Definitely counter to what you would normally want to see in a design. Makes no sense, actually, except the fact that Tiger likes it and what he wants, you give him. Blade length is one of the key elements to stability. You can definitely have too short a blade length and we see that a lot in today’s designs. I see a lot of beautiful designs that have too short a blade length and too long a hosel to be playable for most. Takes a really good (great) ball striker to get any benefit out of those designs. Too long can occur too, but usually the only negative there is cosmetic. Trust me, we (Ralph) designed some of the longest blade lengths in the industry for some of our Ultra Game Improvement designs of the past (Glider, Maltby Xtreme X1, X2 ..). Extremely forgiving and stable, but definitely an acquired taste as far as look. If you could get past the extreme blade length, the ball flight was phenomenal. We know what a blade length needs to be to enhance playability and our challenge is produce that playability in designs that are not extreme, but both appealing and highly playable. There are tricks in design to hide blade length that many designers use, primarily the notched heel like you find in our KE4 S and Tour. Makes the the blade length not look as long. Also, we can produce blade lengths that are more appealing, but add tungsten in the toe area to insure the cg stays where is it is suppose to be, in the center of the face. That, combined with shorter hosel lengths allow us to create designs like our MMB-17 or our TS-1, both forgings and player profiles that are Super Game Improvement designs.
Good question and hopefully I shed some light of the subject of blade length and it’s affect on playability.
Britt Lindsey