Coombe Wood Golf Club
George Road
Kingston Upon Thames
Surrey KT2 7NS
020 8942 6764
Custom Fitted Golf Clubs
Phil Wright PGA
020 8942 6764 email here
Shafts
Golf shafts are probably the most mis-understood component of a golf club. Because of the vast choice on the market today they are probably the most confusing part as well. With literally thousands of shafts to choose from it’s no wonder there is a lot of miss-understanding. A lot of these shaft options will be similar from one make to another in how they perform but it still leaves a lot of variations.
To add to the confusion, the old accepted method of flex identification (A, L, R, S, X.S.) is not exactly accurate. An ‘R’ flex in one type of shaft can be very different from an ‘R’ in another type. Also this letter identification deals with only one aspect of shaft flex; its overall flex. We still have to deal with the butt stiffness & tip stiffness of the shaft, both of which can have a dramatic effect on the resulting performance of the golf ball.
Comparing Shafts Using Profiling
Shafts Will Vary in Performance
More shafts are available these days with a swing speed rating rather than a letter code;either included in the graphics on the shaft or available from the manufacturers website. Other information available that is of great importance is the weight of the shaft; a major consideration when fitting the correct type of shaft to a player. The biggest change of overall weight in a club can be made through a change in the shaft. Considering that certain steel shafts can weigh as much as 130 grams, we can reduce the weight by well over half that if we go to some of the graphite shaft alternatives available as low as 45 grams & certainly on average around the 65 – 70 gram mark. Reducing the overall weight of a club is a big step to increasing club head speed. When we consider that for just 1 mph of extra clubhead speed can mean a gain of between 2 & 3 yards the potential for significant distance improvement through shaft weight reduction becomes very real.
Swing speed is not the only consideration we need to look at in fitting the correct shaft. How each individual player swings the club will determine how the shaft works; two golfers with the same swing speed may end up being fitted with quite different types of shaft depending on certain swing characteristics.
To say that the shaft is the most important component of a golf club would not be true. All the component parts are of equal importance in that they all have a dramatic effect on the final performance of the golf club. But the shaft certainly can have a major effect on distance, accuracy, height, trajectory, accuracy of strike & very importantly the ‘feel’ of the shot.