All in the head, or all in the shaft?

hades

So, here's a tricky one for you guys. I mentioned on the "how's your game" thread that i was having some terrible fortune with my driver with 50% of my shots being a savage slice. Well, i went to the range yesterday to try and get to the bottom of things, the reason being, i can hit pretty much every other club with a fair bit of accuracy so if it was an underlying swing flaw i'd imagine that it'd show up throughout the bag and not just my driver.

So here's the scenario, i brought 2 drivers to the range, a 10.5 degree R9 with a stock stiff shaft and a 9 degree R11S with the Tour Preferred stiff shaft.

(As an aside, when i was buying the R11S the TP version was only €10 more than the standard version, so my teaching pro recommended to spend the extra tenner as its a much better quality shaft.....apparently)

After warming up by hitting a few irons and woods, I hit a few balls with my R11S, (the trouble club). And the results are the normal rubbish. Then i had a go with the R9 and all of a sudden i hitting the ball much better and with a baby fade rather than the huge slice. Back to the R11S and crap again.

So i swapped the shafts of the clubs, so i now have my R9 shaft in my R11S head and i'm hitting the ball about as well as i hit the R9 but the balls are landing past my R9 balls. (i reckon this is down to the degree difference from 10.5 ~ 9)

So, my question is, does a shaft have that much of a bearing on the ball flight? Or was it a case of it being all in my head, and by just changing the clubs around i tricked myself into hitting them better.

We always hit new clubs better at the start because we have "no bad memories" of using the clubs in the past, so i'm thinking that could be the case for me on this occasion.

Any thoughts?

Keano

Here's my take hades.

I went to my pro last year and I said I've an awful slice with with my driver. His first response was it's not your driver! I laughed and so did he.

I'm an OTT man and struggle with curing it, hard thing to fix, anyone who suffers from it will testify to it.

It's a swing flaw you have that I'm sure your pro could help fix, yes it would be nice if it was the tool but we are the ones manning it

bustercherry

All in the swing i'm afraid.

hades

Keano A Legend wrote: »

Here's my take hades.

I went to my pro last year and I said I've an awful slice with with my driver. His first response was it's not your driver! I laughed and so did he.

I'm an OTT man and struggle with curing it, hard thing to fix, anyone who suffers from it will testify to it.

It's a swing flaw you have that I'm sure your pro could help fix, yes it would be nice if it was the tool but we are the ones manning it

I have to agree with you, when i went to my pro originally i was told i was an OTT man aswell. We went thru the process to fix it as then it was affecting every club. But now i only hit the driver really poorly, so i was thinking it can't be an OTT swing..... can it?

I suppose its time for a visit to my pro.

Keano

It probably is, you are just getting less spin from the other clubs. With the driver it just highlights it more.

mike12

Just leave the R9 shaft in the R11 head and be happy. Not surte if the shaft would change a fade into a slice but it could have an effect the R11 shaft may just be too stiff leaving the club head way open at impact.

hades

mike12 wrote: »

Just leave the R9 shaft in the R11 head and be happy. Not surte if the shaft would change a fade into a slice but it could have an effect the R11 shaft may just be too stiff leaving the club head way open at impact.

That was part of my original thinking (hoping) I think i'll stick to that until i see the pro.

I just booked in to see him Thursday week, time for a bit of "candid camera" when i look ot the video. "I'm not swinging like that surely"...... "well here's the video footage of the swing" "Yikes"

BoardsMember

The shaft has a massive impact on spin, trajectory, everything. I did a "driver only" fitting with ForeGolf years ago and was amazed at the difference the shafts made. I pretty much tried one club head, one loft, and then rotated between shafts available and there was an enormous difference. More spin accentuates your "natural shape", so the shaft can help you hit it straight if it is taking lots of spin off compared to your current club. Best decision I ever made was getting the fitted driver. I now know now that it is the right club, and when I hit one badly, or get into a bad run, it's me, not the club.

Barnseire

Both of those clubs have options to open/close the face and also to utilise different weights at the heel/toe to change trajectory. Did they have an identical setup?

newport2

Both are components.

If you slice your driver, it's most likely due to your swing. But if you gave Woods or McIlroy a regular shaft in a driver, they'd probably snap-hook it. Give me an extra-stiff shaft and I'll probably start going right, despite the fact I draw my own one.

The right shaft etc can help, the wrong one can make problems worse.

alxmorgan

A shaft can make a big difference. I got fitted and was hitting my drives with big slices and first changed shaft straightened me up no end. As newport2 states the flex can make a big difference due to the way the club head comes into the ball due to how it bends. My guess is that the TP shaft is heavier and that is making a big difference.

