It`s long closed and they drill through the top section,no competition to other poles available at the moment i think they rushed it out and didn`t think it through well enough and it`s still a heavy pole.I`ve held 1 and it`s well over 6ft closed and it`s only a 25ft pole,they sell far shorter poles closed i don`t know why they didn`t put more thought into the weight of the pole instead of being more bothered about what it looks like.