Achilles515
Active member
So here's how this started. I'm a 10 handicap, 95 mph driver swing speed and i'm 5'2. Have always struggled with driver accuracy and it makes or breaks my scores. I've been fit twice and neither fitting was impressive by any means. I think i'm knowledgable when it comes to clubs and what suits me but what the fitters did were just like going through the motions. The past year and a half i've been swing a TM Sim 10.5 and have bounced back and forth between Stiff/Reg flex and played shafts at 45", 44", 43" with mixed results and nothing consistent. I was able to score a deal on a Speedzone Xtreme and went with it. First tried a 45" shaft then a 44" shaft and again, just no consistency. Also attempted a 2 iron with not good results.
Fast forward to this past week. Saw a couple videos with 20+ handicappers on Youtube who've cut their driver down to 40" with great success at finding the fairway. So it got me thinking. I had an extra shaft laying around so I went and had it cut down to 41" (stock Motore reg flex shaft for the Xtreme). Now the swing weight comes into question. That's one thing I don't know that much about, like the ratios and formula etc so I decided to wing. The Xtreme comes stock with either a 4g or 6g weight. I ordered a 19g weight and stuck it in there. Went to the range, hit about 30 balls had excellent success but couldn't get a good idea on yardage because the range is slightly uphill. Went and played 18 today. Result 10/14 fairways and only 2 of those misses put me in danger, other 2 were still playable. All 4 misses were hook shots and I would chalk that up to not playing in a month and the first time using this set up. Yardage wise I think i lost 15 yards at the most compared to good strikes with the longer shafts so my total distance was about 235. It was also wet so I got almost no roll. Once I play with this a few more times and dial it in, this will 100% be a fairway finder and carry+roll should put me around 245-250 which i'm perfectly fine with. (i live in the south so roll is your friend).
Now, I'm fully prepared to catch a lot of flack for whatever I didn't do and what i should've done. However, this was an experiment and nothing was intended to be done by the book. I know my swing better than anyone else and I took a gamble and it has shown immediate results.
Fast forward to this past week. Saw a couple videos with 20+ handicappers on Youtube who've cut their driver down to 40" with great success at finding the fairway. So it got me thinking. I had an extra shaft laying around so I went and had it cut down to 41" (stock Motore reg flex shaft for the Xtreme). Now the swing weight comes into question. That's one thing I don't know that much about, like the ratios and formula etc so I decided to wing. The Xtreme comes stock with either a 4g or 6g weight. I ordered a 19g weight and stuck it in there. Went to the range, hit about 30 balls had excellent success but couldn't get a good idea on yardage because the range is slightly uphill. Went and played 18 today. Result 10/14 fairways and only 2 of those misses put me in danger, other 2 were still playable. All 4 misses were hook shots and I would chalk that up to not playing in a month and the first time using this set up. Yardage wise I think i lost 15 yards at the most compared to good strikes with the longer shafts so my total distance was about 235. It was also wet so I got almost no roll. Once I play with this a few more times and dial it in, this will 100% be a fairway finder and carry+roll should put me around 245-250 which i'm perfectly fine with. (i live in the south so roll is your friend).
Now, I'm fully prepared to catch a lot of flack for whatever I didn't do and what i should've done. However, this was an experiment and nothing was intended to be done by the book. I know my swing better than anyone else and I took a gamble and it has shown immediate results.