Aftermarket Shafts

Aftermarket shafts are a performance upgrade for your current clubs. Replacing the factory stock shafts in the clubs that you purchased off-the-rack at retail shops or from pro shops is usually the most effective way to improve the performance of your clubs. 

The goal in fitting for an aftermarket shaft is to make the club more responsive to your individual swing mechanics. Having the optimum stiffness distribution, torque, weight, and balance can make a major difference in your ability to deliver the center of the club face to the ball with consistency. It enables the shaft to translate your swing motion into an optimal ball flight.

There are at least a dozen shaft companies that produce a wide range of superb products that are worthy of serious consideration. Understanding the choices that have been made in materials, engineering design, and methods of construction are an essential part of finding the right shafts for your game. 

Considering the differences in swing technique and range-of-motion that any of us can see in golfers -- we can find it at any driving range or golf course -- it's not surprising that there would be many ways to design a shaft that transfers swing energy into the clubhead at impact.

The modern engineering approach is based on changing the bending characteristics of the shaft through its length to match variations in load placed on the club during the swing. Effective design allows the shaft to respond to different forces a player will exert in the transition from backswing to downswing, through the downswing, and through the impact zone.

Ultra high speed cameras and radar launch monitors reveal previously unappreciated effects of shaft stability on ball impact quality. Shaft engineers are refining their designs to enhance both responsiveness and stability that has resulted in many exciting products available to golfers. It brings new focus to the importance of individual shaft fitting.

The 2013 PGA Show

I attended the PGA show again this year, as I have for several years, and found the golf business alive and well. We greatly appreciate the companies that made the investment in setting up displays and booths and larger venues to present their products and technology. It's the largest show in golf where we can see the intersection of the veteran approaches with new technology that is propelling the sport of golf into the future.

The week began for us with the ACCRA/KBS day, held at a golf course near Orlando, where we had a chance to learn about new ACCRA shaft products integrated into one of the most coherent playing systems in the game. And KBS showed why they have been one of the fastest growing brands in golf. 

The Demo Day at Orange County National golf course just outside of Orlando was next on the agenda. OCN boasts the largest driving range in the US. We believe it. Picture a giant circle with practice mats around the circumference where long drive pros can send their most powerful shots into the center with no concern about being close to the opposite side.

Equipment companies and others set up their displays around the edge of the driving range and everyone gets to walk around and test anything that looks interesting. Every vendor had new products to demo. We found exciting new shafts from our friends at Matrix, Mitsubishi, Oban, and several other companies that we will review in depth in the coming weeks.

Wednesday evening debuted a new event, the golf instructors forum, where various teaching methods were discussed with a fair amount of passion. Veteran approaches intersected with new technology and a convincing case was made for diversity in teaching golf. It's clear that technology has made it possible for us to see and analyze detail in the swing not possible by conventional methods. But, it's equally clear that an experienced instructor brings essential perspective to the art. The two views are merging.

The main PGA Merchandise Show ran from Thursday to Saturday, and we were there before the doors opened and stayed until past closing each day. One end of the convention center was filled by an indoor driving range with dozens of hitting bays for testing new products. At the opposite end of the hall was one of the largest collections of golf fashions to be seen anywhere. Vendors with every imaginable golf product on display filled the spaces in between.

We were excited about a comprehensive new interface for the K-Vest system software that will enable us to greatly enhance the integration of multiple technologies in swing analysis. FlightScope showed us a new App that allows for frame by frame comparison of swing videos with their model X2 launch monitor. Data capture is sync'ed at impact for absolute accuracy and 3D software implementation expands the analysis. AMM systems -- the folks who developed the TPI swing analysis software, among other innovations -- displayed their exciting new Walkabout swing capture system. 

Matrix now has three new premium shaft designs that measurably alter ball flight. UST presented their fabulous new lightweight Recoil shaft for irons that offered a new look at the significance of "ovalling" when the shaft is loaded during the swing. Jeff Lucas from Aldila gave us an in-depth insight into the significance of how their microlaminate technology enables innovative shaft designs. 

We'll explore these products and technologies in depth on our site over the coming weeks as we absorb what we learned at the show. It was a great learning opportunity, and a demonstration that the game of golf is alive and well and growing once again.

Upgrading Your Clubs

Just about every golfer reaches a point in their game when it's time to upgrade their current set. That point is usually when a performance plateau is reached. A good hard look at the full bag of clubs is often part of the thought process. We think it's a good idea to establish a priority list when considering an upgrade, and here's our suggestion for developing a plan.

