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Shaft Lengthing Recomended or not?
Forums → Golf Equipment | 24 posts
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Hi All, Need to lengthen shaft by an inch, is it advisable or will it throw out balance point. Have Nippon NS Pro at the moment. I know re-shafting is the preferred option but want to save a few bucks if I can. Any advice would be great.
Thanks,
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Why?
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Long story but essentially they are standard and I need 1 inch over standard
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Will only add acouple of swingweight points,cost under $10 per club,get it done properly-Jon...
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Any decent clubmaker can lengthen it for you for a very small sum. Mick
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Extending a club at the butt by an inch will make the shaft a tiny bit more flexible, add a few swingweight points and make the lie angle about 2 degrees more upright. The latter two are going to happen whether you extend or reshaft (assuming the same shaft weight).
Using a butt extender is a heck of a lot cheaper than installing
a new shaft. But it would be a good idea to get your swing
dynamically checked at the same time, if you hadn't done so
when you purchased the club in the first place.
Trentham Golf Club |
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Most modern drivers are made two inches over standard. If yours is already 45" or thereabouts I would advise against making it any longer. Mick
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Thanks Mick, should have clarified need irons increased in length driver is ok
Thanks publish,
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How tall are you and who did the fitting?
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How do you hit them at the moment? Are you tall? Why do you think you need the extra inch? Some lengthier technical explanation of the points I made: 1. Lengthening your clubs by an inch has the same effect as bending the heads two degrees upright, because it causes a flatter swing plane for the same lie. So if you need 2 degrees upright, that is also effectively achieved by lengthening them by an inch. (Unless your fitter is saying 1" over plus 2 degrees upright, in which case the overall effect is 4 degrees upright!) 2. Swingweight tries to measure how heavy a club feels and how much effort it takes to get the club swinging with a certain amount of angular speed. Lengthening a club by an inch increases the swingweight by 6 points on the standard scale (so if your clubs are, say, D0 they'll go to D6, which is quite a bit). This may or may not be a bad thing depending on your swing speed, acceleration and strength. A smooth swinger of the club can be totally oblivious to swingweight changes and won't be affected by any alteration. Some golfers might find a very lightly swingweighted club too hard to control, but some will find with a heavy swingweighted club that they are "dragging" the club. 3. Lengthening by an inch will make the shaft more flexible by about 4-5cpm, or about a third of a flex grade. So the club will feel a little bit more "whippy". Again, this may or may not be bad depending on your swing. It also depends on what the flex is at the moment. A shaft that is too stiff for you will never fully "load" and feel "dead", so more flex may actually be an improvement. A shaft that is too flexible for you may lead to a loss of accuracy. You can always get one club extended by an inch, and see how it plays before you commit to having the whole set done.
Trentham Golf Club |
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Dont want to be too picky, but...
No it wont. It will change the location of the flex point relative to the full length of the shaft. And allow infintessimally more leverage to be applied.
Technically correct, but irrelevant to the player. Butt weight changes measured swingweight, but doesnt change perceived swingweight.
No it wont. The lie angle remains as it was. Did we bend the head? No. Length adjustments change the relationship between the golfer, his stance and the clubhead. This is not as is so often stated a case of "X inches length equals Y degrees lie angle". Its way more complex than that. It's not a popular view at the moment, but I hold the opinion that most golfers would be better served to have a static fit, a course of lessons and lots of practice. The problem with dynamic fit is that allmost any change in swing mechanics invalidates the fit. And even most very good club level golfers vary their mechanics more or less constantly - deliberately or unconsciously.
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Packard, Adding an inch to the shaft will soften the shaft (depending on the shaft but you could bet around 8 cycles per minute) as its made the shaft longer and the weight further away from the but end of the shaft, this will make the shaft softer. It will also alter the swingweight in both measured and percieved, its not only but weight being added but also length (that would be in terms of a grip which will alter measured but not percieved swingweight). Correct about the lie angle, the head is not bent but it will change the position of the hands at impact so lie angle will need to be checked. You are incorrect about static vs dynamic fitting. A major change in the swing would have to change the effect of dynamic fitting. Static fitting is useless as it cannot account for both posture and swing plane.
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I will just quickly add tho, if you are +1 inch over there is no need to get caught up in swingweight etc and the changes it'll make, because if you are +1 inch over then it'll be what it is. Same as lie, you adjust it to what it needs to be.
