25 replies to this topic

[Howard Jones]

I would like to hear other club makers opinion about flex, or flex labels.
As we all know, there is no official FCM value for R or S flex, but there is a lot of  different charts out there, but how do you judge label flex, or how to you answer a question from your customer asking, What flex is the club you made for me ?

Do you give them a CPM number ?  A FCM Value ? A Label flex, as medium, weak or strong ? or what ?
Whats your "standard" for R, S or X flex ?

[Fourmyle of Ceres]

I'm not a clubmaker but I would hope that in the Age Of The Launch Monitor we might see such labels go the way of the buggy whip as people start building to the actual, empirical results they can see from each shaft.

Remember the days when Callaway claimed with a straight face that their "Uniflex" steel shaft magically got stiffer as the clubhead speed increased?

Edited by Fourmyle of Ceres, 02 May 2012 - 01:02 PM.

[jaskanski]

Tough question to answer really, Howard.
9 times out of 10, the shaft already has it's flex designation anyway and anybody asking for a particular shaft is usually expecting it to be fitted to "rated flex"  straight in or trimmed in accordance with the OEM instructions. Other times, somebody asks for a hard step or a soft step on a set of irons or maybe requests a tip trim for a driver/fairway shaft for a tighter than normal flex. I tend not to cloud the issue with specific flex, simply because it only really pertains to who is using it. The designation could well be called anything, or moreover measured in a number in different ways - but if for example a club is made for Dave, I call it "Dave flex". Not because it's in any particular category, but simply because he likes the way it's set up. In an ideal world where there were some baseline method of measurement and classification, it would be a lot easier for this to be answered. I certainly know your good self and Tom Wishon have strived to achieve this aim, but I prefer to keep it a bit more simplified. As far as it goes, FCM is a good generalization of a shaft, for comparison perhaps, but it doesn't tell the whole story on how the overall shaft plays.
A difficult one to pin down indeed.

[rybo]

That's an interesting question coming from one of the known shaft guru's on this site!  Why do ask?

It's easier within the same model of shafts, becomes more difficult across different models from the same manufacture and really difficult across different models from different manufactures.  There is no 'standard' as each manufacturer has their own interpretation of how much a R, S or X should flex.  Throw in different materials, manufacturing methods, shaft profiles, torque and engineering knowledge then attempt to pigeon hole every manufacturer into some arbitrary measurement classification and you can see it will not fly.  

I would love to see some standards but even shafts with very similar CPM profiles can play wildly different due to any one of the above differences.  About the only two measurements you can compare against all shafts is weight and length.  Other then that it's open to too much interpretation.

[kbrussell]

What is label flex?  No one can asnser that question...  CPM is the only way to compare reliably between one shaft and another... I realize that graphite now is more complex with varying bend profiles, etc...  but label flex is a joke!

[TomWishon]

Howard Jones, on 02 May 2012 - 12:54 PM, said:

I would like to hear other club makers opinion about flex, or flex labels.
As we all know, there is no official FCM value for R or S flex, but there is a lot of  different charts out there, but how do you judge label flex, or how to you answer a question from your customer asking, What flex is the club you made for me ?

Do you give them a CPM number ?  A FCM Value ? A Label flex, as medium, weak or strong ? or what ?
Whats your "standard" for R, S or X flex ?

Howard:

Well, you hooked me with your questions, and I am sure that does not surprise you.  

Old habits die hard and one old habit that probably will never go away in the industry is the use of the old LARSX letters on shafts.  

It really does no good to keep the flex letter codes because as you say, there never has been and never will be any "standard" for flex.  It would do no good to associate a cpm frequency value for flexes because any shaft designer can create two shafts of equal butt frequency CPM measurement that you would hit and swear were totally different in "flex".  How a shaft feels in overall stiffness is most definitely a product of the stiffness over its entire length.

What would be better would be to drop letter flexes and adopt swing factors in the description of the stiffness design for shafts.  Namely,  1) Clubhead speed range;  2) Transition force rating;  3) Downswing Acceleration or Tempo rating;  4) Point of wrist-c o c k release in the downswing.  

