At 03:03 PM 2/6/03 -0500, Bernie Baymiller wrote:
Bernie,Dave, > (1) Bernie's response that longer clubs play better contains a built-in > caveat -- you need to train yourself to hit them. Clubfitting is usually > thought of as the other way around; you build the club to get the best > performance from the golfer's current swing. Bernie's approach is to build > the club to get the best performance, assuming the golfer is willing to > change his/her swing.That's an excellent summary of my thoughts. I don't believe in fitting a club to a bad swing unless the player is unwilling to change... For most seniors, the goal is getting back lost distance. If my "future-fitting" is done right, it forces the player to improve his/her swing...which also helps the player to lower their score.
"Improve" isn't necessarily the case, if I've read your earlier posts correctly. It involves CHANGING their DRIVER swing from what worked in their earlier years. The change is necessitated not by pure length but by the concomitant swingweight increase. They have to learn to lose the late release. Going to an earlier release is not an improvement of the swing in normal terms -- quite the opposite. It is only an improvement in the sense that you need to do it in order to use the geriatric medicine you've prescribed.
I'm not challenging the assertion that longer drivers help reasonably skillful seniors regain lost distance. I'm challenging the generalization that you're making from that.
Which brings us to...
I have a lot of trouble with this. The trouble is geometry. It's the same geometry that says a longer club needs a flatter lie. If you go to a longer club, then the swing plane WILL be different. It may be just as good. It may be just as consistent. But it WILL be flatter. That's what I was talking about.>....I'm not interested in altering my swing plane to use the new irons. In fact, many players using longer clubs don't have to change their swing at all... Lighter shafts and larger heads make longer drivers easier to swing today. I've seen many seniors make no change in their swing, other than not letting the upper body get ahead of the hands (a typical old man's swing problem), and begin to hit the ball consistently well after only 3 swings. There is no conscious adjustment to the swing plane needed, either...in fact, I make a conscious effort to try and keep my swing plane the same as for shorter clubs.
Also, as I said, I don't need more distance. I need more consistency. I need to make the best 50% of my swings more like 90% of the time. I don't need my best swing to be any better.
I'm much more an engineer than an athlete. I have enough trouble maintaining just one swing. I have no intention of maintaining two swings (one for a long, high-swingweight driver and the other for the rest of the clubs) if I don't absolutely have to. As I told Alan, making some of the middle clubs longer with no change in swingweight may work for me; it requires the same swing I currently use for other middle clubs. So I'm going to try it and see. But I've tried tampering with the extremes, and I have no intention of going that way again until age catches up with me and I have to.
Cheers!
DaveT
