14 replies to this topic

[Cydkar]

I've got an old Speeder in a 510 TP I may use in another driver.  Do shafts wear out?

[wkuo3]

check the tip area for crack and split line after you pull it out, normally it won't wear out.

[buxeyes]

I've wondered the same thing. What are the tell tales that the shaft is worn out???

[Cydkar]

From reading this board, all clubs wear out after a few months and new ones are needed.

[Grum]

In my experience, no. However I have found that abusing them(throwing, slamming into ground, snapping over knee, etc) can have a negative effect on performance.

[Cydkar]

In that case, I've had a couple of putters "wear out".

[bignose]

Grum's nailed it.  Unless the shaft has been abused or damaged in any way (cracked, split, bent, kinked, rusted, etc.), the shaft's lifetime is longer than our own.  While there are stresses placed on the shafts, the stresses aren't critical stresses, and the shaft returns to its original shape good as new.

Now, the lifetime of a player's satisfaction with a shaft... that's measured in minutes, I think...

[dannykos]

i was told by someone that was getting custom fit by nike - that they told him hitting 100-200 drives a day would start to have an effect on the shaft after some months?

anyone with knowledge want to set us all straight?

[Scuderia]

dannykos, on Feb 3 2008, 03:10 PM, said:

i was told by someone that was getting custom fit by nike - that they told him hitting 100-200 drives a day would start to have an effect on the shaft after some months?

anyone with knowledge want to set us all straight?

That is true....every shaft steel or graphite will eventually lose its elasticity.

[mhinderaker]

I can't even IMAGINE hitting 100-200 drives a day.

That is a rather absurd amount!

[bignose]

Scuderia, on Feb 3 2008, 05:34 PM, said:

dannykos, on Feb 3 2008, 03:10 PM, said:

i was told by someone that was getting custom fit by nike - that they told him hitting 100-200 drives a day would start to have an effect on the shaft after some months?

anyone with knowledge want to set us all straight?

That is true....every shaft steel or graphite will eventually lose its elasticity.

Well, this isn't right.  If anything steel will work harden, not loosen.  And the modern graphite won't loosen up appreciably for many, many years.  Like I said, it's lifetime is longer than our own.  

Here's an article published in Golf Digest some years back talking about this:

http://findarticles...._51/ai_60121187

Like I said above, a golf shaft in normal usage isn't stressed or bent enough to cause any kind of damage.  

Now, here's the more interesting part of 200 drives a day for many months... let's call it 200 drives a day * 9 months * 30 days per month = 54 000 hits.  The titanium faces of clubs do have a lifetime of around 10,000 impacts  (see Frank Thomas' article  http://www.thegolfch...mp;select=20739  )  So, if you actually got up to 54,000 hits with one club, it won't be the shaft that affecting the feel, it's the driver head itself!

The faces/heads wear out, the grips wear out, but again, so long as the shaft isn't abused in any way, the shaft DOES NOT wear out.

Edited by bignose, 03 February 2008 - 10:24 PM.

[boatrightgolf7]

''Like I said golf shafts will last longer than you'' This is a terrible statement graphite shafts last about 3 years with regular play they wont have any noticeable wear but will lose their pop. Steel last about 5 years until they start to lose their pop of course the material will last several lifetimes but in golf terms they starts to wear out most pros re shaft maybe even twice a year.

[TomWishon]

dannykos, on 03 February 2008 - 03:10 PM, said:

i was told by someone that was getting custom fit by nike - that they told him hitting 100-200 drives a day would start to have an effect on the shaft after some months?

anyone with knowledge want to set us all straight?

I have the knowledge from many years of club and shaft design experience and I can tell you this statement is not true.  Unless the shaft is bent, cracked, delaminated or otherwise permanently damaged, the normal stresses a shaft undergoes in the swing, even from a 120mph player, will not cause it to wear out no matter how many times they hit the club.  They will not lose their elasticity because the force a golfer puts on a shaft during a swing is nowhere close to the threshold for permanent damage on the shaft.  

TOM

[kwelifan]

boatrightgolf7, on 29 March 2012 - 11:15 AM, said:

''Like I said golf shafts will last longer than you'' This is a terrible statement graphite shafts last about 3 years with regular play they wont have any noticeable wear but will lose their pop. Steel last about 5 years until they start to lose their pop of course the material will last several lifetimes but in golf terms they starts to wear out most pros re shaft maybe even twice a year.

Got any evidence to support that?  The post above has quotes has from 2 well known industry experts who completely disagree with you.  Just curious to know if maybe you had a different source of information that could shed some light on this.

[pokerplayer]

As an engineer, I would say that golf shafts do wear out, but usually won't happen in your lifeitme and I wouldn't worry about it.

more techncial answer,

metal shafts (ie steel shafts) are going to lose their temper, but this process will take a couple hundred years. so your heirloom clubs w/ x100's will play like noodles in a thousand years. also the repeated loading and unloading will cause metal fatigue, but thats probably over 100k cycles, given that, high cappers that score over 100k will likely need to replace their clubs once every year or so. and it would be a badge of honor if you practiced so much that it caused metal fatigue in a shaft.

the carbon fiber in graphite shafts are not going to fail during normal human use. the most likely cause of failure is exposure to UV causing the epoxy/ resin matrix (ie the glue that holds all the cabon fibers together) to break down. for most epoxies, about 1000hrs (@4hrs a round, thats 250 rounds) will weaken the material by 30%, so thats why shaft manufacturers paint the golf shafts and will last a lot longer since the paint will absorb most of the UV. so dont leave shafts out in the sun and touch up areas of exposed epoxy .

Edited by pokerplayer, 29 March 2012 - 12:46 PM.