Sacrificing length for accuracy

[Olof Karlson]

So... let's forget the power variable for a while and let me ask this. What would be accuracy moves in a golf swing?

And: Manzella certified stuff on the short game is badly needed.

 

[JonWil]

Shorten your current driver, swing slower.

DONE.

At last; thank you Jim!

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

At last; thank you Jim!

I do what i can

PS after shortening your driver make sure to add weight to the clubhead to keep same swing weight as before.

 

[Dariusz J.]

Shortening the driver serves mainly for those who rarely can find a sweetspot. If this is OP's main fault -- it's certainly the best advice. If he does not miss sweetspot very often but sprays shots it will not help much.

Cheers

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

Shortening the driver serves mainly for those who rarely can find a sweetspot. If this is OP's main fault -- it's certainly the best advice. If he does not miss sweetspot very often but sprays shots it will not help much.

Cheers

Dear Manzella Forum members this is exactly the reason why, in Brian's no more swing video thread, that he said no more swing videos because of posts just like this (however this applies to fitting).

Dariusz while you aren't 100% wrong as shortening any shaft can lead to hitting the sweetspot more often for ANY club there is no guarantee of it.

However i can guarantee you that shortening your driver a full inch will lower your swing speed by SEVERAL mph which will lower your ball speed by SEVERAL mph and thus, all launch conditions stay equal, you will hit it SHORTER.

Shortening your driver 1/2" to 1" is the easiest way with no other changes, even ignoring my swing slower suggestion, to reduce your distance because you will end up swinging slower.

Due to Dariusz comment though if you are THAT bad of a driver of the ball, shortening the driver might actually INCREASE your "average" driving distance because you will be consistently hitting the sweetspot more often but if that isn't you don't worry about it.

 

[drewyallop]

However i can guarantee you that shortening your driver a full inch will lower your swing speed by SEVERAL mph which will lower your ball speed by SEVERAL mph and thus, all launch conditions stay equal, you will hit it SHORTER.

Always? What if you can swing a shorter club faster?

Drew

 

[faux_maestro]

Always? What if you can swing a shorter club faster?

Drew

This is me to a T. I shortened my driver and I hit it farther, my swing speed is actually FASTER.

 

[johnnymarlboro]

This is me to a T. I shortened my driver and I hit it farther, my swing speed is actually FASTER.

This seems like to me it would have to be from making better contact and thus having confidence to swing harder.

 

[BIGBALL]

I may have 1st hand proof that this may be the case, based on a lesson I had a few years back with Damon. I had a TM Supertri, and I was swinging it right about 90 mph... also had my sons cut down to 44.5 inches TM superquad. I was consistently 2-3 mph faster with that club. What do I attribute that to? Well, I am longer with my irons compared to the distance I get for my driver. I'm thinking, like Johnny said, I simply had more confidence to swing the shorter club harder because I know I would be able to control it more. I know from simple laws of science, if I took the same swing ( didn't know which was which ) with the same club, one 1- 1 1/2 shorter than the other, the longer club would be faster.

 

[Dariusz J.]

Dear Manzella Forum members this is exactly the reason why, in Brian's no more swing video thread, that he said no more swing videos because of posts just like this (however this applies to fitting).

Dariusz while you aren't 100% wrong as shortening any shaft can lead to hitting the sweetspot more often for ANY club there is no guarantee of it.

However i can guarantee you that shortening your driver a full inch will lower your swing speed by SEVERAL mph which will lower your ball speed by SEVERAL mph and thus, all launch conditions stay equal, you will hit it SHORTER.

Shortening your driver 1/2" to 1" is the easiest way with no other changes, even ignoring my swing slower suggestion, to reduce your distance because you will end up swinging slower.

Due to Dariusz comment though if you are THAT bad of a driver of the ball, shortening the driver might actually INCREASE your "average" driving distance because you will be consistently hitting the sweetspot more often but if that isn't you don't worry about it.

Before you start writing such intros you should actually read true specialists' advices. If one wants a lower shot dispersion one would need to search for factors that stabilize clubhead; both overall weight + MOI as well as shaft stiffness are these factors. When you shorten the shaft and add weight to the hosel you will practically maintain a status quo as regards accuracy and often would increase SS which were not intentions of the OP. Only if his misses are due to off-sweetspot hits he would need shortening the driver as the first thing.

This is me to a T. I shortened my driver and I hit it farther, my swing speed is actually FASTER.

Of course it can happen because the whole combo becomes usually overally lighter.

