Shorten That Shaft!

Filed in archive Golf Equipment on May 11, 2007

Courtesy: Frank Thomas

If you haven't looked at Frank Thomas's website, Frankly Golf, then I encourage you to do so.

Thomas is the former technical director of the USGA who is outspoken about the game he loves and passionate about preserving what is great in golf.

Since leaving the USGA, Thomas has founded Frankly Golf, developed a unique putter which he says is easy to use and forgiving, and has become a mainstay on golf telecasts and at Golf Digest.

Frank Thomas is probably the most knowledgeable person in the game when it comes to equipment.

This week, Thomas tackles several points in his weekly newsletter in which he answers questions from golfers around the world.

The first question from a reader is one that we can all relate to. Essentially, this golfer wonders why he can strike every club in his bag quite well except his driver.

And Thomas, always one to cut to the heart of the matter, suggests it could very well be mental. It's the idea that the Big Stick means a Big, Hard Swing.

His advice is standard: swing the driver the same way you swing every other club in your bag.

But then Thomas offers the kind of viewpoint that separates him from the herd, taking him up the high road, the same road he trod when he was with the USGA and which led to his departure from that organization.

Manufacturers dupe us, he says, into thinking that a long shaft means long distance off the tee. But what often happens is loss of direction instead.

He suggests to the reader that he probably has no trouble with his shorter 3-wood and recommends choking down on the driver to create a similar length shaft to the wood.

Sound advice and worth trying on the range.