Rickie Fowler is likely switching into a black-on-black Mitsubishi Diamana driver shaft this week that few people have ever seen before. New prototype shafts are common on the PGA Tour, so it being “unseen” isn’t a crazy phenomenon, but this one is actually around 9 years old.

If it’s nearly a decade old, then, how has no one seen it before?

Let me explain…

Fowler has been using a Cobra King F9 driver with a Mitsubishi Diamana White Board 73X shaft recently (the above photo is from a WITB we shot at the 2022 American Express). Fowler is no stranger to the shaft model, since he’s played it off-and-on since his college and early professional days. Check out his WITB from the 2014 Humana Challenge, where he was using the same shaft.

There’s been newer versions of the Diamana White Board released since the one that Fowler uses, but he’s using the original iteration. It came out in 2006, and around that time it was played by another golfer you may know: Tiger Woods.

Flash forward to the 2022 Valero Texas Open, and Fowler wanted to switch into the new Cobra King LTDx LS 9-degree driver head equipped with an original Mitsubishi Diamana White Board 73X shaft that he’s used for years. According to Mitsubishi representatives, Fowler recently switched back into the old model because he wanted something that he’s comfortable with and has brought him success in the past.

The only problem was, Mitsubishi didn’t have any stock of that particular shaft with the original graphics. They did, however, have a few old prototypes laying around from back in the day.

Fowler’s particular blacked-out Diamana White Board shaft was from a batch of shafts that Mitsubishi experimented on in 2013. The company had just acquired Aldila, and they were testing out a new laser etching machine using raw Diamana White Board shafts.

That means that the driver shaft Fowler is set to use this week is a black, laser-etched, original Mitsubishi Diamana White Board 73 X. I guess it’s not so “white” of a White Board, is it?

His version plays at a short 44.5 inches, and it’s tipped one inch.

Click here to see what GolfWRX members are saying about the shaft.