So I’m thinking of venturing into the world of persimmon club modification.
As I’ve been doing my research I have a question about shaft length. This question might seem elementary but that would describe my level of education in the area so please be gracious.
When we’re speaking about shaft length of a club, in this case a driver (let’s say its 43 inches), is that referring to the length of the shaft at purchase (i.e the length of the shaft when purchased off of a site like golfworks.com) or the length of the shaft from the top of the hosel to the butt of the club after it is installed into the driver head?
When you hear “I play my driver at xx inches”, this is referring to the length it actually plays in the club, not the raw length of the shaft. When purchasing a shaft, measurements refer to the actual length of the shaft, not what it will play in the club, because that is dependent on hosel depth.
So if I buy a 46 inch wood shaft and it goes into a persimmon head 3 inches I would be playing a 43 inch driver and not a 46 inch?
Maybe for a helpful reference point we can refer to lag’s specs (elsewhere on the equipment thread). In it he says his Driver is 43.5 inches. Under normal conditions this would be referring to the length the club plays at (measured from top of the hosel to the butt of the shaft) rather than the raw length of the shaft?
Just make sure when you buy a shaft it is long enough… you can always tip it on either end depending upon how you want to set up the stiffness.
The length of a club is measured from where the heel meets the ground to the tip of the grip.
Cutting off shaft material down near the tip or smaller end nearest the club makes the shaft stiffer. I do this in most of my clubs… and then I add length if needed to the grip side by epoxying in extenders… usually just pieces of scrap shaft. I make sure I get in at least 3 inches of overlap so I don’t have it coming apart. Always rough up the metal with a file so the epoxy holds. It won’t grip onto smooth steel very well.
If you get a 46" .335 tip. Do all the trimming from the tip, none from the butt. The grip cap will add about 1/8 of an inch, so trim it at 42 7/8, fit the grip and you’ll have 43".
I’ve seen that there is discussion elsewhere on ABS about using Iron shafts (I assume 1 iron shafts at 41inches) in woods with extenders to get them to the desired length. Would you then simply put a 2 inch extension onto the 41 inch shaft to get it to 43 inches?
If you are hitting…
then there is no reason to have differing shaft deflection patterns throughout your set… if you want to hit the ball straight, and use the same swing from wedge to driver. Hogan, Watkins, Floyd, Palmer to name a few did this.
I’ve ditched wood shafts in my woods and could not be happier. All my shafts have the same deflection rate when stressed with 8 pounds of pressure. SW to Driver… even my putter.
The thing to remember here is… if you are a more advanced striker who is actually holding shaft flex into impact, you will lose very little distance… but if you are still swinging with varying degrees of shaft flex release… you could experience significant distance loss. The pros and cons depends. The better you are, the more pros.
To do this… you first would tip to adjust deflection… then extend to adjust length.
Excuse any presumption and forgive my ignorance but I’ve just been putting a TT Dynamic Gold S300U, .335, parallel tip into a wood (real) head and according to Maltby, and to some extent TT, as far as tipping goes in a driver, you measure from the heel to the first step (Maltby has tables for this measurement - 10" for a stiff S300U), and in my case I had to tip about 1/8 to a 1/4 inch and then trim from the butt, consideration is made for thru bore or the extent of blind bore. TT use code W2 which is no trim for a driver (thru bore). I’m racing toward 70 and didn’t want to board it in this experiment.
Am I missing something ? I realise, if my memory serves me well, from previous NRG posts likes it ‘real’ stiff.
I certainly wouldn’t say that I am an “advanced ballstriker,” more of an “advancing ballstriker.” I am hitting so that’s all good and I really like the idea of being able to maintain the same swing throughout the bag by using iron shafts all the way from wedge to driver.
based on what you’ve said, I think I’ll probably go with a wood shaft at 46 inches and tip it to adjust the deflection of that club in particular. When I can say that i’m consistently bringing the club into impact with a stressed shaft and maintaining flex past impact I’ll reconsider how my shafts are set up and at that point try the iron shaft.