Now of course, you will always find golfers who will depart from a system like this and choose one shaft over another because of whatever sense of feel they get when they sense the shaft bending during the swing.  But at least if you rank, sort, describe shaft stiffness design through a combination of the pertinent swing elements that determine how a shaft will play and feel, you get yourself a LOT closer to a more accurate shaft fitting than anything the industry offers now.  

This is exactly how I do it on the shafts I design for my company.  Yes, we still put letter flexes on all the shafts because we know golfers can get real nervous if they do not see a letter on the shaft.  But we also put the clubhead speed range, transition rating, tempo rating, release rating, golfer strength rating, and the weight on every shaft we design and produce.   On top of that, we also offer information to teach the clubmakers how to evaluate these swing rating elements so they can get a better feel for making the judgment to rate the golfer's transition, tempo, release and strength.  

No, it's not 100% cut and dried, but it is a darn sight better than what all of the other shaft companies offer as a very generic means to match up a golfer with a shaft.  Shaft fitting will always involve golfers who pick their shaft of choice by feel characteristics that depart from the norm of what their clubhead speed, transition, tempo, release,and strength would advise.  So there always has to be a modicum of test hitting as a part of shaft fitting.  

That's one reason why we developed the Spiralock connectors so golfers can instantly test hit any combinations of shafts and heads in a manner that perfectly duplicates an assembled club.   With a TON of different shafts out there, and with the cost of some shafts being what they are, you have to have a way to reduce the number of possible shaft candidates for a golfer.  

How we classify shafts by clubhead speed, transition, tempo, release,and strength and how we illustrate the empirical stiffness measurements through our TWGT Bend Profile software is being used by many clubmakers.  It takes a little study to get comfortable and confident with it, but we know from their feedback that it most definitely works a TON better than anything else out there for guiding the best decisions in shaft fitting for golfers.  

TOM

[Shaftology]

FCM Value as it is most consistent measure to me.

[Howard Jones]

rybo, on 02 May 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

That's an interesting question coming from one of the known shaft guru's on this site!  Why do ask?

It's easier within the same model of shafts, becomes more difficult across different models from the same manufacture and really difficult across different models from different manufactures.  There is no 'standard' as each manufacturer has their own interpretation of how much a R, S or X should flex.  Throw in different materials, manufacturing methods, shaft profiles, torque and engineering knowledge then attempt to pigeon hole every manufacturer into some arbitrary measurement classification and you can see it will not fly.  

I would love to see some standards but even shafts with very similar CPM profiles can play wildly different due to any one of the above differences.  About the only two measurements you can compare against all shafts is weight and length.  Other then that it's open to too much interpretation.

First of all, im no shaft guru :-)
I ask because its seems to be some "standards" out there who is hard to explain to some of my customers.
Example : " My Club speed is 100 Mph with my driver, so everyone say i should play S flex in my driver !!!
Well a club maker should be familiar with those "facts", and sometimes its hard to argue otherwise, but what "S" flex is the reference here ?
Therefore i would like to know how you tell your customer the flex of the clubs you made him.

For example, if you use CPM readings, do you convert those to flex "labels" like the LARSX system or not ?
If you do, whats your standard for R,S, or X flex in irons, and what about woods ?
If you are using CPM reading, what clamp is in use ?

[Howard Jones]

TomWishon, on 02 May 2012 - 02:35 PM, said:

Howard Jones, on 02 May 2012 - 12:54 PM, said:

I would like to hear other club makers opinion about flex, or flex labels.
As we all know, there is no official FCM value for R or S flex, but there is a lot of  different charts out there, but how do you judge label flex, or how to you answer a question from your customer asking, What flex is the club you made for me ?

Do you give them a CPM number ?  A FCM Value ? A Label flex, as medium, weak or strong ? or what ?
Whats your "standard" for R, S or X flex ?

Howard:

Well, you hooked me with your questions, and I am sure that does not surprise you.  

