Driver shafts

[jim54]

I am sure this may have been discussed before but I wanted to ask JB, Hawk, Jman and everyone else, do you find aftermarket Driver shafts make a significant difference in your driving?

I play the BB Alpha with the stock stiff tour shaft and for the most part hit Fairways and for my swing speed OK distance 220-230 average, sometimes a bit more and miss hits a lot less.

So being a tinkerer I have been looking at changing the Shaft to maybe squeeze a bit more out of my swing. But the shaft is not really going to increase my SS or help with contact OR will it to some degree.?

I see a lot of you hitting White Tie or Black Tie for example, does it really help or is it a feel type thing and you just like that type of Shaft?

Now the THP Club tester's have the advantage of trying things most of us never would due to cost and availability. Looking around on the fleabay and other places these shafts can easily cost $200-$500 for the bare shaft, I would part with that kind of money if it really made a difference and I saw 15 more yards and more Fairways, but is that realistic?

I intend to drive David at the A A crazy next week trying different setups but thought I would ask the group for a opinion before I go and get frustrated.

 

[JB]

Aftermarket shafts can make a difference. However despite what gets posted online quite often, aftermarket does not necessarily mean better.
In my opinion there is very little reason to buy an aftermarket shaft based on buzz. One should choose the shaft that they like the feel of, fits their game and offers the solution that works and fits the budget.

 

[jlukes]

Really curious to hear from those that participated in the fitting at the #PersonalDistance event with Wilson. I believe it is the first even that featured an extensive fitting and would love to hear the experience of everyone that went through it and what had the biggest impact in numbers during the fitting.

 

[h0ss66]

A shaft is only good if it fits you, stock, aftermarket, or otherwise. I've been longer and more accurate with certain stock shafts with certain club heads. Presently I'm going aftermarket in my woods after a solid fitting where it was determined my swing has certain loading characteristics that require a certain weight/flex of shaft. Its all about what works for your swing and rather than concentrate on swing speed, find a shaft that helps you hit the center of the clubface most often.

 

[ArmyGolf]

Its kind of been a trend on here lately that aftermarket shafts are overrated and over thought. This is both true and untrue IMO.
No shaft will make a lousy ball striker become consistent and as such won't change his game much.

What a shaft change can do when administered properly is fine tune a club to get that extra 5-15 yards out of it. Usually a shaft should be determined by a fitting and in conjunction with loft to get optimal numbers on a repeatable swing.

At the Wilson event I don't think anyone who was fitted for the D200 ended up with the factory shaft...that says something to me.

 

[JB]

Its kind of been a trend on here lately that aftermarket shafts are overrated and over thought. This is both true and untrue IMO.
No shaft will make a lousy ball striker become consistent and as such won't change his game much.

What a shaft change can do when administered properly is fine tune a club to get that extra 5-15 yards out of it. Usually a shaft should be determined by a fitting and in conjunction with loft to get optimal numbers on a repeatable swing.

At the Wilson event I don't think anyone who was fitted for the D200 ended up with the factory shaft...that says something to me.

I dont think anybody would say overrated, but overthought absolutely. Not from a stand point in that they are not a quality piece of equipment. I will give you an example. Look up the keyword Rogue and see what is written. Why would all of the comments be "I cant wait to test this out" (generalization) if something is about fine tuning? This is a genuine question.

 

[ArmyGolf]

I dont think anybody would say overrated, but overthought absolutely. Not from a stand point in that they are not a quality piece of equipment. I will give you an example. Look up the keyword Rogue and see what is written. Why would all of the comments be "I cant wait to test this out" (generalization) if something is about fine tuning? This is a genuine question.

I guess the only answer is because many of us are wrongly convinced that a shaft on its own can make a massive difference in performance. I throw myself in that boat as well. I'm excited to hit the Rogue Black but I honestly couldn't tell you why exactly.

I can hit the Speeder 7.1, Kusala White, and Kai'Li in my 910 and see differences in height, distance, and misses but I probably shoot the same score with any of the 3.

 

[JB]

I guess the only answer is because many of us are wrongly convinced that a shaft on its own can make a massive difference in performance. I throw myself in that boat as well. I'm excited to hit the Rogue Black but I honestly couldn't tell you why exactly.

I can hit the Speeder 7.1, Kusala White, and Kai'Li in my 910 and see differences in height, distance, and misses but I probably shoot the same score with any of the 3.

I think a shaft can make a difference. Less about flex than profile in my opinion. My point was the excitement about a shaft that has not been hit yet, when the idea behind a shaft (from you) was that it was for fine tuning. I think a shaft is quite important. I also think people overthink it. Just one man's opinion.

 

[ArmyGolf]

I think a shaft can make a difference. Less about flex than profile in my opinion. My point was the excitement about a shaft that has not been hit yet, when the idea behind a shaft (from you) was that it was for fine tuning. I think a shaft is quite important. I also think people overthink it. Just one man's opinion.

I do agree that a shaft can make a difference. When I said fine-tuning I was trying to refer to the fact that a golfer always needs to start with the head...if that makes any sense.

 

[jim54]

Thanks for the replies, it seems my initial feeling that it is a very personal thing is correct.

I have been a iron shaft changing fiend and finally settled on the CTL, but truth be told the end results are not all that different. Good swing, good result. But the Driver brings in some other factors, like only hitting it a dozen or so times a round and the margin for error or glory is a lot higher just by being a longer club.

