Six big questions about shafts and the answers to help you fly it farther

Photo: Davies & Starr

Four swings. Ask any player on the PGA Tour, and he’ll tell you it takes about that to tell if he has the right shaft. In fact, taking more swings than that can make it confusing. But in this era of launch monitors and computer-aided equipment analysis, getting the right shaft is like making an adjustment to a race car: One tweak, and the turns are seamless, there’s more acceleration down the straightaway and the car and driver perform as one.

In golf one shaft tweak can mean 15 yards.

It’s a fitting analogy, because the shaft has been described as the engine of the golf club. Making the right adjustments to your golf game’s engine is increasingly difficult in a world of shafts made of new materials and weights as well as a multitude of feel characteristics. Golf Digest Playing Editor Nick Price, who experiments with shafts at his home workshop, says finding the right shaft requires one overriding principle. “You want it to be automatic,” he says. “If it’s not right, you’re going to feel like you have to manipulate the shaft. You’re looking for shot pattern, feel and consistency. If those aren’t right in just a few swings, then throw it away.”

The characteristics Price is talking about might be easy to find if you have his repeating swing but hard to pinpoint for average golfers. Nevertheless, the concept is simple and powerful. As the PGA Tour’s Chad Campbell puts it, “When a shaft feels right, you just trust it.” That trust is the foundation for improvement, whether you’re a pro or just wishing you were one.

Says Skip Kendall: “I’m looking for a crisp sound and a swing that feels effortless. If I have the right shaft, I’m not having to work hard to hit shots.”

Aaron Baddeley: “I wouldn’t try anything more than four swings. You’ve got to get that desired flight right from the start. If it takes any longer than that, you’ve already started to adjust to the shaft.”

Luke Donald: “I don’t look at numbers. I test it, and I’m looking for the right penetrating trajectory. It should just feel solid.”

Kenny Perry: “It’s all about ball flight. If I get a shaft that’s too stiff, the ball sort of balloons on me. I need a shaft that has a little kick to it, a little movement down there.”

Jesper Parnevik: “I always want to test in the wind. That’s the last test for me. I prefer a very stiff feel with a high flex point. I want the shaft to move all in one piece. Tiger’s shaft to me feels like it’s made out of rubber, but to someone else it would be very harsh. But Vijay’s driver is like a big cement pole. . . . I can usually tell in one to two shots.”

As you can see, it’s about getting a feeling that improves a player’s comfort level. It’s a challenge for the fitter, particularly when it comes to getting the right driver shaft for an amateur.

With qualified fitters and better launch monitors available to the golf public, the average golfer has the opportunity to get fitted like a tour player. But unlike the pros, we don’t have teams of experts working to tweak our engines on a regular basis. We also have day jobs. We need to supply ourselves with a working knowledge before we go messing around under the hood. Let’s look at six big shaft questions. The answers (compiled from our own research) will go a long way toward getting you technology you can trust.

Q: Does the shaft really matter that much?
A: Not everyone is convinced the shaft is an influential part of clubhead performance. Some believe the shaft’s impact on performance is in the nebulous area of feel. The belief is that a shaft that doesn’t feel right might not produce your best hits consistently, but it won’t affect the way a clubhead functions. In truth, at impact the clubhead behaves as if it were not attached to anything at all. However, most believe the shaft plays a vital role. One of those is Bob Dodds, executive technical director for the Professional Clubmakers’ Society.

NANO

Nanotechnology optimizes graphite by utilizing strong, lightweight and super small (one-billionth of a meter) particles. Note: Shaft cost guide, not including labor: $=less than $50; $$=$51-$100; $$$=$101-150; $$$$= more than $150 (from top). ALDILA NV ProtoPype, $$$. Single-wall carbon nanotubes for stiff-tip performance. GRAFALLOY Prototype Comp NT, $$. Molecular carbon for stabilizing tip. ACCUFLEX Evolution,$$. Composite technology designed to reduce shaft deformation for straighter shots. Merynn Ito

“I can take a bad clubhead and put a good shaft in it and make it work for a given player,” he says. “But give me the best designed head in the world and put a shaft into it that has not been properly fit for that golfer, and that club will be unhittable. It’s the shaft that makes the club work.”

Today companies are spending more time trying to marry specific shaft characteristics to their clubhead designs. In some cases, these lead to product-specific shaft designs, so-called stock shafts. (Note: You can tell it’s a stock shaft because the shaft band prominently features the club company’s name on it, and might or might not include a shaft company’s name.) TaylorMade’s M.A.S. series of stock shafts for its r7 quad and r5 dual drivers were developed after research of golfer types. The Quadra-Action shaft used in MacGregor’s MacTec driver features different levels of flex in three locations on the shaft to optimize downswing performance.

