I talked to the Ping rep for quite a while last Monday while I was being fitted for a 5w. I decided after speaking with him that I should try a different loft on my driver.

I currently use a 12* driver with a stiff shaft as my primary driver. My swing speed was clocked between 105 and 115 during my fitting. But I'm not getting what I view to be excessive loft with my drive unless I mishit. My average drive is over 250, but what surprises me the most is how far my mishits still go.

So I bought a used G5 with 9.5* of loft to see if I could get any extra distance out of it. So far, my results are negligible. I hit it so low that I feel like I'm losing distance. But most importantly, I have no control over it. I've actually found myself trying to hit a fade so that it lands and stops on a lot of holes. Except I don't exactly have a lot of control over my fade, either. Yup....I got two penalty stroks on my last round trying to do just that. So I'm going to be carrying both drivers for a few rounds so that I can use the 12* on the holes where I need control while hitting the 9.5* on the holes where I can let 'er rip.

Hey Bryan, just curious, which club are you giving up in your bag while you try this experiment? Or do you carry less than 14 to begin with? Always interested to hear what others do when they have to give one club up to put in another. Personally, I hate giving up any wedges, so will usually take out a long iron or hybrid. I can usually choke down a bit on my 3H to give me the same distance as my 4H. I guess it really depends on the course though, and which ones I happen to be hitting well at that particular time.

I've removed my 3h, since I rarely hit it anyway. The gap between my 4h and 5w is tolerable. Now keep in mind that I just got fitted for a 5w. I have a temporary 5w in my bag right now, a Ping G2, that I hit reasonably well (not nearly as well as the K15 that I've ordered, which is a high forgivness club). I need to get used to having a club in my bag that I can hit from that distance with any amount of confidence. Then we'll reassess.

If I had to choose right now, I'd take the 12*.

[

Bryan K wrote:

]So I bought a used G5 with 9.5* of loft to see if I could get any extra distance out of it.[

] Your self-diagnosed problem has been your inability to score from 100 yards in. Why are you trying to hit your drives farther? At 250 yards you are going to be inside 150 yards on most par 4's. When a longer drive is needed, you indicate you have the capacity to crank it out further than 250 using your current club. With an average good drive of 250 yards, most of us would work on accuracy and consistency rather than look for a few more yards from a new club.

I'm trying to improve all aspects of my game.

A couple of things I have noticed, in addition to my inability to score, is the fact that wind really wreaks havok with my game. I play in Fargo. A typical day sees a 15-20 mph wind (it's like that outside right now). When you hit into a wind like that, it really exacerbates any spin that is on the ball. My home course has very little room for error off the tee. I have found that hitting into the wind off the tee has lead to a very, very high number of penalty strokes. One of the reasons for trying a 9.5* driver has to do with keeping my tee shots down when playing into a wind like that.

The second thing that I really need to improve upon is being able to hit par 5's in two strokes. That's why I was fitted for a 5w. When I outdrive my opponents on par 5's only to find myself shooting for birdie (at best) while they are putting for eagle every single time, it has made me realize that I'm losing opportunities here.

But as far as equipment goes, I know I have what I need in the bag to be able to score from inside 150. It's all about practice and the mental game at this point, and I have made some strides in the past couple of weeks. My last round, for instance, I was getting all of my chips close and missing a lot of putts due to freshly aerated greens. It would have been extremely frustrating, missing all of those putts from inside of 10 feet, if I hadn't mentally made an allowance for it. Take away a couple of blowup holes, and I had a pretty good round. But the biggest problem I had on that round was that, even though I was hitting my irons extremely well, I found two flaws that need to be addressed. The first is, it has been so long since I have hit my irons well, I don't know my distances anymore. And the second is, I need to concentrate on my allignment more because I have a very strong tendency to miss greens pin high to the right. They were all good strokes, though, which makes me happy with the round even though I didn't score that well. What I have been working on the hardest has started to improve. My only truly bad strokes on the round were either off the tee (two penalty strokes where I hit the ball well but couldn't control the fade I was trying to hit) or with my fairway wood (easily lost more than 5 strokes because I either couldn't hit my fairway wood or I didn't dare use it).

Bryan K wrote:

I've removed my 3h, since I rarely hit it anyway. The gap between my 4h and 5w is tolerable. Now keep in mind that I just got fitted for a 5w. I have a temporary 5w in my bag right now, a Ping G2, that I hit reasonably well (not nearly as well as the K15 that I've ordered, which is a high forgivness club).

Not to stick my nose into your bag, but a 3H and a 5W are essentially the same club. I don't know too many people who carry both. You could probably permanently do away with the 3H, keep a 5W, and have an extra spot in your bag (or a lighter bag).

SteveMM wrote:

Not to stick my nose into your bag, but a 3H and a 5W are essentially the same club. I don't know too many people who carry both. You could probably permanently do away with the 3H, keep a 5W, and have an extra spot in your bag (or a lighter bag).

I carry a 20* Hy and a 5W which is I think 19*. And there is definately a difference in distance, because the wood shaft is almost 3 inches longer, therefore higher swing speed.

YYMV (your yardage may vary) of course...

