Hi everyone. Hope you all had a great weekend! We've had a few emails asking about Woody Austin's crazy shirts and I thought we'd throw in a reader email too. Let's get to it!
If you watched any of the golf this weekend you probably noticed Woody Austin's Tabasco golf shirts. We've talked about these before… our shop used to sell them and I actually own a few of them myself. The majority of the Tabasco line is really loud and funky… similar to the ones that Woody wears. The company came out with a more muted line last year and got a boost when they signed Jim Furyk to wear them. Overall… a quality line and a great way to make a statement!
We got an email from a fellow golf blogger that is getting ready to participate in a 100 hole golf marathon to raise money for cancer. Check out his website for more details. Good luck… usually I'm envious of someone playing golf but I can't say I am in this case. My back can't hold up for a full 18 holes let alone 100. I'm getting old…
The email is rolling in and SirPuttsAlot is firing out the answers! Let's jump into the mailbag…
I have a Ping Rapture with the company's TFC 909D stiff shaft. I hit the ball pretty high. My launch angle is 16 degrees. My swing speed is about 101-102 (ball speed is about 150). My back spin rate is ok at about 2300 (ProV1), or low at about 1800 with a lower spinning ball (ProV1X). I would like to optimize my driving distance. I'm hoping a lower launch (12-14) will give me more total distance, instead of all carry. Should I consider tipping the shaft? If so, how much and what would this do for me? Are there any drawbacks from doing this? Thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate your help.
Tip trimming your current driver shaft is an option you could consider. Tipping the shaft will make it stiffer so you might see your ballflight come down a little bit, but probably not as much as you are looking for.
Tip trimming would be a cost effective alternative to reshafting your club. The two biggest drawbacks are that the overall lenth of your driver will be shorter and if you don't like the results of tipping the shaft you can't go back to the old one that was in there.
I might recommend trying a new shaft instead. A shaft like the Graphite Design YS-6+ would probably be a good shaft for what you are looking for. It will lower your trajectory a little bit but won't totally reduce your spin rates. Since it sounds like you have access to a launch monitor it might be best to try out some different shaft combinations on there to see what gives you the best results with the Rapture head and your ProV1 ball.
Thanks SirPutts. Feel free to drop us a line. We're trying to get more of your email up on the site and do our best to respond to everyone! Talk to you tomorrow…