Robert, Yes, you flatten your swing with a longer driver...just like you flatten your swing when you go from a PW to a 5W. Actually, anyone's swing remains very much the same, with very similar errors no matter what club you are hitting...long or short. I did make my most successful set of irons (back when I was 65 years old and a 1.5 GHIN) 1" over standard graphite shaft length (Chicago 944C heads on Apache PM-30 shafts) and bent the heads 2° flat. Same swing and actually a lighter swingweight than my previous steel-shafted irons. Gained 15 yards a club when I found I needed the 275 cpm (A2) shafts instead of the 283 cpm (R1). I've lost 2" in height since then and a standard length gives me a pretty flat lie, so I've given up 10 yards because I don't have to adjust the lie. Actually, to me, it doesn't matter what number is on an iron...just so I know how far it goes. When I need a longer 3-iron shot, I have a 19° hybrid and inch over that will get me 175 on a good shot. Hit my 5-hybrid about 165...the rest are irons about 10 yards apart...PW about 100-110 yards.
The point of the Biomechanics study was to find out if longer club length did or did not affect the accuracy of a driver. They used scratch players with few swing errors who could adjust to a length change in a few swings...results showed a player swinging a club properly could hit the ball just as accurately with a 48" driver as with his own driver. Of course, the long driver did get more distance for all players, though not a much as I've seen many seniors get...a good solid hit will get my senior clientele about 8-10 yards per extra inch. Some senior women using my long drivers got as much as 15 yards per extra inch. I agree that a long driver made too heavy, or with too high a swingweight for the player will not play well. You have to know your player's limits, swing type, etc. to build the club properly. I went to a Ping or Cobra demo day at our Toqua range a year ago (don't remember whose it was) and, to my surprise, they had a 48" demo driver. OMG, it was heavy...they just took a standard 200+ gram head and a standard shaft and used probably a 55 gram grip. I could barely get it moving. It was 40 yards shorter than my BOM. Build the long driver properly and it is no more difficult to swing than a shorter driver. When a fairly strong senior, with say about a 15 handicap, makes a slight pull or push swing and hits a ball off-line with a 44" driver, he's in the deep Bermuda rough on our courses. Can't hit out with any club lofted less than a 5-iron. Maybe the ball went 225 yards...not much chance of getting to the green. Make the same swing error with a 48" driver and he's 25-30 yards farther up in the rough...255 yards is not usually enough farther off-line to be in the woods and a whole lot better chance to knock an iron on the green or close to it. I think you win more than you lose on "near misses" with a long driver you have some ability to hit. Now, if I was hitting the ball 280 or 290 yards on an off-line trajectory, sure I could be in the woods. Not many seniors over 60 years old can do that. To score well, you have to play to the design of the course. At age 60, I wanted to hit the ball far enough off the tee to have most second shots a 7-iron or less. I could hit the green 85% of the time with a 7-iron, but a 5-iron was more like 60%. The long driver took me from 220 with my old steel-shafted 43" driver (that I hit 255 at age 30) to 265+ and made the best golfing year of my life possible at age 65 in 1999. Bernie [email protected] ----- Original Message ----- From: Robert Devino To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 8:51 PM Subject: Re: ShopTalk: Lightweight clubhead I have to admit I am a bit confused here. The whole point of club fitting is to get the length , stiffness and swing weighted club that best fit the player. If you lengthen a club don't you need to flatten your swing? So now you want an average player to have to change his swing plane even more????? So getting long on length just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I mean why not just have our irons made 2 inches over and flatten them 6 degrees??? From what I have seen and according to the average handicap of the average player 45, inches is too long for almost all of them. Why try to push them into 48 inches for a few more yards of an off line drive. You can put almost any club in a pros hands and they will figure out how to hit it pretty well even if the shaft is made from rope. So test results using a pro or a machine are pretty irrelavent when it comes to what an average player can handle or can't handle. Sincerely, Robert Devino 14252 Delano St. Van Nuys, Ca. 91401 (818) 908-1691 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Bernie Baymiller <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, November 10, 2009 5:27:28 PM Subject: Re: ShopTalk: Lightweight clubhead Dave, Open for discussion? OK. Dave, if you ever took the time to find the long driver components which would work for you and then spent some time practicing with the club (as you have to do to hit any club consistently well), you might find the long