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Ben - I think we said the same thing about shaft flex, but in different ways. I'll take your point on swingweight. Tiny, but you are right, there is a small amount of extra weight below the hands. Static fitting is not useless. At the extreme example - a golfer who has never held a club in his hands before. Static fit. Place the equipment in his hands which will best facillitate learning a sound setup and swing. Dynamic fitting is truly useless in the rank beginner's case. At the other extreme the perfect setup and swing, which we never want to change. Dynamic fit. Fine tuning to perfection. Somewhere in between there is a crossover point. I dare to venture that it is nowhere near the point most players believe it is. A dynamic fit is ONLY useful when wielded with the swing to which it was fitted. Further, it happens distressingly often that golfers are handed equipment from a dynamic fit which actually makes it impossible to hit the ball to the target with a good swing, but which is just dandy for the bad swing they had the day they were fitted. And useless also for the different bad swing they have two weeks later.
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Phil is not talking about just adding weight to the butt to artificially alter the swingweight (which I agree is pretty meaningless). He is talking about extending the length of his clubs by an inch by adding length under the grip. I would have thought that makes the head an inch further away from the grip!
Trentham Golf Club |
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Packard,
I agree on the static fit for beginners and the like. Dynamic
fitting shouldn't a a process just to determine length, it
should also be used for shaft profile, weight, head design, grip
size etc (all 21 key components), and the fitting should not be
based solely indoor. I personally build up demo clubs to
people's spec and I have found every single time I've
done this its worked. Not only will a full dynamic fit like this
improve on center shots but its also about minimising the effect
of off center shots. I supose I also have the advantage where
most of my clients are sub 5 in handicap or professionals, most
of these guys have pretty grooved swings
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Is Phil a beginner?
Trentham Golf Club |
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With a handicap of 9, i doubt it.
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From a chopper's perspective, I've had 1" extensions added to my two sets instead of getting them reshafted. It's worked fine both times. I did the first set on recommendation of my club pro after a dynamic fitting session. The need for a lengthened shaft was recently reconfirmed by Brendon at the MGA in a more thorough assessment. All in all an inexpensive way to improve the fit of an existing set.
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Just confirming. So you'd expect he'd have a fairly well-honed swing and would be beyond the stage of a static beginner's fit? I thought one benefit of a dynamic fit is that players do very different things even during a range of "good" swings (e.g. acceleration, loading, steepness of approach etc.). Things like shaft bend and droop, which can affect loft and lie angle, come into play that are not evident when they're simply addressing the ball. Most better golfers, which Phil seems to be, can feel a difference of a couple of swingweight points, so whether it's "perceived or real" matters not ... if the club feels a lot heavier to swing, it will have a swing effect (and not necessarily negative). Just for the record, I'm 193cm and have been through the gamut of longer clubs, heavier clubs and extensions. I know where Phil's coming from. I had a set of 1" over Golfsmiths that were roughly MOI matched (using a 0.4 increment) for six years. I only replaced them because they literally wore out. I now play 0.5" over (whatever the "standard" is) with around a D4-5 swingweight and find that quite satisfactory for my
swing.
Trentham Golf Club |
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Publish,
My personal belief is that anyone with a consistent tempo will
benefit from dynamic fitting.
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6" 2 and a professional fitter clubmaker in Brisbane. I was pretty happy with the specs as I was nailing the ball with the Titleist system he was using and the Acheiver?? ( I think) launch monitor system.
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HIt them pretty consistent at the moment but with graphite
regular shafts and since the move to the new clubs can not get
distance at all - was hitting 5 iron 150 m carry/ 160-165 total
distance but have almost lost 1 to 1.5 clubs with the new steel
shafts which was the reason to head to the clubfitter. New steel
shafts are SR - in between regular and stiff so if you are right
and the shaft becomes a little more flexible that will suit me
really well as my 5 iron swing speed is 77 mph.
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Thanks Ben, Definitely liked the dynamic fitting as as soon as I
got into the longer club my posture improved and then swing plane
improved and then more centre hits occurred and I could have a
bit more of a go at the ball - as a result my 5 iron swing speed
increased from 77 to approx 81mph - that pretty much says it all
I believe - more distance and better ball striking.
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