in.  So, too soon for any definitive statement, but encouraging.  Especially as I didn’t seem to have any trouble controlling it.  I think the reason for that may be the lighter swing weight.  I must say that, with the lighter head, the r2 flex shaft didn’t seem especially soft.  Worth continuing to experiment with for sure.  

[3_Jack_Par]

I got to play my first round back home in Michigan, and while my numbers weren't quite as impressive as some of the ones in Texas with the firm turf and sometimes helping wind, I'm still seeing pretty positive results. I'm hitting it solidly most of the time (no less frequently than with a shorter driver), and when I played yesterday, I hit 9/12 fairways with it on a course where I normally hit about half of them. The miss seems to be a hard hook, and I'm finding that I really need to concentrate on loading up my weight on my right leg on the backswing so I make sure I'm coming into the ball with a positive AoA to avoid that miss and to get the best results. I'm not hitting it insanely high, but this setup does give me the ability to hit a higher ball that I was able to previously, especially when hitting a draw. I'm honestly a little surprised that the results have been this good initially -- I expected more of an adjustment period. We'll see if this is just a honeymoon, but I've been very pleased so far.

[wcbjr]

New driver setup should go into play today.  I'll post the results when I get back.

 

Original: Taylormade SIM 9*, set to ~7.5*, 45" UST Mamiya VTS Black stiff, D4 swingweight.  All stock weighting.

New setup: Taylormade SIM 9*, set to ???, 47.25" Prolaunch Red Supercharged stiff, tipped .75", D3.5 swingweight.  35g+ backweighting in end of shaft.

 

My swing speed is usually around 107 which is annoying since that is in between stiff and extra stiff recommendations for driver shafts.  But the VTS Black is a bit stiffer than most and the 7.5* takes some of the spin off.  Ball flight is mid with a little roll out.

 

The backweighting was achieved via a bolt from either the suspension or brakes of an old 240SX.  I roughed up the head and epoxied it into the end of the shaft with the head sticking out the end.  The grip slid right over, nobody would be the wiser if they didn't know.

Edited June 16, 2021 by wcbjr

[3_Jack_Par]

After playing my driver at about 46.75" for a while, I was finding that opened me up to some big misses when my timing was a bit off. I was particularly susceptible to snap hooks, which is a shot I had largely eliminated a few years ago when I went to primarily hitting a fade off the tee. That plus the impending rule change to limit driver length to 46" let me to trim it down to that length, and that seems to be the sweet spot for me. I'm hitting it consistently longer than I was with a shorter shaft, and I'm hitting more fairways than I did with the shorter shaft, which is a bit counterintuitive, but I think it does make some sense, because the longer shaft encourages a more aggressive swing, and lessens my tendency to try to steer it.