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Originally Posted by takinitdeep  That brings up an interesting point. Without any measurements taken, is it generally a good idea to cut drivers to 43 1/2" or 44" down from 45"? I am mainly interested in how that would affect distance.
I just need a general rule of thumb answer since I have not given any other details. A buddy of mine tells me since he took an inch off his driver, his distance and accuracy have improved.
At 5'9" with slightly longer than normal arm length and using a d 9 swing weighted driver, I am just curious; club specs were never my strong points. |
I'm of the opinion that unless you're very talented OR you have a 39" WTF, you shouldn't be using a 45" driver - it's much too long.
We're discussing this over at the Wishon forums currently - how drivers are being made with more and more upright a lie - and longer than ever, which makes the club play even MORE upright. All this 'uprightness' leads to balls that start out pullside, and make solid contact more difficult for the average golfer - because solid contact will send his ball pull side. So he needs junk contact and a weak face angle to hit a straight ball.
In the lab, cutting your driver down costs you roughly 7 yards per inch, due to the lost swing speed by using a shorter stick. This assumes that your quality of contact will remain the same. However, the real world application is that most folks benefit by shortening their 45"+ boomstick, because their control goes up and distance does NOT decrease due to the increased number of on-center hits.
It's a phenomenon I've experienced for myself - a short, slow swing with good contact and compression creates the same distance as a long, fast swing with poor contact and so-so (or no) compression. There's more at play than raw SS.
So, what you see in your friend I would consider a normal result. Just remember that you go approximately 6 swingweight points lighter for every inch you hack off - and assumes that you put the same weight grip back on.