BigLeftyinAZ
Well-known member
I'm not the original author nor can I recall who wrote this,but it is a very good read
Driver shaft lengths are way way too long - there I’ve said it. It’s a comment that is unlikely to win me many friends among the OEMs but over the last few years driver shafts have become so long that they have begun to work against the guy swinging the club. Despite all the technology the we now see in driver heads - and more recently in the shafts - the madness seems to have gotten so far that we have passed a tipping point and we’ve started to lose the benefits that all these technological breakthroughs brought us.
With all these amazing advances we’ve probably forgotten that even just a few year ago the driver was the hardest club in the bag to hit. For most golfers the driver was a low lofted nightmare of a club that rarely made an appearance on the course. Players like Greg Norman were rightly seen as gods for the fearless way they smashed the ball off the tee even down the tightest fairways.
It was the introduction of steel headed drivers by the likes of Gary Adams and Ely Callaway that suddenly made the driver not only longer but far more forgiving. Suddenly bringing out the Big Dog was a real option rather than a statement of machismo. When graphite shafts were added to the mix suddenly the driver become practically the safest club in the bag and certainly consistently the longest.
Before graphite shafts started to replace steel ones, the average length of a driver was 43.5 inches. With the new graphite shafts being lighter than steel the manufacturers took the chance to lengthen the shaft without increasing the swing-weight.
The very reason the driver is in the bag is that we want to hit the ball a long way. We are forever talking about getting that extra 20-30 yards from a new driver because that is what we are all looking for and the manufacturers know it. The driver lengths quickly moved from 43.5" to 45" and a quick glance at current lengths sees that they have grown to as high as 46.25". So what’s the reason behind this relentless increase in shaft length. Well it’s pretty simple and it’s all to to with two things: robotic club testing and the way we demo drivers.
Glancing at the adverts for the current crop of drivers, almost everyone emphasizes how far you can how them - ‘Maximize Distance’, ‘Optimize distance’, ‘Take it Deep’ are just some of the straplines you’ll find. Even with the recent emphasis on adjustibility, there is still an overwhelming emphasis on distance. The one thing above all else that a driver manufacturer wants to be able to say about their driver is that it is longer than their previous generation and longer than their current rivals. Ideally they want to be able to say that it is the longest driver going. They take a robotic swing device like ‘Iron Byron’ as a using a bunch of golfers (even good ones) would be far too inconsistent. With the hotness of the face limited by R&A and USGA restrictions, how else can the manufacturers increase distance with a robot swinging the club at the same speed apart from lengthen the shafts.
The other part of the problem is when we test drivers (that is if we ever do test them rather than being persuaded by the advertising!) we almost exclusively do it at the driving range. On a 300 yard wide driving range it’s almost impossible to care whether the ball goes in a straight line. It’s natural enough for everyone to focus on length. Who cares if half the balls we hit would have ended up OB if we were on the course we say, did you not see how far I was hitting this beast past my old thing! The longer and lighter shafts play to our desire to hit the ball longer rather than to play the game better as we sacrifice accuracy for distance. And when a driver with a shaft that is an extra inch longer hits the ball approximately 8 yards further, it isn’t hard to guess which one is going to be sold.
Unfortunately this means that the driver has become an unruly beast. We can now hit it further than at any time but we stand less chance of keeping it on the short stuff, despite all the MOI, head geometry, COG placement, multi-material construction and shaft design that requires a PhD to understand.
It doesn’t appear to be only me either as a number of golf professionals I’ve spoken to agree with me and have talked about the difficulty of selling drivers with 46" and longer shafts that they know are going to be almost uncontrollable for the average golfer. And it’s not like you have to have long driver to hit it a long way. The average driver length on Tour is about 44.5" to 45". Sergio Garcia and Camilo Villegas both use 44" drivers and given how much Anthony Kim grips down his 45" driver plays around 42.5" and none of them are exactly short hitters. Even the world number one has struggled with his fairways hit average since moving to a longer shafted driver even though he is still an artist with a 3 wood.
OEM’s have done an amazing job with new drivers. They are streets ahead of clubs from even just a few years ago and the shafts now available are light-years ahead of the old steel shafts, it’s just this triumph of marketing over usability helps no one. Unless you are hitting the ball less than 200 yards you really don’t need a 46" driver. Every golfer I know that has shortened their drivers down to 44" to 45" have seen their fairways hit stats up with no drop off in distance from more consistantly hitting the sweetspot. So if you have the opportunity, try a ‘cut down’ driver and see how you get on, you might make friends with your driver again.
