A little background: I tend to slice my driver & 5 wood about 50% of the time. I'm right handed in all other activities except golf. Overall my iron play is fairly straight and consistent. I was told that a little lead tape on the heel of my woods would help. Has anyone tried using lead tape with positive results ? Also where exactly on the heel (back ? bottom ?) ? Any help is appreciated.
Lead tape will make your club head heavier and harder to get it around therefore perpetuating your slice. You want a lighter club or a whippier shaft or both. Another thought - if you are only slicing half of the time, then you are swinging poorly half of the time and your club is fine.
Best advise - consult a pro.
Actually that is incorrect. Randomly placed lead will do that but if you place a strip or two along the heel side of the club it will help you square the face a little if you typically leave it open. This is the same idea of the R7, RPM Quad, Opti Fit FT-3 drivers etc. Conversly putting a piece of lead tape on the toe side of the club will help you hold off your release and promote more of a fade. This does work, the pros use lead alot. Look at the clubs in thier bag the next time you attend a tourny especially the irons. Increase weighting helps you feel the clubhead more. You just need to determine the right amount of feel for your swing. If you do have a swing fault and you want it fixed by all means take a lesson but weighting does help.
I know for a fact this works becuase I use it and my old ERC Fusion 9 degree driver is the only club I have ever hit that I actually played a soft draw. Not my normal shot shape at all. It was set-up to do so with internal weighting. All of the even degree ERC Fusion drivers were (8, 9, 10 degree). The 11 and 12 degree were even more extremely weighted to draw and the tour lofted versions (7.5, 8.5, 9.5 and 10.5) were neutrally wieghted. The new FT-3 driver's weight bias are indicated on the clubhead. I am using this an an example of how the weighting works...and it does. That's one reason some are paying so much for the R7.
Your post was exquisitely clear in explaining the proper use of weighting of the clubhead to influence ball flight.
I agree with your assertions. I also happen to believe that r7's are grossly overpriced golf clubs that take lead taping to a whole new level of convenience.
My last post was in jest. I agree though. TM is charging the player more for one club which they hope will fit everyone's swing. Callaway makes several different versions for several different swing types...and charges less do to so. And the tour version and the regular FT-3 are the same price. Have you seen the TP R7? $799! Um....no thanks! I don't care what shaft it has in it. I'm pretty sure I can break that shaft just as easy...I, I, I mean I bet it doesn't float any better than the old shefts.....I, I, I mean....oh forget it! It ain't worth $800.
A little background: I tend to slice my driver & 5 wood about 50% of the time. I'm right handed in all other activities except golf. Overall my iron play is fairly straight and consistent. I was told that a little lead tape on the heel of my woods would help. Has anyone tried using lead tape with positive results ? Also where exactly on the heel (back ? bottom ?) ? Any help is appreciated.
Just buy some and experiment! To stop a slice you would need to plaster so much on the club that it could be used as an anchor.
The same way the weights on an R7 do not cure a slice or hook, they just slightly alter flight. They do help change trajectory though.
My guess is a lesson or two would help more than tape.
I agree with getting a lesson. You are doing something different with the driver sometimes that you are not doing with your irons. Find what that is. My bet is that when you move the ball up in your stance for the driver, you are opening your shoulders instead of raising your left shoulder and dropping your right shoulder a little. This will keep your shoulders square at address.
Slice/fade sometimes? Why not just try moving the ball an inch forward in your stance. That would give you a fraction of a second more time to square the club face, and allow you to hit a straight ball. It works the same as an off-set head driver, and it doens't cost anything to try. You could try it until you have time to go take a lesson and find out why you are hitting that fade in the first place. No matter what you may have been told before, correcting a fade/slice isn't a hard job. One lesson from a good instructor should be all it takes. The lesson if the better choice here, and it's a long term correction, rather than a short term bandaid.
I use about 20 gr of lead tape on my driver; 10 gr directly above the soleplate across the back center of the clubhead and another 10 gr along the inside left. I was driving the ball striaght previous to using the tape, and have not noticed a tremendous amont of difference. I do tend to draw the ball slightly on mishits rather than the fade I would get on off center hits previous. The main benefit for me is that I can feel the clubhead better now vs without the tape, and through that I have improved on my tempo as I now have more feedback as to where the clubhead is during the swing. Drawbacks that I have noticed are about a 5-10% loss in distance and a muted sound at impact. I have improved on dispersion however; I feel that this is due to my improved swing tempo which I directly attribue to the tape. I use a 44.5 inch DG gold stiff shaft which also adds to the overall weighting. I drive 280 now with the tape on center hits with a medium trajectory ball flight. I recently used a driver of a friend (sorry, it was a custom built job and I didn't ask the specs); the head size was a shade under mine and was shafted in graphite...I drove the ball to almost exactly the same spot, again with a slight draw. Long story short, I suggest that you work on your swing as my conclusion is that my improved consistency is due to an improved swing developed by using the tape rather than just the tape alone.
20 grams of lead tape is bringing the swingweight of your driver up by 7 swingweight points as 2.5 grams equall 1 swingweight point. this is proably helping your tempo if you tend to be a agressive hitter of the ball. a good custom fitter would be able to see this in your swing while having you hit on a launch monitor. Also another factor most people overlook is that the OEM companies {original equipment manufaturers,Callaway.Taylor Made Titlist and Nike} have been making drivers longer which leads to major control issues. If you don't have a inside out swingplane a longer driver will definetely lead to loss of control and distance,
Ken
PCS Class A clubbuilder
GCAadvanced professional fitter
I use lead tape quite often on woods to "tune" my woods. I place a bit of tape on the head at times, but...it tends to change the ballflight characteristics too much in the wind...I advise to minimize tape on the head. a better option: experiment with wrapping 2-3 grams of lead tape around three main areas of the SHAFT in different combinations and weights. 2" below the grip, 1" above the tip of the shaft and somewhere in the middle of the club. Basically what you are doing is changing the characteristics of the shaft (swingweight, kickpoint, tip stiffness). You can then "tune" your ballflight to your exact specifications (high/mid/lo ballflight, slight draw/slight fade/neutral ballflight). Experiment, experiment, experiment. Don't call me crazy, I was doing this long before Tiger Woods was....check out his Nike driver, he's going the exact same thing. You'll hit more fairways. The pro's have access to 1000's of different shafts (for free), each with different characteristics...the rest of us have to pay each time we swap shafts. As long as you start with a high quality shaft with shaft specs (close) to your ideal specs, you can tune the wood to hit like a rifle. Make sure to begin with a shaft that more or less is close to your appropriate stiffness and shaft weight. You don't want too much lead tape, just enough to change the ballflight. I wrap a tight cover of black electrical tape over the lead tape to keep it from coming off during play.
Last edited by single_digits : October 19th, 2005 at 01:16 PM.
September 23rd, 2005, 05:27 PM
Use of lead tape on driver
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