Crouching over the ball and feeling like a giant playing with a child’s toy set? If that picture sounds familiar, your golf clubs might be too short. Playing with ill-fitted equipment is one of the quickest ways to build bad habits and make a challenging game even harder. This guide will walk you through how to identify if your clubs are holding you back, understand the swing problems they cause, and outline the practical steps you can take to fix it for good.
Before you run out and buy a new set, you need to be sure the length is actually the problem. Most golfers who play with clubs that are too short won't even realize it, they just think the discomfort and inconsistency are a normal part of their swing. Here are some of the most common signs that your clubs could be the wrong size.
Your address position is the first place problems will appear. Your body is incredibly smart, it will do whatever it needs to do to get the clubface on the ball. When a club is too short, these compensations often lead to a flawed setup.
A poor setup almost always leads to poor, inconsistent contact with the golf ball. Your ball flight can provide excellent clues about your club length.
Playing with clubs that don’t fit doesn't just feel weird, it actively forces you into swing patterns that work against the fundamental principles of a good golf swing. These compensations become ingrained muscle memory and can be difficult to undo later, even with the right equipment.
As we emphasize in our core teachings, the golf swing is a rotational action powered by the body. To do this, you need space. You need room for your hips and shoulders to turn back and then unwind through the ball. When you’re hunched over because your clubs are too short, you effectively lock up your body. Your torso can’t rotate freely, which means the only way to move the club is to lift it with your arms and shoulders. This arm-dominant swing lacks both power and consistency.
Power in the golf swing comes from creating a wide arc and unraveling your body with speed. Short clubs force you into a narrow, steep swing arc. There’s simply less time and distance for the clubhead to accelerate. What’s worse is the inconsistency. Someone playing with clubs that are too short may hit a decent shot, then a fat shot, then a thin shot. They aren’t making a repeatable athletic motion, they’re trying to time a compensation perfectly every single time, which is nearly impossible.
Early extension, often called "humping the goat," is one of the most common swing faults among amateur golfers, and it's frequently caused by equipment that is too short. Since your body starts in a cramped, hunched-over position, it instinctively knows it needs to create space for the club to swing through the impact zone. To do this, your hips and pelvis thrust forward toward the ball in the downswing. This move completely derails a good swing sequence, leading to blocks, hooks, and thin shots as the arms get trapped behind the body.
Okay, so the signs are there and you're pretty sure your clubs are a little shrimpy. What's the next step? You have a few options ranging from a quick fix to a permanent solution.
A simple and cost-effective way to test your theory is to add extensions to your clubs. These are small plastic or steel plugs that can be installed into the butt end of the shaft, typically increasing the length by half an inch up to a couple of inches. A local golf shop can do this for a small fee, and it allows you to feel the difference a longer club makes without committing to a new set.
A word of caution: Extending a club makes it feel differently balanced. Technically, this is called changing the swing weight. Adding length makes the head feel lighter, which some golfers struggle with. It’s a great test, but not always a perfect long-term fix.
Getting a professional club fitting is the single best investment you can make in your game. A qualified fitter won’t just measure your wrist-to-floor and send you on your way. They will watch you hit balls and analyze your swing dynamically. They analyze your launch, spin, and dispersion to find the optimal length, lie angle, shaft type, and grip for your unique swing.
This is important because simply adding length isn't always the only answer. When you lengthen a club, it makes the lie angle more upright (the toe of the club points up). If your original clubs had the correct lie angle, lengthening them could introduce a new problem: a tendency to pull or hook the ball. A fitter accounts for this and will bend the club to the correct lie angle for your new, longer length, ensuring every spec is working together.
If you're in the market for new equipment, the good news is that most major manufacturers offer custom shaft lengths at little to no extra cost when you order a new set. Your professional fitting will provide you with the exact specs you need to order.
If you prefer to buy used, keep an eye out for sets that are already marketed with your required length (e.g., "+1/2 inch"). Otherwise, you can easily buy a standard set and take it to a repair shop to have the length and lie adjusted based on your fitting results.
Recognizing that your clubs are too short is a huge step toward more consistent ball striking and a more comfortable, powerful golf swing. By understanding how ill-fitting clubs impact your posture and promote bad habits, you can see why it’s so important to address the problem, whether through simple extensions or a full professional fitting.
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