Does the Price of the Shaft Ensure Better Shaft Performance?

In a word? No, the price of the shaft does not ensure that anything about the shaft will be better, whether you are talking the fit, the performance or the quality. Sad, but it is true.

Over the past several years, a number of shaft companies have chosen to develop and market graphite shafts for woods which are VERY expensive. From the early 1980s when graphite shafts were first introduced until the mid 2000s, the most expensive graphite shafts cost in the area of $50 to $60.

In almost every case, these were shafts which were manufactured to be very light in weight and with a very low torque measurement. Making a graphite shaft that weighs 65 grams or less and with under 3 degrees of torque costs more money because more expensive higher strength/higher modulus graphite fiber materials are required to get to that light of a weight with that low of a torque.

But today, there are many shafts selling for $100, $200, $300 and even more which are of “normal weight” with a torque measurement in excess of 3 or 4 degrees. Why are there a number of shafts today being sold for such high prices? If you pay hundreds of dollars for a shaft, does that mean you will hit the ball farther, straighter or more consistently?

There are FIVE elements in the design of a golf shaft which ordain every bit of its performance. Those elements are the, 1) Flex or overall stiffness of the shaft, 2) Bend Profile, otherwise known as how the stiffness is distributed over the length of the shaft, 3) Weight, which is important because the shaft’s weight controls the total weight of the whole club, 4) Torque, also known as the shaft’s resistance to twisting during the swing, and 5) the Weight Distribution, which is also referred to as the balance point of the shaft.

At Wishon Golf, we maintain a data base of shaft measurements for more than 2,000 different shafts. This data base is the core of our TWGT Shaft Bend Profile Software, a program which allows custom clubmakers to be able to make quantitative comparisons of shafts for the purpose of making better shaft fitting decisions for golfers. With this software program, it is possible to compare the design and production specifications of any shaft in the data base to any other shaft.

In a nutshell, it is completely possible to find shafts which cost hundreds of dollars for which all of the performance elements are identical or so close to be considered identical in performance to shafts which cost less than $50. In all of our research we simply cannot find any performance justification for the very high price charged for some shafts today.

What makes a GOOD shaft is whether that shaft’s flex, bend profile, weight, torque and balance point are well matched to the golfer’s swing speed, point of wrist cock release and downswing force. There really is no such thing as a “bad shaft”; there are only poorly fit shafts and properly fit shafts. A properly fit shaft has no price guidelines or cost requirements attached to it.

To find the very best shafts for your swing and for your game, first look for a Clubmaker in your area though our Wishon Golf Find a Clubfitter locator tool, found on the home page of our website http://wishongolf.com/find-a-clubfitter/. Call the clubfitter and ask how he fits shafts to golfers. If he tells you he analyzes the golfer’s clubhead/swing speed, downswing transition/tempo and point of wrist cock release to known data measurements of shafts, your shaft fitting needs will be in the best hands.

Until next time, best wishes in this great game,

-Tom

Short, Powerful Backswing: So What’s The Best Shaft for Me?

Short backswings with strong acceleration do require more overall stiffness and/or more tip stiffness to prevent a sudden, forceful swing move from over bending the shaft at the start of the downswing.

When choosing the right shaft, the weight of the shaft, the overall flex and the bend profile are the most important elements, with torque being much less important.  The reason is because you just do not see higher torque with any shafts that are designed in a stiffer overall flex with more tip stiffness. The shaft companies know that players who need to use stiffer overall flex shafts and more tip stiff shafts also need to keep the torque no higher than 3.5*. So it is very rare in the industry these days to even see a normal S, a strong S or any X flex with tip stiff bend profile to ever have a torque higher than 4*.

In addition, as long as the overall flex and bend profile and weight of the shaft are correct for a golfer’s swing, the difference between a torque of say, 2* and 3.5* is very minimal on shot dispersion. The golfer might notice that the 2* torque shaft felt a little stiffer at impact than the 3.5* torque version of the same flex and bend profile shaft, but he would not experience anything in the way of off line shots from a 1.5* torque difference.

So do your best to get fit for the right shaft weight, shaft overall flex and bend profile for your swing moves and the torque is not going to be an issue.

The best way to be sure you are properly fit for the right shafts that match all your swing characteristics is to find a GOOD Clubmaker/clubfitter in your area and have them use their knowledge and experience to custom fit you.

-Tom

Tip Soft Shaft: What Does it Mean for Your Swing?

What is meant by a “tip soft” shaft?  A shaft can be designed with any variation in its stiffness over its whole length.  So a tip soft shaft is one that is designed to be more flexible in the tip area of the shaft.  Likewise there can be any number of variations in how stiff the tip section of a shaft is designed.  The reason this is done is to help golfers with different swing characteristics find the right shaft that matches best to how they swing.

Most typically, golfers who unhinge the wrist cock early in the downswing are better fit with tip soft shafts, while golfers who hold that wrist cock until very late in the downswing are better fit with a tip stiff or tip firm shaft.  Those who unhinge the wrist cock somewhere in between early and late then are typically better fit to shafts that are more what is called a tip medium design.

But these terms “tip soft/tip firm/tip medium” are completely generic in their description and in no way tell you HOW TIP SOFT or HOW TIP FIRM is the shaft exactly.  That’s why we created this Bend Profile Software so that clubmakers can see exactly how much stiffer one shaft is than another, and where on the shaft from butt to center to tip is the shaft more or less stiff.

Let me explain using a graph and data from our Bend Profile Software data base.  In this software we store the FULL LENGTH STIFFNESS measurements of over 2,600 different shaft models and flexes so that clubmakers can empirically compare the stiffness design of one shaft to another to help them make better shaft fitting recommendations for the golfers they fit.

CLICK to Enlarge.

These are two different shafts which are designed to be virtually the same exact stiffness from the butt to the center of the shaft, but then different in stiffness for their tip section. In the graph and data box, the 41 to 11 columns tell you WHERE the stiffness measurements were made on each shaft, in inches up from the tip end. So the 41/36 measurements are considered the BUTT end of the shaft, the 31/26 measurements the CENTER section of the shaft and the 21/16/11 considered the TIP Section of the shaft. In the measurements, the higher the number, the stiffer the shaft is at that point.

So from this you can see that the Gold Tour R shaft is more tip stiff than is the Gold Plus High R because the 21/16/11 measurements of the tip section of the Gold Tour are higher and thus more stiff than the same location measurements of the Gold Plus High shaft.

The best way to be sure you are properly fit for the right shafts that match all your swing characteristics is to find a GOOD Clubmaker/clubfitter in your area and have them use their knowledge and experience to custom fit you.

~Tom

-Tom