Can kids use cut down adult golf clubs?

Cutting down an old adult club is the oldest trick in family golf. It is free, it takes ten minutes in the garage, and plenty of tour players started with exactly that. It can work, but for a child under about 110 cm it usually does not, and it is worth knowing why before you reach for the hacksaw.

The short answer

Shortening an adult shaft fixes the length and nothing else. The head stays the same weight, the grip stays the same thickness, and the shaft becomes stiffer than it already was. A three to five year old ends up swinging a club that is the right height and completely the wrong weight.

What actually changes when you cut a club

The head stays heavy

An adult iron head weighs roughly 260 to 300 g and is designed to be swung at 120 km/h or more. Cutting the shaft removes only a few grams of graphite or steel. A child who swings slowly cannot feel where that head is, so they drag it, lift it with both arms or fall backwards through the ball.

For comparison, we cap the clubs in our set at weights a small child can control: driver 210 g, putter 250 g, iron 7 270 g. The reasoning is in how we choose the weight of every club.

The shaft gets stiffer

Every centimetre you remove makes the shaft play stiffer. An adult regular shaft is already far too stiff for a slow swing, and a cut down one is stiffer still. The club will not load at all, so the ball goes nowhere and the child concludes they are bad at golf.

The grip is too thick

Grip diameter is built for an adult hand. A young child cannot close their fingers around it, so they hold the club in their palms and lose any chance of a natural wrist hinge. If you do cut a club down, regripping it with a junior grip is the single most useful thing you can do.

The loft is wrong for slow swings

Getting a ball airborne at a slow swing speed needs loft. Most adult sets start at lofts designed for speed the child does not have yet. A higher lofted iron and a lightweight driver head will produce the flight that keeps a child interested.

When cutting down is a reasonable idea

• The child is over roughly 120 cm and getting close to standard junior sizes.
• You have a light graphite shafted club, ideally an old ladies or senior model.
• You are willing to change the grip as well as the length.
• It is a second club for the garden, not the set they learn with.

When to buy properly sized clubs instead

• The child is under about 110 cm, which is most three to five year olds.
• They have shown they enjoy it and you want them to keep going.
• They will play on a range or a course, where mishitting everything gets discouraging fast.

Junior programmes at national federations such as the Royal Belgian Golf Federation, the Dutch golf federation NGF and the Swedish Golf Federation all fit children by size and stage for the same reason: equipment that fits is what lets a beginner learn a real movement.

How to check what your child actually needs

Measure them against a wall with their shoes off and compare that number with a height band rather than an age. Our kids golf club size guide has the table, the one minute measurement and the signs that a club is too long.

If the answer is a properly sized set, our club sets for ages 3 to 5 were built for children between 85 and 110 cm, with published weights for every club.