Eagletau:
From what I know…the stiffer you need/like the shaft the more you trim off of the tip. If you need to adjust length without stiffness you trim the butt. obviously, this is rather simplistic and i’m sure others will expand if I’ve left it too simple.
Even if you have X shafts in your irons… it’s not likely you could ever get a wood shaft tipped stiff enough to match deflection.
Wood shafts are a totally different design and have been measured under their own different standard of parameters as far as stiffness etc.
The reason players for years have gone with wood shafts in their woods is because they are lighter and whippier. The thinner taper tips on them have more play in them and give an extra kick at the bottom as the shaft is releasing it’s flex into impact.
The problem is that if one over accelerates, the flex can not only stress, then release too early, it often reaches inline well before impact then overtakes the hands and comes into impact with a reverse “C” and that often means snaphook… unless one is then compensating with their hands to open the face out of sync with their pivot.
If you’re playing all the time… hitting lots of balls… it not impossible to get a feel for having differing flexes in your shafts. This is what most golfers do. However, it is not necessary either.
I like heavy iron shafts… heavy shafts in general… because I hit the ball with the entire club right into the body. Think of hitting something with a 2x4 compared with the same dead weight but suspended on the end of a string.
I recently put a set of Project X shafts a fellow pro had custom done at the factory on my deflection board and these shafts were all over the place. They were some of the worst shafts I have ever seen, and he was having all kinds of problems with varying ball flight from short irons into the longer irons because of this. I had him hit my set of 1964 ProPel 1’s and he started lasering the irons. His swing was fine… I could see that. So immediately we went in to test his gear. It was pretty shocking how inconsistent these iron shafts were… and his driver shaft was some high tech wonder that would have a better home in a trash can as far as I’m concerned. He would hook one out of every 5 drives he would hit. I handed him mine, and he couldn’t hit it left …period. So I just told him to look into getting the stiffest piece of graphite they could come up with. But I will say he was a VERY strong guy also.
The obsession with swing weight and frequency matching is a dark rabbit hole to go down into for a hitter. Now for swingers… it may not be. Swing easy… smooth tempo, relax the hands and body when you swing… that’s swingers stuff.
I like to grip it firm… slot it… and then hit it hard and take left out of the equation with how I have my gear set up… stiff, flat lie angles… heavy heads. Hogan, Palmer, Watkins, Floyd, Knudson, they all knew this stuff. Nothing new.
But the #1 player in the world has no clue about this stuff, and it shows.
Sound like you’re doing it right as per conventional instructions. But we like to play them really stiff, so tip a X steel wood shaft all the way. I find that they don’t feel too stiff at all like that which is what you would expect. I’ve not moved onto trying an iron shaft in a driver yet, but its just a matter of time cause I have made one for a friend. I find S300s hard stepped to be stiff enough for my irons, but S300 would be no way near stiff enough for a driver.
I like that image of the 2x4 above. That is an image I’ve been working with as I’ve been drilling. I’m just trying to get my gear to mimic the feel of hitting with a 2x4 that I have in my head.
IIn light of that, would you say that its better to sacrifice the distance on the front end so that one can learn the proper mechanics and built the appropriate golf muscles and combine the accuracy and power game at later time?
Well, it’s taken some time and research but here is the new driver.
48* lie angle, x100 (tipped), 43.5 inches long. can’t wait to go try her out. It was my first try at doing this so there are some things I do differently next time, but overall it went very well.
Yes I have reshafted a set of Hogan PC5 irons with these shafts. I love them, they feel like telephone poles because of the fact that they are STIFF and the weight is everywhere, not just in the grip and in the head…
I have a Macgregor driver and 4 wood with this shaft also and those play great.
? I realise, if my memory serves me well, from previous NRG posts likes it ‘real’ stiff.