Driver shaft lengths are way way too long - there I’ve said it. It’s a comment that is unlikely to win me many friends among the OEMs but over the last few years driver shafts have become so long that they have begun to work against the guy swinging the club. Despite all the technology the we now see in driver heads - and more recently in the shafts - the madness seems to have gotten so far that we have passed a tipping point and we’ve started to lose the benefits that all these technological breakthroughs brought us.
With all these amazing advances we’ve probably forgotten that even just a few year ago the driver was the hardest club in the bag to hit. For most golfers the driver was a low lofted nightmare of a club that rarely made an appearance on the course. Players like Greg Norman were rightly seen as gods for the fearless way they smashed the ball off the tee even down the tightest fairways.
It was the introduction of steel headed drivers by the likes of Gary Adams and Ely Callaway that suddenly made the driver not only longer but far more forgiving. Suddenly bringing out the Big Dog was a real option rather than a statement of machismo. When graphite shafts were added to the mix suddenly the driver become practically the safest club in the bag and certainly consistently the longest.
Before graphite shafts started to replace steel ones, the average length of a driver was 43.5 inches. With the new graphite shafts being lighter than steel the manufacturers took the chance to lengthen the shaft without increasing the swing-weight.
The very reason the driver is in the bag is that we want to hit the ball a long way. We are forever talking about getting that extra 20-30 yards from a new driver because that is what we are all looking for and the manufacturers know it. The driver lengths quickly moved from 43.5" to 45" and a quick glance at current lengths sees that they have grown to as high as 46.25". So what’s the reason behind this relentless increase in shaft length. Well it’s pretty simple and it’s all to to with two things: robotic club testing and the way we demo drivers.
Glancing at the adverts for the current crop of drivers, almost everyone emphasizes how far you can how them - ‘Maximize Distance’, ‘Optimize distance’, ‘Take it Deep’ are just some of the straplines you’ll find. Even with the recent emphasis on adjustibility, there is still an overwhelming emphasis on distance. The one thing above all else that a driver manufacturer wants to be able to say about their driver is that it is longer than their previous generation and longer than their current rivals. Ideally they want to be able to say that it is the longest driver going. They take a robotic swing device like ‘Iron Byron’ as a using a bunch of golfers (even good ones) would be far too inconsistent. With the hotness of the face limited by R&A and USGA restrictions, how else can the manufacturers increase distance with a robot swinging the club at the same speed apart from lengthen the shafts.
The other part of the problem is when we test drivers (that is if we ever do test them rather than being persuaded by the advertising!) we almost exclusively do it at the driving range. On a 300 yard wide driving range it’s almost impossible to care whether the ball goes in a straight line. It’s natural enough for everyone to focus on length. Who cares if half the balls we hit would have ended up OB if we were on the course we say, did you not see how far I was hitting this beast past my old thing! The longer and lighter shafts play to our desire to hit the ball longer rather than to play the game better as we sacrifice accuracy for distance. And when a driver with a shaft that is an extra inch longer hits the ball approximately 8 yards further, it isn’t hard to guess which one is going to be sold.
Unfortunately this means that the driver has become an unruly beast. We can now hit it further than at any time but we stand less chance of keeping it on the short stuff, despite all the MOI, head geometry, COG placement, multi-material construction and shaft design that requires a PhD to understand.
It doesn’t appear to be only me either as a number of golf professionals I’ve spoken to agree with me and have talked about the difficulty of selling drivers with 46" and longer shafts that they know are going to be almost uncontrollable for the average golfer. And it’s not like you have to have long driver to hit it a long way. The average driver length on Tour is about 44.5" to 45". Sergio Garcia and Camilo Villegas both use 44" drivers and given how much Anthony Kim grips down his 45" driver plays around 42.5" and none of them are exactly short hitters. Even the world number one has struggled with his fairways hit average since moving to a longer shafted driver even though he is still an artist with a 3 wood.
OEM’s have done an amazing job with new drivers. They are streets ahead of clubs from even just a few years ago and the shafts now available are light-years ahead of the old steel shafts, it’s just this triumph of marketing over usability helps no one. Unless you are hitting the ball less than 200 yards you really don’t need a 46" driver. Every golfer I know that has shortened their drivers down to 44" to 45" have seen their fairways hit stats up with no drop off in distance from more consistantly hitting the sweetspot. So if you have the opportunity, try a ‘cut down’ driver and see how you get on, you might make friends with your driver again.