club would work just as well or better than a short one. I really doubt that you've ever really tried to do that. The 2008 UK test done by Biomechanics Magazine with scratch players to see if there was any difference in accuracy by increasing club length concluded length (from 45"- 50") didn't matter. Get the head square at impact and the ball goes where it's aimed. A higher swingweight certainly does inhibit acceleration from release...In 1995, I had to learn the timing at E6, now I play a D9 BOM at 295 grams total weight. But, as John points out, there are components now that will make a 48" driver even easier to hit than mine...lighter than most OEM 45" drivers and D5 or D6 swingweight are certainly possible. There's more difference going from a PW to about a 5W length than from a 44" driver to a 48" driver...if you can handle the traditional change, you can certainly manage the longer driver difference. Today, I see a major problem for the "teener" handicapers beyond driver club length...a very upright lie angle...almost every component head I've seen lately has had a 59°-60° lie angle. Even a 44" driver needs less than that for average height players to get a flat lie. Seems like a 55° lie is about right for a 5'9" - 5'11" player. Hitting the new shallower-faced, wider and deeper heads with a bulge and roll at a toe-up angle requires a very consistent swing...more consistent than mine. So, I stick with the big, round ball-shaped heads like the BOM and the 58° lie angle doesn't make much difference. Can anyone explain to me why any designer would put a 60° lie angle on a driver head? I recently made a 47" BOM for a retired pilot and ex-pro golfer in his mid-60s who had been playing a 44" driver. He was beginning to lose some distance and some bucks to the guys in his group (which includes a 2-time Tennessee senior champion with a plus handicap) and he wanted to try a longer (and lighter) driver. He practices a lot and it didn't take him very long at all to usually outdrive almost everyone in his group...picked up maybe 30 or 40 yards. Well, he had to cut the driver down an inch to 46" because he was hitting it too far. I played with him and his wife Sunday (gorgeous afternoon...sunny and 70°, fall colors and faint breeze) and he's dialed the club back to the 280-290 yard range, which from our regular men's tees is still a bit past most ideal positions for a second shot. At 75 with a titanium left knee (too much golf) and a anti-rejection drug gut, I'm struggling to get to 250 yards with the 48-incher. So, sometimes I'll try a heavier-headed, shorter 44" driver (Turner MT at 214 grams, for instance), or my oldie-but-goodie Integra Super 450 (the original 195 gram high COR version) at 45" with a heavier Penley shaft. I always find that I don't hit them any more accurately or consistently than the long driver...and I lose 20-30 yards...worth about 3 shots a round difference in my comparison tests. I've been building long drivers for men and women seniors from 60-80 years old since 1996 (and some younger guys who want scramble drivers). Those who learned to hit those drivers lowered their handicaps by maybe 3-4 shots on average. I've seen a few better players go from around an 11 to a 4 in 2 months and several 22s go to near 15. Very few, who used my clubs with the longer length, stayed with them and achieved more distance on their drives, did not improve their scores. Those who listened to the nay-sayers on length and gave up during the learning curve (about 2 months) certainly did not improve. John, have you received any negative comments from anyone on the long drivers you've built for them? Bernie [email protected] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Tutelman" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 5:19 PM Subject: Re: ShopTalk: Lightweight clubhead > At 10:21 AM 11/10/2009, [email protected] wrote: >> I'm thinking of having a batch of high loft lightweight (190-195g) clubheads made up for senior longdrive clubs. > > This is not a private response, but something for general discussion... > > Vector (our own David Dugally's company) and perhaps a few others are going in the opposite direction. His "Tour Spec" head is in the 206g range, to limit the length you need to build the club with lightweight shafts. > > I understand Bernie's argument about long drivers, and I'm certainly willing to stipulate it works for some. Not everybody. Likely not most. It certaily does not work for me. Many golfers need shorter, not longer, drivers than the OEMs supply off the rack. > > I have a few drivers made with the Vector Tour Spec heads. They are made with lightweight to ultra-light shafts, but limited to no more than 44.5" and at least D-0 swingweight. I very much like the concept. BTW, I understand that David used the discretionary weight to stiffen parts of the head, so he has better control of flex where it is needed (to put high COR all over the face). > > Just another opinion, > DaveT > > > -- > Shoptalk ** Sponsored by the new Aldila Voodoo. > Learn more at http://aldilavoodoo.com/ -- Shoptalk ** Sponsored by the new Aldila Voodoo. Learn more at http://aldilavoodoo.com/
