Graphite Vs Steel shafts

StrangelyBrown

Tour Winner
Joined
Dec 1, 2009
Messages
3,881
Location
Edinburgh
Visit site
Hi all,
I may be wrong but, to me, it seems that 99.9% of all golfers have graphite shafts in their woods and hybrids. However, very few have graphite shafts in their irons.

Why is this?

I've graphite in my irons because I preferred how they felt in comparison with the steel version. I've never been for a CF session so I don't know if they are technically the 'correct' shaft for my swing. All I know is that they felt 'nicer' than the steel equivalent.

Has anyone else experienced this or am I a minority of one?

Cheers
SB
 
I had graphite shafted Callys back in the day. Never got on with them. Could hit the 8i 180 or 140, depending how the shaft reacted. Not what you want from an iron. Changed back to steel for more consistency. I guess they are better now, but am happy with steel.

Only advantage of graphite to me was I could leave wet clubs in my bag and they wouldn't rust.
 
As Murph says it's consistency.
Graphite is still relatively new and at first it was difficult to get a whole set of irons with graphite shafts that felt and performed the same way throughout the set.
Today of course with the new technology that problem is a thing of the past.
In theory as they are lighter they should be easier to swing faster than steel but lots of people are used to using steel shafts and prefer the weight.
There is also the extra costs involved in buying graphite shafts that will put lots of people off.
 
For at least ten years I played graphite shafted irons...they were lighter and I preferred the fact that the heads felt heavier, which promoted me getting through the ball.
Went for a custom fitting at Mizuno early last year for my MX200's and the steel shaft they offered was proven to give a much better dispersion rate than graphite.
So I went back to steel, and have stuck with it with my i15's.
Wouldn't go back to graphite now
 
I had graphite shafts in my irons, when i was suffering from tennis elbow. Seemed to help, but after many years i seem to have finally got rid of the compliant, and am back to steel shafts. I did get Nippon Pro 950GH which are light, and allow me to feel the head more.
 
I did have graphites in my Cally X 20 and my Tour Burners and at the time found them pretty good. I never had to much discrepancy in terms of distance (just direction) and the only complaint I had is that the lighter shafts got the ball higher than I'd have liked.

I bought a set of R9's with KBS steel and that was it. Back to steel again for me. As I swing so quickly anyway, the heavier shaft has helped enormously and was great when I did a lot of work on my tempo earlier in the year. When I sold the R9's for the TP's I have now I went to an R300 shaft which seems to have been around forever but I'm still getting great results
 
Top