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KBS Tour 90 Shafts Review - Forum Testing

Nippon Shafts
Guys lets try leaving the camera talk for elsewhere. This thread is about the shafts. Thank you.
 
looking forward to seeing the finished products and results

I have the old ones in my R9's and love them, will be following this thread closely
 
TheIcemann said:
Hey THP! Today I received the box with my shaft in them. I ordered 5-PW with two extra PW shafts. These will be going hardstepped into my irons 4-9 Apex Edges, and the two extra PW shafts will be going into my PW and 50* GW. My 54* is going to stay with the standard KBS Tour because I don't use it for full swings and I prefer the heavier feel on chip shots. I will have these ready for play as soon as I can. I will be putting up a video of my swing and ball flight before swapping out the shafts for a comparison of before and after the effects of the lighter weight shafts. I usually go through one range session a week and anywhere from four to seven rounds per week. Without further ado, the shafts:
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I'm going to have a lot of fun trying to get the stickers on perfectly. If I'm lucky I can get them to do it with the installation and not have to worry about doing it all crooked and uneven.

THP Pure grips have just been ordered fore these. I'll be using the services of my uncle to put them on the shafts. I wish I could do it myself but I don't have all the tools I need.

A huge thanks goes out to THP and KBS Shafts for this opportunity! I'm really excited to be a part of this and I will give the testing my very best of efforts. I look forward to seeing how my three fellow testers like these as well as myself!
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War Eagle said:
KBS Tour 90 Testing
Pre-testing Writeup

As most of you know, I am going to be placing the KBS Tour 90 (stiff) shafts in to my Bridgestone J40 Dual Pocket Cavity Irons. In those irons, I have the Project X 5.5 flighted shafts, which I have really enjoyed so far. To me, the world of shafts is a bit new, and something that I am trying to learn a bit more about. Having the opportunity to talk to Conrad at KBS about iron shafts has been great, as it has really given me crash course education about the importance of a properly fitted iron shaft, and what benefits it can have on your game.

The shafts I currently game in my irons are at 120g, and the Tour 90s going in them are 102g, quite a bit of difference in what I have, and what I will soon have in my irons. One of my biggest struggles with my game is the line drive ball flight. It is something that i have struggled with, and have tried to fix, be it by playing a higher lofted driver or working on my stance and ball position. With that lower trajectory, I often lose out on distance and spin, and struggle to hold greens when I am hitting in to them, and my shot dispersion isnt where I would like it to be. In talking with the team over at KBS, the thoughts they had were that the KBS Tour 90 shafts could be a great fit for me; getting a higher ball flight and a better trajectory to result in better distance and more spin, as well as having a tighter shot dispersion for improved accuracy.

The team at KBS has been quite quite helpful in educating me on selecting shafts for my irons. I have always been a "stock shaft works for me" type of guy, but after getting my quick education from KBS, I see how that could be something that has been holding me and my game back a bit. I am quite excited to get these delivered to my door, and hoping they come soon. By design, the Tour 90s claim to offer a higher trajectory, and this is something that I can see being quite beneficial to my game.
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Jersey Nate said:
KBS Tour 90 Pre-Testing Writeup


First of all, I have to thank KBS and THP again for the incredible opportunity to test the KBS Tour 90s. I've only had two sets of irons (Wilson Staff Di11s and my current gamers the Ci11s) and have always gone with the stock shafts. With all the equipment talk here, I always have been curious as to what a different shaft would do for my game.

My current shafts are the True Temper TX Flighted in my Ci11s. Paying attention to what they do for me in the Ci11s, these shafts flight the ball on a mid-high, piercing trajectory that bores through wind very nicely. Coming from the Uniflex fat shaft in the Di11s, the TX Flighted shafts lowered my ball flight slightly and I saw a lot less ballooning from them, with distances just as good as my previous Di11s. The weight of the stock shafts in the Ci11s comes in at 105 grams, whereas the KBS Tour 90s in Stiff flex will come in at 102. As this is a (in my opinion) negligible difference in weight, I'm very excited about how quickly I might get used to these shafts in my Ci11s and am looking for differences in feel, ball flight, distance, spin, and accuracy. I'm wondering if these shafts will have a similar ball flight to the TX Flighted, or if they will offer a higher ball flight as I was used to seeing with my Di11s. I also hope that they help my shots bore through the wind, as I do play some tracks close to the Jersey shore which offers quite a bit of medium to high winds. I enjoy the stock shafts in my irons, but I've always taken heed of all of the KBS love that is throughout this forum and am very happy to have the opportunity to try them out myself.

