Comments for Golf Things Considered

Comment on Are Your Golf Clubs Too Long? by Don

Don — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:46:57 +0000

The weather is not helping any at the moment, but I’ll let you know what I end up with for the length of my drivers when it warms up a bit and I can do some good testing. I have a TM CBT driver with 3 screw weights that I can use for the testing as it will allow me to change the swing weight as I try shorter shaft lengths just by changing out the screws with different ones. I’ll be in touch.

Comment on Are Your Golf Clubs Too Long? by John Rogers

John Rogers — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:06:52 +0000

Don, it sounds like you are on the right track. I’ll be curious what length your driver ends up. I’m not sure most guys wouldn’t do as well or better with a driver about the length of a 5-wood.

Good luck!

Comment on Swing Like a Tour Player by Don

Don — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:56:07 +0000

The “quieter” a swing, the more efficient it is; and the more efficient it is, the less it needs to be fixed.

I really love this statement, it makes so much sense to me. And it’s exactly what I try to do when I practice at the range. I try to make a nice easy relaxed swing. When I remember to do it correctly, I get more clubhead speed with more control of the club and hit the ball straighter and longer than ever. I’m really glad I read your column today, thanks for the advise and words of wisdom.

Comment on Are Your Golf Clubs Too Long? by Don

Don — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:29:04 +0000

Thank you for your reply. I have measured my swing speed with drivers with shafts weighing from 47 to 78 grams, and I get the SAME 105-108 MPH with all shaft weights. As for my shaft weights when I measured my swing. my current driver has a 75 gram shaft, and my 3 wood and 5 wood have the 87 gram S flex EPIC shafts. So it is NOT a case of a lighter shaft in my woods, just the opposite in fact.
Can’t really tell you what my speed is when I don’t hit a ball. What I can tell you is that my speed is lower with all my clubs when I take a practice swing. I can also tell you that I NEVER try to make an aggressive swing at the ball. Instead I try to make a nice EASY and RELAXED swing, as I get more clubhead speed this way. Any time I try to swing harder, my swing speed goes DOWN, not up, so I use a relaxed easy swing that gets me more speed. The more I swing easy, the more I can start my downswing with a hip turn back to the ball, and the more my swing is in the proper sequence. hips first pulling the upper body around which in turn pulls my arms and hands back to the ball. I try to swing like Fred Couples, totally relaxed with no sign of any effort envolved. I hope that makes sense to you.

YES, I am thinking of going to a shorter driver. I cut down one driver to 44.5″ and didn’t see any lose of speed when I mesaured it, so I’m thinking of choking down another 1/2 inch and see if I see a change. If not I’ll try another 1/2″ again and maybe keep going until I do see a lose in speed. At which point I can pull the grip and cut the shaft to the last length before I saw a lose in speed. With any luck, the shorter shaft will give me improved ball contact at the same clubhead speed and end up gaining me distance. I might need to add some weight to the head to get the swing weight back up, but that’s not a problem. Thank you again for your reply.

Comment on Are Your Golf Clubs Too Long? by John Rogers

John Rogers — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:22:38 +0000

Don, I don’t know if I can completely explain the phenomenon of shorter clubs generating higher speeds, but it doesn’t surprise me much. I regularly see people hit longer shots with shorter clubs, but a lot of this is due to the fact that they can generally find the center of the face and compress the ball better with shorter clubs.

A few thoughts: first, isn’t it interesting that your 3-wood is the length that drivers were made before titanium, etc? Do you have similar shafts in your fairway woods and driver? Could it be that you have lighter shafts in the shorter clubs and can get them moving a little better? Another thought: do those same results occur even if you don’t hit a ball?

The reason I ask this last question is because the over-length drivers we use these days do not allow us to swing very aggressively because we would never get the club “back in front” or the face squared up if we went all-out at the ball. Personally, I think that’s part of why good female players with long drivers look so fluid–they can’t afford to go fast through the ball. You can be pretty aggressive with the 5-wood and still get it squared by impact, but maybe not the driver. Can you measure your speeds without worrying about the resulting golf shot?

