The junior presentation night was fantastic on Sunday night with Steve Kanes and the junior organising committee hosting a great event. The dining room was full, I put your 'Our Survey Says' quiz answers to good use, Marcus Smith was introduced as the new Junior Captain and Ellie Ashley-Brown as the new Vice-Captain. Congratulations to Holly Hunt for a well-deserved good year in office and for her most accomplished speeches on the night. 

There were so many winners amongst the congregation, it would be wrong of me to pick anyone out but I do need to mention one young man, Kerr Dollochin wore a path to the awards table and ended up wearing at least six winning medals for winning the 9 hole competitions!




There can't be much news around at the moment as everywhere seems to be talking about the 'big freeze' this week - (my relatives in Toronto would call it a bit of a cold wind as they've had -21 degrees and umpteen feet of snow lately). Spare a thought for all the members whose courses close for frost and fog as we've been able to continue play on proper greens in both conditions and thanks to our green staff for keeping the course playable over the winter. 

If you end up not playing this weekend, why not use the time to clear out your unwanted golf clubs. I want lots of second-hand clubs at the moment as I've used up most of my inventory building sets lately for juniors and beginners and I'd like you to bring any clubs you want into the shop, in any condition. Many clubs will have some value and even if they're broken or damaged, I can possibly fix them.

There's really no point hanging onto them so drop them into the shop, we'll put them on sale for you and you can spend the money on some shiny new stuff. With the more modern clubs, we can list them online for you and put the sale price on your account as credit too. If there's no value in the clubs we can dispose of them for you to a charity or return them, whichever you wish. I'm looking for any drivers, woods, irons, wedges, men's, ladies, and juniors - even left handers!! - So clear out the garage and drop them in to me please. Click here if you have any questions.


 

Jimmy Walker teed it up in Hawaii last week with a 42" long driver in his bag. That may not seem surprising to you until you realise that the club in your bag which is that length is probably a hybrid and definitely your 5 wood. Most drivers can be found at 45" - 46" in length with 3 woods being 43" and 5 woods 42". I often reduce the length of golfer's drivers and most people are amazed to learn the likes of big hitting Dustin Johnson use a 3 wood length driver.

In this case Jimmy Walker had spent an hour with the PGA Tour statistician, Mark Broadie, who told him he merely had to hit more fairways to score better and win more money. He'd gone home and took a hacksaw to his driver at a 'comfortable length' for him, which turned out to be 42". That's not the full story as you need to add extra weight to offset the loss of length and Jimmy would have needed to add 18 grams of extra weight, which in his words was 'a ton of lead tape'.


 

But then there's the opposite end of the spectrum. A Brocton member came in for a Game and Equipment Assessment last week with his driver with the belief that he also would benefit from a shorter driver shaft. The opposite turned out to be true and we gained him accuracy and an extra 15 - 25 yards on his drives by using a longer and lighter club. Here's the face tape from his club and the new longer, lighter club.

Generally speaking, more rounded swings can use longer drivers, more upright swings = shorter drivers - consider that Dustin Johnson and Jimmy Walker are both 6' 3" and use shorter drivers than many of the ladies on the LPGA Tour. It's why custom fitting is so important.

There's a glut of new drivers on the market at present with Mizuno, Callaway and TaylorMade all bringing out new models and we'll soon have demo's in them all, but don't be hurried into picking one 'off the shelf'. I use a bespoke shaft connecting system so that we can try the same shaft on different heads and bypass the manufacturer's standard offering and use different lengths and swing weights to get the most out of the impressive technology in the clubs these days.




- Srixon Z565 irons 4-pw - KBS Tour shafts 
- Miura CB57 irons 4-pw - Steel-Fiber shafts 
- Mizuno JPX 900 Forged irons 4-pw - XP95 shafts 
- TaylorMade SLDR driver reshaft - ACCRA iSeries 
- Mizuno S5 wedge - ACCRA carbon wedge shaft