It has been said before by WE, but Conrad at KBS has been incredibly helpful in setting me up with the right flex (no hard or soft stepping here) and has been an absolute asset here on THP in the Official KBS Thread...all in a relatively short amount of time. This is my first big equipment testing, and I hope to do a thorough and honest job providing feedback here so people can see what these can do for a mid-high handicap golfer.
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pmoa said:
Just like WE, I'm going to provide some background info. Shafts were relatively new for me and always thought stock would be fine. Boy was I uneducated!

I am currently gaming the Ping I20's with a Regular CFS shaft weighing in at a paltry 99g. They are extremely light! The clubs are at a D0 swing weight which makes it a little difficult to feel the club head. The clubs play mid-high trajectory, but the ball just seems to carry! The CFS shaft has less steps in it to provide a smoother feel to the hands. These are really good shaft offerings, but it's time to optimize.

Then, in comes Conrad from KBS. He mentioned with my swing speed I could stick with regular, but we felt we could get the ball down a little bit by hard stepping it once to be a little stiffer. I am inconsistent on my ball striking and the balls tend to be off the toe. This is more of an artifact of my swing and not the equipment I hit a mid-high ball and am looking for tighter dispersion and more distance.

One request from the testers. Would it be possible to see some pics of loading the shaft with your current shaft and then the KBS shaft? One at the top and one at impact? I'm just curious.

Thank you to THP and KBS for this awesome opportunity and hope to bring honest feedback to the community.
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Great initial thoughts (and pics) guys. I am really looking forward to your thoughts since I am new to the shaft change world myself.
 
Somebody got a delivery today!

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I'm loving the testing group posts so far - especially those of you who have always used stock shafts. I'm in the same boat having always used stock, so this thread could be particularly influential for me. Good luck everyone!
 
Guess what I came back home to...

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Sent from my Evo 3D using Tapatalk
 
Glad you guys are getting these so quickly. These shafts have me very interested, as a result I foresee myself pestering each of you often.

--
Tapatalk2
 
Well I know it's late, but finally I got the unboxing to work:

 
Great vide JN! Looking to hear more thoughts...

Here is my crack at an unboxing: [still decoding recorded at 720p 60 fps] watch in HD if you like

 
pmoa said:
Great vide JN! Looking to hear more thoughts...

Here is my crack at an unboxing: [still decoding recorded at 720p 60 fps] watch in HD if you like
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this video is unavailable
 
Nice video, pmoa! I'll be saying goodbye to my Ci11s and the KBS 90s tomorrow as they are off to get put in and gripped. Can't wait to take my first swings with these.

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My irons are currently being reshafted, and are almost ready to go. I should have them by Tuesday/Wednesday, and should be able to have them in play Wednesday evening for my league.
 
WE I am really excited to hear your thoughts on the differences you see on those DPCs with the Tour 90 compared to the 5.5 PX. I have been interested in the Tour 90 and am currently playing the 5.5 PX in my Morgan Cup irons because I just didn't have any experience with the KBS to know how they'd perform. But I have always been intersted in KBS, so I'm really looking forward to your feedback and comparisons. Have fun with them!
 
Nice Vids guys. hope they play well for you guys and can't wait to hear more!
 
INgolfer said:
WE I am really excited to hear your thoughts on the differences you see on those DPCs with the Tour 90 compared to the 5.5 PX. I have been interested in the Tour 90 and am currently playing the 5.5 PX in my Morgan Cup irons because I just didn't have any experience with the KBS to know how they'd perform. But I have always been intersted in KBS, so I'm really looking forward to your feedback and comparisons. Have fun with them!
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I was a big fan of the PX 5.5s in the J40s, so the Tour 90s have some work to do. They are designed to see a bit of a higher ball flight, which is something that I really need.
 
Nice video's pmoa and JN. This will be cool to see how much difference these shafts have with your ball flight. Good Luck with the testing after the shafts are installed.
 
Looking forward to hearing how these work for you guys over your old shafts.
 
War Eagle said:
My irons are currently being reshafted, and are almost ready to go. I should have them by Tuesday/Wednesday, and should be able to have them in play Wednesday evening for my league.
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Very interested in your thought dude. Especially with those irons

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so who's going to be the 4th?
 
6/24/12 KBS Tour 90 Testing
Reshafting

When I found out that I would be testing out the KBS Tour 90 shafts, I decided that I wanted to capture the entire aspect of the process, especially since some of the posters had mentioned that they were curious in the reshafting process in the signup thread after the testers were announced. I knew this would be tough, as I am not yet able to reshaft my own irons. I talked with Tadashi about reshafting them, and being the amazing guy that he is, he stepped up and told me that not only would he take care of the work on my irons, he would also help me accomplish what I wanted to do and help me document the journey I am going to have with these shafts.