Cheers

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

Before you start writing such intros you should actually read true specialists' advices. If one wants a lower shot dispersion one would need to search for factors that stabilize clubhead; both overall weight + MOI as well as shaft stiffness are these factors. When you shorten the shaft and add weight to the hosel you will practically maintain a status quo as regards accuracy and often would increase SS which were not intentions of the OP. Only if his misses are due to off-sweetspot hits he would need shortening the driver as the first thing.

I have given HUNDREDS of fittings on launch monitors going back to the vector, zelocity among others; how many have you? You are incorrect shortening the driver in 90%+ of cases lowers driver swing speeds. In some cases, as people have posted, people have increased swing speed for a variety of reasons. Could be confidence, could be height (actually how tall you are) to driver length ratio, even simply confidence because you start swinging it faster because you're drives are straighter. However this is not the norm, period among my experience on real launch monitors giving real fittings but apparently i'm not an expert. Also if length isn't that a big determinant of swing speed and potential driver distance (if you can swing it) why have driver lengths at retail creeped up to 46"? Why don't long drive participants use shorter drivers?

The OP wants to hit it shorter, if he doesn't have a contact problem, shortening the driver is the easiest fastest way to shorten up your overall driver distance without messing with anything else. But what do i know, i don't teach and i haven't given a bunch of launch monitor fittings.

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

Always? What if you can swing a shorter club faster?

Drew

90% of the time, i have seen it before but it's rare; always anomalies. I've even admitted that going to stiffer shafts INCREASED my swing speed because i was unconsciously swinging slower to not balloon my driver shots. I'd go after it, ball would balloon, ball would go shorter. I went to a stiffer shaft to reduce the spin and picked up mph on my clubhead speed but i'd say i'm the rare case.

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

This is me to a T. I shortened my driver and I hit it farther, my swing speed is actually FASTER.

Have you confirmed that on a monitor? Generally in cases like yours, you "average ball speed" went up because the shorter driver has you contacting the sweetspot more often or better thus creating the extra distance. I wrote a long post on an old forum a long time ago that if you could increase your smash fact X that the gain in average ball speed makes up for an possibly could negate the drop off in swing speed. The downside would be you'd probably never hit it as far as some of the longest drives pre-short driver but your overall average distance would go up.

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

I may have 1st hand proof that this may be the case, based on a lesson I had a few years back with Damon. I had a TM Supertri, and I was swinging it right about 90 mph... also had my sons cut down to 44.5 inches TM superquad. I was consistently 2-3 mph faster with that club. What do I attribute that to? Well, I am longer with my irons compared to the distance I get for my driver. I'm thinking, like Johnny said, I simply had more confidence to swing the shorter club harder because I know I would be able to control it more. I know from simple laws of science, if I took the same swing ( didn't know which was which ) with the same club, one 1- 1 1/2 shorter than the other, the longer club would be faster.

Not denying it, there are cases of you out there just not the norm. Also, it's hard to compare driver to driver unless both are fit for you. As i related a couple posts above, maybe you were swinging it slower because it had too much launch and/or the head was creating too much spin creating shorter drives. Always cases but again, not the norm.

 

[Olof Karlson]

So... shortening the driver could be a good idea I guess. I play a Mizuno MP-630 Fast Track with the stock stiff Fubuki shaft that I believe has is a bit softer in the butt end. So this would make the shaft a bit stiffer. The shaft is 45"... do you think an inch would be good, or half, I've heard the pros generally have 44,5" shafts? Or is it a bad idea because I'm 6"4?

Oh, and not hitting it in the sweetspot is not the problem.

So... noone has any accuracy moves to suggest for a swing? I'd also like some thoughts on the LCT perhaps being a move that could hurt?

 

[BIGBALL]

Not denying it, there are cases of you out there just not the norm. Also, it's hard to compare driver to driver unless both are fit for you. As i related a couple posts above, maybe you were swinging it slower because it had too much launch and/or the head was creating too much spin creating shorter drives. Always cases but again, not the norm.

I'm actually agreeing with you Jim... I'm pretty sure the faster swing speed was because I took a more confident swipe at it because a short shaft, with my short, quick swing, just feels better to me. Like I wrote, I know if you gave me 2 of the exact same drivers, an 1 1/2" different in length, but could somehow make them feel the same, the longer shaft would have more speed.

Enjoyed this thread - thanks for the responses Jim!

 

[Dariusz J.]

