Recent Driver Build- 42" long?!?!?! Am I crazy?

[itsjappo]

I have been golfing for about 3yrs now but playing and practicing regularly for the past year. I really want to get good. I'm a 14 handicap now and trying to get it to the single digit range. Anyways, my driver is a r9 460cc 10.5 with stiff stock shaft. i tend to get the ball too high up and I feel i'm losing distance. I went to get it analyzed and it seems that I am getting too much backspin and started to look at new shafts. I just recently switched to Aldila NV65 Stiff shaft but here's the thing, I cut it down to play the driver 42" long. I have played 2 rounds so far and the results are amazing. I'm hitting it wherever I want 80% of the time and driving it about 250yards. Here's my question. Before the reshaft, I used to avg around 265 but it wasnt consistent. I'm wondering if I cut the shaft too much and if I get the same shaft but play it at about 44", you guys think I'll gain a noticeable amount of distance? Do you guys also think that switching to a lower loft like 9.5 deg would gain me more distance as well? I really wanna get a low-mid trajectory and gain as much distance as I can. But at the same time, I want accuracy and consistency. What you guys think? Thanks for your help in advance.

[dannybsj]

Yep try a lower loft, or stiffer flex or just extend that one and see if that works but cutting it down that short is a wasted club space as you could easily get the same type of trajectory, distance from a good 3 wood or just ditch the 3 wood and play 2 drivers, one being longer for par 5's and wide open holes. Its sort of worthless though to have that club and a 3 wood

[sanderslongdrive]

The R9 puts a MASSIVE amount of backspin on the ball in order to allow even the worst of players to get the ball in the air. Most good players using an R9 see their ball drop vertically out of the sky, with inadequate ball run on, and wrongly believe it to be either a loft issue or shaft stiffness issue. In reality, it's just the nature of the head. If you purchased a lower loft R9 you will almost certainly have the same problem but maybe to a slightly lesser degree.

We have a saying in England:

[i]"You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."
[/i]
My advice is to completely start again, but with a custom built driver using the best components which you can * afford. Rely on whatever your expert club fitter advises.

******************

[b][i]Footnotes:[/i][/b]

[b]WHICH COMPONENTS?
[/b]
* P.S. Putting together a truly world class custom built driver can be achieved on a modest budget, strictly provided that one is willing to buy components from suppliers who have not spent countless millions on advertising. Their components are almost invariably many times better than anything found in off the shelf widely advertised pre-built drivers.

I'll give an example, naming components which I have personally used, or continue to use, myself. I have no sponsors and paid full price for such from the following companies with whom I have absolutely no connections!

SHAFT: The SK Fiber 'Lite Revolution 1.'

HEAD: The Geek 'Fail Safe 3.' Don't be tempted to buy the possibly slightly cheaper 'Dot Com Plus' until you know what you are doing as such is more of a low spin head.

**************

[b]HOW?
[/b]
How does one put the best (for you) parts together?

There are several ways of doing this.

One way would be for your club builder to assess the shaft which you need and acquire that first. Such is by far the most important part of a driver, and until such is right the head cannot be finalised.

He could then temporarily fit one of his old workshop heads onto it and see how you got on with the head loft and club length. First of all building the driver a little longer than you might otherwise order.

After testing you could then decide on a suitable head with a better chance of success than had you simply guessed at what loft would best suit that particular shaft.

At the final build stage the temporary head is replaced and the shaft is reduced in length if necessary. The longer the driver you can handle the more your potential for ball length.

It may cost a bit more on the labour costs side but by so doing the chances of ending up with a driver which does not work for you should be significantly reduced.

[b]YOUR CLUB BUILDER / ADVISOR
[/b]
Choose one with a great reputation. If your golf is important then, if necessary, get on an aeroplane to see him. And, of course, have him professionally fit the shaft:

[url="http://www.clubmakerschoice.com/page1.html"][size="3"]www.clubmakerschoice.com/page1.html[/size][/url][size="3"] [/size][size="2"](Video of spining)[/size]



Good luck!