There is no doubt that your swing is part of the issue but I would say just go with the setup you changed to and go with it for 4-5 rounds before changing anything else and then see what you think.

hades

BoardsMember wrote: »

The shaft has a massive impact on spin, trajectory, everything. I did a "driver only" fitting with ForeGolf years ago and was amazed at the difference the shafts made. I pretty much tried one club head, one loft, and then rotated between shafts available and there was an enormous difference. More spin accentuates your "natural shape", so the shaft can help you hit it straight if it is taking lots of spin off compared to your current club. Best decision I ever made was getting the fitted driver. I now know now that it is the right club, and when I hit one badly, or get into a bad run, it's me, not the club.

The pro has pretty good fitting facilities (fota island) so i might ask him to see how the 2 shafts differ out of interest. I think they use trackman.

hades

Barnseire wrote: »

Both of those clubs have options to open/close the face and also to utilise different weights at the heel/toe to change trajectory. Did they have an identical setup?

Both were set up to neutral.

alxmorgan

If you don't know much about trackman numbers then I'd suggest brushing up before getting on one (if you do, stop reading now ):

Check out Trackman maestro (starting with this vid):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-89M1vt66FA

Check out Andrew Rice:

http://www.andrewricegolf.com/andrew-rice-golf/

And Trackmans own channel is pretty good:

https://www.youtube.com/user/TrackManGolf

such as:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNVzGxzKGiM&list=UUoLFCXQEusbOupxCEG5nGxg

slave1

newport2 wrote: »

...But if you gave Woods or McIlroy a regular shaft in a driver, they'd probably snap-hook it...

Bang on, I play with a US 1 handicapper the odd time and once his clubs got lost on a trip over so I got some clubs arranged for him and with the regular flex his drives were snap-hooking left as you described as they were way to 'whippy', he ended up using a 5iron off the tee and still out drove me with his 230yards drops, awesome player.

the greatest game

over the top swing ? I am sure thats me ? does it have any advantages , any pro' s have it, ? surely it would be hard to eradicate ?

Keano

Zero positives!

spacecoyote

Keano A Legend wrote: »

Zero positives!

Unless you need to play an agressive "power fade"

ShivasIrons

The answer to the question, which is more important the head or the shaft, is both are just as important.

Different heads in the same shaft can have widely differing results and not just by changing lofts. Different head design, weight distribution etc all make an impact.

The same is for shafts, different shafts in the same head can have widely differing results and not only by just changing flex. Weight, flex distribution, length also make an impact.

Anyone who says it's all about the shaft is wrong. It's about the complete club.

m r c

hades wrote: »

So, here's a tricky one for you guys. I mentioned on the "how's your game" thread that i was having some terrible fortune with my driver with 50% of my shots being a savage slice. Well, i went to the range yesterday to try and get to the bottom of things, the reason being, i can hit pretty much every other club with a fair bit of accuracy so if it was an underlying swing flaw i'd imagine that it'd show up throughout the bag and not just my driver.

So here's the scenario, i brought 2 drivers to the range, a 10.5 degree R9 with a stock stiff shaft and a 9 degree R11S with the Tour Preferred stiff shaft.

(As an aside, when i was buying the R11S the TP version was only €10 more than the standard version, so my teaching pro recommended to spend the extra tenner as its a much better quality shaft.....apparently)

After warming up by hitting a few irons and woods, I hit a few balls with my R11S, (the trouble club). And the results are the normal rubbish. Then i had a go with the R9 and all of a sudden i hitting the ball much better and with a baby fade rather than the huge slice. Back to the R11S and crap again.

So i swapped the shafts of the clubs, so i now have my R9 shaft in my R11S head and i'm hitting the ball about as well as i hit the R9 but the balls are landing past my R9 balls. (i reckon this is down to the degree difference from 10.5 ~ 9)

So, my question is, does a shaft have that much of a bearing on the ball flight? Or was it a case of it being all in my head, and by just changing the clubs around i tricked myself into hitting them better.

We always hit new clubs better at the start because we have "no bad memories" of using the clubs in the past, so i'm thinking that could be the case for me on this occasion.

Any thoughts?

I play that exact r11s club you mention here and it's the only club I've ever felt comfortable with when playing right to left.

Some guys here have said that it could/might/can be the club, while for people that's true no doubt it wasn't true for me.

