I recently bought a set of persimmons with some beat up leather grips and want to put on new cords. The first picture is what the grip looked like before and the second is what I found after I took the grip off. There is this wooden shaft extender looking thing that is wedged in the end of the shaft pretty tight with a plastic dowel of some sort in the middle. The plastic thing spins around but I can’t pull it out. I assume the wood piece is epoxied - I tried to rip it out with some pliers and tried to hack it down with a knife but did not have much luck. Instead of continuing down this path, I figured I’d ask 1) what is that wooden thing 2) can and how do I remove it 3) what can I replace it with. The driver measures 43" including the wooden thing.
Just a quick response Johnkeh as I gotta run.
You can regrip right over top if you like from the looks of it. Just sand down the wood part a little so the shaft and wood are seamless. Then smooth up the entire wood piece. Right now there is a little edge there probably due to under bedding. Even if you don’t file the wood down, it may not be that noticiable in feel once the grip is on. But I would recommend sanding it down a touch for smoothness so while your at it…get rid of what looks like a little seam.
The crimping of the shaft, maybe some call it dimpling, is holding it together pretty soundly. As for the plastic end cap remains, just file it down flush with the top and you are probably good to go.
Hope that helps some. 
It looks like both a shaft extender and a grip enhancement (the flared wooden part). Sort of like you would see on a baseball bat to help keep the hands from slipping off.
You can replace it with a metal or plastic shaft extender (try Golfsmith or Golfworks) if you don’t like the flared wooden part. It will probably make it difficult to slip a modern grip over it if you keep it in there. Unless of course you sand it down to match up with the shaft diameter. Don’t forget, if you use the club alot you will need to regrip it about once a season so think about regripping multiple times and how much of a pain it would be with what you decide to do.
To get it out you might have to drill it out or burn it out. The dimples might cause issues with a new shaft extender so you might have to hammer them out over a rod or something to back up the dimples when you hammer on it.
At 43 inches with the wooden plug, it might a little short of what you might like if you take it out. 43.5 or 44 inches is more standard for a wooden driver so you want to get an extender to match up with the final length you want.
I guess it just depends on how much work you want to do and what tools you have.
Hopefully that helped.
Thanks guys - i didn’t even realize what the dimples were doing but upon closer inspection, it’s pretty clear they are securing this wooden extender pretty stoutly.
I ended up hacking the wood extension with a knife and tried to make it as flush as I could with the shaft. You will see a little bulge but it actually feels OK in the hand (the picture makes it worse than it is). I also weighed it up - 14.3 ounces with this new grip (includes 5 wraps of tape) and from what I have been told, this wood was in original stock form when I bought it. It’s about a D7/D8 swingweight at 43". Can’t weight to hit some balls with this!
And here are what the heads look like
