You guys with 47" - 48" drivers....

Tupperwolf · August 26, 2008

Today I took a couple of smacks with a friend's 47.5" driver. A local guy built it - it's a Maltby head on an Adila DVS shaft (green). I only got to hit about 3 balls but I had a tremendous rush of power when I held it in my hands. :)

I am thinking about having a 48" driver built just to play with over the winter. I could have a Geek Dot Com This with a decent shaft for just a few hundred bucks. Here in the PNW we will likely have cold, wet, short days and I'll be hitting the range a lot.

For those of you maxing out in length on your drivers, have you found this significantly helps your accuracy with a standard length driver? I have a Tour Burner, which plays to 45.5". My buddy with the long driver switches back and forth between it and his normal driver because hitting the long driver helps him hit his short driver better.

I kinda just think it would be fun to have a maxi-driver to swing. What have been your experiences with swinging the extra-big dog?

drdlowc · September 6, 2008

I used to play with a driver with 50" shaft that was put tinto the head making my overall length about 52" That was in the day when a driver was considered huge if it was 300cc or bigger. Of course its ilegal now. I bought myself a R7 quad this springand made it 48". I had taken a break from golfing for several years due to a bad foot. At first all i could do was push it right or slice it. I got my old longer club out and hit the driving range. After two times at the driving range got thing kind of straighten out. As I played more things started to move more to the hook side. for the last month I've been a hooking machine till i read something on this site. I found on ebay on of my old Adila longwood X-stiff shafts. I got in in the mail Thursday. I took the stiff UST shaft out and put thi one in. I went and played 18 today. I hit it better than I have all year as far as acuracy goes. I gues part of that is getting some of my limberness back. I am a 46 year old diabetic with arthritis.

As when I played the first mentioned driver and would get in a funk. I would borrow my playing partners 43" Cobra Driver 10.5* and would hit it 240 down the middle. It would straighten me out. I would recomend having both lengths so if you are not playing well, put the shorter one in the bag for a round or two. I like long clubs. Every club in my bag is at least 2" over the normal standard length as you can see in my signature. My 3wood is longer than most drivers.

Sorry for the Novel. I'll be glad to discuss it more if you like just PM me or putit in the forum

David

BTW I shot 86 today. If I could stop 3 putting and learn to chip could shot in the 70'S

Viper · September 8, 2008

Each extra inch of driver shaft length will only potentially gain an average player 2-3 more yards of distance whilst considerably increasing swing difficulty.

Once one has gone one's body coil / swing power release etc. correct then the main key to distance is not primarily shaft length but getting the correct shaft for your swing speed and swing technique. Most golfers use shafts which are far too stiff to facilitate maximum length. A shaft will never return all of the energy which you put into it, and one's aim is to nevertheless get it to return as much energy as possible without losing control through timing difficulties. There is always a conflict between distance and accuracy and the two will never be comfortable bed fellows. One has to decide upon priorities.

When one has got the best shaft which provides adequate ball trajectory then one fine tunes one's set up by finding a compatible head. You then work on finding a grip which will enable you to hold the club very lightly (loose muscles are fast muscles) whilst retaining control.

If you end up with a very long driver eg. 50" L.D. / 48.50" USPGA then you will find that it feels very heavy, perhaps E8 on the swing scale. Your 44.50" course driver is more likely to be a much lighter D4. To swing it quickly you then bring the swing weight down by adding counter-balancing weight into the butt of the club - i.e. in your hands. If you want to get very smart you will also possibly increase head weight by approx. 8 grammes (greater head weight = potentially more distance) and also counter balance this whilst not creating a club so heavy that all benefits are out-weighed. Please forgive the pun.

I think that you will already appreciate that, even ignoring the difficult job of swinging the longer club, going for length is not a simple issue involving only increasing shaft length. As one adjusts one thing, other things also need adjusting.

Do you really want all the bother?!!! It can get very time consuming and expensive experimenting.

Good luck.

Ivan

(England Senior L.D. Champ. 2007 & 2008)

www.longdrivers-eu.com

P.S. I know nothing about swinging dogs. It sounds a very cruel practice.