club fitters please step in. give me direction please.

I want to shorten my driver shaft. but I want to do it correctly. why do I want to do this? controll and to see if I gain some distance. from my experience with my fairway woods and hybrid club test, I can bang out some good 200 yard controlled distances. my best club for controll and distance is my 4 wood. I can hit my 4 wood on good days 220 , bad days 170. but all is under controll. I have tried many 3 woods and cannot controll them, and my distance doesn't improve, even when my game is on and I can pure a 3 wood I still can't hit it any further than my 4 wood, I have tried almost all the 3 woods on the market. now my thinking is if I shorten my driver by an inch or so I could gain more controll and maybe some distance. my theory on distance is that with the controll i could catch the face more in the center, and go after the ball a little more. ( side note: I feel sometimes I would benefit from a smaller driver club head.) as for my drivers: my I 25 is long but I will loose it right. contact is towards middle inside side of face but not on the paint lines. I will sometimes hit this club high and towards the toe side In the top paint line. my g30 sf Tec if it goes to the right it comes back left I havnt gamed this club much beacuse of cold weather, but when I was able to play on the course and compare the clubs. the g30 would come up shorter then my i25. but shots that would wonder to the right the g30 saved me. ok you have read my excuses now this is the drivers I have. ping I25 length 45.25. SW D3 ping g30 SF Tec length 45.75 SW D1 what would you all recommend? which club should I shorten? and how much? what shaft should I try? I'm planing on buying a shorter shaft. and how much weight to add to the club head? my SS Is 90 to 95 with driver. I like the weight of the g30 when swinging. the weight feel of my i25 makes the club feel open. any recommendations welcome. please don't suggest lessons. I know my swing I just don't understand customizing clubs. :) thanks tom

Why not get a driver fitting using the two drivers you have? See what the numbers say.

On your own, you can put a face impact decal on your driver and hit some shots. If you have impact points all over the clubface, the GolfWorks club-fitting matrix would suggest the shaft might be too long.

Again, a clubfitter and a launch monitor could tell you a lot more than us on TST, who are dealing in general principles.

Remember: if you trim a half-inch off the shaft, that will drop the swingweight  3 points (for example, D3 to D0).

If you cut down the shaft on the driver you will substantially modify the swing weight of the club. In the end you would need a lot of lead tape or some other weighting to get that back. Still in the end you will never get back to the original feel of the club because you changed how the club flexes because the shaft is now shorter.

In the end, if you want a shorter shaft then go get fitted for a new club and have them fit you with one that is shorter that feels good for you.

To me it sounds like you are hitting clubs that are not fitted for you. I would suspect you are hitting clubs that are too low lofted for your swing and swing speed.

I agree, go get fitted. If you go shorter and you don't go with another driver, you will want a club maker to reassemble your driver so that you get the swing weight or moi correct. If you have access to some shorter drivers, I would suggest you go get some impact tape and hit the different length drivers at the range and see if you get more center hits with the shorter shaft I went through a substantial fitting last year and went from 45.25" driver to a 44.5" driver. The impact tape told the tale. We kept dropping 1/4 inch until I had consistent center club head hits. Until I saw it, I would of never guessed that .75" could make that much of a difference. My driving last year drastically improved resulting in more fairways hits, and my misses were usually playable vs OB like years past. Take the time to get fitted, it's worth it

I know how the weighting system works, and trimming an inch will affect the swingweight by like six points.  However, swingweight is just a number.  We've had dozens of these "should I cut my driver?" threads.  Of all of them, maybe one or two people have posted a story of how they personally were negatively impacted.  I can think of only one person who related a tale about how they cut their driver down and it suddenly didn't feel right and performed significantly worse than before.  (Not picking on you Matt, that's just my observation.)

This is the common story people tell:  they trim their driver, and it performs better.  More center contact, better ball flight, and longer distance.  Not saying they're all measuring launch data and getting a true comparison (which people should certainly do if they have the means and the time), but kentsl certainly isn't saying "by the time we made the third cut, the shaft and head felt completely different"

This is also similar to my story:  I cut 1", 3/4", and 1/2" off of my driver, 3-wood, and 2-hybrid respectively.  I hit all of them much better than I did before.  In fact, both the driver and 3-wood are the best woods I've ever hit, including when I played competetively.  I have no idea what the swingweight is in any of them, and I don't care.  I hold the grip, swing the club, and try to make solid contact.

My driver and 3-wood both have the exact same shaft:  mitsubishi a'hina X-flex in 72 grams.  The driver is 44" and the 3-wood is like 42-3/4".  If an inch of shaft length is going to make that much difference, why would Titleist sell the exact same shaft in different clubheads butt-trimmed to different lengths?

Again, I understand the mechanics WRT how swingweight is measured and how the swingweight number changes by trimming the shaft.  I just don't think that it negatively impacts the performance of the club as much as "six swingweight points lighter" seems to suggest.

I cut my last two drivers to 44.5" as well and like it much better. I hit them way more consistently than before and have not lost any length.

I have a 43.5" driver at D0 and if I was blindfolded and someone handed me that and then my 44.5" D4 driver I doubt I could tell the difference just wiggling them around. Total weight they are within a few grams. All my woods are short but I didn't just cut them down all have tip weights and my grips are kind of light at 48 grams-ish. Besides the D4 driver the others are in the D0 range.

It can be tricky (but can be done as many can attest) taking a longer club design and changing a variable such as club length. As mentioned earlier, one of the variables that changes is swing weight. That has to be addressed or your swing 'feel' will/could affect you tempo and/or just how the club works (ie shaft load/release).

IF you are open to a re-shaft for your existing club, then IMO a good club fitting would be a start. I prefer a type fitting which would include trying a model club like yours with varying lengths/flex. In addition it would be good to test "like clubs" with multiple shaft flex combos. This type fitting can yield plenty of numbers (launch monitor).

The launch monitor #'s will tell the fitter what he/she needs to know to identify a range of shaft brands/models that fit you, your club model. You would at least be re-shafting or tweaking your existing shaft/club with something fit to a playing length which helps you best achieve center contact and that feels good to you.