3Jack Experiments With Shortening The Driver Shaft

One of the questions I get and I regularly see on message forums is ready shortening the length of the motive force. As maximum human beings understand, the driver shaft lengths from OEM?S are usually in the range of 45-1/four? To forty six-1/2? Lengthy. However, in line with Tom Wishon?S publication ?12 Myths That Could Wreck Your Game?, the common duration of a driver on Tour for every of the closing five years has handiest been 44-1/2? Lengthy.

The idea at the back of the longer motive force shafts is that the longer the shaft will equate to extra clubhead speed with a purpose to allow the golfer to hit it longer. The predominant troubles I see is that the long shafts regularly have an impact on the golfer?S cope with role and reason the golfer to make swing compensations to cope with the shaft being too long. The different trouble is that even supposing the golfer can address the ball fairly properly, they can have trouble timing a shaft this is lengthy in period.

I had debated this myself, however I didn?T feel I could pretty consider recommended lengths from different fitters not named Tom Wishon (or Richard Kempton http://www.Theclubdoctors.Co.United kingdom/). And the book that I had study about driving force shaft fitting from Wishon turned into his 2006 ?The Search For the Perfect Driver.? The book is a superb book, IMO, however a number of the statistics had to be up to date. I was now not quite into his endorsed period for a driver based totally on wrist-to-ground dimension because it got here out very short in duration (round 43-1/4? Lengthy). My bet is that from what I examine within the book, it seemed to be based totally upon a golfer the usage of a metal shaft in place of the longer graphite shaft. Steel shafts weigh a whole lot greater than graphite and back then graphite shafts have been difficult to determine out. But now with Shaft Bend Profile generation, there's actually no motive to apply metallic shafts in a motive force IMO.

The guide is free and can be found here. I rather suggest studying this and it?S an clean examine.

Http://www.Loomiscustomgolf.Com/pdf/12MythsBook.Pdf

Go to desk 2 on web page 10 and also you?Ll discover a advocated period for a driver and 5-iron based totally upon your wrist to floor measurement. I determined that I need a driving force around 44-3/eight? Long. However, there had been several factors I needed to bear in mind before doing this.

DRIVERS USED

I actually have Wishon 919THI drivers.

Driver #1

9? Loft

58? Lie attitude

321 grams static weight

2,825 kg/cm^2 MOI

forty five? Lengthy

Aldila RIP Beta X-Stiff shaft (67 grams)

Driver #2

10? Loft

58? Lie attitude

321 grams static weight

2,825 kg/cm^2 MOI

forty five-1/8? Long

UST Mamiya ProForce VTS Silver 6x shaft (sixty nine grams)

There are some minor spec variations just like the loft and 1/eight? Distinction within the period. The shafts are slightly extraordinary in weight. The Aldila RIP Beta has a stiffer butt phase which makes the club *feel* stiffer and extra ?Boardy.? I felt that the loft become too low for me and the shaft turned into too boardy, so I were given a higher lofted motive force with the UST Mamiya shaft.

The idea became then to take Driver #1 with the Aldila shaft, trim it right down to 44-three/8? Lengthy, fit the MOI to the longer driving force and analyze the results.

MOI AND WEIGHT

There was a 1/eight? Difference in shaft duration when I began out. The shafts had a 2 gram difference in weight. So when I started out out with those drivers, their MOI with NO weight introduced to the pinnacle, become kind of the same at 2,790 kg/cm^2. I then brought approximately 3 grams of lead tape to the hosel to every to get them to match to 2,825 kg/cm^2. I actually have decided that MOI is quite lots spot on for my optimum MOI.

I don?T have the bend profile facts for the UST Mamiya shaft as that has now not been brought to Wishon?S database. My assumption is that the Aldila has a stiffer butt segment and has a touch greater weight closer to the top section than the UST Mamiya shaft. Otherwise, from a weight attitude there?S not an awful lot of a difference between the two and my targets where to determine out what variations might there be in clubhead velocity and assault attitude, if any.

When I trimmed the Aldila RIP Beta from the butt end to get the membership at 44-three/eight? Long, that made the membership ?-inch shorter than the UST Mamiya shaft.