SteveMM wrote:

Bryan K wrote: I've removed my 3h, since I rarely hit it anyway. The gap between my 4h and 5w is tolerable. Now keep in mind that I just got fitted for a 5w. I have a temporary 5w in my bag right now, a Ping G2, that I hit reasonably well (not nearly as well as the K15 that I've ordered, which is a high forgivness club). Not to stick my nose into your bag, but a 3H and a 5W are essentially the same club. I don't know too many people who carry both. You could probably permanently do away with the 3H, keep a 5W, and have an extra spot in your bag (or a lighter bag).

They aren't quite the same. As Jfurr mentions, more clubhead speed with the 5W due to the longer shaft. However, frankly, I hit my 19* 5W only a few yards longer on average, than my 19* 3H. I carry both most of the time. I also have a 4W which I don't carry when I have the 5W in the bag. All 3 of these clubs are Titleist 910 series, so I can adjust them each to stronger or weaker lofts, depending on what might benefit me the most that day. Most of the time I have the loft of the 19* hybrid set to 19.75 and the 5W to 18.25 to keep a bigger gap potential between the two when both are well hit.

DougE wrote:

SteveMM wrote: Bryan K wrote: I've removed my 3h, since I rarely hit it anyway. The gap between my 4h and 5w is tolerable. Now keep in mind that I just got fitted for a 5w. I have a temporary 5w in my bag right now, a Ping G2, that I hit reasonably well (not nearly as well as the K15 that I've ordered, which is a high forgivness club). Not to stick my nose into your bag, but a 3H and a 5W are essentially the same club. I don't know too many people who carry both. You could probably permanently do away with the 3H, keep a 5W, and have an extra spot in your bag (or a lighter bag). They aren't quite the same. As Jfurr mentions, more clubhead speed with the 5W due to the longer shaft. However, frankly, I hit my 19* 5W only a few yards longer on average, than my 19* 3H. I carry both most of the time. I also have a 4W which I don't carry when I have the 5W in the bag. All 3 of these clubs are Titleist 910 series, so I can adjust them each to stronger or weaker lofts, depending on what might benefit me the most that day. Most of the time I have the loft of the 19* hybrid set to 19.75 and the 5W to 18.25 to keep a bigger gap potential between the two when both are well hit.

I stand corrected. For me, I can't see using bag spots on two clubs that are that similar.

Yeah it was actually the Ping factory fitter when I did the "van" fitting who recommended the 20 deg hybrid and the 5 wood together to me. I asked about it too, because of the similar lofts, but he said the lengths make the difference. And for me at least it seems to work out nice and even.

Hey Bryan -- did you end up sticking with the 12* driver?

Bryan K wrote:

I'm trying to improve all aspects of my game. A couple of things I have noticed, in addition to my inability to score, is the fact that wind really wreaks havok with my game. I play in Fargo. A typical day sees a 15-20 mph wind (it's like that outside right now). When you hit into a wind like that, it really exacerbates any spin that is on the ball. My home course has very little room for error off the tee. I have found that hitting into the wind off the tee has lead to a very, very high number of penalty strokes. One of the reasons for trying a 9.5* driver has to do with keeping my tee shots down when playing into a wind like that. The second thing that I really need to improve upon is being able to hit par 5's in two strokes. That's why I was fitted for a 5w. When I outdrive my opponents on par 5's only to find myself shooting for birdie (at best) while they are putting for eagle every single time, it has made me realize that I'm losing opportunities here. But as far as equipment goes, I know I have what I need in the bag to be able to score from inside 150. It's all about practice and the mental game at this point, and I have made some strides in the past couple of weeks. My last round, for instance, I was getting all of my chips close and missing a lot of putts due to freshly aerated greens. It would have been extremely frustrating, missing all of those putts from inside of 10 feet, if I hadn't mentally made an allowance for it. Take away a couple of blowup holes, and I had a pretty good round. But the biggest problem I had on that round was that, even though I was hitting my irons extremely well, I found two flaws that need to be addressed. The first is, it has been so long since I have hit my irons well, I don't know my distances anymore. And the second is, I need to concentrate on my allignment more because I have a very strong tendency to miss greens pin high to the right. They were all good strokes, though, which makes me happy with the round even though I didn't score that well. What I have been working on the hardest has started to improve. My only truly bad strokes on the round were either off the tee (two penalty strokes where I hit the ball well but couldn't control the fade I was trying to hit) or with my fairway wood (easily lost more than 5 strokes because I either couldn't hit my fairway wood or I didn't dare use it).

I used to carry two drivers as well, same shaft but one a 12 degree and the other 10.5. I settled on the 10.5 because against the wind (Texas wind is similar to Fargo wind) I got better distance than the 12 degree. You should try a 10.5 head instead of 9.5 because it gives you about the same control as the 12. My two cents!

jfurr wrote:

Hey Bryan -- did you end up sticking with the 12* driver?

Yeah, I went back to the 12*. Playing in Phoenix now, I don't have the problem of hitting into 20+ mph winds exacerbating any fade I might have on the ball. But I've also found the need to carry a desert club so I don't have to take penalty strokes out of the rocks.