Golfers often ask me what would be my most important tip. My answer often varies depending on how I’m feeling, what I think they want to hear and what will help them the most.
Today my tip is making sure your equipment is custom fit to you.
Having your clubs fit your swing and not you fitting your swing to your clubs is important for you to play with more consistency. If we take drivers for instance, a standard driver length is approx 45-46 inches. Manufacturers make them longer as they shaft will give more distance (though less control). This is true to an extent as some of the real long drivers in competitions will use a shaft length up to 50 inches. Now the average length that the tour pros use is approx 44 inches and many of those guys are over 6 feet tall. 2012 Masters Champion Bubba Watson is 6’3” tall and used 44-3/4 inch driver until recently and is now down to 44-1/2 inch driver. If you’re using too long of a driver your mechanics could be off never giving you much of a chance in your swing.
So is it any wonder you may be struggling to find the fairway as often as you would like?
The benefits of a shorter shaft can increase control and help you to find the sweet-spot more often which in turn could lead to more consistent distance and fairways hit. For a golfer standing 5ft 8 using a driver with a 45-3/4 inch shaft is crazy. Golf is not about how far, it’s about how many. 230 in the fairway is better then 260 in the trees. All the marketing seems to be about distance these days, but with restrictions to the COR of the face, shafts are getting longer. So with the latest and greatest offerings from the big names you’d think that if you were playing a driver that is a few years old then you are doing yourself a disservice. Marketing hype is all it is. This years has to be more explosive then the last or the new models wouldn’t sell. I do however like the fact that many can now have the loft, lie, or face angle adjusted to suit you. This is more useful then a white or square head for instance.
Another important thing if you are going to get fitted is to hit them outside and not just indoors. This is where real golf is played with the elements affecting the ball.
When your equipment is properly fitted to you and your swing you’ll at least know that it’s the indian not the arrow that’s responsible for the good, bad and ugly shots you play!
Eric Moore
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