Understanding Iron Shafts

[tallpaul]

Can anyone point me in the direction of a resource that identifies the characteristics of different steel iron shafts and explains their relative merits? Perhaps from a club fitters perspective, more of an in-use view rather than just facts and figures.

Cheers,

Paul

 

[the_coach]

Can anyone point me in the direction of a resource that identifies the characteristics of different steel iron shafts and explains their relative merits? Perhaps from a club fitters perspective, more of an in-use view rather than just facts and figures.

Cheers,

Paul

Not really understanding what kind of information you are specifically looking for? Maybes if you give a little more detail as to what you are exactly looking to find out?

Shafts of any sort are only really specifically relevant to an individuals swing characteristics & swing profile, and also to the physical stature of the particular person.

 

[nemicu]

The best way to understand steel iron shafts is to familiarise yourself with them in person. Numerous demo days and demo clubs are at most golf courses these days for golfers to try out. A simple google search of the main OEM's, such as True Temper, KBS, Nippon etc will also yield some info to the characteristics of a particular shaft and it's player target. I doubt there's one particular resource that can encompass the whole 9 yards of the humble iron shaft, but the chances are that any opinion is open to interpretation too - in other words, they may work well for someone but not everyone. Everyone swings it differently, that's why it's important to seek out the solution yourself (for your own swing) rather than relying on anecdotal evidence of "this shaft was high launching and smooth" trivia.

 

[Foxholer]

Can anyone point me in the direction of a resource that identifies the characteristics of different steel iron shafts and explains their relative merits? Perhaps from a club fitters perspective, more of an in-use view rather than just facts and figures.

Cheers,

Paul

As others have mentioned, 'merits' probably not, 'attributes' maybe.

Tom Wishon and Ralph Maltby have some pretty good, independent, data on shafts. And there;s quite a bit of club-making info spread about elsewhere on the net - even specific (sub)forums.

Whether that's going to be helpful for what you are after, only you can tell.

Happy hunting!

 

[mab]

You typically find individual oems provide neat visuals of their shaft lines, for example:

This link is to the Titleist custom shaft brochure, which compares iron shaft on page 6:

http://media.titleist.com/images/titleist/files/UK/2014_Titleist_Custom_Club_Options_UK.pdf

 

[nemicu]

Good recommendations above. Websites like True Temper and KBS also feature proprietary software which allows you to input data to find the best match to your swing.
TT have Shaftfit: http://www.shaftfit.com/front/
KBS have Fit-System: https://kbsgolfshafts.com/fit-system
The downside of these however is they rely totally on the data input from the user. Even though they are giving their swing details to a computer, golfers still have a tendency to be economical with the truth. Hence, be as honest as you can with the data you input, to get an accurate recommendation.
A better option perhaps is the Mizuno shaft optimiser: http://golf.mizunoeurope.com/custom/swing-dna.php.
If you visit your Mizuno retailer or stockist, then you can utilise their Swing DNA system to give recommendations based on how you swing a specially designed club with sensors built in. Your own swing can't lie so to speak - the resulting data gives 3 shaft recommendations based on how you swing the club. It should be noted that this too is only a recommendation and not a finite be all and end all. Nothing actually beats swinging the shaft in question and seeing for yourself the results, but at least the recommendations of any of these helps to narrow down your search criteria. Which can be a minefield if you go in blind.