This also considerably reduced the MOI.

So the Aldila Shaft went from (w/no lead tape):

45-inches: 319 grams, 2790 kg/cm^2

to

44-3/8 inches: 317 grams, 2,680 kg/cm^2

Now recall, I want to get the MOI to 2,825 kg/cm^2. In order to get the membership from 2,680 to two,825, that supposed I needed to add 12 grams of lead tape across the hosel. And that is the way it affected the entire static weight.

Driver #1 (Aldila 44-3/8” long): 329 grams

Driver #2 (UST forty five-1/8? Long): 321 grams

Hence, the Aldila the shaft is shorter, however due to the fact that I matched the MOI of the 2 golf equipment, the shorter membership is 8 grams heavier in static weight.

Thus, in case you want to trim your personal driver shaft or get a brand new shaft and make it shorter?And IF you need to get the MOI the same as your longer shafted motive force, you may do it. But you MUST bear in mind that the shorter driving force WILL weigh extra inside the method of matching the MOI to the longer driver shaft.

CLUBHEAD SPEED

Even even though the shorter driving force weighed 8-grams extra than the longer driver, in line with Wishon he sees on average, about 1 mph of clubhead pace difference among golf equipment that have a 25 gram difference. So my feeling became that the shorter membership weighing 8-grams greater could be alternatively negligible with relation to clubhead velocity.

In the quit, I observed that the distinction in clubhead speed changed into approximately zero.5 to 1.Zero mph between the two drivers with the longer UST Mamiya shaft being quicker in clubhead speed.

My concept is that this. Wishon has stated that you virtually don?T see a difference in clubhead velocity till there?S a shaft length distinction of extra than half-inch. So with the difference in shaft period being three/four-inch along with an eight-gram static weight distinction, this is why the clubhead speed within the shorter driving force become approximately 1 mph slower.

The most effective different theory is perhaps the distribution of the load in the shaft may have made a difference as properly.

ATTACK ANGLE

I did not see any distinction in assault attitude with either driving force. My authentic hypothesis become that possibly drivers which can be too lengthy for a golfer could reason a steeper attack attitude due to the fact they could sense like they must un-cock the wrists in advance inside the downswing or it might feel like they might hit the turf in the back of the ball.

Instead, I saw truely no distinction. I turned into retaining my assault angles inside the -zero.5 to -2.0? Downward variety. I will say that my shallowest attack perspective, zero.Eight? Turned into finished with the shorter forty four-3/eight? Aldila motive force. But I could hit pictures changing between golf equipment and spot no distinction in assault angles.

SPIN RATE

It?S difficult to choose with variety balls. Sometimes they would display a spin fee as high as four,000 rpm?S. Other times the spin charge become at 1,seven hundred rpms. I suppose in standard my spin charges are inside the 2,400 to three,000 rpm variety and I did no longer see any difference with both driver.

ACCURACY AND CONSISTENCY

Since the clubhead speed turned into about 1 mph slower with the shorter Aldila shaft and the assault perspective and spin charge become the same, I absolutely had to see a distinction in accuracy and consistency with the shorter shaft to determine if it become worth attempting a shorter shafted driving force.

Here is wherein the shorter motive force won fingers down. Not handiest on well struck shots, however with mis-hits as properly. Essentially, the longer driver shaft might have the ball fly a lot more offline on inaccurate pictures. It became an awful lot mjore tough to govern the preliminary path of the ball flight with the longer driving force.

What I also observed exciting is the launch angle became a good deal better with the shorter driver and the shaft did not feel boardy or too stiff.

This is peculiar because like I mentioned earlier, the shorter driver was in a lower lofted 9° clubhead that I had replaced with a 10? Loft. Now the launch angle was virtually the same or within 0.5° from each other.

What amazed me changed into that the shorter Aldila RIP Beta shaft not felt too stiff or boardy. I actually have the shaft bend profile and in preferred it?S a fairly commonplace shaft bend profile for an X-Stiff shaft, however it's far noticeably stiffer within the butt phase which makes the shaft feel boardy.