Old habits die hard and one old habit that probably will never go away in the industry is the use of the old LARSX letters on shafts.  

It really does no good to keep the flex letter codes because as you say, there never has been and never will be any "standard" for flex.  It would do no good to associate a cpm frequency value for flexes because any shaft designer can create two shafts of equal butt frequency CPM measurement that you would hit and swear were totally different in "flex".  How a shaft feels in overall stiffness is most definitely a product of the stiffness over its entire length.

What would be better would be to drop letter flexes and adopt swing factors in the description of the stiffness design for shafts.  Namely,  1) Clubhead speed range;  2) Transition force rating;  3) Downswing Acceleration or Tempo rating;  4) Point of wrist-c o c k release in the downswing.  

Now of course, you will always find golfers who will depart from a system like this and choose one shaft over another because of whatever sense of feel they get when they sense the shaft bending during the swing.  But at least if you rank, sort, describe shaft stiffness design through a combination of the pertinent swing elements that determine how a shaft will play and feel, you get yourself a LOT closer to a more accurate shaft fitting than anything the industry offers now.  

This is exactly how I do it on the shafts I design for my company.  Yes, we still put letter flexes on all the shafts because we know golfers can get real nervous if they do not see a letter on the shaft.  But we also put the clubhead speed range, transition rating, tempo rating, release rating, golfer strength rating, and the weight on every shaft we design and produce.   On top of that, we also offer information to teach the clubmakers how to evaluate these swing rating elements so they can get a better feel for making the judgment to rate the golfer's transition, tempo, release and strength.  

No, it's not 100% cut and dried, but it is a darn sight better than what all of the other shaft companies offer as a very generic means to match up a golfer with a shaft.  Shaft fitting will always involve golfers who pick their shaft of choice by feel characteristics that depart from the norm of what their clubhead speed, transition, tempo, release,and strength would advise.  So there always has to be a modicum of test hitting as a part of shaft fitting.  

That's one reason why we developed the Spiralock connectors so golfers can instantly test hit any combinations of shafts and heads in a manner that perfectly duplicates an assembled club.   With a TON of different shafts out there, and with the cost of some shafts being what they are, you have to have a way to reduce the number of possible shaft candidates for a golfer.  

How we classify shafts by clubhead speed, transition, tempo, release,and strength and how we illustrate the empirical stiffness measurements through our TWGT Bend Profile software is being used by many clubmakers.  It takes a little study to get comfortable and confident with it, but we know from their feedback that it most definitely works a TON better than anything else out there for guiding the best decisions in shaft fitting for golfers.  

TOM

Hello TOM!
I was afraid you would enter, and spoil it all :-)
Your system is understandable, even for the average golfer if he just read it over a few times, and there is nothing else out there who compares to it.
However, most shafts is not followed by any specs, not even how they decide to mark the shaft with what they did mark it with, and sometimes that can be frustrating both for the club maker and the club fitter. Even within the same brand, i have R flex shaft who is stronger than some S flex shafts, and some X flex shafts who IMO is no stronger than average S, so its all a mess out there.

So my question is, how do you handle this ? what specs do you give your customer in flex matters ?

[tx33]

Howard Jones, on 04 May 2012 - 12:38 AM, said:

...I was afraid you would enter, and spoil it all :-)...

  ......priceless....


On topic: I prefer to go by shaft bend profile/EI. The actual markings (if possible, so basically steel only) I pick more based on perceived  psychological impact. If a players ego will not let him play anything other than say an S, I'll label the shaft as such, though the actual flex in my book is on the soft side of regular. I prefer not using a label at all & go with a "Made for You" flex. In my notes I keep record of what I wanted to achieve and how I did it (cpm/deflection/EI if available/weight/trimming/stepping).

[TomWishon]

Shaftology, on 03 May 2012 - 04:39 PM, said:

FCM Value as it is most consistent measure to me.

Shaftology:

Please take a look at the following graph of bend profile measurement data for two shafts which are both considered high quality S flex shafts in the industry.  



