The elegant and the ugly

[Ken_A]

For the last few weeks I have been struggling to get off a tee with any wood - worse than normal - however, after a few range trips my Irons are simply fantastic.

Now I know that I could hit a 3 Iron off a tee and score well - but I now feel its time that I get the woods sorted.

After a lot of trials i can hit the driver reasonably well if I swing at half speed - but its really hard not to be agressive through he ball and I simply dont get any satisfaction from these shots.

Thus I was wondering if my driver shaft is too soft - my Irons are AP2's with Project x 5.5's and the Ping G 10 driver has a reg TPC129(?)

The bad shots look like I am not turning the hands over - but with my Irons I have a lovley draw with every shot - it foolslike the head of my drifver is a long was behingd what I am trying to do. (hope that makes sence)

 

[Tiger]

Hi Ken,

I am far from expert on this but I'll share with you what I learnt when I was searching for my 3 wood. I have the same shaft as you in my AP1 irons. The Project X's have a low torque between 1.6 - 1.9 I think. The regular TPC shaft in the Ping has a much higher torque, especially in a regular shaft.

Torque is the resistance in your shaft to twisting on the downswing. With a driver this twisting effect is increased because the shaft is longer and the mass of the head is greater. If you have a relatively fast swing speed your shaft could be causing your clubface to remain open at impact causing a slice.

For me this would explain why you get better results when you swing slower. I'd suggest finding out where your nearest PING demo day will be and popping along with your driver and having one of their expert fitters give you an opinion on which shaft suits your swing. Alternatively your local Ping fitter should be able to help.

As I said earlier I'm no expert but have done a fair amount of reading on equipment to boost my own knowledge.

T

PS the softness of the shaft is probably also causing the lag.

 

[Ethan]

In relative terms, the Ping shaft is very soft.

PX 5.5 is a pretty robust shaft, stronger than S300, and the comparable Ping wood shaft is at least a Stiff, and possibly more.

If you hit a draw with the PX, then that is probably a suitable shaft.