Recently, any individual requested Tom Wishon of the outcomes tip trimming, frequently known as ?Tipping?, have at the shaft?S bend profile. Here is what Tom wrote:

There are a few very predictable things in addition to a touch bit of weirdness surrounding what takes place to frequency device readings whilst you increase the end trim on a shaft.

Quote:

In all of our work to look at this using the Auditor frequency analyzer and the same bend profile measurements that we use for all bend profile data work for our software program, most definitely all of the measurement zones from 41" down to 16" do increase in frequency when you tip trim more off a shaft.

Weirdly, we have visible that whilst you do the 11" beam measurement, while you tip an additional amount from the shaft, the 11" measurement both remains the equal or will DECREASE. This to us is VERY STRANGE. It must go up much like all of the different bend profile measurement factors. But it doesn't and to be totally sincere with you, I don't know why and neither do any of the other shaft layout experts that I have requested about this too. Logic says in case you reduce extra of the smallest diameter a part of the shaft, and you then recreate the equal beam length inside the size, on the 11" beam you should be clamping the shaft on what is now a larger diameter a part of the shaft. And that means the shaft section protruding 11" from the clamp includes a bigger diameter a part of the shaft and much less of the weakest part of the shaft - so the freq have to be going up.

In reality it has to get stiffer on the tip end whilst you tip trim more. You're slicing off greater of the weakest part of the shaft leaving greater of the stiffer element. So in fact supported by using golfer hit testing, we will inform you that yes, extra tip trimming will stiffen the WHOLE shaft. Why the freq analyzer indicates this for the 41 to sixteen beam length measurements however no longer for the 11 size, I can't inform you why.

When Wishon does their shaft bend profiles, they degree the frequency of the shaft in 6 one of a kind places from the forty one inch mark (butt quit) to the 11 inch point (tip cease). For iron shafts, they degree five one-of-a-kind locations starting at 36 inches to 11 inches because iron shafts are shorter in raw period than driver shafts.

Wishon?S factor is that when a shaft is tip trimmed, the very bottom measurement of the end section gets softer and the relaxation of the driving force shaft gets stiffer. Why? They do no longer recognise at this factor.

So my concept is when you trim more from the butt stop, possibly the opposite takes place with the very give up of the butt section getting softer. Either way, I agree with that through making the Aldila shaft shorter in duration, the preliminary launch stepped forward exceptionally, from directional release to vertical release.

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE

Overall, the experiment has piqued my interest in going to a shorter shaft. I could change a likely 1 mph or less clubhead velocity for better launch situations and extra accuracy and consistency. However, I do now not assume the usage of the equal UST Mamiya Shaft Model is the solution.

While the lead tape on the hosel is a piece gaudy looking, I would also worry approximately the lead tape coming unfastened and having to deal with that inside the path of a round. And consistent with Wishon, you begin to see a difference in face angle measurements once you upload 11 grams to the hosel. Here I could be including more like 12-13 grams.

My solution is to find a comparable shaft version, but at a heavier weight. The next satisfactory answer appears to be the UST Mamiya ProForce VTS Red 7x shaft. This shaft is nearly the same bend profile in step with UST because the Silver 6x model. But, it weighs 76 grams, which is set nine-10 grams heavier than the Aldila RIP Beta shaft. I even have the Red 7x in my three-wooden. Thus, I hope to put the Red 7x within the 10? Head, get a touch higher release perspective, be higher directionally and feature more consistency and only need to add 3-4 grams of lead tape to the hosel.

SYNOPSIS

So right here is the rundown for going to a shorter motive force shaft:

1. Affects the burden and MOI of the driving force.

2. If you fit MOI to an extended driver, the longer motive force could have a lighter static weight

3. Hopefully the shorter shaft will produce better launch conditions to enhance accuracy and consistency

4. The trick is to parent out if the accelerated accuracy and consistency will outweigh any possible misplaced in clubhead speed.

Five. You may additionally need to visit a heavier model shaft with the identical bend profile a good way to play with motive force with a shorter length shaft.

3JACK