In other cases, companies work specifically with a shaft company to use one of its shafts to match a particular clubhead. Cobra has done this with shaft firms Aldila, Graphite Design and Mitsubishi Rayon on its SZ and Comp drivers, and Sonartec selected the new Fujikura Tour Platform series shaft for its latest SS-2.5/3.5 fairway woods. Even Callaway, which has avoided using name-brand shafts in the past, will go with a special version of the Aldila NVS shaft in its new Big Bertha Fusion FT-3 driver.

So what does it all mean? Basically, companies are trying to fit a range that encompasses most golfers. “We put as much thought into shafts as we do into heads,” says Bob Thurman, director of research and development at Wilson Staff. “We must have gone through about 60 design iterations with UST to develop the right shaft for our newest driver. We design our shafts for the 8- to 24-handicap range, which we feel is the broadest group of golfers we can fit with our stock shaft.”

Q: So only good players should get a custom (non-stock) shaft, right?
A: Danger, Will Robinson. This is a difficult question to answer. It depends on a number of variables that range from how much time you have at your disposal to what type of person you are. Some in the industry believe that stock shafts are inconsistent because they are made in mass quantities to fit a general player profile. Others believe stock shafts are superior because they are designed to specific performance characteristics matched to a certain type of head design. No one is going to dispute the fundamental importance of getting fit to your clubs. How specific that process should get is up to you. But Rick DeMane of DeMane Golf, a leading clubfitter in Greenwich, Conn., says more options mean a truer fit, especially when it comes to the driver. “There is a sufficient range of flex, bend profile, weight and torque in today’s custom graphite shafts that it is safe to say there is a custom shaft out there that will outperform the stock shaft.”

Nevertheless, it’s a little unfair to talk about only the shaft. Does a bad shaft unduly influence the swing? Or will a bad swing be a bad swing regardless of the shaft? For instance, you might swing the clubhead at 95 miles per hour but rarely get the shaft over your head on the backswing, but a John Daly-type might go way past parallel. In short, some people are Sergio Garcia and some are Ernie Els. Their speeds might be similar, but the way they initiate the downswing or load the shaft isn’t. So they probably need a different type of shaft that flexes differently, and subsequently feels different, too. But beyond that, modern shaft technology is translating that sensation into performance differences tailored to the individual player.

“Future shaft technology may be better able to translate precise differences in the bending action of one shaft versus another so that a golfer could achieve more of his optimal launch angle from the shaft,” says fitting expert Tom Wishon, president of Wishon Golf and author of the book The Search for the Perfect Club. “That way, a player might be able to use less loft on the head to get more ball speed for the same overall launch angle.”

STEEL

Although developers of steel shafts have focused on making them lighter, two top shaft brands are addressing the needs of the better player. TRUE TEMPER Dynamic Gold SL, $. lightweight iron shaft with stable tip for increased speed and control. ROYAL PRECISION Rifle Project X, $. Tour-tested iron shaft that features consistent length on the final step down through the set. M.I.

Q: How do I find that shaft?
A: First, get with a reputable fitter and expect to spend some time once you get there. At a place like Hot Stix Golf in Scottsdale, getting fit for an entire set of clubs can take several hours, but local fitters probably can accomplish a driver fitting in little more than an hour. What you can expect is a trial-and-error process in which a fitter looks to find the right combination of weight, length, flex and tip stiffness that matches the feel you need with the performance improvement you desire.

Note: It’s a good idea to come in with an idea of how you’d like to get better. It’s also a good idea to come in prepared to hit a fair amount of shots and to spend a little cash, but generally less than the cost of a new driver. A shaft upgrade on a driver can cost anywhere from $25 to $300 just for the shaft. The installation charge will be $25 to $50.

You can find a good fitter by visiting the Professional Clubmakers’ Society website at proclubmakers.org, or by visiting the Launch Monitor Locator at golfdigest.com.

Also, take the advice of Skip Pankewich, senior design engineer for UST: “A strong player who generates a lot of ball speed wants to launch the drive at a high launch angle with little spin. Such a player might need a stiffer shaft to produce lower backspin so the ball doesn’t balloon up into the air and lose distance. This player wants to see the ball reach its apex, then plateau out and fly down range before falling to the ground,” he says. “Slower swingers could use more flexible shafts [and higher lofted drivers] to produce backspin that will keep the ball in the air longer for more distance.”

In general, tour players who generate ball speed of more than 170 miles per hour (115- to 120-mph swing speed) can optimize distance with a launch angle of 12 or 13 degrees and a backspin rate of approximately 2,500 revolutions per minute. Golfers with ball speed in the 135-mph range (90- to 95-mph swing speed) would benefit from a higher launch angle of 14 or 15 degrees and a spin rate of more than 3,000 rpm.

