I played with a golfer last weekend who started off a bit erratic in direction with his driver however I observed he slowed down his swing and started to hit it straight down the middle for the rest of the round, but I knew his issue was the shaft he was using on his driver and it was not his swing that was causing him to be so erratic. Basically, this golfer was using a 60g mid spin stiff shaft and when he swung at his full speed potential this shaft was flexing too much which led to him missing fairways early in the round. Yet when he slowed down his swing, he did hit it straight but I could also see he was losing distance because his driver shaft was creating far too much spin on the ball. I explained to him he was using a shaft that was too light and weak for the clubhead speed he was able to generate and that he should get fitted in my opinion for a stronger 70g Lower spinning stiff or possibly x-stiff shaft. I reckoned he was losing about 25 yards with his driver even when he hits it straight because his ball flight was stalling and basically dropping out of the sky with very little run out. As we discussed this, I suddenly realised our mutual friend playing with us was actually was using a 70g x-stiff driver shaft in his driver, so I suggested he should try out that driver on the next hole and compare it to his own driver.
So, on the next tee he stood up first with his own driver and he hit another drive down the middle of the fairway but again he had little to no run out. He then took his friends driver with the stronger lower spin shaft and I reminded him he could now use his normal swing speed and he did not need to slow down his swing with this shaft. To his surprise he hit the straightest drive of the day straight down the middle with a much more penetrating ball flight and with I would guess about 700-800 rpm less spin than his own driver. This drive notably flew past his own first driver and looking at the flight he got about 12-15 yards of run even though the fairway was quite soft. I walked up to his second drive and I lasered back to his original drive and he had actually gained 35 yards more with his friend’s driver over his own driver. Now I also know if this had been during the summer months when you get a lot more run on the firmer fairways, this would have been 45+ yards more because the lower spinning ball flight with his friend’s driver would run at least 25+ yards during the summer months. On this hole this golfer was hitting a hybrid for his second shot from his own driver but he would have reached the green with a mid-iron from his friend’s driver which is a huge difference for any golfer.
Time and time again I see golfers having to slow down their golf swings because when they swing fast, they are far more erratic however they are very quick to blame their golf swings over checking their driver to see if it is suitable for them or not.
I also last week tried out the three new TaylorMade driver heads that TaylorMade just launched. I rarely change my driver shaft because I am so used to it and I know it works well. I had considered maybe going for a higher spinning more forgiving head this year hence why I said I would try out and compare the Max most forgiving head, the standard Qi35 head and the LS head. I always use the LS head because it generally is the head I hit the furthest but I still wanted to consider the other head options as possibilities. The following is the average results I received with the three head options :
Qi35 Max 9° 3280 spin 269 yds carry 278 total
Qi35 9° 2984 spin 278 yds carry 288 total
Qi35 9° LS 2364 spin 298 yds carry 322 total
So, as you can see from the above figures even though I used the same driver shaft with all the three heads I received much lower spin rates with the LS head over the Max and standard heads which lead to more carry and run out after the ball landed. So, it just proved to me further how important it is to get fitted for a driver and how important it is to get your equipment checked if you don’t think you are getting the most out of your current driver.
