Looking to Build a Bryson / Phil Long Driver

[Adam C]

In case anyone was thinking about building a 48 in driver, here is a video on how I went about it. Will also be follow up video where I try and hit it coming soon.

 

[Typhoon92]

Great Video Adam!! That was a more sensible approach for people wanting to do it rather than some of the LD info out there.

For years I went by the LD instructions of going up a flex for every inch and down a degree a loft as well.  Couldn’t get anything to work.  Low line drives. A lot of the LD specific shafts were too heavy to begin with.  I wasn’t gaining the clubhead speed at 48” to load a xx flex shaft on a head that was showing 7 degrees of loft.  An LD address position, ball up and a lot of shoulder tilt did nothing either.  Swingweight, I didn’t and still don’t pay much attention to, it was the total weight that was killing me too.

And here is why I loved your video... this past spring I did what you did in the video.  Came up with it on my own.  I hit my Ping G400max a ton and straight.  I play it at 46”.  Why not take a normal driver shaft, don’t cut it, leave it full length (46”) and put it in my Ping head...at normal loft?

I went on the Paderson website and talked with them.  They were great.  Swing speed was around 115 but I play a stiff shaft because I don’t put much load on the shaft.  They put me in a standard Velocity shaft D30+ flex (stiff plus), not the LD version, told me not to cut it since it’s 46” and will play to 47.5”.

I put it together and I can bomb it...high, long and crazy straight.  It’s nuts... it’s how I expected an LD setup to work.... I was just amazed at how it went against all LD instruction.  I haven’t taken the rear weight out yet.  I’ll try that at some point.  Swingweight went from D3 to E3 but the overall weight was basically the same so it feels great too.

 

I really can’t get over how well it worked.  Like your video says, take an uncut driver shaft in your normal flex and do it.  Don’t pay attention to swingweight, just take it out and hit it. You will have to play it up a bit more.  The good thing also is with the adjustable heads, chances are if the flight is too high you can fix it with a turn of the wrench.

 

[Adam C]

3 hours ago, Typhoon92 said:

Great Video Adam!! That was a more sensible approach for people wanting to do it rather than some of the LD info out there.

For years I went by the LD instructions of going up a flex for every inch and down a degree a loft as well.  Couldn’t get anything to work.  Low line drives. A lot of the LD specific shafts were too heavy to begin with.  I wasn’t gaining the clubhead speed at 48” to load a xx flex shaft on a head that was showing 7 degrees of loft.  An LD address position, ball up and a lot of shoulder tilt did nothing either.  Swingweight, I didn’t and still don’t pay much attention to, it was the total weight that was killing me too.

And here is why I loved your video... this past spring I did what you did in the video.  Came up with it on my own.  I hit my Ping G400max a ton and straight.  I play it at 46”.  Why not take a normal driver shaft, don’t cut it, leave it full length (46”) and put it in my Ping head...at normal loft?

I went on the Paderson website and talked with them.  They were great.  Swing speed was around 115 but I play a stiff shaft because I don’t put much load on the shaft.  They put me in a standard Velocity shaft D30+ flex (stiff plus), not the LD version, told me not to cut it since it’s 46” and will play to 47.5”.

I put it together and I can bomb it...high, long and crazy straight.  It’s nuts... it’s how I expected an LD setup to work.... I was just amazed at how it went against all LD instruction.  I haven’t taken the rear weight out yet.  I’ll try that at some point.  Swingweight went from D3 to E3 but the overall weight was basically the same so it feels great too.

 

I really can’t get over how well it worked.  Like your video says, take an uncut driver shaft in your normal flex and do it.  Don’t pay attention to swingweight, just take it out and hit it. You will have to play it up a bit more.  The good thing also is with the adjustable heads, chances are if the flight is too high you can fix it with a turn of the wrench.

 

Thanks. Sounds like we are on the same page with all this. I agree that most of these shafts people use are too stiff and way too heavy. Seems like every time I saw someone trying this it resulted in either high blocks to the right or low left line drives. I think a little extra flex can help with the timing also, which is a big trick when working a 48 inch shaft.

It's gotten cold here but I ordered a 8g weight for the Epic Flash. Interested to see what my strike pattern looks like with the 15g vs the 8 vs 0 weight. Like you said, SW goes way up with no adjustments but with the light shaft it doesn't feel crazy at all, at least swinging it in the yard.

