Getting Ready for The Players Club

Big golf week coming up.  British Open starting Thursday.  Then I'm taking Monday off to play TPC San Francisco Bay.  TPC Sawgrass will have to wait til next year.  Normally I'd probably play a "practice" round Saturday to get ready for Monday, but these days I need about 4 full days to recover after a round lest I re-aggravate my neck.  So I did the next best thing I could, played a practice front nine today.  The guy I played with hasn't played in 6 months, and he was using these old rental clubs, and he was wearing his dress shoes (came straight from work), and didn't have a glove.  But he was pretty damn good.  His advice, keep the back swing slow.  Was pretty happy with my irons, chipping and putting, but still not comfortable off the tee.  Think I need to shorten the shaft on my driver.  The average length on the PGA is 44.5" but my driver is 45.75".  That makes no sense, that amateur high-handicappers are using longer clubs than pros.