[pinhigh27]

[quote name='sanderslongdrive' date='22 May 2010 - 02:19 PM' timestamp='1274552340' post='2460190']
The R9 puts a MASSIVE amount of backspin on the ball in order to allow even the worst of players to get the ball in the air. Most good players using an R9 see their ball drop vertically out of the sky, with inadequate ball run on, and wrongly believe it to be either a loft issue or shaft stiffness issue. In reality, it's just the nature of the head. If you purchased a lower loft R9 you will almost certainly have the same problem but maybe to a slightly lesser degree.

We have a saying in England:

[i]"You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."
[/i]
My advice is to completely start again, but with a custom built driver using the best components which you can * afford. Rely on whatever your expert club fitter advises.

******************

[b][i]Footnotes:[/i][/b]

[b]WHICH COMPONENTS?
[/b]
* P.S. Putting together a truly world class custom built driver can be achieved on a modest budget, strictly provided that one is willing to buy components from suppliers who have not spent countless millions on advertising. Their components are almost invariably many times better than anything found in off the shelf widely advertised pre-built drivers.

I'll give an example, naming components which I have personally used, or continue to use, myself. I have no sponsors and paid full price for such from the following companies with whom I have absolutely no connections!

SHAFT: The SK Fiber 'Lite Revolution 1.'

HEAD: The Geek 'Fail Safe 3.' Don't be tempted to buy the possibly slightly cheaper 'Dot Com Plus' until you know what you are doing as such is more of a low spin head.

**************

[b]HOW?
[/b]
How does one put the best (for you) parts together?

There are several ways of doing this.

One way would be for your club builder to assess the shaft which you need and acquire that first. Such is by far the most important part of a driver, and until such is right the head cannot be finalised.

He could then temporarily fit one of his old workshop heads onto it and see how you got on with the head loft and club length. First of all building the driver a little longer than you might otherwise order.

After testing you could then decide on a suitable head with a better chance of success than had you simply guessed at what loft would best suit that particular shaft.

At the final build stage the temporary head is replaced and the shaft is reduced in length if necessary. The longer the driver you can handle the more your potential for ball length.

It may cost a bit more on the labour costs side but by so doing the chances of ending up with a driver which does not work for you should be significantly reduced.

[b]YOUR CLUB BUILDER / ADVISOR
[/b]
Choose one with a great reputation. If your golf is important then, if necessary, get on an aeroplane to see him. And, of course, have him professionally fit the shaft:

[url="http://www.clubmakerschoice.com/page1.html"][size="3"]www.clubmakerschoice.com/page1.html[/size][/url] [size="2"](Video of spining)[/size]



Good luck!
[/quote]

I think the r9 is and was toted as super low spin. The falling out of the sky phenomenon that you stated, is due to too low spin. Everywhere I've seen has said the r9 is low spin.

[sanderslongdrive]

A professional Longdrive player usually aims for around 1,800 to 2,200 rpm. At the other end of the scale are high spinning drives of around 3,800 rpm.

The golf marketing world is full of ridiculous hype with very little technical information released. No machine generated technical backspin info. is ever released by head manufacturers so one can only go by what one sees and also what is measured in club fitting studios.

We will have to agree to differ on our findings and leave it at that. I tend to change TM heads for customers because they are too high spinning. On the other end of the scale I change Cobra Pro D's because many regular golfers cannot get the ball sufficiently airborn due to it being a professional head.

The most amusing sales puff I have seen over the last twelve months was a major manufacturer advertising a driver which alledgedly produced unprecedented topspin, and more recently Colin M's video assuring prospective Yonex driver buyers that the sweet spot (centre of percussion) extended right across the driver's face.

Virtually all manufacturers assure us of extended sweet spots notwithstanding that such would break the laws of physics. Such cannot be much larger than a dress making pin head.

I likewise take their 'low spin' assurances with a generous pinch of salt. It's very sad that marketing lies sells a lot of golf equipment. In the face of such a barrage of hype it's difficult to be taken seriously when telling the truth. Hopefully one day a major golf co. will be taken to court and charged with dishonest trading.

[pinhigh27]

Well i mean google R9 high spin, then google R9 low spin. I see many posts touting people that play the r9 as it being lower spin. I didn't succeed in finding any matches for high spin. I'm not saying your wrong, if you deal with purely ld set-ups, I bet most retail stuff no matter how low spinning would probably be crazy spinny for guys with the SS that you probably deal with. lol

[dannybsj]

Dustin Johnson uses an r9.....close to 130 mph clubhead speed with a 45in shaft....nuff said

[TCMP]

On the LM, the R9 was one of the highest spinning drivers I hit.

