golfrewind.com

Any of you take the advice of many swing coaches and knock your driver length down an inch? His advice to most players is that you will gain more control and length if you do that because you will hit the ball in the center of the club face more often.

I did this with my driver and found that it works!

Took one inch off of mine three years ago, and have done the same since...I get consistently better distance, although with the longer shaft I could pop a huge one every now and again...

I'm thinking of doing this because I am pretty short. How tall are you guys and what length of shaft are you playing with? Does the grip feel different because its placed lower on the shaft? Also I am a very short hitter (drives 210-230), do you think I can gain distance by chopping an inch or two?

if you start chopping too much off, you may as well just use your 3 wood.
you have to know your limits. many play pro players use a 44" driver but to go any shorter than that will not give you any additional distance.

I'm 6'2" with golf shoes on. Oh, the shaft does not feel any different when it gets knocked down an inch.

I am 6'1" playing a 44"...I use underwraps on all my clubs to the exact thickness required so, no, the grip does not feel at all different...you might gain distance if you have trouble hitting it flush consistently, but I lost a bit of distance comparing best drives before and after cutting, but gained in consistency and dispersion...

If you shorten the shaft, you wll lose some clubhead speed, that a given fact. What may happen, and it's a "may happen", is you might make solid contact with the ball more often. And that will mean better accuracy, and good distance. If you are making poor contact now, solid contact will give you more distance on average. Your best drives will be shorter, but you will have more good drives, so your "AVERAGE" drive will be longer and more accurate. If consistancey is a problem for you know, I'd say it's worth a try. You can always have the shaft cut down an inch and try it out. If you aren't happy, have a shaft extension installed and go back to the old length.

Whenever I'm not completely confident of a particular tee shot I'll just choke down a bit on my driver get a positive thought in my head and swing away hit a good shot -> Then I think about cutting an inch down from the driver's length -> but then I start hitting again and the vicious cycle starts again....

I was thinking about cutting maybe at 1/2 in increments...I guess I can deal with coming up short in the fairway than Long and in the deep rough.....

44.75 is my length. 44.5 felt too short. I tried 46" for a little and had the most rediculous slice. Generally I tend to draw the ball.

Ok, I must be missing something. Why not just choke up in 1/2 inch increments before doing something like cutting a shaft?

Also, changing the length changes other things like flex points, launch angle just to name a few. I'd be careful with recommending that someone cut the length.

I don't feel comfortable choking down so I would rather cut it. I got my irons cut 5/8" and although distance is down, my accuracy has improved greatly. The real downside to cutting my irons, that I saw, was a lower ball flight with my 3,4 &5i.

Racer; choking down an inch is a great way to do this. Choke down, try it for a few days, and see how it works out. Then you can decide if you want to cut the shaft down or not. Also, if this golfer were to choke down an inch, learn to hit the ball well that way, he could then try choking down only 1/2 inch and see if he can still hit the ball well. Then he could try going back to full length, and see if he can hit it better after having choked down. It wouldn't surprise me in the least, if after hitting his driver choked down some, he would be able to handle it at full length with some practice. If not, he could still cut it down as much as needed. I've recommended this method of finding the best length for a driver before, and it still works today.

On playing a shorter driver. I have done extensive testing on my launch monitor and have found contrary to common belief. If your swing is outside in and you are playing a driver 45" or more you will GAIN swingspeed by going shorter sometimes as short as 43 1/2" The reason is when you swing to long a club and are not a tall person or come over the top you must reroute your club if it is to long and this will cause you to lose clubhead speed. If you have a good swing plain you can generate more speed with a longer shaft.
So it all depends on the individual and this is why launch monitor fittings are a must for proper fit clubs

I cut my new driver to 44.5" and I think it's much better. More centre hits, more distance, straighter drives. I had a 45.5" R580, then went to a 45" R540and saw significant improvement despite the smaller head, and now I have a 44.5" Inovex 460cc. Huge improvement. I recommend it. I'm 5'10".