[Typhoon92]

Yup!  Getting cold here in Massachusetts as well, not much golf left.  I also work at an indoor place so I compare stuff there as well.  I’m very interested in how it goes removing the rear weight.  I think of it affecting ball flight with more weight forward and making the shaft a bit stiffer like you showed with the cpm difference.

My Ping heads only have 3 gram back weights so I won’t see much difference... I was hoping it was a 10 gram so if I took it out it would show a difference.  I’ve been looking at the Epic Flash as well on the Cally preowned site ( Black Friday wasn’t too good there).  Something with a lot of adjustability for this type experiment.

 

[Adam C]

Yeah, I had narrowed it down to a few options before settling on the Callaway because I got a good price. M5, M3, Mizuno 190G or 200G were all in the running. I was leaning towards one of those since they have dual weights, giving me more options for tweaking without needing to buy or modify weights. 

[Typhoon92]

One of the reasons I’m looking at picking up a Callaway is because Krank driver heads use the same shaft adapter.  Down the road it gives me the option of picking up one of their heads.

[Piz]

I've got a Cobra Long Tom you can have.  It might give you some insight and/or ideas.

[Typhoon92]

2 hours ago, Piz said:

I've got a Cobra Long Tom you can have.  It might give you some insight and/or ideas.

The Long Tom was one of those drivers I wanted because the loft was “normal” and the shaft was not overly stiff.  It would be cool to see what could be done to launch and spin with some lead tape since I think it’s a light head to begin with.

Since Adam started the thread if he passes on it I’d love it to try different weighting.

[Adam C]

9 hours ago, Typhoon92 said:

The Long Tom was one of those drivers I wanted because the loft was “normal” and the shaft was not overly stiff.  It would be cool to see what could be done to launch and spin with some lead tape since I think it’s a light head to begin with.

Since Adam started the thread if he passes on it I’d love it to try different weighting.

It's all you. Just having two drivers right now to mess with is bad enough for my game.

[Typhoon92]

Pm back at ya Piz.  This should be fun.  Thank you Adam as well.  We’ll have to keep comparing notes next spring when the weather gets better.  

[FeMan]

This is really interesting.. I have a Big Bertha Fusion (in really good shape) that has an adjustable hosel on it. Would be ani interesting experiment 

Have wanted to build a club so why not!

Thanks

[ChetlovesMer]

Okay, I did this. I built a shaft for my Cobra Speedzone driver. I made it just a tinge under 48 inches. I wanted to make sure it is legal to use, so I errored just a touch on the short side I think it actually measures 47-7/8" 

I also brought the loft down as low as I could. The head is a 9 degree +/- 1 to 1.5 degrees. I set mine to 7.5 degrees. 

Anyway, I took it to the range. The very first time I hit it... WOW, I hit a bomb. The ball exploded off the face. The very next time I hit it I smashed it off the roof of the club. I now have a massive idiot mark on the top of my club. 😬

The next time I took it to the range I put it on the launch monitor. I'd hit 5 shots with the "normal" shaft and then 5 shots with the long shaft, then repeat until I hit 15 shots with each. The long shaft averaged about 3 mph faster swing speed than my normal shaft. My best shots were literally 12-15 yards longer than my any of my best shots with the "normal" shaft. Interestingly, my average was actually just about a yard SHORTER than my normal shaft. 

[boogielicious]

4 hours ago, ChetlovesMer said:

Okay, I did this. I built a shaft for my Cobra Speedzone driver. I made it just a tinge under 48 inches. I wanted to make sure it is legal to use, so I errored just a touch on the short side I think it actually measures 47-7/8" 

I also brought the loft down as low as I could. The head is a 9 degree +/- 1 to 1.5 degrees. I set mine to 7.5 degrees. 

Anyway, I took it to the range. The very first time I hit it... WOW, I hit a bomb. The ball exploded off the face. The very next time I hit it I smashed it off the roof of the club. I now have a massive idiot mark on the top of my club. 😬

The next time I took it to the range I put it on the launch monitor. I'd hit 5 shots with the "normal" shaft and then 5 shots with the long shaft, then repeat until I hit 15 shots with each. The long shaft averaged about 3 mph faster swing speed than my normal shaft. My best shots were literally 12-15 yards longer than my any of my best shots with the "normal" shaft. Interestingly, my average was actually just about a yard SHORTER than my normal shaft. 

Did you yell “POW” with each shot? It makes a difference.

[ChetlovesMer]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

Did you yell “POW” with each shot? It makes a difference.

Of course I did. I also brought a soundtrack of jets flying over so after I hit it you hear a jet flying off into the distance. I find that really helps.