The first clubs to replace should be the ones that yield the least consistent results. When a club is not a good fit for your swing, it's difficult to play it with consistency. Clubfittng analysis with the help of a launch monitor will help identify problem clubs. A useful approach is to measure the hitting distance gaps between clubs. A first approximation is 8 - 12 yards for the gap distance. If you are well out of this range, and especially if two clubs hit close to the same distance, then a change is recommended.

Fairway woods are a good place to look for potential replacements. Most golfers do not get the performance they need from these versatile clubs. A key performance criterion is being able to hit the ball into the air with a high enough launch angle to generate a high ball trajectory and yield repeatable distance control. Our choice for a "go-to" fairway wood is the 5-wood. Properly set up to work with your swing, it may be the only club you need between the driver and the long irons.

Wedges and putter are obvious choices to consider for upgrading because they are what we play in two-thirds of the shots for a typical round of golf. Not surprisingly, there are a large number of choices are available and effective fitting needs attention to details like lie angle, sole grind, length, and weight. Here is where custom fitting with the best premium components will bring major benefits to your game.  

Key Region of Shaft Flex

The key region of the shaft for influencing ball trajectory is the middle region. It's not what is usually emphasized by traditional fitting or instruction, but the mid region is what modern shaft performance analysis tells us is most important. And it's where an increasing number of shaft design engineers focus their initial attention. 

To define the mid region, let's begin by looking at each end of the shaft. For design and performance, the tip region is generally considered to be within 10 - 11 inches from the narrow end of the shaft. It's vague because there is no standard. We have heard from shaft engineers that they design tip effects for the distal 6 - 8 inches. Our EI measurements (examples shown in graphs like the above and others posted throughout our website) confirm that significant stiffness differences between shafts can be measured in the region between 6 inches and 11 inches. 

At the opposite end of the shaft, the butt region is a little easier to define. A typical grip will cover about 10 inches of the shaft. Since the increased diameter at the butt end of the shaft usually extends a few inches beyond the grip, we expect that butt stiffness and torque influences will be  in that segment.

If we consider the butt region to be within 14 - 15 inches of the wide end of the shaft and the tip region to be within 10 - 11 inches of the narrow end of the shaft, we can define the mid region to be about 20 inches in length for a typical driver shaft. In building drivers we trim about 2 - 3 inches from the butt end of the uncut blank to achieve the final club length. Advocates of tip trimming might cut up to an inch from the tip. Shaft trimming leaves a mid region in the assembled driver of about 16 - 18 inches.

Now let's look at the figure above. It shows the distribution of stiffness throughout the length of 3 driver shafts. The EI machine we use starts measurements at 6 inches from each end of the shaft. We measure at 1-inch intervals along the length of the shaft.

Counting data points in from the tip (5 data points) and butt (9 data points) we see that EI stiffness analysis shows the largest variations are in the mid region of the shaft. We like to think of these prominent stiffness variations as hinge regions in shaft flex.   

We are lead by fitting results and by widely used engineering considerations to the conclusion that the mid region of the shaft is the key region of flex for affecting ball flight. We confirm it in our fitting and swing analysis, and most importantly by performance on the course where it matters. While the tip and butt regions play important roles in shot dispersion and feel, it's the mid region that as clubfitters, instructors, and players, where we want to focus our attention in fitting shafts to your swing.

Ground Reaction Force?

Traditional golf instruction often emphasizes the role of ground reaction forces in the golf swing. We've all heard the expression "the swing starts from the ground up" but is that what really happens? What actually starts the downswing?

The combination of modern high speed video and 3D motion capture (e.g., the K-Vest system) allows us to answer the question in ways that are difficult if not impossible to see with our eyes in real time. Modern kinematic analysis shows the greatest power comes from initiating the downswing by moving the hips and pelvis before any other parts of the body.

It's easiest to capture this movement on video from a face-on frontal view of the golfer. What we are looking for is the start of the movement pattern that eventually becomes the downswing. And we want to look at the best players on pro tours to learn what they do to generate power. 

A close look at the transition from backswing to downswing shows the first body segments to move towards the target are the hips and pelvis. Some players bump their hips laterally while others have a distinct rotational motion of the hips. But the greatest power with reasonable accuracy comes from initiating the downswing with hips/pelvis movement.

Most good players will then create some version of a downward movement of the central core of their body that effectively pushes their lower body against the ground. Since the ground isn't moving, the lower body reacts to the ground and the reaction energy is transferred upwards to help generate power for the swing.

Any careful analysis will lead to the same conclusion. The most powerful swing does not start from the ground up, it starts with a movement of the hips and pelvis. That's what the best players in the world have learned to do to generate power in the golf swing. 

We think understanding what starts the downswing is a critical concept because it influences the way you learn -- and are taught -- to swing a club. And it translates directly into power and distance and accuracy.