I was very wild with my out to in swing path, I vividly remember one December day in Ballyliffin where all I hit was massive high right floaters that if found were almost unplayable.
It very nearly finished me with the game. The annoying thing in particular was that I was wearing a hole on the sweet spot and couldn't figure out why I was so bad off the tee. I'll never forget the sound of genuinely well hit centered strikes only to see the ball floating off away from the fairway.

I was chatting to a salesman in Nevada bobs while buying balls then shortly after and he was like just start by closing the face, get a pull hook going then figure out how to turn the pull into a push. It might sound simplistic but it really is that easy.

I had convinced myself that whatever made up physical restrictions I had stopped me from having a in to out path.
So after I got the ball pull hooking I lay my 3 iron down to a left target and I said I'd try to push balls out right with my 7 iron. Bingo no problem I was able to push the damn balls 50-100 yards right of target with the 7 iron. And they'd hook back a little with a strong grip.

I've written an essay here but mostly because I was you, if anything now I'm actually prone to miss right now but they are blocked right not sliced right which is better/worse depending on your pov :-)

Fwiw I think you need to get pushing the ball out to the right then a strong grip or closing the face a hair will bring it back.

Or just do what the pro says :-)

FixdePitchmark

the greatest game wrote: »

over the top swing ? I am sure thats me ? does it have any advantages , any pro' s have it, ? surely it would be hard to eradicate ?

That is me too.
A pro once said to me. That my swing can be defined as

" Extreme disconnection".

He just got me to keep hitting the driver as hard as I could and laughed :D

Changed pro.

m r c

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

That is me too.
A pro once said to me. That my swing can be defined as

" Extreme disconnection".

He just got me to keep hitting the driver as hard as I could and laughed :D

Changed pro.

Extreme disconnection that's fn lol Fix yer man was disconnected if you ask me :-)

hades

m r c wrote: »

Fwiw I think you need to get pushing the ball out to the right then a strong grip or closing the face a hair will bring it back.

Or just do what the pro says :-)

Thanks for the response.

It was deja vu reading over the high slices part. The thing is, the ball still goes pretty far, its just finding it in the long grass is the problem.

I was actually reading Golf Digest last night and they had a few tips for out to in swings and how to start drawing the ball. Its pretty much along the lines of what you were saying, they say take up your normal stance and then move your right foot back around 12 inches so your feet are pointing way right of your target. Your swing will automatically change to an in to out shape, so you can pull the ball back on target. Then once you're happy with the feeling, then straighten up your alignment and you should have more control over the ball.

I'll go to the range on Tuesday, before my lesson next Thursday and see if i can work on it a little bit. I think i'll stick to my 3w for the medal this weekend tho.

m r c

Maybe I'm reading what you wrote there wrong but I think that's actually the opposite of promoting a push path.

What I'm writing here is only for someone with a serious ott problem and a right hander.

Take aim with your feet at a target down the left hand side of the range or fairway.
Then at the 100 yard marker be aimed with your shoulders at least 50 yards to the right at your target(where you want the ball to end up)
You will be in quite a strange stance right now way open with your feet as it were. A lot of folks will actually chip in a similar stance.

The you set your club face at a right angle to your target(where you want the ball to finish) ie square to target. Then feel like your swing is directly away from target on the back swing and toward the target on follow through.
This feeling although really weird Is the feeling of a push. Something that if you had my history would really be welcome ;-)
I think the best club to do this with might be a gap wedge or SW plenty of loft anyway.
Note if this works this is only really a drill to get used to a feeling which may be unnatural to you now.
Play the ball back on your right toe too btw otherwise you will have to really reach for it which won't help with contact.

I can hit the ball 90-95 per cent distance doing this mainly because it's a little harder to get your hands forward doing this at impact. I'd say swing speed is similar.

Note even with the help of a good pro making a change like this will probably take a few months minimum depending on the golfer of course.

hades

Re reading your response, you're right i was on about a different move entirely.

Hopefully the swing change won't be too drastic and it's something small.

I originally starting working with the pro around 18 months ago, the winter before last summer. And he totally changed my grip and swing shape. I had a dramatic over the stop swing then, my left knee totally collapsed on my back swing and my grip was shocking. It took a good few months of hard work but it eventually clicked and i went from a 19hc to 13hc over the summer months.

I've had 3 lessons with him so far this year and we've worked only on the short game. Hopefully when he looks at my full swing it'll be a old bad habit after sneaking in. But its good to have these drills to try and diagnose it outside of lessons.

alxmorgan

m r c wrote: »

Maybe I'm reading what you wrote there wrong but I think that's actually the opposite of promoting a push path.