If you rely only on the FCM chart for shafts, that chart is based only on the one butt frequency measurement of all shafts.  It does not take into account how different the flex and bending feel and performance of a shaft can be from how the rest of the shaft below the butt is designed and made.  

Here you have two S flex shafts which would read exactly the same for their butt frequency measurement and from that, would end up showing the same FCM rating.  Yet if you look at the lower half of the two shafts, you are looking at a very big difference in the bending feel and performance.  

The NV would feel much stiffer and would launch the ball visibly lower to a late release player than the Platinum because these differences between the two shafts are substantial.   And there are TONS of shafts that fall into this category of having the same exact butt frequency but the rest of the shaft is completely different.  

This right here is an example of why we started to look at the WHOLE SHAFT STIFFNESS over its entire length and why we realized that any form of shaft flex/stiffness ranking that used only the butt frequency could not be used to help advise shaft fitting for golfers.  

Hope this helps,
TOM

[Fourmyle of Ceres]

Tom W,

Thanks for the example. Two followup questions, please.

So for a late-release player, the tip stiffness matters a lot and for a non-late-release player not so much. Does any aspect of the stiffness (butt? mid? tip? overall?) matter much to a player who unloads his wrist c o c k fairly early?

Are the purely "feel" aspects (that presumably account for differences among shafts perceived by non-late-releasers) dominated by the butt stiffness?

[tx33]

Fourmyle of Ceres, on 04 May 2012 - 10:07 AM, said:

Tom W,

Thanks for the example. Two followup questions, please.

So for a late-release player, the tip stiffness matters a lot and for a non-late-release player not so much. Does any aspect of the stiffness (butt? mid? tip? overall?) matter much to a player who unloads his wrist c o c k fairly early?

Are the purely "feel" aspects (that presumably account for differences among shafts perceived by non-late-releasers) dominated by the butt stiffness?

A late release player will be able to see ball flight differences between different tip flexes. With an earlier release you will not. Though the entire bend profile (butt/mid/tip/overall) must fit the respective player, in general the butt flex has more to do with transition & tip stiffness with release timing. As for the second part, I'm a feel player myself and find the entire bend profile has an impact on feel, depending on swing characteristics. Merely looking at the butt of tip stiffness for feel can be misleading. Take the KBS Tour & Nippon Modus3 for example. The first is very butt stiff with a softer tip & the second is very butt soft, combined with a stiff tip. Very different in profile but both feel smooth.

I'll no doubt be amended on the specifics (or flat out corrected if wrong.....).

Edited by tx33, 04 May 2012 - 11:19 AM.

[maslie]

I am not clubmaker but as a customer the 4 digits international codes looks makesense.

[Shaftology]

maslie, on 04 May 2012 - 11:27 AM, said:

I am not clubmaker but as a customer the 4 digits international codes looks makesense.

If you are referring to the Miyazaki 4 digit international code, yes, that would be a great system but it is very new in the marketplace and will take time before everyone understands this system and agrees with its coding.  

We use FCM flex to explain to our customers the thing that THEY think is most important, butt stiffness, and of course,they can relate to the OEM stuff they see on the rack.  Then, we explain in great detail the differences between shafts that have different "profiles" that will perform quite differently depending upon their unique swing and shaft load.  I am all for giving the customer everything they need to understand that they have been profesionally fit to their unique swing, but I see a glazed over look in their eyes when I go to far down the EI curve path...they just want to hit their shots straight and far and have the clubs feel good...and maybe be able to explain to their friends why waht we do is far different than traditional fitting and club building.  I don't think all of my customers are ready for "We installed a 3553 shaft that is exactly what you need"  just yet.

[maslie]

Yes, I am reffering to Miyazaki code and I believe it will be global soon enough and in fast. Cleaveland did great job too on their own researched : http://www.cleveland...Spring_2011.pdf

Thing is (from customer view as myself), we need / demanding to learn something while making purchase/upgrading. While you are right in; showing El curve path really need deeper knowledge to most. Then why don't we just 100% trust a fitter/monitor?? We can't....since we need to give our ego some rooms and space to explore before believing in 1.45 smash factor. just my 2c.

