Shaft flex is one of those topics that can be quite confusing for many golfers. It seems that there are as many opinions on the topic as there are different shafts. Does shaft flex really matter? We wanted to approach the question a little bit differently.
In this video, we explain how the shaft in your driver can either be helping or hurting one key element of your drives.
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The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.
TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.
Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.
However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.
Past Winners at TPC Louisiana
- 2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
- 2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
- 2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
- 2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
- 2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
- 2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)
2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks
Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)
Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.
This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.
McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.
Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)
Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.
Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.
Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)
Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.
NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.
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After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.
For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.
The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.
The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.
*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*
Past Winners at LIV Adelaide
- 2023: Talor Gooch (-19)
Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami
Green in Regulation
- Richard Bland
- Jon Rahm
- Paul Casey
Fairways Hit
- Abraham Ancer
- Graeme McDowell
- Henrik Stenson
Driving Distance
- Bryson DeChambeau
- Joaquin Niemann
- Dean Burmester
Putting
- Cameron Smith
- Louis Oosthuizen
- Matt Jones
2024 LIV Adelaide Picks
Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)
When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.
At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.
The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.
Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)
Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.
In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.
For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.
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Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.
Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.
But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.
To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.
Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.
If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.
In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.
Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.
While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.
So, what about grooves and face texture?
Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.
Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.
But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?
The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.
So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.
And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.
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Dr. Golf
Feb 13, 2018 at 7:00 pm
Seven Dreams $1200 autoclave cured driver shafts are superior to the oven cured shafts because they suck out the excessive epoxy plastic that causes graphite shafts to be floppy and soggy in tip dynamic action and recovery.
Steel shafts are still the gold standard for shaft consistency. Soon the debates about current graphite shafts will be moot as they are made obsolete by Seven Dreams graphite shafts.
Adam
Feb 12, 2018 at 1:17 pm
A little defined problem has to do with the radial consistency of a shaft. I would never use one that varies more than 1% hard to soft plane. Yet, I have wondered, even if I position the head so that it moves exactly along the soft plane at impact, it moved through other planes on its way to impact. So, the head is twisting and turning in odd ways before impact. That can’t be good.
AMG
Feb 12, 2018 at 8:08 pm
You’re right on the money, it’s not bending in a consistent plane. Not comforting, lol
Dr. Golf
Feb 13, 2018 at 6:53 pm
The radial consistency of steel shafts is uniform, whereas it’s all over the place for floppy soggy graphite shafts…. all because of the excessive epoxy plastic and arbitrary layering that compromises radial action.
$1200 Seven Dreams autoclave cured graphite shafts has superior radial consistency when compare to all the oven-cured shafts on the market now.
Josh
Feb 12, 2018 at 12:50 pm
The video achieved what it was meant to. It showed us that the shaft is not straight at impact, and flex has an effect on speed. We learned that having the right flex matters. The question posed, “Does shaft flex make a difference?” was answered. Thank you AMG.
AMG
Feb 12, 2018 at 7:15 pm
Thanks for watching!
Joro
Feb 12, 2018 at 12:46 pm
Having been in this business for over 60 yrs as a player, club maker and repairman, plus teaching I have found out no, not as much as the ego thinks.. Weight, flex, and length are not that much, of course the difference tween xx and R or reg.. is there, but between X and S, not much and of course the heavier the stiffer also. Knowing shafts, what the do and why is complicated, but not that difficult.
Now Graphite is a different matter because there are not standards, one makers reg flex is another makers s and it has to be tried to be sure you get what you want. Weight is also a bug factor that too light can be too fast and hard to control. So with Graphite you have to careful and get fitted, although the shaft you hit well may not be the same they put in your clubs. Like I said, it varies and not as consistent as steel, and that is just part of it.
AMG
Feb 12, 2018 at 7:14 pm
Great points, Joro. Always good to leave the fitting with what you just hit the best.
joe virdone
Feb 12, 2018 at 11:59 am
What were the clubhead speeds for the reg, stuff and X stiff demos…thanks.
AMG
Feb 12, 2018 at 7:12 pm
99, 106, 110, respectively.
Reeves
Feb 12, 2018 at 1:03 am
I find at my level (15) that shaft flex can make a lot of difference..went from stiff metal iron shafts to regular iron shaft (same brand on Ping irons) can now get 4 and 5 irons up in the air…also with the driver I went from a regular graphite shaft to a tour stiff (Wilson Triton driver) and picked up 20 yards and a small draw where the regular shaft was a constant baby fade….
TeeBone
Feb 10, 2018 at 11:24 am
I would like to have seen the final clubhead speed at impact numbers. There is other research that found that shaft flex had no significant impact on clubhead speed. Isn’t it possible to have different kick speeds with the same total speed?
AMG
Feb 10, 2018 at 4:10 pm
We posted the final head speeds in the comments section of the video. I don’t recall exactly what they were, but they’re in the comments if you’d like to see them.
Do you have a link you could share for that research? Would like to see how they did their tests.
I don’t think it would be possible to only vary kick speed while keeping total head speed the same. It would be possible to do if the other variables changed. BUT… we haven’t tested it, just a hunch.
TeeBone
Feb 11, 2018 at 11:37 am
Sasho MacKenzie has several papers on this. See also Milne and Davis. And David Williams’ book. And probably others as well.
AMG
Feb 11, 2018 at 4:47 pm
Thanks, TeeBone????
CB
Feb 10, 2018 at 9:13 am
Really informative stuff! Very clearly explained and simplified for anybody to understand. Thank you very much!
AMG
Feb 10, 2018 at 4:11 pm
Thanks for watching!
JE
Feb 10, 2018 at 6:00 am
Damn interesting stuff. Thank you!