What I'm writing here is only for someone with a serious ott problem and a right hander.

Take aim with your feet at a target down the left hand side of the range or fairway.
Then at the 100 yard marker be aimed with your shoulders at least 50 yards to the right at your target(where you want the ball to end up)
You will be in quite a strange stance right now way open with your feet as it were. A lot of folks will actually chip in a similar stance.

The you set your club face at a right angle to your target(where you want the ball to finish) ie square to target. Then feel like your swing is directly away from target on the back swing and toward the target on follow through.
This feeling although really weird Is the feeling of a push. Something that if you had my history would really be welcome ;-)
I think the best club to do this with might be a gap wedge or SW plenty of loft anyway.
Note if this works this is only really a drill to get used to a feeling which may be unnatural to you now.
Play the ball back on your right toe too btw otherwise you will have to really reach for it which won't help with contact.

I can hit the ball 90-95 per cent distance doing this mainly because it's a little harder to get your hands forward doing this at impact. I'd say swing speed is similar.

Note even with the help of a good pro making a change like this will probably take a few months minimum depending on the golfer of course.

Just one thing to note. The clubface primarily determines starting position not where the ball ends up.

Not saying you were saying otherwise as you are describing drills and feelings but just making a clarification as clubface to where you want ball to end up was believe under old ball flight laws

G1032

hades wrote: »

So, here's a tricky one for you guys. I mentioned on the "how's your game" thread that i was having some terrible fortune with my driver with 50% of my shots being a savage slice. Well, i went to the range yesterday to try and get to the bottom of things, the reason being, i can hit pretty much every other club with a fair bit of accuracy so if it was an underlying swing flaw i'd imagine that it'd show up throughout the bag and not just my driver.

So here's the scenario, i brought 2 drivers to the range, a 10.5 degree R9 with a stock stiff shaft and a 9 degree R11S with the Tour Preferred stiff shaft.

(As an aside, when i was buying the R11S the TP version was only €10 more than the standard version, so my teaching pro recommended to spend the extra tenner as its a much better quality shaft.....apparently)

After warming up by hitting a few irons and woods, I hit a few balls with my R11S, (the trouble club). And the results are the normal rubbish. Then i had a go with the R9 and all of a sudden i hitting the ball much better and with a baby fade rather than the huge slice. Back to the R11S and crap again.

So i swapped the shafts of the clubs, so i now have my R9 shaft in my R11S head and i'm hitting the ball about as well as i hit the R9 but the balls are landing past my R9 balls. (i reckon this is down to the degree difference from 10.5 ~ 9)

So, my question is, does a shaft have that much of a bearing on the ball flight? Or was it a case of it being all in my head, and by just changing the clubs around i tricked myself into hitting them better.

We always hit new clubs better at the start because we have "no bad memories" of using the clubs in the past, so i'm thinking that could be the case for me on this occasion.

Any thoughts?

It has a huge bearing on the ball flight. You can have a good swing but with the wrong shafts it'll mean little.
General rule is a shaft that is too stiff will give you weak shots to the right (for RH player). Too much flex in the shaft and you might get snap hooks.

Another point to note is that a stiff shaft from one manufacturer will not be the same stiffness as a stiff shaft from another manufacturer.

You then have stiff tipped shafts and so on so forth. Find the shaft that suits you. It doesn't matter whats written on it.

You could always get fitted for the correct shaft but beware that you're going to get fitted for the swing that you bring to the fitting. If you're not swinging the best and you're a few miles per hour slower with you swing speed than normal you'll get inaccurate results.

m r c

alxmorgan wrote: »

Just one thing to note. The clubface primarily determines starting position not where the ball ends up.

Not saying you were saying otherwise as you are describing drills and feelings but just making a clarification as clubface to where you want ball to end up was believe under old ball flight laws

Cheers axl, the next paragraph I was trying to describe a neutral or zero'd path with a perpendicular clubface.
I suppose I could have been clearer

GreeBo

ShivasIrons wrote: »

The answer to the question, which is more important the head or the shaft, is both are just as important.

Different heads in the same shaft can have widely differing results and not just by changing lofts. Different head design, weight distribution etc all make an impact.

Surely this is only true for off centre hits though?
(Barring the ball being launched a little higher/lower depending on weight distribution)

FixdePitchmark

m r c wrote: »

Extreme disconnection that's fn lol Fix yer man was disconnected if you ask me :-)

He was right. My swing I made up was OTT - but used hands to correct. Every pro I've gone to have killed my hands, got me connected and get rid of OTT ,
Hard when , your natural / made up swing is OTT.