[Howard Jones]

maslie, on 04 May 2012 - 12:24 PM, said:

Yes, I am reffering to Miyazaki code and I believe it will be global soon enough and in fast. Cleaveland did great job too on their own researched : http://www.cleveland...Spring_2011.pdf

Thing is (from customer view as myself), we need / demanding to learn something while making purchase/upgrading. While you are right in; showing El curve path really need deeper knowledge to most. Then why don't we just 100% trust a fitter/monitor?? We can't....since we need to give our ego some rooms and space to explore before believing in 1.45 smash factor. just my 2c.

PTR or Smash factor of 1:45 - No good, get above 1:48 average or better.

100 Mph club speed x 1:45 = 145 Mph ball speed
100 Mph club speed x 1:50 = 150 Mph ball speed (optimum)

[TomWishon]

maslie, on 04 May 2012 - 12:24 PM, said:

Yes, I am reffering to Miyazaki code and I believe it will be global soon enough and in fast. Cleaveland did great job too on their own researched.

Thing is (from customer view as myself), we need / demanding to learn something while making purchase/upgrading.

It's all well and good if an OEM club company adopts some shaft company's stiffness system, but it's never going to be likely that a stiffness measurement system from one shaft manufacturing company will be adopted by any other shaft manufacturing company simply because of competition.  And that's where you need such a system so consumers like yourself can know exactly how Shaft A compares to Shaft B.  

A quantitative shaft design comparative system has to be able to include as many shafts in the industry as possible or else it is too limited and can't help very many golfers make valid buying decisions for shafts.  The only use a Miyazaki system has is to help you compare one Miyazaki shaft to another Miyazaki shaft - and that's fine.  But if you want to compare an Aldila shaft to a Miyazaki or any other companies' shafts to each other, that does not exist other than through our bend profile software and it won't come from any of the shaft companies because of competition concerns between the companies.  

This is precisely why my company developed ourbend profile measurement and graph system we offer to help clubmakers be able to have quantitative numbers to compare shafts.  While the numbers and graphs can look intimidating in the beginning, for clubmakers and golfers who choose to learn what the different numbers mean (which really is not that complicated), this methodology works very well to allow golfers to know so much more about the possible fit and performance of a shaft before they try or buy it.  

No, we won't have every shaft on the planet in this shaft data base because it would literally be a full time job to do that.  But we'll have a lot of them and from that be able to help golfers and clubmakers FAR more than what the alternatives are.  At present we have over 2,000 different shafts in this software data base.  

I mean seriously - look at the sheer number of posts made on this Forum from golfers who simply want to know how this shaft compares to that shaft.  And all they get are individual anecdotal comments from other golfers who talk about whether they like the same shaft or not.  Shaft fitting is about specific swing characteristics which put a bending force on the shaft being matched with shafts that have specifically different stiffness designs OVER THEIR ENTIRE LENGTH - not just the butt end.  

Unless you identify specific shaft stiffness measurements at specific points on the shafts and match them to the specific swing characteristics that pertain to shaft performance, then shaft fitting will always be trial and error.  And at the cost of some shafts today, that can get pretty expensive.  It does not have to be that way as we're helping clubmakers learn through this software and bend profile measurement methodology we developed to help them better compare shafts.  

TOM

[TomWishon]

Fourmyle of Ceres, on 04 May 2012 - 10:07 AM, said:

Tom W,

Thanks for the example. Two followup questions, please.

So for a late-release player, the tip stiffness matters a lot and for a non-late-release player not so much. Does any aspect of the stiffness (butt? mid? tip? overall?) matter much to a player who unloads his wrist c o c k fairly early?

Are the purely "feel" aspects (that presumably account for differences among shafts perceived by non-late-releasers) dominated by the butt stiffness?

Formula:

I can tell TX33 has been reading my books and newsletter articles and has the basics down which he responded with to your question.  

