Light and long or short and whippy driver for the short Senior ???????????

[hbm95]

All the new technology is for Drivers longer and lighter for more club head speed, for shorter players that length in a club makes it more difficult to whip, why wouldn't shorter and whippier shaft be a better option ???????????

[erock9174]

What is your swing speed?

I am 34 and 5'4" with roughly an 80 to 84mph swing speed depending on how fast I swing the club.

For the past 2 years I had been using a shorter (in the 43.5" range) ladies flex driver.

I had decent control over it but the extra flex in the shaft, I believe led to inconsistent shots from time to time.  Most likely because I was swinging to hard for the light flex in the shaft.

After a driver fitting at golf galaxy, the guy there said my swing speed put me on the low end of a regular flex shaft and therefore I bought an R9.  On both the simulator and range I noticed, the harder I swung (still under control) the ball actually went straighter.  When I tried to slow my tempo down bad things started to happen (usually a pull hook).  Also the driver was cut down to 44.5".  I still grip down approximately 1/2"-3/4" which feels comfortable to me being shorter.

I'm not sure I answered your question especially since you are a much better golfer than I, but I wanted to share my experience regarding the properly fit shaft and length of the club for my specs.  Seemed to make a world of difference.

[alo1984]

Why does being short make a difference on how much "whip" you can generate?  The whip comes from swing speed.  Of course, swing speed usually increases the taller a player is but that is not an absolute.  I'm a short guy at 5'5" but I'm young, flexible, and relatively strong so I swing as fast or faster than the taller players that I play with.  Whether you are short or tall you need to work on your strength, flexibility, mechanics, and get a good fitting.