If you are anything like me, an avid golfer with Children then I am sure you would love to encourage them to take up golf. There is nothing better than Father and Son spending some quality time out on the Golf Course. Golf is one of the hardest games to master and most players realize the importance of having clubs that are correctly fitted. This goes for Junior’s as well.

First Things First

Once the decision has been taken that your child would like to play golf many people’s first reaction is to think about getting some clubs. This is where the biggest mistakes happen. You will look around the garage and find that old set you have collecting dust and often covered with rust. Off to your local Golf shop to get the length adjusted and voila, you have your Junior golf set all ready to go! If your garage is empty then chances are you will phone around your Golfing mates and see what they have in their garage!

What are the Problem’s with Cutting down the Shaft?

When a Golf club is designed in the factory a lot of measurements and weights are taken into account. Every club is different and in order to get the best results the weighting needs to be set up so the club balances and feels good. This could be translated into Swingweight. When you take an old club and chop 5-8 inches off the top you completely mess up this fine balance. What’s left is a club that is exceptionally heavy and very hard to hit. This obviously does your child no favors and is one of the worst ways to start them off with a game that is difficult enough.

If that was not bad enough consider the shaft flex. Shaft’s are designed to be a specific flex at a specific length. By trimming the top to accommodate your Child’s height you are essentially changing the Shaft flex to an Extra-Stiff flex! With little or no flexing in the shaft throughout the swing the club will feel dead and the child will struggle to hit the ball properly.

The Lie Angle of a club is critical as this determines the direction. By chopping a significant amount off the top off the shaft you will see the toe of the club will be sticking right up in the air at the address position. In most cases a good swing would result in the ball going straight left.

If we add up the problems listed above you will see that we are doing our kids no favors by cutting down old golf clubs. You will end up with a club that is very heavy, super stiff in the shaft and a lie angle that on a good day will hit everything left! Even if your Child sticks at the game and does improve a bit you can guarantee plenty of bad habits will have been picked up by trying to get these out of spec clubs to perform.

The Correct Way?

I can understand that you do not want to go out and spend a lot of money on Junior golf clubs if you are not sure your Child will enjoy the game. In all honesty though you will be much better off to spend a lit bit of money and give your Child the best chance to enjoy the game and improve. At the end of the day if they do not like the game you can always sell the Junior clubs on to someone else looking to get their Children started. Check out the following link for some ideas and pricing Great selection of Children’s Golf sets