My first goal was to select what kind of "style" I wanted to go with, and I decided that I wanted to go with a color scheme that would "scream" THP for this testing. I decided to go with Green Pure Grips, as well as green ferrules for the irons and green/white stripped ferrules on my wedges;
Here is a shot of the green Pure grip next to the different ferrules I went with:
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Grip w/ Green Ferrule on KBS Tour 90;
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Grip w/ Green/White Ferrule on KBS Tour 90;
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Here is a shot of the Green Pure grips installed on the KBS Tour 90 shafts;
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So, after Freddie and I played a round of Golf with the rest of the Florida THP'ers, my J40 DPCs were off with him, headed to Orlando to get some work done. Freddie was kind enough to document via video the steps he took to remove the current shafts out of the J40s, regrip, place new ferrules, and install the new KBS Tour 90s shafts in to the heads.

The first video is of the removal of the J40 head off the current shaft;

The Tour 90 shafts came to us testers uncut, so that we could have them adjusted to the lengths that we play. I wanted to stick with the length that I play my J40s at right now, so in order to ensure that they were measured out correctly, we needed to cut the old grips off and measure to make sure we had the numbers right;

The KBS Tour 90 shafts came to us to match our current setup. My current iron setup in the J40 DPCs is 5-PW, as well as playing 3 Nike VR Pro Wedges, at 50*, 55* and 60*. Each shaft was individually labeled and marked with which club they were to go in to, so to ensure that the right shafts went in to the right club head. I did not hard-step or soft-step my setup.

After getting the right measurements for the shafts, it was time to cut the shafts down to the correct length. Some people have the luxory of a workbench, but if you are like me (and in this case, Freddie) a work bench isnt a must have for shaft work and cutting them down. Here is Freddie cutting down the shaft, as well as preparing the tip to be installed in to the iron heads;

Shafts were cut down, and time to tape and grip them up. I went with one wrap of tape under the pure grips. Installation of grips can be pretty easy, I do my own with a simple setup of grip solvent, tape and some old fashioned elbow grease.


After all the above steps are completed, it's time to install the shafts in to the iron heads. In the video there are some great shots of my irons set and ready to go. The last step is put on some epoxy, slide on the ferrule and insert the shaft in to the iron head. Freddie captures it all again on video here;
[video=youtube;W5c--5c15YE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5c--5c15YE&feature=player_embedded[/video]

So that's the step by step process that my J40 irons went through to take their original shafts out and get the KBS Tour 90 shafts installed. Was glad that we could capture the process on video, as I know that I personally have always wanted to be able to do a project like this myself rather than having to rely on a golf shop or a good friend to do it. The process is pretty straight forward, and the videos capture it all so that others can see what it takes.

I am quite excited to get these in hand. I am loving the green grip and ferrule setup, and think the green will hopefully prompt some folks to ask a question or two on why I went with that look...that will be an easy opening for me to tell them about the awesome place we have here on THP, the amazing testing opportunity I have been given, as well as letting them know all about the KBS Tour 90 shafts. Again, a sincere Thank-You to THP and KBS for this opportunity, I am excited to get this testing opportunity rolling, and from talking with Freddie, I should have them by Tuesday so I can get them out where they belong, on the Course!

Also, I want to extend my appreciation and Thanks to Freddie aka Tadashi. When I got selected for this testing, he immediately sent me a text offering to help me out with reshafting my irons. He didnt have to do that, but did so with out even thinking twice. Freddie is an asset to THP, and a true friend. On top of offering to do the work, he didnt even blink when I told him of my idea to document the entire process, from start to finish. Oh yeah, did I mention he did all of this in less than 24 hours before he went out of town on business? Amazing. Freddie...Thank you for this!

I hope to have these in hand by Tuesday, will probably have an unboxing video up of my first impressions and thoughts from the range.
 
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Thats awesome, thanks for sharing that WE, and what a great gesture by Freddie to do that for you!
 
Pretty cool WE. I think this is the 2nd or 3rd time Freddie has done this for someone. Love the THP theme.
 
runpuddrun said:
Pretty cool WE. I think this is the 2nd or 3rd time Freddie has done this for someone. Love the THP theme.
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Yep, he's a good dude. I think the THP theme on these will look great, cant wait to see them in person.
 
They look even better in person brother. These will be dropped at FedEx tonight and delivered to you on Tuesday. Glad I could help.
 
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