We feel that it is the butt + the center section of the shaft that determines the clubhead speed rating for a shaft as well as the main part of the stiffness feel of a shaft from the transition to when the release begins.  So in terms of looking at the 7 measurements we do on each shaft, for the speed rating and transition/tempo part of the golfer's swing, we're focusing on the 41" through the 21" measurements because this is the part of the shaft that reacts the most to the initial bending force of the transition which may or may not be maintained by the downswing tempo/acceleration.  

The 21 to 11 measurements determine the tip section design.  And as TX33 said, this is relevant to the golfer's wrist-c o c k release for both bending feel through impact as well as a major portion of the trajectory/launch angle/spin contribution of the shaft.   And TX33 was also right in saying that golfers with an early release just do not see any trajectory/launch angle/spin contribution of the shaft because all this bending action that is triggered by the release happens too soon.  So that by the time the club gets to the ball, the shaft has had the time to rebound back from the bending it exhibited when the early release player unhinged his wrist-c o c k angle.  

One of the fascinating parts of all this quantitative study of shafts is how two shafts can have opposite bend profile measurements yet end up displaying a very similar bending feel to the golfer who has the ability to detect bending feel differences between shafts.  It is very possible to design two different shafts, one with a stiff butt and soft tip which can end up feeling very similar to a shaft with a softer butt but stiffer tip.  

The reason is because as TW33 mentioned, a shaft's feel is comprised by its full length stiffness design.  While we do talk at times about specific butt stiffness, center stiffness and tip stiffness in shafts, these "areas" of the shaft can act both separately as well as in concert with each other.   And most definitely even we are still learning things about shafts when we compare golfer feedback to different bend profile measurements.  

Ultimately in the end, no one will ever bring shaft fitting into a mechanical, quantitative, cut and dried "this is YOUR shaft" type of process - because golfers can have specific SHAFT BENDING FEEL preferences.   What feels good to one player with a 100mph speed + strong transition + aggressive tempo + late release may not feel good to another player with the same 100mph speed + strong transition + aggressive tempo + late release.  That's always going to be a part of shaft fitting.  

But we do believe very much that we can use the measurement methodology to not only predict performance for a golfer , but to predict the shaft's feel as well.  If the golfer can tell us what shafts in the past have felt good or bad, we are very confident that we can use this measurement methodology to steer him toward other shafts that will feel good and away from those which won't satisfy his feel preferences.  

I know, again it is too much info - but in this subject I could go on and on because with a real way to compare shafts, it is interesting.   Time to stick a fork in me and shut me up though.  

TOM

[Fourmyle of Ceres]

If it's ever "too much info" we'll let you know!

I think this particular summation of your findings explains my own experience (as a consumer, not a builder or fitter Lord knows). For a weak hitter I can get darned near violent transitioning from backswing to downswing. But then I dissipate all my wrist-angle real early. I don't flip at the ball, just release early then come through kind of flat and straight-wristed.

Some shafts feel really out-of-control when my transition gets abrupt. So I tend to swing better with them because I can feel the "wiggle" at the top and I'll slow down until I feel a smoother start to the downswing, usually with good results. Other shafts feel the same on good or bad swings even if they're not all that stiff in CPM/FCM terms.

But none of them make a whit of difference in ballflight. If I want to hit it higher or lower I'd better change the driver loft a couple of degrees to do it. A shaft is just a shaft as far as ballflight goes. I'll literally get the same launch from a firm-tip "S" flex and a weak-tip "A" flex in the old-fashioned terminology.

Sounds like I could look at one of your graphs and find my shafts by emphasizing the whole curve except for the part from the 21" measurement to the tip. Cool.

[TomWishon]

Howard Jones, on 04 May 2012 - 12:38 AM, said:

most shafts is not followed by any specs, not even how they decide to mark the shaft with what they did mark it with, and sometimes that can be frustrating both for the club maker and the club fitter.

Howard:

I'm sorry but can you explain this first part more clearly because I am not sure I understand what you mean.  Are you asking how do the shaft makers determine what they will call an L, A, R, S or X when you talk about "how they decide to mark the shaft" ?  

