Cut Down Driver

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Vardon11

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I have struggled with consistency with my driver for a while and have had several lessons and there has been improvement but still I struggle with accuracy.

I have recently been gripping down the shaft 1.5-2" and the results have been excellent, the only problem is it feels awkward gripping down the shaft so I am toying with the idea of having my shaft cut down to 44".

I play with a Cobra amp Cell Driver with a stiff shaft (45.75"). I was wondering if anybody has done the same thing and how they got on?

Also do you know how this will effect the shaft stiffness and weight?

I am 5'9" and do not struggle with distance and am much more interested in 230yd drives on the fairway than 260 in the rough or OOB!
 
I would rather not hit anything longer than 45"... I think you should do it a bit at a time if your going to though.
 
This works well in some cases I had good results when i did it defiantly helped me. I would not have much more than an inch taken off tho.
 
Butt trimming the playing length to 44" will not have a material effect on weight or shaft stiffness.

However, it will have a significant effect on swingweight. Assuming your driver is somewhere around D2 at the moment, lopping 1.75" off the end will reduce that to around C2 which is certainly a long way outside the norm.

If you wanted to bring the swingweight back up, then you'd have to add a significant amount of weight to the head (around 20g) and the additional head mass would effectively reduce the stiffness of the shaft.

You could always give it a go and see. You could easily get back to your current playing length by epoxying a shaft extender into the butt end of the shaft.
 
Rather than cutting it down - ditch it altogether !

I sold my Driver last summer, and got a TM RBZ Stage2 3 & 5 wood, and to be honest, hit the 3 as far as I did my Driver, but straighter !
Handicap came down from 9.5 to 7.7.

Result.
 
A mate of mine has just has this done after a visit to a Pro at St Andrews. told him his R1 was too long and cut 2 inches off it.

Result much more control, mind you he can afford to lose some distance his Clubhead speed is 110 MPH with a driver and hits it miles anyway.
 
The fact that you are getting good results by gripping down indicates to me that there shouldn't be a problem lopping the 1.5"+ off the length. I only say 1.5 because it's not a problem gripping down a bit more, but potentially is if you cut too much off - though, as mab posted, a shaft extender can be used.

I don't believe you will have swingweight issues as you are effectively slightly overdoing the change already - not only are you setting up at what would be the new length, but there is also a bit of counterbalance from the heavier element of the grip and the 1.5-2" of shaft 'above' your hands.

If there is a swing-weight issue, lead tape not only works around it, but can make you look a cool golfer too! :whoo:
 
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I did it with my Taylormade tour burner and it's a lot easier to hit, and straighter too. So I'd defo recommend.

The only downside is you will lose 10-20 yards in distance.

Don't cut it down any lower than 44" though.
 
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If I was you I'd seek an independant club fitter and stay away from the OEMs. We all know why they give you a shaft that long, and to be honest you'd be surprised the number of tour players who have 44" driver in their hands.

My Mizuno MP630 was over 35" and I saw a fitter in Chesterfield, who deals with Wishon clubs. He gave me his changeable shaft Dr which was 43.5" and put tape over the face and the strikes were a little off, although the Dr felt VERY solid in the hand. He changed Wishon shafts and gave it back, and it seemed exactly the same, and he put a new impact tape on the face, after hitting the 1st shot, I spun the club face back to him to see and said without looking, that's out the middle, 'hit another' and exactly the same happened again, 'check in the post' he said, no word of a lie, both impacts of the 2 shots were within the red circle of the tape smack out of the middle.
'Did you give me a different type of shaft'
'no I gave you same profile of shaft as the one before, except its 44" SOLD

i now play a Wishon 919 11* with a Wishon S2S Black 85g shaft and it's very solid and has a lot of stability at impact, which gives more control, more accurate and to be honest I don't lose that much Distance, I ave bout 270.

If it feels your in more control then seriously look into getting it cut down, but as someone said it will change the weight and that needs counter acting at the other end with either lead tape or tungsten powder down the shaft. Or sell your Driver and go see independant fitter.
 
Vardon11 said:
I have struggled with consistency with my driver for a while and have had several lessons and there has been improvement but still I struggle with accuracy.

I have recently been gripping down the shaft 1.5-2" and the results have been excellent, the only problem is it feels awkward gripping down the shaft so I am toying with the idea of having my shaft cut down to 44".

I play with a Cobra amp Cell Driver with a stiff shaft (45.75"). I was wondering if anybody has done the same thing and how they got on?

Also do you know how this will effect the shaft stiffness and weight?

I am 5'9" and do not struggle with distance and am much more interested in 230yd drives on the fairway than 260 in the rough or OOB!
Click to expand...

For every half inch you cut off a driver shaft you'll approximately lose 3 points of swing weight. Any length you take off will also make the shaft very slightly stiffer. You also as it's shorter give it a slightly flatter lie some, more noticeable in a flatter lie if it's an iron shaft your cutting down.

Driver shaft you can probably cut off up to an 1.25" and I doubt very much you'll really be able to tell that the swing weight or stiffness has changed any much when you swing it.

So you probably won't have to worry about adding weight. lead tape on a driver generally not a great idea as there's a danger of adding far too much and even more so positioning it wrongly.

If you go ahead and cut it I doubt you'll think you have to add weight, if you need to, better to take if to a fitter or PGA pro who is used to doing this than adding weight wrongly.
 
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Re how much weight 1 point of swing weight is. Generally 1 point of swing weight from the grip end of a shaft is approximately 5 grams, 1 point of swing weight from the tip end of a shaft is approximately 2 grams.
 
I started gripping down on my driver as well, far more accurate and easier to swing.
However I do see that I lose a bit of distance.
Was going to get the shaft cut down but I'm quite happy to grip down it now. That way if I have a tight fairway, I know I'm capable of getting it down the middle, and If I fancy trying to rip it I can still hold it normally.
 
I've had my driver cut down from 45.5" to 44" and I'm driving probably the best I ever have.

The first weekend I played with it I hit it ok but it just didn't feel right - too light. I put it down to the big change in swingweight and instead of adding weight to the head, put one of these on to lose weight from the grip. http://www.golfpride.com/grips/tour-25/
It's not light enough to put the swingweight back where it started, but it's made it close enough so that I don't notice it.

As for losing distance, I don't think I have, but if I'm wrong it's 5yds max.
 
I did exactly that to an old Cobra driver, cut it down to 43", Probably 44" would have been better. Did not notice a massive difference in distance and the control was better. As for swingweight yes it felt lighter but ou get used to it,if every driver on the market was the same swingweight then fine but there is no standard out there. Unless all your clubs are he same swingweight I'd go fr 44.5" to start with and see how it feels, it's easy to extend again.
 
Vardon11 said:
I have struggled with consistency with my driver for a while and have had several lessons and there has been improvement but still I struggle with accuracy.

I have recently been gripping down the shaft 1.5-2" and the results have been excellent, the only problem is it feels awkward gripping down the shaft so I am toying with the idea of having my shaft cut down to 44".

I play with a Cobra amp Cell Driver with a stiff shaft (45.75"). I was wondering if anybody has done the same thing and how they got on?

Also do you know how this will effect the shaft stiffness and weight?

I am 5'9" and do not struggle with distance and am much more interested in 230yd drives on the fairway than 260 in the rough or OOB!
Click to expand...
Cobra amp cell just get a 3 wood shaft with adapter off ebay and try that if it dosnt work just sell it again !
 
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