A group of four strangers are gathered at a sports bar to watch the final round of the Masters. Naturally, the conversation turns to golf: where do they play, what handicap do they carry, etc. As they show Rory McIlroy losing another drive to the right, they get to the topic of equipment, and drivers, specifically. The highest handicapper is only slightly embarrassed to confess that he plays a Nike driver- “you know, the old square one.” The other high handicapper has a Cleveland HiBore, “you know, the one with a big dent on the top.” The mid-handicapper has a Callaway FT-5 “with a stiff shaft” he says confidently. The single-digit handicapper can’t help but smile when describing his pride and joy: “Titleist 909D2 with a Project X 6.0 shaft.”
Have you ever noticed that better players tend to tell you both the model of clubhead and model of shaft when asked about their equipment? The reason for that is that the shaft in many ways is just as important as the club head. This is especially true when it comes to woods and drivers. I play a Titleist 10.5 degree driver with a regular shaft. If forced to choose between using a driver with the same head as mine but with an extra stiff shaft or a Callaway 8.5 degree driver with the same regular shaft as my gamer, I’m taking the driver with the same shaft as mine every time.
What a lot of golfer don’t know is that not all shafts that are marked “stiff” play the same. Similarly, not all shafts marked “regular” play the same. If you are like me, you’ve purchased a club without playing it on the course because you thought it should be perfect. A handful of years back, I was playing a 10.5-degree Titleist 983K with a Graphite Design YS-6 stiff shaft. I loved how I could work the ball both ways, but I lost a ton of distance on mis-hits. I was working at a golf course at the time and decided to demo the newer and more forgiving Titleist 905R. To my delight, they had a 10.5-degree 905R in stock with a Graphite Design YS-6+ stiff shaft. I was shocked to find that I couldn’t hit the newer, bigger club. I noticed right away that there were two problems: 1) the 905R was heavier, and 2) the newer YS-6+ shaft was playing stiffer than my older YS-6. Indeed, I have found that most newer drivers, especially the adjustable ones, are much heavier than my 983K. The added weight slows down my clubhead speed, which makes the shaft play stiffer. It wasn’t until a bogey-golfer friend of mine handed me his back-up driver that I was convinced that I should now be playing a regular shaft. His clubhead speed is probably somewhere in the high 80s, but he found the regular shaft in his back-up driver to be too stiff. With my clubhead speed in the high 90s, he thought I might have more success with it. As promised, he showed up with his back-up driver and handed it to me on the first tee. Much to my surprise it was a 10.5 degree 905R with a YS-6+ regular shaft. To make a long story short, I bombed it all day and ended up shooting a career-low 65 on a course I had never seen before.
So how do you know if the shaft you’re playing is right for you? There are several things to consider:
1) Get hooked up to a launch monitor. This is as easy as heading to your local Golfsmith or Golf Galaxy (or any other proshop with a launch monitor) and “shopping” for a driver. I found that while my hardest swings put my clubhead speed @ 100 mph, my average swing with a driver was in the mid-90s. My “three-quarters” swing with my driver, which I use to keep the ball in the fairway on tight holes. brought that number all the way down to about 90. Those kinds of numbers put me in the regular shaft category.
Beyond giving you an idea of your clubhead speed range, a launch monitor can also tell you what type of swing is most efficient. Most launch monitors spit out a number called the “smash factor.” The smash factor essentially let’s you know how efficiently your clubhead speed is being transferred to the ball. The math is actually quite simple. To calculate the smash factor, just divide your ball speed by your clubhead speed (ball speed / clubhead speed = smash factor). In my case, I found that an “average” driver swing put me at 97mph with a smash factor of 1.48. While I could crank it up to 100mph, my smash factor would go down to 1.46. When I toned it down to 95mph, my smash factor went up to 1.50. What I found, then, is that my smoother swings were more efficient. Some people find the opposite is true. A buddy of mine swears that he hits it better when he swings harder. Having played quite a few rounds with him, I can attest to his freakish ability to swing crazy hard and hit it flush. While my friend hits it better when swinging at 95% compared to 85%, other people hit the ball better when swinging at 85% than when swinging at 75%. In other words, some people just don’t hit it well when using an overly toned-down swing. In my case, the numbers were telling me to smooth it out, which further pointed me in the direction of a regular shaft and brings me to my next point.
2) Keep your tempo in mind. Do you swing at a tempo closer to Nick Price or Fred Couples? Are you more of a Brandt Snedeker or an Ernie Els? In general, golfers with quicker tempos benefit from standard weight or even heavier shafts. If I’m not mistaken, Nick Price was playing with some of the heaviest shafts on the market when he was in his prime. Quick tempo players also tend to benefit from shafts with stiffer tips and/or higher kick points. In other words, stability is the name of the game for the uptempo swinger. For golfers with a smoother transition, lightweight shafts and lower kick points tend to provide some extra launch. I once read that Fred Couples once played with a ladies Callaway 3-wood that belonged to his friend’s wife.
Related to tempo, you might also want to consider your physical build. I’m a scrawny little guy: 5’6” and 135 pounds. For me, a lightweight shaft with some flex in the tip helps me get the ball moving. The same is generally true for the junior golfers out there as well. The muscular Polynesians I grew up playing with in Hawaii were all playing heavy stiff and extra stiff shafts for a reason- it gave them the best chance to keep it in the fairway.
3) Remember the old saying: with longer clubs, play the softest shaft that you can control. I feel like I play with a lot of young males that play with a stiff-shafted driver just because they are young and male. When I see them hit those weak shots to the right (the tell-tale sign of a shot hit with a shaft that’s too stiff) over and over again, I almost want to hand them my driver so that they can see just how much farther they’d hit it with a regular shaft. Furthermore, playing with shafts that are too stiff can have a negative impact on your swing. That was certainly true for me. In order to get the ball to launch properly with stiff shafts, I had to basically overswing on every drive. My ball position started to move forward and I was staying way too far behind the ball at impact. When I switched to a regular shaft, I was able to put the ball back into a “normal” position just inside my left heel, which allowed me to make a proper turn through the shot.
4) Don’t buy it until you’ve seen the ball flight. This is sometimes easier said than done. Keep an eye out for demo days at driving ranges in your area- they are a great way to test both new heads and new shafts. There is no substitute for hitting a real golf ball off of a real tee and watching the ball fly on a real driving range or golf course. For all of my talk about launch monitors, I’ve never hit any of the clubs in my bag on a launch monitor. It could very well be that my Titleist driver spins too much and my Cleveland 3-wood spins too little. But at the end of the day, I’m so comfortable with how they play and so confident with them that I don’t need to know about the numbers. If the secret is in the dirt, then the truth is in the ball flight.
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