I immediately dismissed it and moved on. The angle of decent was >50* with this head.

[mesquite2]

Dustin Johnson doesn't use an off the rack R9.

[justinp766]

[quote name='itsjappo' timestamp='1274413951' post='2457162']
I have been golfing for about 3yrs now but playing and practicing regularly for the past year. I really want to get good. I'm a 14 handicap now and trying to get it to the single digit range. Anyways, my driver is a r9 460cc 10.5 with stiff stock shaft. i tend to get the ball too high up and I feel i'm losing distance. I went to get it analyzed and it seems that I am getting too much backspin and started to look at new shafts. I just recently switched to Aldila NV65 Stiff shaft but here's the thing, I cut it down to play the driver 42" long. I have played 2 rounds so far and the results are amazing. I'm hitting it wherever I want 80% of the time and driving it about 250yards. Here's my question. Before the reshaft, I used to avg around 265 but it wasnt consistent. I'm wondering if I cut the shaft too much and if I get the same shaft but play it at about 44", you guys think I'll gain a noticeable amount of distance? Do you guys also think that switching to a lower loft like 9.5 deg would gain me more distance as well? I really wanna get a low-mid trajectory and gain as much distance as I can. But at the same time, I want accuracy and consistency. What you guys think? Thanks for your help in advance.
[/quote]

If your really serious about getting into the lower single digits , you got be able to put aside 3-4 days a week and about 2 hours in those days to really focus a swing you can repeat over and over and over and over every time without hitting it thin or fat. I been golfing three years and in the last 2 years I started practicing daily 1-3 hours after work and the gym and I became a scratch golfer in 3 years time; Playing baseball my whole life also might have helped a little bit too.

[Vegaman]

Same for me, tried the R9, was spinning it like hell. Got the worst numbers, you would almost have the ball back up after landing. If you have problems getting the ball in the air, this is the perfect driver. Thats why they created the Superdeep.

[Daark31]

There is a lot of misinformation in this thread.

Product Knowledge 101

Taylormade has four different R9 models.

R9
R9 460
R9 Supertri
R9 Superdeep

The original R9 is a 420 CC driver that is very low launch and spin. This is the head DJ used. It actually did poorly in sales because of how low it spun. There were many tour players that struggled with it as well. To fix this, the R9 460 was created. It was designed to spin similarly to the R7 Superquad. Freddy uses this model.

The newer models are the ST and the SD. The ST is the highest spinning of the group. The SD launches similar to the original R9 but is a larger head.

To the Original Poster. Your head is a high launch head. It was designed to be. If you are looking to switch to something, the new R11 is much lower spin and lauch or if that is out of your price range look into the real R9.

[turtlehead]

curious which route you ended up going after posting this thread? did you change to a longer shaft? different driver? woods?

[VinceRKG]

Sanders, I am sure that no Long Driver looks for under 2k spin, that is way too low of spin. Optimal for them is 2300.....

To OP, Yes the shorter you go in length the more spin you produce and lose distance, The longer you go the lower the spin and it does seem to be harder to control, but I would think one would rather learn how to swing right and make better contact and right ball placement then going the easy way and cutting down to shorter then 3 wood length, just my two cents......

[Justin_Ellis]

[quote name='VinceRKG' timestamp='1306874479' post='3275571']
Sanders, I am sure that no Long Driver looks for under 2k spin, that is way too low of spin. Optimal for them is 2300.....

To OP, Yes the shorter you go in length the more spin you produce and lose distance, The longer you go the lower the spin and it does seem to be harder to control, but I would think one would rather learn how to swing right and make better contact and right ball placement then going the easy way and cutting down to shorter then 3 wood length, just my two cents......
[/quote]
Not sure that is correct, I have seen plenty LD guys sub 2000. Last I heard Bubba Watson who is no LD guy by any stretch was around 1800.

[JFB]

the r9 Super Tri is the SPINNIEST HEAD IN THE FCKING WORLD.

IT's honestly costing me at least 30 yards per shot. I hit the ball about 500 feet in the air with the thing and i'm a low ball hitter. nightmare