Howard Jones, on 04 May 2012 - 12:38 AM, said:

Even within the same brand, i have R flex shaft who is stronger than some S flex shafts, and some X flex shafts who IMO is no stronger than average S, so its all a mess out there.

So my question is, how do you handle this ? what specs do you give your customer in flex matters ?

You're dead right on this being a cluster mess.  It's like you want to go to the shaft companies and say,  "you're asking HOW MANY HUNDRED DOLLARS for this shaft and you can only tell me specifically what the weight of the shaft is, and only a generic description of how stiff it is or where it is stiffer or not as stiff on the shaft????"

Once we get each shaft's 7 measurements, we then can apply that to data we have developed which allows us to award a swing speed range for the shaft.  At that point we can ignore the letter flex code on the shaft because it is meaningless.  

Our customers are the clubmakers so when we create our own shaft designs, we offer all the information about their bend profile measurements and what we say is the clubhead speed range as well as the information for rating the Transition, Tempo, Release and Strength required by the golfer to be considered to be properly fit into each shaft.  

Sure, we put a letter flex code on our shaft designs but we also put all this other fitting information on the shaft as well so the clubmaker and the golfer too can see what each shaft's clubhead speed range as well as the Transition, Tempo, Release and Strength ratings in a 1, 2, 3 rating methodology.  Our catalog explains to the clubmakers how to determine if the golfer's Transition, Tempo, Release and Strength are a 1, 2, or 3.  

We also feel that the Bend Profile software has definite marketing advantages for the clubmakers who use it.  They don't have to show and explain everything about all the numbers to a golfer because not all golfers are into it that deep.  But we find that if a golfer is unsure about the skill level of the clubmaker or still stuck on this "I gotta buy the big name OEM because the marketing says they're better" , the clubmaker simply has to show them what you know - that all R's are not the same and not even the same from the same company.  And then the golfer has confidence that the clubmaker might just know what he's talking about.   We've heard many times from clubmakers that this can win the sale for him with a golfer.  

And darn well it should too because tell me you know a retail store sales clerk or a pro at a pro shop who knows even a thimble full of this type of information about the lack of any standards for shafts in the industry.  They don't.  

Anyway, time to get off the soap box and finish the two things I need to before the weekend.

TOM

[tx33]

TomWishon, on 04 May 2012 - 01:51 PM, said:

I can tell TX33 has been reading my books and newsletter articles and has the basics down which he responded with to your question.  

LOL, I can even do you one better since it all started when I attended one of your classes/seminars in the mid/early 90s. Glad to see something stuck, though I do hope I got more than the basics down in those 20+ years   Back on topic, the BP software mentioned is imho definitely worth looking at if you are serious about shafts. I've found it helps in finding replacements shafts for old and or expansive shafts as well as understanding a specific shafts characteristics. On the feel side I agree/disagree; feel is an elusive quantity to capture in mechanics/BP numbers, so like you said shaft fitting will never be fully quantifiable, but having EI data makes it easier to select shafts to start from. Then it comes down to the clubmakers skills in tipping/trimming & really listening to the players feedback. So fully quantifiable no, but we should be able to get really close and take the guesswork out.
P.S. time to take the fork out and keep going..... 

[ultra45]

TomWishon, on 04 May 2012 - 10:02 AM, said:

Shaftology, on 03 May 2012 - 04:39 PM, said:

FCM Value as it is most consistent measure to me.

Shaftology:

Please take a look at the following graph of bend profile measurement data for two shafts which are both considered high quality S flex shafts in the industry.  



If you rely only on the FCM chart for shafts, that chart is based only on the one butt frequency measurement of all shafts.  It does not take into account how different the flex and bending feel and performance of a shaft can be from how the rest of the shaft below the butt is designed and made.  

Here you have two S flex shafts which would read exactly the same for their butt frequency measurement and from that, would end up showing the same FCM rating.  Yet if you look at the lower half of the two shafts, you are looking at a very big difference in the bending feel and performance.  