Q: So how do I know I don’t have the right shaft?
A: Rene Cleaver, PCS Clubmaker of the Year, has these basic guidelines for evaluating the proper shaft specifications for you:

Finally, bend point (This is a technical term, but it refers to how tip-flexible a shaft will feel and perform). “When a shaft’s bend point is too high for a particular player, the golfer will feel an unnatural sensation of tip-flexibility, or head-heaviness,” Cleaver says. “In addition, some high-swing-speed players will see a lower ball flight. If the bend point is too low, some high-swing-speed players might find a higher ball flight. For most golfers, though, a flexible tip is a good thing, increasing launch angle.”

GRAPHITE

Graphite continues to offer more design options than steel. FUJIKURA ZCom, $$$$. Series emphasizes three flex zones to fit a range of swing types and provide the same flex performance regardless of how the shaft is bored into the clubhead. HARRISON SPORTS Striper Tour, $$. Three weights with a flex profile designed for high launch, low spin rate. MITSUBISHI RAYON Diamana, $$$$. Six weight ranges from 53 to 103 grams are designed for stability. GRAPHITE DESIGN Tour AD I-65, $$$$. Low-torque design combines light weight with a mid to high kick point for players with quicker tempo. MCC MFS Matrix, $$$. Varying flex and trajectory profiles are designed to improve energy transfer; based on tour prototype. ROYAL PRECISION Saber Tour Vector, $$. Tungsten microfibers are woven into the tip for better stability. UST IROD Driver, $$. Based on IROD hybrid design with emphasis on high launch and low torque. M.I.

Q: Why should I get excited about today’s graphite shafts?
A: Simple: The design capabilities of graphite materials are finally being optimized. The latest designs are using thinner and lighter yet stronger sheets of graphite. That means a process that used 10 plies of graphite 0.1 millimeters thick can now use 20 sheets that are .05 millimeters thick. Wrapping the sheets in various patterns produces the subtle differences in the way a shaft bends in the downswing.

“The benefits of this process include the less likelihood of breakage, and because of the added material, the shaft designers can be more subtle and use more finesse in designing shafts,” says Benoit Vincent, chief technical officer for TaylorMade. “These stronger, lighter shafts have more fiber than resin, which translates to better feel.”

Q: Torque used to be all the rage. It’s still referred to in a lot of shaft literature. What exactly is it, and what does it do?
A: First of all, torque is a bit of a misnomer. What you’re really talking about is torsional stiffness, or more specifically, the degree of force required to twist the shaft. It is a specific measurement, of course. But the idea of getting a low-torque shaft is passÈ. Here’s what happened. Early graphite shafts used to be inconsistent because of the way they were made. Using other materials to decrease the torque became a necessity, especially for better players. Now, torque is mainly about feel. In fact, tour players have had success in recent years with the Fujikura SIX shaft, which has almost 5 degrees of torque. As a means of comparison, Fujikura’s Speeder shafts have a torque rating of 2.5 degrees, nearly 2 degrees less than that of the SIX. A higher torque number means a shaft might feel softer or whippier, depending on the swing speed of a particular player. But it isn’t a performance issue.

“The shaft manufacturers and golfers have found that when torque is less than 3 degrees in woods, it makes the shaft feel too stiff and boardy, regardless of flex,” says Dodds of the PCS. “For slower swingers, it can make it difficult to get the ball in the air. It used to be that torque had to be less than 3 degrees in premium shafts. But now many of the best shafts fall in the 3- to 4-degree of torque area, so people don’t talk about torque because today’s premium shafts have sufficient torque in them.

“Manufacturing methods and technology also have a lot to do with torque. In the past companies would screw that torque down less than 3 degrees because their shafts were inconsistent,” Dodds says. “People would hit those older graphite shafts all around the ball park, so they added more torque to try to straighten out the shots. They were trying to compensate for inconsistent shafts by lowering their torque. Today’s shafts are much better, so you can have accuracy and a great feeling shaft without lowering the torque too much.”

MULTI

Combining the assets of different materials in a single shaft isn’t entirely new (boron in the tip of graphite shafts, graphite-tipped sections of steel shafts), but it’s now getting more precise. NIPPON SHAFT N.S. Pro 750GH, $$. 75-gram steel shaft utilizes graphite filament wound over the grip section to reinforce the thin steel tubing. AEROTECH SteelFiber i95, $. Company says 59 miles of ultrathin steel fiber (one-tenth the diameter of a human hair) are applied to the outside of the graphite core to extend the shaft’s center of gravity toward the perimeter. M.I.

Q: Is it all about driver shafts? What’s going on with iron shafts? A: It’s all about getting lighter. There are new graphite shafts that incorporate the feel of steel by having balance points that better match those of steel shafts while providing a 10- to 15-percent weight reduction over standard steel. One such new graphite iron shaft is the Aldila NV, which builds on the idea of a consistently progressive tip-flexibility.