Taking lessons and actually practicing some has helped with consistency, so maybe a Shaft could help the Driver some. With all the new offerings all ready out from Callaway (and others) a new driver is not that much more or in some cases cheaper than a aftermarket shaft. I was looking at the cheaper shaft options $75-$100 as a experiment.

It would be interesting to hear from the Wilson event folks.

 

[JB]

I do agree that a shaft can make a difference. When I said fine-tuning I was trying to refer to the fact that a golfer always needs to start with the head...if that makes any sense.

Perfect sense brother.

 

[ryos]

Callaway bb stock shaft can be consider aftermarket, since its a premium fubuki and not made for. Altough an expensive shaft will do nothing for you if its not right for your swing. Get fitted, thats the best way to know. My BB is much better now with a UST chrome, than with the fubuki, but I was fitted for lenght, weight, flex, etc. Totally worth the time and money spent

 

[lvgolfer]

I have had a lot of driver shafts in the last few years, for me the aftermarkets generally feel nicer, but get about the same on course numbers with them I think as long as the shaft isn't super light or tip soft. Yes, right now I have some exotic shafts absolutely love my 3 wood combo feels so freaking good. I think that loft plays a much bigger impact in best distance as long as the shaft fits your game pretty good. I really don't think you would see 15 yards and more fairways just by a shaft. I work at Dick's and can maybe at most get the guys 20 more yards if the driver really doesn't fit them. I think that as long as your form is pretty good the shaft plays a much smaller role in the swing more mental than anything and can change the spin by only about 400 rpm's, which at our swing speeds it would be very hard to tell the difference at the golf course. Just my thoughts on it, but they have definitely changed lately. I was getting to the point where I was thinking about launch monitor numbers with the drives instead of is it in the fairway with a solid strike and a respectable distance off the tee for my swing speed.

 

[emart2173]

I don't like buying something that I am not fit for. I have played aftermarket shafts and got better results than stock (currently playing G25 with Diamana Whitboard) have played others with stock (Nike a Covert 1.0) some people that I know play a certain shaft in their drivers and woods regardless of how the stock might perform. For me it's all about numbers/performance and what fits me best.

 

[Hawk]

Jim, here are some things I observed from the W/S fittings.

First of all, there is value in fitting and this showed that pretty clearly. I still maintain in many cases people are spending money and pondering energy on things that won't make that big a difference in their game, but it's what we do here. What I'm not saying is that we should all just buy off the rack and forget it. Instead, if we have something that works relatively good, maybe that $150-$300 could be spent elsewhere on something that gives a little better bang for the buck.

Most guys didn't do well with the stock shaft. The majority just hit it too high with too much spin, losing carry. That's not a big shock since we had a group with a lot of above-average driver swing speeds and the stock setup is really designed for the lower swing speeds. Of the two lower swing speeds, one did quite well with the stock shaft and the other found something else that worked much better.

What I saw was that every guy did reasonably well with shafts with similar profiles. So for example, you might see the higher swing speeds do pretty well with either the Tour Green, RIP Phenom, one of the Obans (can't remember which one). Of those options, one usually ended up being the best for each guy and it was different most of the time. Another group of guys mostly gravitated to either the Fuel or the Tour Blue (also similar), with decent results using both - but again a best option came out for them.

What I think was most interesting was that almost every single guy answered "this one" (meaning the one that they picked as the best) when asked "which felt best to you". I talked to the fitters quite a bit about this and they said that when they were suggesting/offering different shafts they were trying to match the player's tempo with the belief that they'd be able get them something that felt right during the swing. This sort of freed them up to just swing the club. They also experimented with weights if they needed to tweak something.

 

[jim54]

Thanks Hawk, great info and very interesting how people will fit themselves so to speak after some encouragement and seeing some good numbers.

As one of those people that never do well on a LM, it will be interesting to try several different shafts next week. Now we did that when I bought the original BB from them and he ended up with the Alpha tour shaft in the BB head as the best fit at the time. But that was 6 months or so and as many lessons ago.

 

[jim54]

Just for the info, I have tried the core up and down different settings, etc and do not see any drastic difference. Core up seemed to launch higher and a bit longer but that was on the range with crappy limited flight range balls so not a good test. I settled on the Neutral +1 setup core down as the most consistent just play the fade setup.

 

[Hawk]

Just for the info, I have tried the core up and down different settings, etc and do not see any drastic difference. Core up seemed to launch higher and a bit longer but that was on the range with crappy limited flight range balls so not a good test. I settled on the Neutral +1 setup core down as the most consistent just play the fade setup.

Core is good for matching where you normally make contact to. If you're hitting the ball high on the face, you can put it in the up position and vice versa.

 

[wluker17]

Aftermarket shafts can make a difference. However despite what gets posted online quite often, aftermarket does not necessarily mean better.
In my opinion there is very little reason to buy an aftermarket shaft based on buzz. One should choose the shaft that they like the feel of, fits their game and offers the solution that works and fits the budget.

I absolutely agree with every bit of this. I've used stock shaft in my Alpha for a while and I really liked the distance that I got out of it but the ball flight was a little high and it was easy to lose some shot in either direction. I got fit for a new aftermarket shaft and one I didn't expect turned out to be the best for me. Now I have the ball flight I prefer and the sidespin has greatly diminished. But not everybody will have that same experience. Stock shafts are stock because golf companies do their research and know what is going to work for most golfers.