The Phoenix is a symbolic name for Xcaliber shafts in a few ways, first is the link to the era of legends and Arthurian stories which the brand name has heavy roots in, but the other symbolizes a return of a legend for Robin Arthur and the company. You see, the Phoenix is based upon the winningest wood shaft in professional golf, the Grafalloy ProLite, so the name is certainly apropos.
We were able to get the entire Phoenix range in for a closer look and subsequent review, read on to find out more.
The Details
This is a shaft design which does exactly what it claims to do, a lower spinning and mid launch profile which responds to an aggressive move, regardless of the shaft weight. The Phoenix is extremely affordable like the rest of the Xcaliber lineup, but also boasts a plethora of fitting options with three different weights and multiple flexes including TS for even the strongest swingers.
Xcaliber Phoenix Driver Shafts
The first thing I believe is important to understand when discussing the Phoenix is that this is quite literally the ProLite profile brought into modern times with improved production and tolerance capabilities. Those modern aspects are also what have allowed the creation of the Phoenix 4 and 5 which are just lighter weight versions. It is clear that in the opinion of Robin and company, the winningest shaft design of all time still stands the test of time.
An interesting thing to think about there is how limited the options were in the time of the ProLite with graphite really in its infancy. Nonetheless, success is success, but does it translate? To test that we were able not only to get all three weight classes of the Phoenix, but also each in their S and TS versions. They are also available in R, but we did not test those.
Upon unboxing, I took the Phoenix shafts, all six of them, right to the frequency analyzer to test them versus their stated flex. Interestingly, here the 5TS, 6S, and 6TS easily met their mark of S while the 5TS, barely hit the CPM to be considered stiff. The 4S and 4TS however were solidly in the R realm according to measurements. Is this all that surprising? In my opinion, not particularly, considering the goal here is keeping the same profile as the ProLite, just lighter, it seems natural that the lighter weights there would be a little softer to flex since they didn’t want to alter the design, just weight.
Each of the shafts were installed into Cobra adapters and built to the same length with the same grip as well. They were also all tested using the Cobra Darkspeed LS driver at standard 9.0 loft with the heavy weight back. This is a very fast and low spinning head for me, so it seemed to make the most sense when working with the Phoenix profile. The data captured can be seen below:
| SHAFT | BALL SPEED | LAUNCH | SPIN | CARRY | TOTAL | HEIGHT | OFFLINE |
| Xcaliber Phoenix 4S | 162 | 18 | 3208 | 269 | 286 | 42Y | 21Y R |
| Xcaliber Phoenix 4TS | 162 | 17 | 2873 | 274 | 301 | 39Y | 19Y R |
| Xcaliber Phoenix 5S | 160 | 16 | 2923 | 268 | 294 | 37Y | 16 Y R |
| Xcaliber Phoenix 5TS | 160 | 15 | 2381 | 272 | 298 | 34Y | 10Y R |
| Xcaliber Phoenix 6S | 161 | 14 | 2679 | 274 | 300 | 32Y | 7Y L |
| Xcaliber Phoenix 6TS | 161 | 14 | 2358 | 274 | 303 | 30Y | 5Y R |
Foremost, I have to say how surprised I was at how easily these launched for me, not so much in the lighter weights knowing what I did via the CPM measurements, but more into the 5TS, 6S, and 7TS. Where spin was concerned, things certainly jumped in the softer flexed shafts, which was certainly in part due to my aggressive swing/move just leaving the face a bit open. That said, they responded impressively in terms of speed. The Darkspeed LS itself is a fast head for me, but the fact that the averages for every weight and flex option came out where they did ball speed wise was eye catching.
Something I do want to mention, in the collection with the Phoenix 5TS, that data is based on one recorded swing while the others are in sets of ten with two tossed from each to form the averages shown. The reason here is that shaft actually gave way in my second swing. Now, sometimes things happen, and I am not making a huge deal of this as I recorded the 5S, 4S, and 4TS after that incident and every one of them held up fine. However, for the sake of transparency, it needed to be mentioned.
The Details
Overall, the Phoenix showed me that the ProLite profile likely still has its place, and with the ability to make even lighter versions now, there seems to be a very wide fitting window. I would be curious to see if we get any heavier versions down the road from Xcaliber, however, as I feel like there is even more opportunity to broaden the window of fitting.
The Phoenix is available in R, S, and TS within each of the three weights, and is priced at a mere $135.00 per shaft. They are available at select fitters nationwide as well as direct from xcalibershafts.com.