The NV would feel much stiffer and would launch the ball visibly lower to a late release player than the Platinum because these differences between the two shafts are substantial.   And there are TONS of shafts that fall into this category of having the same exact butt frequency but the rest of the shaft is completely different.  

This right here is an example of why we started to look at the WHOLE SHAFT STIFFNESS over its entire length and why we realized that any form of shaft flex/stiffness ranking that used only the butt frequency could not be used to help advise shaft fitting for golfers.  

Hope this helps,
TOM

So in looking at the shaft chart... for the strong transition/late release player... the nv shaft will launch lower because of the stiffer tip... to create that lower ball flight does that mean there is less forward kick at impact with that shaft?

[smoky25]

Do you guys think that the Mizuno Shaft Optimizer is a useful tool from the player's side of the equation? If you're going to come up with some way of "standardizing" shafts (e.g. TW's software), you'll need corresponding way to break down the individual player's swing in order to match. And don't forget torque fitting.

[Howard Jones]

smoky25, on 05 May 2012 - 09:30 AM, said:

Do you guys think that the Mizuno Shaft Optimizer is a useful tool from the player's side of the equation? If you're going to come up with some way of "standardizing" shafts (e.g. TW's software), you'll need corresponding way to break down the individual player's swing in order to match. And don't forget torque fitting.

The Mizuno Optimizer is a nice tool especially in shops where you want find real club fitters, but its no oracle.
- It ONLY measure PRE impact flex needs, it does not now anything about what will happen to the ball.
Its limited to the options Mizuno is offering, so for a Mizuno customer visiting a shop, it takes out some guesswork, and help to find a starting point for testing, but noting else. - Its NOT like the 3-4 opions is all good to go, so just pick one, its NOT like that. Each and every option its suggesting must be tested real life, with the playing length YOU need, and the club head you want.

Example - You need to play 1 inch over length from standard, but the Optimizer dont take changes when going  longer into the math, so it might suggest S300 due to your club speed and load of the shaft, but a good club maker would know that going 1 inch longer on DG, means that you should go up 1 flex class = X100. Lets HOPE they know that in the shop, if not, you might end up with S300 at 1 inch over, who only plays to a strong R flex because of the length.

SO its ONLY a tool, and the need for knowledge is still present, because this is no oracle who can sort it all out for you.
If you take a look at Tom Wishons system for shaft fitting, it does all the optimizer does, but without G.sensors.
TW system even got some inputs the optimizer dont worry about at all, and a talk with the player might add some extra info to take into consideration, so the Optimizer is not ideal or perfect, but yes it helps shops who otherwise would have problems to get a starting point, but nothing more than that.

[TomWishon]

ultra45, on 05 May 2012 - 07:32 AM, said:

So in looking at the shaft chart... for the strong transition/late release player... the nv shaft will launch lower because of the stiffer tip... to create that lower ball flight does that mean there is less forward kick at impact with that shaft?

Absolutely right - for a late release player moving to a shaft with a stiffer tip section will reduce the forward bending of that part of the shaft, which in turn reduces the dynamic loft on the clubhead at impact, which then lowers launch angle and spin.  

But so too will having a stiffer butt and stiffer center section on the shaft because that also stiffens the entire shaft.  

So, late release golfers have a choice when they want to lower their trajectory through the shaft.  If they do it by keeping the butt/center stiffness the same as what they had before but stiffen the tip, then in general when they make their transition move the shaft won;t feel any stiffer but it will as they release the club and feel the shaft going through impact.   But if they do this by choosing a shaft with a stiffer butt and center, then they have to decide if the stiffer feeling they get when they start the downswing is something they can live with or not.  

For players with a late release and the ability to feel bending differences in shafts, a good clubfitter really has to get inside the player's head to find out just how dependent he is on having the right bending feel.  For many players, changing bending feel can really mess up their timing and tempo and for such players, any launch angle, trajectory or spin changes have to be done by altering the LOFT on the clubhead - so you leave the shaft alone but rely on the most important trajectory and spin changing element of the LOFT of the head.

TOM