Shaft Flex check

Equipment
#1

Just read Jon’s article on shaft flex. Having started back in golf after 35 years of not playing I bought some used clubs from a guy. After a year I bought new clubs. I went to a local golf shop and was always given the regular flex clubs to try based on my swing speed. I decided to grab two identical 7 irons one with regular flex and the other stiff.

After 6 shots each on the monitor this was the result. Regular flex was 11 yards right of target and stiff flex was 3 yards left of target. Needless to say I needed stiff and I was amazed that no one at this shop dove into shaft flex with me. They just assumed what I needed and would have sold me a set of clubs with the wrong flex for my swing.

Might be a good idea if your unsure, to go to a shop with a shot monitor and compare your club with an identical club of different flex.

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#2

This is exactly why working with knowledgable club fitters is worth it. The shaft is the “transmission” of the golf club (think of the head as the engine). If you don’t get it right, you are making it harder for yourself to access the center of the clubface, and control where it is pointing - two things that are incredibly important!

here is the article @Todd was talking about:

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#3

Shaft fitting was my primary reason for getting professionally fit. I’ve built a lot of clubs and I consider myself fairly knowledgeable, but there are so many shafts and it would cost me a lot to figure out what would work best for me.

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#4

Getting fit is incredibly important as there is no standard for shaft flexes at all. One brand’s “regular” flex might be closer to another brand’s “stiff”, or vice versa.

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#5

it’s the wild wild west out there, and pretty paint jobs ain’t helpin’

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#6

One of the things that helped me make up my mind on the set of irons I got was that Tour Edge would let me send the clubs back if the shaft flex didn’t work out.

Having just gotten back into the game and not knowledgeable about all the nuances of what is important in choosing clubs, this was really helpful. Thankfully, the clubs were fine.

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#7

Absolutely. I have tried R, S and X flex driver shafts that all seemed very close.

Sometimes I wonder about Quality Control as well. Years ago I bought a set of Rifle shafts that were “frequency matched” to build my iron set. I never got along with that set very well. Not long after I bought Club Scout Frequency meter and started checking my clubs. Turns out that “frequency matched” set was anything but. The 5 iron shaft was actually quite a bit stiffer than the 6 or 7 iron shaft. Some shaft mfrs used to go an extra step and sort their flexes so the fitter could have R1, R2, R3, S1, S2, S3 and didn’t need to do as much if any tipping.

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#8

Quality control is another HUGE problem in the shaft industry that nobody talks about. Premium shaft companies put a lot more time and effort into building their shafts so you can expect to have less issues. That’s not to say price always implies quality but sometimes the “of the rack” shafts are very inconsistent

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#9

This is true. See: TPT driver shafts from a few years ago.

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#10

Jon, sounds like iron shafts are easier to get the flex right with compared to graphite?

#11

What I find interesting about golf is that optimized and working are very different things…

I played for 20 years with regular flex shafts… I swing a 7 iron 96 mph… I’ve found s400s are the best overall fit for me.

Did the regular shafts hurt my game? Most likely… did I learn to play them? Absolutely. Granted, my launch was super high and windy days killed me.

That said, you only get 14 clubs and will hopefully play whatever irons you buy for years, so it makes a ton of sense to make sure you are in the right ones.

I think there is also a challenge in finding a good fitter with the resources to make sure you end up with the clubs they ordered…

It’s an interesting challenge, and I wonder how much focus oems have put on it… I feel like driver shaft consistency has been improving significantly recently, so I’d expect iron shafts to follow suit.

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#12

This gets to one of the main themes of club fitting. Yes, skilled players can get away with equipment that is not perfectly fit for them but as you mentioned it won’t be optimal.

One of the biggest myths out there is that average to below average golfers are not good enough to get fit, and it’s quite the opposite. Those are the players who need the best fitting because they don’t have enough skill yet to overcome problems in their equipment . This something I’ve learned over the last 5 to 6 years working with a lot of different fitters who know what they’re talking about.

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#13

To be honest I’m not entirely sure. There are nuances to any type of shaft that need to be addressed in order to get your best results.

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#14

That’s a very good point and something I hadn’t thought about… enough time and you can make anything work…

As a mediocre putter, I can definitely say getting fit for a putter helped my stroke…

#15

I played with irons that were way too upright for me for several years. I had no idea, but when they got fixed, I saw an immediate improvement in my iron play!

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#16

Oh man, I’m a little scared to get on the gc hawk and see my impact.

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#17

What’s all of your take on wedge shafts matching your iron set? I’m currently playing the same shafts I was fit into for my irons but didn’t experiment too much w/ my wedges at the time of the fitting. Ever the tinkerer I’m debating on trying going softer in flex and heavier in weight because my LW is one that I play a lot of partial shots with as opposed to my GW and SW where tend to play more full shots.

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#18

I went a flex down what I should be playing on my most recent set of wedges… I don’t take a ton of full swings with them, so I figure softer will be fine.

My current club setup is still a mess and I need to just rebuild everything but the driver and putter (new wedges are a step in that direction)

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#19

Had you ever played the matching shaft to your irons in your wedges before? I’m just curious if there’s a better feel in going softer with the wedges

#20

I’ve pretty much exclusively played wedge flex wedges… I think it makes sense to go a little softer in wedges you aren’t hitting full, but haven’t custom ordered shafts before…

I’ve got the same shaft in my gap wedge as the rest of the set, but it matches the set, so it will be hard to get specific numbers.

If you want to go glass half full, I think you are winning either way, softer gives more feel around the greens and harder gives more control on fuller swings…

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