Drives me mad , as I go back to OTT when don't think, and have lost miles off the tee

No - I'm about 4 golfers now. Confused.com

BoardsMember

GreeBo wrote: »

Surely this is only true for off centre hits though?
(Barring the ball being launched a little higher/lower depending on weight distribution)

I would have thought so, and hence my belief that shaft is way more important. In other words, club heads will work with your swing, they may not have the level of forgiveness or the loft or exact weight distribution or whatever, but they will work, as long as the shaft is right for your swing.

ShivasIrons

GreeBo wrote: »

Surely this is only true for off centre hits though?
(Barring the ball being launched a little higher/lower depending on weight distribution)

Technically yes, but when the weight is moved around in the head, the center of the head isn't in front of the center of gravity any more and centered strikes behave like off centered strikes.

So with extra weight in the heel, centered strikes draw more because they essentially are toe strikes. Toe weighted clubs will yield more fades etc.

The reason why the SLDR is so low spinning is because the center of gravity is forward in the club and closer to the bottom, essentially meaning hitting the center of the face is like hitting higher up on most other clubs and taking spin off, hence the need to launch it higher and the whole loft up campaign.

Different heads perform very differently, if it was only that shaft that mattered the major players in the club business would be shaft manufacturers but they're not, the major players differ themselves by offering different heads.

Dolph Starbeam

Just read about this on GolfWRX last night, interesting results.

http://www.golfwrx.com/205923/member-shootout-2014-driver-testing/

GreeBo

ShivasIrons wrote: »

Technically yes, but when the weight is moved around in the head, the center of the head isn't in front of the center of gravity any more and centered strikes behave like off centered strikes.

So with extra weight in the heel, centered strikes draw more because they essentially are toe strikes. Toe weighted clubs will yield more fades etc.

The reason why the SLDR is so low spinning is because the center of gravity is forward in the club and closer to the bottom, essentially meaning hitting the center of the face is like hitting higher up on most other clubs and taking spin off, hence the need to launch it higher and the whole loft up campaign.

Different heads perform very differently, if it was only that shaft that mattered the major players in the club business would be shaft manufacturers but they're not, the major players differ themselves by offering different heads.

Right, but you are talking about adjustable heads that have been adjusted.
Other than this (or offset heads) a different head isn't going to make you suddenly hook or slice the ball, whereas a different shaft could.

ShivasIrons

GreeBo wrote: »

Right, but you are talking about adjustable heads that have been adjusted.
Other than this (or offset heads) a different head isn't going to make you suddenly hook or slice the ball, whereas a different shaft could.

How does a shaft make the ball hook or slice?

If we use last year's Callaway models as examples it can be easily shown that the head makes a big difference. The X-Hot was heel weighted and had a draw bias. The X-Hot Pro was toe weighted and had a fade bias, The Razr Fit Extreme was neutral.

So the same shaft in each head coupled with the the same swing put on each club would yield different results. This even with the same loft and before any adjusting done to the head.

A swing which yielded a straight shot, medium trajectory, with the Razr Extreme would have a higher right to left shot with the X Hot and a lower left to right shot with the X-Hot Pro. Further more the head weight in the X Hot and X Hot Pro is lighter then the Razr Fit which would mean higher swing speeds with the X Hot and X Hot Pro then the Razr Fit.

The Golf WRX quoted earlier article also illustrates this, the golfer got different results with the same shaft in different heads. It's neither all in the head nor all in the shaft it's the whole club that makes the difference.

GreeBo

Again you are talking about clubs deliberately setup to move the ball, I don't think that's a fair comparison.

Different shafts react differently to force, too stiff and it doesn't unload at impact and you get a fade or slice, too flexible and you get draw or hook. You don't buy a draw shaft, but depending on the swing the ball will draw. You don't get that with (neutral) heads.

hades

Just after having my lesson.

Of course it's my swing as you all predicted, but it's not an over the top move...... The plot thickens.

It's actually an "in to out" move, I'd worked so much on eliminating my OTT swing I developed the exact opposite. So now my I'm getting trapped on the inside, my hands can't release thru the club quick enough, so they're stuck in front of the club head at the point if impact and the club face is wide open.

I got a few drills to work on, one if them is very weird. You set up as normal and then turn your back to the target while keeping the club behind the ball, then swing. That's one sure way of stopping your hands getting stuck in front of the ball. Feels awkward but seemed to work.