Question regarding shorter driver

I am curious about testing a shorter lengh driver so I will be installing a 3 wood shaft into my Fly Z driver. I am aware of the SW shift so I purchased a heavier weight for the head. Driver lengh will go from 45 to 43.5.
My question for those who have done this experiment, did you alter the position of the tee in your stance and the tee height?
Also, did the shaft lengh alter the direction of your misses?
Thanks!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

A few thoughts:
Sounds like you have the swing weight stuff sorted which is good. Adding weight to the head will also help with the 3 wood shaft that was tipped. Would likely play stiffer if you left the driver head light. Should be good

I have a 44" driver (From 45.5") and I haven't altered my ball position or ball height at all. I added all the weight to the head to the heel of the driver to eliminate my fade miss. It has done exactly that. The length, I'm not sure played a major role in the miss direction, but I am hitting a smaller area on the driver face now than I was before for sure

Went from 34% fairways hit last year to hitting 12 of 14 last weekend after this change. Really happy with my switch. Hope it works for you too!

Also want to link to this thread. May be helpful

https://www.thehackersparadise.com/forum/showthread.php?91474-Shortening-your-driver

I put a heavenwood shaft in a driver to play at 43.5. The swing weight change didn't effect me. I can tee the ball higher than a longer driver without hitting a pop up. I like the tipped shaft feel and accuracy, I see why people tip their shafts now.

Trevor68 said:

I am curious about testing a shorter lengh driver so I will be installing a 3 wood shaft into my Fly Z driver. I am aware of the SW shift so I purchased a heavier weight for the head. Driver length will go from 45 to 43.5.
My question for those who have done this experiment, did you alter the position of the tee in your stance and the tee height?
Also, did the shaft lengh alter the direction of your misses?

Click to expand...

To answer your question. No I did not alter my stance and setup. I still play the ball off my left heel, hands in front of the ball at address. Tee height the same... about half of the ball above the topline. With this setup I seem to average a +3* angle of attack.
As for direction of misses. I am finding that actually going back to a longer driver seems to help my big miss (pull hook). I explain below.

In 2015, I played a 45" driver with decent success. I blew up my swing that offseason and the thought of a 45" driver now scared me so I went to a 43.5" driver.
So in 2016 I played my Ping G with a Red Tie 68g shaft from the Cobra 3/4w at 43.5". I am not a fast swinger and this combo did not seem to cost me any distance. So that was a plus.

This offseason started demo-ing new drivers on both the course and range and finding that I need launch and spin. My launch and spin with the shorty 3w shafts is really low. Too low for my swing speed (under 2k spin).
I began to notice in my testing that higher lofted drivers around 45" seems to yield the best results. My misses (big pull hooks) seem less frequent at 45" than at 43.5". I think with the shorter shaft I had a tendency to get way too quick with my transition. With the 45" shaft (I am only 5'4") I feel like I swing the club around me more and need to slow everything down to time it all. So far the results are working.

Side note...I am not sure how much weight you are adding to the head by going to a heavier weight but if it's significant, note that this will make the shaft play slightly looser than with the stock weight setup.
However given you are going to a 3w shaft it should be tipped enough to accommodate the heavier head as 3w's usually have 210-215g heads (drivers around 195-200g).