How to Size a Junior Golf Club (And Why Upswing Comes in Three)

How to Size a Junior Golf Club (And Why Upswing Comes in Three)

The most common mistake in junior golf is buying by age. Age is on the box because it is easy to print, not because it is useful. Two nine-year-olds can be twenty centimetres apart, and twenty centimetres is the difference between a club a child can swing and a club that swings the child.

Size by height. It is the only measurement that matters, and you can take it in your hallway in ten seconds.

The Ten-Second Version

Stand the child up straight, in the shoes they will play in, against a wall. Measure to the top of the head. That number is what you shop with.

Then check one thing on the club itself: with the child holding it in their normal address position, the sole of the club should sit flat on the ground and their hands should hang roughly where their pockets are. If the hands are up by their chest, the club is too long. If they are stooping to reach, it is too short.

A club that is too long is the worse of the two errors by a distance. Children compensate for length by standing further from the ball and swinging flatter and rounder, and that is a habit a coach spends two years unpicking.

Why Cutting Down an Adult Club Does Not Work

It is the obvious economy and it is a false one, because shortening a club changes its length and nothing else.

The head still weighs what it weighed, which is far too much for a swing that generates a fraction of an adult's speed. The shaft, now shorter, is actually stiffer than it was — and it was already too stiff to load. The grip is still sized for an adult hand, so the child grips it in their palms instead of their fingers, which locks the wrists and kills any chance of releasing the club.

The result is a club that cannot be squared, cannot be loaded, and will not get the ball airborne off turf. The child concludes they are bad at golf. They are not. They have been handed a tool that would defeat most adults.

What a Properly Built Junior Club Changes

Every part is specified down, not just the length. Lighter heads so the club can be controlled. Shafts with a flex a young player can actually bend, so the ball launches. Smaller grips so the club sits in the fingers. Heads designed to get the ball up from grass and to forgive a strike a centimetre off the middle.

That last one is the whole game. A child who sees the ball fly wants another go. A child who tops it along the ground six times in a row goes and finds something else to do on a Saturday.

Where Upswing Fits

The Upswing junior range is built to that specification from the ground up, and it comes in three sizes rather than one compromise. You pick the size by the child's height, and the set is right for them on the day it arrives instead of being something they grow into over two summers of bad habits.

The part I like most is the Growth Kit. When a child outgrows a set, the normal outcome is that you buy the whole thing again — five clubs and a bag, most of which were fine. A Growth Kit upgrades the set to the next size instead, so you are paying for the change rather than for a second set.

The range is not on sale yet. It is close, and there is a registration link on the range page if you want to know the day it lands.

A Note on Buying Ahead

If you are buying for a birthday two months out, measure closer to the date rather than now. Children in this age range can add three or four centimetres in a season, and the set that fits in August may be a size behind by October. When it is genuinely borderline between two sizes, take the smaller one — a slightly short club still swings properly, and a slightly long one teaches the wrong shape.

The Practical Bits

Personalised items are made to order, with 1-2 business days of production before dispatch and standard UK delivery of 3-5 business days after it. Free over £75, £4.95 under. Because everything is made to order we cannot offer returns or refunds on personalised items unless they arrive damaged or defective, in which case a photograph is all we need to put it right.

While You Wait

If there is a young golfer in the house and a birthday between now and the launch, the golf range has the small things that actually get used — markers, line markers and personalised balls — and none of them care what height anybody is.