When a driver misbehaves - all on its own!

[duncan mackie]

Hope you find this more amusing than I did at the time.

Firstly i broke all the forum rules earlier this week, for which im not at all sorry (because lifes too short sometimes).

Earlier I the week I went down to the local range for breakfast. They do a great latte and the bacon sandwich on wholemeal is fantastic. While they are preparing it they give you a basket of 75 balls all for the £5, so I went off to a bay with my wedge to await the food and have a chat with a friend I knew would be there. No doubt others go to the range for more golf orientated activity but I was just passing time 😎

Eventually, after food, chat and having dispatched 75 balls to their doom, I was walking back through the shop (touch of Ikea in how they lay these out isn't there!) I was forced to pass a display entitled 'final reductions' and commentators how everything's always right handed to my friend. After promptly agreeing he then exclaimed - except that one...

Had to be fate, initial model M2, regular shaft and standard 10.5 loft. What I considered a good price.

Now I know I should have tried it, got fitted for a shaft etc but I was now in a hurry so it left the shop with me.

Normal driver is a SLDR 12 degree, and I was playing an end of league team event the next day (BB stableford pairs) and though why not? Hedged my change a little buy tweaking it to higher loft and chucked it in the bag.

Suffice today the day didn't go brilliantly, and I really didn't seem to get much from the driver - seeming to almost top the ball on 3 occasions. Mentally working out how to get out of the purchase!

Club match next day and I had forgotten to swap it out 😣 decided to reset it to Std and lo and behold it seemed to work rather well. Very pleased indeed. Strange. Decided to leave it in the bag for the stableford yesterday on the same setting. Maybe I was just getting used to the shaft etc

If I hadn't been 8 shots worse over the last 4 holes than on Wed I would have had a shot cut - not the drivers fault though.

If you have got this far well done - here's the punch line for those who havent twigged...looking at trying a few old driver shafts I have in the shed I was interested in whether the TH adapters were different for lh and right hand fitting, and if so what differences. Logically higher and lower would simply read the wrong way round but as my FC yesterday had the same club in RH i swapped over the shafts to check.

Imagine my amusement when I found that my LH club had a RH shaft adapter fitted - so my initial attempt to tweak it back to 12.5 had actually set it to 8.5 🤣

Next time i will check everything, try it and try alternatives.

 

[Orikoru]

My right-handed driver has a left-handed shaft in it. I bought it second hand and that was the shaft that was in it already. Luckily the guy in the shop clocked that while he was adjusting it for me to try out, otherwise it might have taken me a bit longer to figure out! As you say, I have it set on 'lower' visibly, but actually that means it's set 'higher'.

I'm not sure why the previous owner put a left-handed shaft in. It's the stock shaft for the club as well, a Phenom something or other, 60 gram - only it's about an inch shorter. So maybe I just bought a matching shaft that was shorter from somewhere else and could only get a lefty one!

 

[garyinderry]

Me and liverbirdie were at the range at Warrington one time with our matching Mizuno drivers courtesy of Golf monthly and got them mixed up for a while.

He was absolutely panicking as he couldn't hit the driver higher than about 5 feet in the air. Shot after shot just skimming out there.

It was only when we cottoned onto the problem that we realised he was hitting my driver set @ 8.5 when he had his up @ 10.5 or 11.

The numbers on the monitor backed up the reason why we had the lofts as such. He was hitting 4 degrees down and I was the opposite 4 up.

 

[duncan mackie]

Me and liverbirdie were at the range at Warrington one time with our matching Mizuno drivers courtesy of Golf monthly and got them mixed up for a while.

He was absolutely panicking as he couldn't hit the driver higher than about 5 feet in the air. Shot after shot just skimming out there.

It was only when we cottoned onto the problem that we realised he was hitting my driver set @ 8.5 when he had his up @ 10.5 or 11.

The numbers on the monitor backed up the reason why we had the lofts as such. He was hitting 4 degrees down and I was the opposite 4 up.

Yep!

Most of us can make a club work for us to some degree eventually, but 4 unexpected degrees of difference takes a fair bit of work!

 

[clubchamp98]

If you don't really like it the shaft being the wrong one is a good enough reason!
Or are you tempted to keep it.

 

[duncan mackie]

If you don't really like it the shaft being the wrong one is a good enough reason!
Or are you tempted to keep it.

Interesting thought - hadn't really looked at it this way.

Honestly, the club works ok at std loft setting. I will try it out at lower (ie correctly higher) loft next week and see how that goes as a next step. I think the head will be fine, and as my first shaft swap head it will enable me to experiment with the many older shaft I still have in clubs with no real value in the shed; to it will hang around a bit. Might have a laught with the retail outlet next week about it too - if they offer the correct shaft or an adapter then great, of they suggest a retrospective fitting with their lh shaft range then even better it I wouldn t press for it.

 

[clubchamp98]

Interesting thought - hadn't really looked at it this way.

Honestly, the club works ok at std loft setting. I will try it out at lower (ie correctly higher) loft next week and see how that goes as a next step. I think the head will be fine, and as my first shaft swap head it will enable me to experiment with the many older shaft I still have in clubs with no real value in the shed; to it will hang around a bit. Might have a laught with the retail outlet next week about it too - if they offer the correct shaft or an adapter then great, of they suggest a retrospective fitting with their lh shaft range then even better it I wouldn t press for it.

Dont see any prob with a left hand shaft as long as you remember to add not subtract and vice versa.

My only concern would be some adapter go up two but down only one degree depends on make this might need checking out to see what settings are doing to club head (I.e. Closing/ opening face etc.

 

[duncan mackie]

Dont see any prob with a left hand shaft as long as you remember to add not subtract and vice versa.

My only concern would be some adapter go up two but down only one degree depends on make this might need checking out to see what settings are doing to club head (I.e. Closing/ opening face etc.

Agree. In fact I've decided to fit RH adapters to my older shafts because they will be more marketable if I decide to sell them!

The adapter and shaft involved are the correct, standard, ones for the year and model head.

 

[shivas irons]

Years ago I bought a Ping ISI driver off ex European and PGA tour player Paul Curry's father in law who owned a golf shop,there was no markings on the shaft but he told me it was very very stiff.Took the driver to my local range and topped everything,I just couldnt hit it whatsoever,turned out there was a steel rod inserted into the graphite shaft that obviously suits a tour players swing but not mine!.