It also seems possible to me that the long drivers make our mechanics sloppy and inefficient to the point that our instinctive swing fixes by impact might introduce tension or other undesirable elements which slow the action.

I really appreciate your comments and sharing this interesting phenomena about your swing speeds. Are you considering going with a short driver? (Sounds like you might max-out at about 43 inches!). Please let me know if you figure anything else out, and good luck!

Comment on About Trajectory by John Rogers

John Rogers — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:05:13 +0000

Thanks for checking out the article, Don. We definitely seem to be on the same page in terms of chipping. Here’s to great chipping in 2012!

Comment on About Trajectory by Don

Don — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:41:42 +0000

I totally agree with you on using more than one club for chipping around the green. I normally use an 8 iron for most of my chipping, but move down to an 9 or wedge when the carry distance gets longer and the roll needs to be less. This is how I learned to chip. I like to use pretty much the same chipping motion and let the loft of the different clubs do most of the work for me. I find it easier than using one wedge and having to make different strokes to fit the distance needs of the shot.

Comment on Are Your Golf Clubs Too Long? by Don

Don — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:14:43 +0000

I just read your article on how clubs sold today can be too long for most golfers. I have a question for you that I hope you can answer. My current driver is 45″ long and my 3 wood is 43.5″ and my 5 wood is 42.5″. I measure my swing speed most every time I go to the driving range. My driver swing speed is 105-108MPH. What I’ve been finding lately is that my 3 wood and 5 wood swing speeds are very close to what I’m seeing with my driver, and in some cases HIGHER than my driver speeds. A few weeks ago I hit 112 with my 5 wood, highest speed of the day in fact. I’d be interested in reading your thoughts on this and see if this is something that you have seen in your own testing. Thanks in advance for your reply.

Don

Comment on Right Might be Wrong by John Rogers

John Rogers — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Peter, thanks for sharing your story. It’s obvious that you have found something of importance concerning the eye dominance, and it agrees with things I see on a regular basis from my clients. I hope the results continue to prove your discovery correct! And I hope it carries over to the full-swing as well! I would encourage you to make sure that your eye dominance hasn’t skewed your alignment too much–a lot of swings “evolve” to fit poor alignment which is usually caused by the visual distortion that comes with eye dominance.

As for the putting: I wonder if you consider your troubles of the past also to be a “yip”? As I mentioned briefly in my article about the yips, the main mechanical issue that leads to these issues is allowing the face to shut on the backswing (often because the action is too steep or outside). If the face shuts too much, or faces the ground too much, on the backswing, golfers tend to make a jabby, hard-accelerating stroke that opens the face. This “fix” of the backswing often leads to right-side misses.

Hopefully your days of struggling are gone, but if the problems re-emerge, have someone help you learn to slightly open the face going back so that you can make a natural release of the putter going through. Good luck!

Comment on Right Might be Wrong by Peter

Peter — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 16:05:15 +0000

My golf game has been plagued by consistently missing virtually all my short putts (apart from tap ins) always by a fraction on the right side of the hole. I have kept statistics and these missed putts have cost me an average of 8 shots per round over the last year. I have used putting alignment mirrors set up very accurately and still miss to the right, always by the same small margin. I always set up with my left eye over the back of the ball which is how i was taught by a highly regarded coach. Today before i played i went through a routine on the practice green with the putting mirror and with the usual results. During the round i started to miss the usual short putts to the right. I was however playing with a new member at the club, an experienced golfer. He saw the problem and the solution straight away. I am strongly right eye dominant and he told me to set up with the right eye over the ball, not the left. I did this and suddenly my short putting was transformed. At the end of the round i got the putting mirror out again and set up as normal but with my dominant right eye over the ball and hit about 20 10 footers and didn’t miss one.
I am almost certainly a good example of never realising how important eye dominance is in golf. The rest of my game is pretty good but there is a slight right bias in all my shots – i intend to work on that now by shifting my head slightly in the set up to move the right eye further forward.
I just wonder how many golfers there are out there and probably more to the point, how many coaches, who do not know of the significance of eye dominance.