Of course, there are new steels that accomplish the same weights as some graphite shafts. “Twenty years ago 110 grams was considered lightweight in steel,” says Graeme Horwood, vice president of engineering at True Temper Sports. “Now it’s 90 and going lower.

“Until now, most super-lightweight steel shafts have been designed for the higher-handicap player and the game-improvement market,” Horwood says. “Such shafts have more flexible tips to help get the ball in the air. But we’re developing shafts now that produce the more penetrating ball flight that better players prefer.”

Lighter weight can help increase clubhead speed, but heavier shafts might improve control. Royal Precision’s 115- to 130-gram Rifle Project X shafts utilize a consistent tapering of the length of the final step (the periodic narrowing or bumps on a steel shaft as you move toward the tip) to provide a consistent feel through the set, all the while building longer middle steps to accomplish the ideal flex profile.

How I added 15 yards of carry

Still unsure whether a custom shaft is the right move for you? Well, we were, too, so we put together a little experiment. Could we tell the difference if we took three identical clubheads and fitted them with three different shafts: the stock version, a popular shaft but not quite the right fit and the quintessential perfect fit. The result was an education.

A good shaft fitting is a bit like speed dating, only much more of a life-changing experience. How much? Put it this way: I don’t care if Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and a plateful of a million dollars are sitting across the table from you. The right shaft is a bigger, better deal. Here’s what happens when you get a good fitting: A magic wizard, otherwise known as a fitter, watches as you hit balls into a net, alternating his gaze between a collection of pre-shafted clubheads, your swing and a computer screen that spits out the relevant launch conditions for each hit. Part artist, part technician, he makes recommendations and offers tweaks. It’s best to go into this experience in a state of complete trust, something we used to reserve for doctors and public servants. Like your mother, a good fitter knows what’s best for you. So what happened in my complete state of blissful trust? Initially, it was a nearly overwhelming exercise in indifference. Of the three shafts we used in our experiment, all three were pretty close fits to my needs. My 12-handicap swing is not consistent enough to make tiny performance differences stand apart, so I had no idea which shaft was supposed to be the ideal fit. I didn’t look at any numbers from the launch monitor because I thought the difference should be obvious. I was getting worried that I was about to bring down the entire shaft-fitting industry. Concerned but undeterred, my fitter suggested I take the three drivers out to the range and the golf course to see if I could see anything different. I took my notepad and jotted down how many out of 10 hits felt solid. (Frankly, it was the only word that made sense, and it was the word I kept hearing from tour players, too.) Alternating drivers every three swings, here’s the “solid hits” leader board: Driver A: 3 (red line in chart) Driver B: 4 (blue line) Driver C: 9 (orange line) I went back to the fitter, hoping that Driver C was the one fit to my standards. Good news. How good? How about an extra 15 yards of carry, according to launch-monitor data (see chart). Total yardage differences amounted to about only three yards, but I’ll take the longer carry because I haven’t figured out how to skip a driver all the way across a lake. Does fitting matter that much? Hard to say. The driver works better, ball flight is more consistent, and every hit feels pretty darn solid. Didn’t hurt that I broke 80 the first time out, either.

Even the best players
use hybrids
The days of the 1- and 2-irons are coming to an end, even for the best ball-strikers in the world. Only 18 of these butter knives were in play at the 2006 PGA Championship compared with 57 in 2004. Although tour pros appreciate forgiveness on off-center hits just as the rest of us do, another reason better players are gravitating toward hybrids is versatility.

Jeff Sluman still plays one of the first hybrids he ever tried–a 20-degree Cobra Baffler. He discovered it when he was searching for a club that would be easy to hit and fill the distance gap after his strong 3-wood. Among the factors that are important to him are the shape of the sole and how softly it makes the ball land on the green. “I can hit it low or use it to putt from the fringe at the edge of the rough,” Sluman says. “It’s a multipurpose club.”

Says Rory Sabbatini of the 19-degree Sonartec MD he carries: “I can use it off the tee and control it like a 2-iron, but on par 5s I can get it up in the air like a 5-wood, so it really does offer the best of both worlds.”

Jim Furyk, ranked No. 2 in the world, says he knew he had found the right hybrid when it produced a ball flight with a high trajectory. “I don’t keep the ball in the air as long as some other players,” Furyk says. “The hybrid helps me keep the ball in the air without a loss of control.”

Despite widespread tour acceptance, certain players remain skeptical. The low CG of hybrids doesn’t jibe with Nick Price’s style of play. Consequently, he still carries a 2-iron. “The hybrid, I know this sounds funny, but it goes too straight,” he says. “I can’t cut and draw it as much as I’d like to.” That’s what you call a high-class problem.