I have given HUNDREDS of fittings on launch monitors going back to the vector, zelocity among others; how many have you? You are incorrect shortening the driver in 90%+ of cases lowers driver swing speeds. In some cases, as people have posted, people have increased swing speed for a variety of reasons. Could be confidence, could be height (actually how tall you are) to driver length ratio, even simply confidence because you start swinging it faster because you're drives are straighter. However this is not the norm, period among my experience on real launch monitors giving real fittings but apparently i'm not an expert. Also if length isn't that a big determinant of swing speed and potential driver distance (if you can swing it) why have driver lengths at retail creeped up to 46"? Why don't long drive participants use shorter drivers?

The OP wants to hit it shorter, if he doesn't have a contact problem, shortening the driver is the easiest fastest way to shorten up your overall driver distance without messing with anything else. But what do i know, i don't teach and i haven't given a bunch of launch monitor fittings.

Listen, I do not want to quarrel. I know something in fitting because before I became a full motion theorist my hobby was clubfitting and spent lots of hours on Wishon's forum and doing lots of fittings for friends, of course without TrackMan. But this is not relevant now, what is relevant is that you deny physics which is weird on a "scientific" forum.
I can assure you that increasing overall MOI of the club will have a much bigger effect on slowing SS than shortening, the more that shortening is marginal concerning the overall length of the club -- I believe you do not want to shorted 10 inches, do you ? If not, try to calculate how many inches you should shorten the club to compensate, say, installing a 25 gram heavier shaft. It should be a good lesson of physics for you.
For the last time -- if OP wants to slower his SS and increase accuracy for sure, he would need a heavier and stiffer shaft (overally stiffer, because correct subfrequencies/subtorques should be determined during a fitting session).

Cheers

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

Listen, I do not want to quarrel. I know something in fitting because before I became a full motion theorist my hobby was clubfitting and spent lots of hours on Wishon's forum and doing lots of fittings for friends, of course without TrackMan. But this is not relevant now

No this is relevant, you became a "hobby" fitter from spending hours on Wishon's forum? Also, you don't necessarily needs a trackman as i didn't have access to one (still don't) but did use what was available back in the day at various fittings events with other professionals and i helped fit a lot of people using Vector & Zelocity, which before trackman became available, was generally the norm. I used real people with real equipment and machines spitting back data to me.

what is relevant is that you deny physics which is weird on a "scientific" forum. I can assure you that increasing overall MOI of the club will have a much bigger effect on slowing SS than shortening, the more that shortening is marginal concerning the overall length of the club --

Not denying this, of course it will. But changing his equipment could significantly reduce his swing speed and resulting ball speed a lot more than he wants. Of course can go to heavier/stiffer shafts BUT that also radically changes the "feel" and launch conditions of that driver.

For the last time -- if OP wants to slower his SS and increase accuracy for sure, he would need a heavier and stiffer shaft (overally stiffer, because correct subfrequencies/subtorques should be determined during a fitting session).

Cheers

That is an option and requires time/money to go do that. All i'm saying is that a cheap/easy/simple way to give up a little distance is to shorten your driver; that's it.

 

[drewyallop]

90% of the time, i have seen it before but it's rare; always anomalies. I've even admitted that going to stiffer shafts INCREASED my swing speed because i was unconsciously swinging slower to not balloon my driver shots. I'd go after it, ball would balloon, ball would go shorter. I went to a stiffer shaft to reduce the spin and picked up mph on my clubhead speed but i'd say i'm the rare case.

Thanks Jim. Maybe smash factor instead of clubhead speed would be a more better measure of improvement when changing shaft parameters.

 

[Burner]

Oh my what a pickle we all get into.

So... shortening the driver could be a good idea I guess. I play a Mizuno MP-630 Fast Track with the stock stiff Fubuki shaft that I believe has is a bit softer in the butt end. So this would make the shaft a bit stiffer. The shaft is 45"... do you think an inch would be good, or half, I've heard the pros generally have 44,5" shafts? Or is it a bad idea because I'm 6"4?

Oh, and not hitting it in the sweetspot is not the problem.

So... noone has any accuracy moves to suggest for a swing? I'd also like some thoughts on the LCT perhaps being a move that could hurt?

Olof you don't have to chop chunks of your driver to shorten it - grip down on it an inch or so. Simple!

Furthermore, you will make much better progress towards accuracy, not necessarily at the expense of distance, if you just shorten your swing, adding more control to it in the process.

Just sayin' and no film needed.