Does the grip effect club length?

[erock9174]

Gents,

I recently bought an Adam's Speedline Ultralite 4g driver.

Stated length on the Adams site is 46".  I built a homemade jig by basically taking a block of wood and placing its along the sole of the club, then measuring out from the wood to the end of the grip.  I also got 46" myself.

Today I took it to golf galaxy before having it cut down and they said it measured 45 1/2", on their jig.

So that got me to thinking, does the butt end of the grip have extra rubber that extends beyond the shaft?
And is that the reason my measurement is off?  ie. maybe Golf Galaxy takes this into consideration and doesn't count that extra piece of rubber causing their measurement to be shorter than mine?

[SAGolfLuvr]

We don't know what your jig looks like but I know one of the tools used for measuring at Golf Galaxy has an angled plate that the bottom of the club will rest on. That angle may be causing the half an inch difference. The grip (if it has been pushed all the way down to where it won't go any further therefore making sure it can't flex on the butt end) does not extend a full half inch beyond the shaft. It would BARELY be a quarter inch at the most.

[Bryan SD2]

A quarter inch to a third of an inch is what i have seen.  Some grips, like WINN have a little more substance to the butt end of the grip. Next time you are in Golf Galaxy (or any other shop) ask your friendly re-grip specialist to show you a couple of the grips he has cut off that day (and most certainly discarded).

They are probably only a few steps away in the trash can, and cut open lengthwise.

[erock9174]

Thanks for the input guys.  I went home and realized my dumbazz was measuring from the toe of the club instead of the heel and my block of wood I was using was bowed.  So my readings were useless.  I tried again tonight and got really close to what Golf Galaxy measured after cutting down my club today.  If they measured without a grip, it looked like the grip might have added 3/16" max.  So nothing major.  This was a tour pride undersized grip.

[glock35ipsc]

The USGA standard for measuring drivers is to have a jig where the sole of the driver rests against plate set to a standard lie angle of 60°.  Typically, the most common method used when when building and adjusting length of a driver or any other club for that matter, is that the shaft is marked at the desired playing length, minus 1/8" for the thickness of the grip cap.

[erock9174]

Cool thanks for the info.  I wondered what degree the plate the sole rested on was.

[glock35ipsc]

On some measuring devices, like the one I use, the sole plate can be adjusted so that the lie angle fits the club being measured.  Some use a fixed plate or pin that the sole of the club sets against.  Some shops I've seem have a ruler fixed to a bench top and the sole (or sometimes even the toe) of the club touches the wall. Others will simply eyeball the scoring lines level to the floor and put a 48" ruler on the back side of the shaft.  The USGA's standard for measuring drivers is to use a fixed 60° sole plate.  So depending on the method used by whoever is measuring your club, there can still be small variances.