AMG
Feb 10, 2018 at 4:12 pm
Thanks for watching, JE.
Chris
Feb 9, 2018 at 10:28 pm
If I knew nothing about golf and was trying to learn, this video would tell me that if I wanted to not lose Club Head speed with my 86mph driver swing, I need an x flex shaft.
OB
Feb 9, 2018 at 3:44 pm
True Temper scientist-engineers determined three distinct shaft loading profiles. Double peak, single peak and ramp-up swing-shaft loading. TT designed 5-iron and driver devices that monitored the stresses in the shaft, called ShaftLab. It worked well until one of the many internal load sensors failed and it malfunctioned. It was discontinued.
Nevertheless, ShaftLab defined swing loading profiles and shaft recommendations. What is shown in the video is slightly visually misleading because what we see as “deflection” is actually shaft tip droop and tip torque.
Face-on “dead straight” does not show full shaft droop and torque twist. What we see is the dynamic alignment of the shaft axis to the clubhead eccentric sweet spot location.
Shaft stiffness and droop is a function of swing speed. The clubhead “whipsnaps” through final release and into impact. If your swing speed is too low and your shaft is too stiff, it won’t droop and the reaction forces into your hands and arms are excessive.
95% of golfers worldwide should be playing a woman’s A-flex shaft to get adequate droop and whipsnap… something most golfers never feel because their swing isn’t synchronized to the dynamic action of the shaft tip section and clubhead.
It’s also why Tour and LD players have problems with inconsistent soggy floppy epoxy plastic graphite shafts. Steel shafts have the most consistent flex dynamics.
AMG
Feb 9, 2018 at 4:39 pm
GEARS captures both shaft deflection and droop separately. We show both sets of numbers for each shaft looked at in the video. These are not tip numbers, but overall numbers from the length of the shaft. But because the tip is the softest section of the shaft, more movement happens the closer down the shaft you look.
The purpose of this video was not to show anything other than shafts do not all produce the same results, and that shafts are not straight at impact.
If you really want to take a deep dive into all things deflection, drooping, and torque you would love the info from Fujikura’s Enso system. There is nothing else out there like it.
george
Feb 10, 2018 at 1:50 pm
When then there is a golf shaft for irons and woods that eliminates droop, twist
and kick at impact; why would we ask golfers to synchronize their golf swings to each shaft in their bag?
More droop, more twist and more kick make it impossible to time a solid impact on sweet spot, consistently.
When there isn’t a solid impact and ball flight is erratic, should the golfer change his swing or change his shaft or clubhead?
Its no wonder so many golfers quit this game.
Moe Norman and Ben Hogan would not play with ‘licorice’ sticks. No one should.
farmer
Feb 9, 2018 at 2:39 pm
There is no baseline information, other than the LD swing. Would be more informative if it was done on an Iron Byron, and captioned by various SS’s. Does not take into account the different flex patterns in shafts. So, nicely produced, but worthless.
AMG
Feb 9, 2018 at 4:47 pm
The problem for us using Iron Byron type robotics is that we work with real golfers and are much more interested in the human variances/influences on equipment. The OEM’s do a great job going down the robot testing road, we’re more interested in how the equipment works in the hands of a wide skill range of actual golfers.
We didn’t include the baseline info because it really wasn’t necessary to answer the questions of does shaft flex make a difference and are shafts straight at impact.
Steg0726
Feb 9, 2018 at 12:13 pm
Knowing the swing speeds and the other variables that involve the shaft loading and unloading needs to be present. Maybe adding info from a GC quad or even mizuno shaft optimizer would give some outlook on swing tendencies. Adding shaft specs as well.
AMG
Feb 9, 2018 at 4:52 pm
That information would absolutely be necessary to match a golfer to an optimally fit shaft. The questions we wanted to answer with this short video were way less ambitious.
Is there anything specifically regarding shafts that you’d like to see looked at?
george
Feb 10, 2018 at 11:43 am
I would like to see how much each type of shaft decelerates at impact (Newtons Third Law)
Jeff
Feb 9, 2018 at 11:03 am
How much does the golfer/ swing speed etc affect the results. Is the golfer that is swinging the x flex shaft more efficient??
Just curious how the golfer affected the results
Jack
Feb 9, 2018 at 11:20 am
different golfers, good/bad techniques, hard to come away with anything from this video
Skip
Feb 9, 2018 at 11:53 am
agreed. there’s too many variables to really come away with anything definitive. Is there an ideal reaction of the shaft? Watching this, this long drive guy should be playing the X-Flex instead of the XX?
george
Feb 9, 2018 at 3:32 pm
to eliminate some variables such as droop, kick, twist and gear effect
at the same time, try /test Nunchuk shafts
video at, nventix.com
AMG
Feb 9, 2018 at 5:10 pm
I doubt he’d be happy playing the X flex.
We weren’t attempting for optimally match shafts to swings – you’re right, the number of variables for that would be staggering. Instead, we wanted to show how shafts can and do perform differently (many believe they don’t) and that shafts are not straight rigid rods at impact.
Most highly informed golfers are not aware of how much a shaft can or does add/reduces speed to the overall motion. We thought that would be interesting to show as well.
Dan
Feb 9, 2018 at 4:59 pm
Are we to assume it was the same person with each shaft? If so then the video makes sense, if not complete nonsense.
AMG
Feb 9, 2018 at 5:02 pm
Very difficult to define efficient, but all 4 golfers are excellent players in their own class of skill level.
The golfer has a huge affect on any non-robot shaft testing. We have seen swing speeds from high 80’s all the way up produce both positive and negative kick speeds.
It’s interesting watching golfers respond to different shafts with strong feelings of love/hate, but with next to no fluctuations in the actual data. A “good feeling” shaft often trumps everything.