Cutting Down Fairway Wood Length

[Foot Wedge]

I recently picked up a Taylormade Jetspeed 3W and 5W.  They're nice clubs and I immediately noticed a difference between them and the old hand-me-down fairway woods they replaced.  The heavier shaft fits my more aggressive-tempo swing and overall, they fly straight and go far...when I hit them solid.  

I usually get a decent and very playable shot whenever I use them, but sometimes it'll go way high and sometimes it'll be a 225 yard screamer that never gets more than 4 feet off the turf.  These are 43.5" in length which seems long for a fairway wood and I'm not a very big guy at 5' 9".  I'm wondering if cutting these down a little may help improve consistency.  I don't mind losing a few yards in distance, the course I usually play isn't very long, and especially not if I get consistent enough with these to have confidence hitting them off the fairway.  Just wanted to get some opinions on this.  Thanks!

[boogielicious]

17 minutes ago, caddystacks said:

I recently picked up a Taylormade Jetspeed 3W and 5W.  They're nice clubs and I immediately noticed a difference between them and the old hand-me-down fairway woods they replaced.  The heavier shaft fits my more aggressive-tempo swing and overall, they fly straight and go far...when I hit them solid.  

I usually get a decent and very playable shot whenever I use them, but sometimes it'll go way high and sometimes it'll be a 225 yard screamer that never gets more than 4 feet off the turf.  These are 43.5" in length which seems long for a fairway wood and I'm not a very big guy at 5' 9".  I'm wondering if cutting these down a little may help improve consistency.  I don't mind losing a few yards in distance, the course I usually play isn't very long, and especially not if I get consistent enough with these to have confidence hitting them off the fairway.  Just wanted to get some opinions on this.  Thanks!

Are you making center face contact? You can check this with impact tape or foot spray on the face. If you're making center face contact, I would not change the length. The height variation could just be from slightly heavy shots. A thin low shot can actually be from contacting the ground before the ball. A high shot can be caused by that as well.

[Hacker James]

3 hours ago, caddystacks said:

I recently picked up a Taylormade Jetspeed 3W and 5W.  They're nice clubs and I immediately noticed a difference between them and the old hand-me-down fairway woods they replaced.  The heavier shaft fits my more aggressive-tempo swing and overall, they fly straight and go far...when I hit them solid.  

I usually get a decent and very playable shot whenever I use them, but sometimes it'll go way high and sometimes it'll be a 225 yard screamer that never gets more than 4 feet off the turf.  These are 43.5" in length which seems long for a fairway wood and I'm not a very big guy at 5' 9".  I'm wondering if cutting these down a little may help improve consistency.  I don't mind losing a few yards in distance, the course I usually play isn't very long, and especially not if I get consistent enough with these to have confidence hitting them off the fairway.  Just wanted to get some opinions on this.  Thanks!

you might want to keep in mind the effects  alterations have on swing weight. This chart is helpful:

http://www.golf-components.com/swing-weight-calculator.html

[Foot Wedge]

3 hours ago, boogielicious said:

Are you making center face contact?

To be honest, I'm not sure if I am or not, I'll have to keep an eye on this.  Also, sorry if this is a silly question, but what do you mean by a heavy shot?  However, what you're saying about hitting the ground first makes a bit of sense.  It may be only slightly on my less than perfect shots (giving me the high or low shots), but there have been a couple that I've flat out chunked, so those might be the same thing, just more exaggerated.

[boogielicious]

1 hour ago, caddystacks said:

To be honest, I'm not sure if I am or not, I'll have to keep an eye on this.  Also, sorry if this is a silly question, but what do you mean by a heavy shot?  However, what you're saying about hitting the ground first makes a bit of sense.  It may be only slightly on my less than perfect shots (giving me the high or low shots), but there have been a couple that I've flat out chunked, so those might be the same thing, just more exaggerated.

Heavy means hitting the ground before the ball. They feel heavy at impact because you started taking a divot before the ball. Thin shots, which feel like you hit it low on the face, can be caused by the same thing. The head skips off the ground into the ball. Thin shots usually fly lower. 

Get some impact tape, a dry erase marker or some foot spray and cover the face. Do 5 or 6 shots and see where the marks are. Ignore the mishits. If your contact is generally in the center of the face, then the shaft length is ok.

[JxQx]

Personally I cut my 3 wood down an inch or half an inch (Its been awhile so I don't really remember) but it's helped me out a lot. I feel with it being slightly shorter I have more control of the club. I also cut my driver down a little as well for the same reason.

[arturo28mx]

I've tried cutting down the shaft of my drivers and fairway woods many times. This is supposed to improve control but it also affects swingweight and lie angles.

Everybody says it works but for me it hasn't. I've stopped doing it.

[Foot Wedge]

Thanks for the input y'all. Sounds like I shouldn't just dive right in to chopping up the shafts.  Between ebay and amazon I assume impact tape is readily available.  Would choking up on my wood shafts give a similar feel to the the club as if the shaft had been cut down?  Intuition says yes, but just figured I'd ask.

[Liko81]

1 minute ago, caddystacks said:

Thanks for the input y'all. Sounds like I shouldn't just dive right in to chopping up the shafts.  Between ebay and amazon I assume impact tape is readily available.  Would choking up on my wood shafts give a similar feel to the the club as if the shaft had been cut down?  Intuition says yes, but just figured I'd ask.

The basic change in feel of choking down on the club versus cutting it down will be in the thickness of the grip; you won't have that nice thick taper in the back of your lead hand, so it'll feel like you're grabbing the shaft of the club. In turn that may unconsciously cause you to add pressure to your grip which can case other problems. You can compensate a little by adding some cloth athletic tape to the grip to bulk it up further down so it feels similar. IIRC that won't be a legal club on the course but it'll be fine for the driving range to see if you like it.

Any self-respecting golf store will have impact tape strips for your clubfaces on-hand, so you can see how much more or less consistent you might be with a full-length grip versus choking down.

 

[CarlSpackler]

I wonder the same thing about all of my clubs. at 5'-6' (if I stretch a little), shaft length is probably a bit too long for me and my shoulders tend to shrug. 

[Piz]

Gripping down is simple and effective.  If the grip seems too small...go up a size.

[WUTiger]

Unless the shaft length prevents you from getting a good address position, consider this:

• Take a normal grip if you're hitting the FW off a tee.
• Grip down a half-inch if you're hitting the FW off the ground. The grip-down will give you more control without messing with club balance so much. (and it's cheaper!)

If you worry about the low hand being on too narrow a grip on chokedown, consider putting a new low-taper grip on the club. Golf Pride, G1 Design and others are making low-taper grips now. Or you can take a traditional grip and wrap an extra layer or two of tape under the low-hand area.

[Brian W]

3 hours ago, WUTiger said:

Unless the shaft length prevents you from getting a good address position, consider this:

• Take a normal grip if you're hitting the FW off a tee.
• Grip down a half-inch if you're hitting the FW off the ground. The grip-down will give you more control without messing with club balance so much. (and it's cheaper!)

If you worry about the low hand being on too narrow a grip on chokedown, consider putting a new low-taper grip on the club. Golf Pride, G1 Design and others are making low-taper grips now. Or you can take a traditional grip and wrap an extra layer or two of tape under the low-hand area.

This is something I didn't start doing on my clubs until this year and something I think gets overlooked quite a bit in my circle of players.  I never see anyone choke up or down for any shots.  Maybe they are but its so small its either an accident or I don't see it.  I tend to use this a lot more than trying to force finesse shots or hit them 90% and its worked well.  I do not see why it wouldn't help the poster on figuring out if it would help to cut his club down