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Shafts: Do You Believe in Feel?

Nippon Shafts
Space Bandito said:
Figured, you of all people would love that.
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Really? What gave it away? Seriously, I don't find joy in upsetting people. That's no fun. What I do enjoy is challenging peoples' beliefs. I figure if they truly believe something, they should be able to convey to me why. If they make a great argument for their belief, I'll likely consider their point. If they cower and hide to avoid the challenge, then I assume their belief wasn't very strong and/or the concept isn't worth considering. I expect the same from people who believe different than I do and I welcome the banter.
 
Canadan said:
This should be another one of those threads where people get mad at me for starting, yet can't stay out of hahahaha

Do you believe that shafts have 'feel' to them?

- If yes, what does that mean to you? How important is it?
- If no, why? And, how can you select something without considering feel?
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Yes, I can 100% tell the difference in feel between shafts. Now, with feel being very very subjective. What I feel may not be the same as any other golfer. it may not even be the feel or feedback intended by the manufacturer.

To me it is very very important. I can tell within a few swings if I like the feel of a shaft. I like a shaft that feels (again to me) active. Even if it is designed to be low launch low spin. I like the feel of something that I can tell loads.

So if I was to design a shaft for myself with my very limited knowledge of how things actually work. I would design a shaft that was super super tip stiff to keep spin down. Very medium in the mid section. And fairly stiff in the butt.

Again that could be completely wrong but that is what seem to make sense in my mind on what I like.

I also agree to a certain extent with @Jman that what is perceived as feel in many causes is actually torque.
 
OGputtnfool said:
Really? What gave it away? Seriously, I don't find joy in upsetting people. That's no fun. What I do enjoy is challenging peoples' beliefs. I figure if they truly believe something, they should be able to convey to me why. If they make a great argument for their belief, I'll likely consider their point. If they cower and hide to avoid the challenge, then I assume their belief wasn't very strong and/or the concept isn't worth considering. I expect the same from people who believe different than I do and I welcome the banter.
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I don't fault you for liking to challenge people. Hell I do it quite a lot as well, though more in person. Text provided little in the way of emphasis and tone.
 
Space Bandito said:
I don't fault you for liking to challenge people. Hell I do it quite a lot as well, though more in person. Text provided little in the way of emphasis and tone.
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I know. That's why I remind people that I've gotten along with almost every THPer I've ever met. I figure that anyone that writes me off here would likely get along with me fine if we met in person and they didn't know I was "OG".
 
Gman79 said:
difficult for me to feel shafts - but recently encountered a 2x4 (heavy and stiff) shaft - just feels like i cannot get any movement.
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A friend who is always messing with clubs and shafts brought a driver to the course one day and told me to try it. This thing had a shaft that felt like rebar, and felt like it weighed a ton. Swinging it felt like it was going to rip your arms out of the sockets. I could definitely feel the difference in that one.
 
Snowman said:
A friend who is always messing with clubs and shafts brought a driver to the course one day and told me to try it. This thing had a shaft that felt like rebar, and felt like it weighed a ton. Swinging it felt like it was going to rip your arms out of the sockets. I could definitely feel the difference in that one.
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What shaft was that? Any idea?
 
Absolutely believe in feel. I think for me personally most if not all comes from weight and flex, but both of those attributes make the shaft feel different.
 
OGputtnfool said:
What shaft was that? Any idea?
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I can't remember at all, not even what brand. Honestly I've never paid that much attention to shafts, but that one really showed me what a dramatic difference there can be. One swing and I couldn't get it out of my hands fast enough. All I remember is that it was an XS something.
 
I believe in feel.

I think it's a balance of load and weight. The feedback I get when cutting through a divot is part of that, which is how the vibrations from that flow through the shaft.

No idea if that's a thing, but that's how it seems to make sense in my head haha.
 
Having access to numbers with GCQuad and Trackman has changed how I consider shafts, but feel has not changed as a big factor to me. I feel the shaft in the backswing, the transition, loading, and at impact. I have hit shafts that gave me great numbers but I did not like the feel at all. I don't know how else to explain it.
 
so this is a pretty interesting topic. I've been fit twice both times we focused really on the numbers since as a fairly new golfer (5ish years) I don't have a known preferences for feel. I know that my new Hz YL smoke shaft in the Xtreme SZ driver feels really "together" and connected to me, I fell like I know where the head/face is throughout the swing pretty predictably, but I have no idea what the characteristics I feeling are. @Canadan (or anyone) do you have any recommendations to learn to associate different "feelings" with different aspects of the shafts profile? For example, if you hit XYZ shaft you'll get an extreme example of high kick point, or very unique loading, etc... the kinda scratch and sniff learning for dummies.
 
Yes i do. When i went through my fitting i was blown away by the different shaft feels and performance. The first swing i took my with TZ6 i knew that was the one. I am not technical enough to breakdown all of the particulars but the feel is real!
 
well when @DB TT tells me torque = feel, then the answer is yes, shafts have feel because shafts have torque as a component to the design.
 
McLovin said:
well when @DB TT tells me torque = feel, then the answer is yes, shafts have feel because shafts have torque as a component to the design.
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Saying feel is not real to me would be the parallel of saying sound is not real.
 
I do believe that a shaft can feel whippy or boardy and that can effect how you swing it. Ive heard people say that they feel like a whippy feeling shaft will give them more distance or that a shaft that feels boardy is going to give them more accuracy.
 
I absolutely believe in shaft feel. I was surprised actually how much difference I was able to describe when doing testing prior to the ProjectX Small Batch Experience, and how much that info was able to tell.
For me, the biggest factors were shaft diameter (taper vs. parallel), kick point and torque.
 
of course you can feel a shaft and the flex AND torque as it comes through the hitting zone. If you understand what you are feeling. I love taking someone else's driver that they are just off with and taking a couple of swings and then launching one down the middle
 
Yes, I am in the camp that feel exists in shafts and it is important to me. As long as the shaft feels "smooth" too me, I am comfortable with it. Never really liked the feel of any Project X shaft I have tried (HZRDUS Red was the one exception) as they have all felt a little boardy to me. The weird thing is that I have experienced the best success with sub-3 torque driver shafts and those have felt quite smooth to me despite the really low torque.
 



Feels is where it's at. Shafts are like ex-girlfriends: some are hot as hell but never felt right and you are damn glad to get rid of them and others just feel right even if they aren't the prettiest however whats true about all of them is that they will cost you money to figure out which is which before you break up with them and move on to the next one.
 
I am on the side of can’t tell much about feel in shafts. I do like less vibration and if I test a heavier shaft I can kinda tell.
 
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