Club Check: Correct Shaft Length

If you’re buying jeans, you wouldn’t just grab a pair off the shelf and hope they’ll fit.

You’d first check the waist measurement before ensuring the leg length is thereabouts. Then you’d try them on for size because, above all else, they must be comfortable.

Golf clubs are much the same. They’ve got fit your body, suit your swing and be comfortable in your hands.

Shaft length is one of several factors that contribute to a club’s suitability and effectiveness.

Playing shafts that are too long or too short will cause major problems for your swing, set-up and impact position.

But getting the shaft length correct for your swing can improve speed, launch angle, ball flight and accuracy — all without changing a single thing with your swing.

So how do you know which shaft length is right for you and your game?

SHAFT LENGTH: A TALL ORDER?

Should taller golfers play longer-than-standard shafts? Should golfers who are shorter in stature play slightly cut-down shafts?

Yes. No. Maybe.

A player’s height will have an impact on shaft length but it’s not quite as simple as taller always meaning longer.

Shaft length is interconnected with lie angle and changing one has a major influence on the other.

As a general rule, every half inch of shaft length will change the effective lie angle by 1°.

A longer shaft will make the lie angle more upright (toe up) while a shorter shaft will flatten out the lie angle (toe down).

The first step is working out which shaft length will best suit your swing. Once you do that you can then adjust the lie angle of your clubs to match you specs.

WTF? THE TRADITIONAL WAY TO DETERMINE YOUR SHAFT LENGTH

Static fitting charts determine optimal shaft length based on a player’s height and wrist-to-floor measurement (WTF)

How do you obtain your WTF?

Firstly, make sure you’re wearing shoes! Unless you play golf barefoot, your wrist-to-floor measurement will be inaccurate without shoes on and you’ll be fitted for much shorter shafts than you require.

So, with your shoes on, stand up straight and let your arms hang in a relaxed position on your side. Then get someone else to measure the distance from your wrist joint — that crease of skin just above your hand — and the floor.

Using the static fitting chart, establish where your height and wrist-to-floor measurements intersect and which shaft length corresponds to your specs.

The charts typically feature shaft length increments of a quarter or half inch away from the standard length, up to a maximum of two inches longer or shorter.

THE PROBLEM WITH STATIC FITTING CHARTS

Static fitting charts provide a good baseline guide.

But… they don’t take into a player’s posture and dynamic movement into the ball.

Therefore, recommending shaft lengths based on a player’s height and wrist-to-floor measurements becomes irrelevant if:

• a player has significant knee or waist bend.
• a player dips into the ball at impact or stands more upright.

The most critical element in determining optimum shaft length is how the club is being delivered at impact.

And the most accurate way of measuring that is via a launch monitor.

HOW DOES A LAUNCH MONITOR DETERMINE YOUR CORRECT SHAFT LENGTH

If you’re about to spend thousands of dollars on golf clubs, getting a proper club fitting will ensure you’re not wasting your time and money.

A club fitter will use a launch monitor to track things like your posture, the low point of the swing and what the club head is doing at impact.

From these measurements, a club fitter can determine the exact shaft length to suit your swing.

As many experienced club fitters will tell you, golfers of the same height will often be fitted for wildly different shaft lengths based on how they’re delivering the club head at impact.

And that’s why getting fitted for correct shaft length using launch monitor data is so much better than taking a guess using a static fitting chart.

THE CONFUSING THING ABOUT SHAFT LENGTH

“Standard” shaft lengths for drivers, fairway woods, hybrids and irons are slightly different for every club manufacturer.

While you might be perfectly suited to playing a standard shaft length with one manufacturer, you might be fitted for half an inch above standard in another brand.

To remove any doubt a club fitter will ensure your shafts are built to your exact length, rather than trying to sort through an assortment of standard lengths.

HOW SHAFT LENGTH IS MEASURED

As mentioned above, every manufacturer has a “standard” shaft length. But, as a general guide, standard lengths of golf clubs equate to:

Shafts are generally specced in either quarter inch or half inch increments from standard shaft length. The maximum shaft length permitted in the rules of golf is 46 inches.

HOW SHAFT LENGTH IMPACTS SWING WEIGHT

You’ve no doubt heard that a longer shaft length will create more speed and distance, particularly with the driver.

While that is true on face value, it rarely works out so neatly out on the course.

What’s often missed is that as the club shaft gets longer the swing weight of the club changes.

Swing weight refers to how heavy a club feels when it’s swung.

Lengthening the shaft in a driver changes the balance of a club and makes it feel heavier in the hands.

While the longer shaft should theoretically generate more swing speed because of the wider swing arc, the heavier feel often offsets any speed gains and makes it harder to find the middle of the club face — which costs distance anyway.

HOW TO MEASURE THE LENGTH OF YOUR CLUBS

To achieve an accurate measurement with a tape measure, lay your club down on a flat surface and set the club at a 60° lie angle (this is the standard measurement to check club length).

Shaft length is measured from the middle of the sole (which requires an imagined plane to intersect with the axis of the shaft) to the end of the shaft or grip.

ONE LENGTH IRONS

The outlier in the correct shaft length debate is Cobra’s ONE Length irons.

The ONE Length set has the same length of shaft: 37.25 inches, or equivalent to a seven iron.

Cobra’s reasoning behind the ONE Length concept is that it encourages a repeatable set-up and swing for every iron in the set and leads to greater consistency and improved accuracy.

Written by Jamie Martin Jamie Martin is currently locked in a battle to keep his handicap hovering around the mid-single digits. Despite his obvious short-game shortcomings, Jamie enjoys playing and writing about every aspect of golf and is often seen making practice swings in a mirror.