Choke Up or Cut Down?

Wed, 06/30/2010 - 12:00 -- Don Trahan

Got a blog from Krmaddock who says, “How do I drive my tee shot long and straight? The driver is my nemesis. If I could hit the driver straight I would reduce my game to the mid 80's. Please help!”

KR got a response from Chris Mƒ¶ller who had this to say. “I had the same problem , first I cut my shaft drastically, from 44 inch to 40 inch, gained an enormous amount of control/accuracy & believe it or not gained distance, I also invested in the Surges driver DVD it really helped with setup, grip etc…”

Well, there's no doubt that 44 to 40 inches is one heck of a cut in the length of your driver. It certainly helped the distance. I think that's part of the issue that KR has.

Everybody has an optimum length. The first way to start for KR to try to figure out if maybe his driver is too long is to start choking up on it, stop at a half inch, then maybe to an inch. Just keep going on down. At some point in time, at each one, you'll probably start hitting the ball more solid, more straight and likely longer.

At some point in time, you may start losing accuracy, but very likely distance when you go too short. Once you find that optimum length you have two choices. You can choke up to that point from now on and/or take it to a club fitter and have him cut it off. I kind of recommend that because sometimes if you really choke up so much and cut it off, you can get to the point where the head might need a little more weight to be put back into it. A good club fitter can figure that out and help you do that.

So, KR, start choking up. Again it sounds like, if your game is pretty good with everything else, the very fact that the only clubs they are making extremely long, compared to the rest of the set, are drivers, that'€™s the problem. That's the one that seems to be everybody's nemesis, to use KR's word, which is absolutely correct.

So I think I'm going to stay with the concept of the driver is too long, and/or it could be your shaft flex is off, too. Again, the club fitter could help you there. He could take your swing speeds and check your frequency for the shaft flex against what your swing speeds call for. You could have a double dip here. It could be length as well as shaft or just shaft flex.

Check those two things out and I think you'll be O.K. With that in mind, you have the idea what to check out and that should help you hit the ball more solid and straight for KR, and for everybody else who is having driver problems but hitting everything else pretty good.

The Surge!

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