Anyone else come full circle with iron shaft changes?

I started playing in 1991; Mizuno irons with DG r300. In 2002, traded Mizuno grads for Adams irons with bi-matrix steel/graphite. Starting in 2006, i have had dozens of sets with every major shaft option in regular, stiff and x-stiff flexes. Last two years have mostly toggled between DG s300 and r300 with the recent conclusion that i get the best overall feel, distance, and results with the r300. My SS with a 6 iron is low 80s on a comfortable swing. I can ramp it up to upper 80s and make a stiffer shaft work, but being in my 40s now my body doesn't want to go there as much.

I often wish i would have never gotten exposed to the idea of shaft changes. I wonder if all that time, energy and money spent looking for magical equipment would have been better served just playing golf and taking lessons. Anyone else out there come full circle on iron shaft changes? If so, do you feel like you benefited more from the process or that it was a massive waste of time, money, and energy, like myself?

You can't go on this site and start making wild claims about practice being more important than equipment. What are you thinking!

Equipment fitting definitely helps. However, a good golf coach can make a much bigger impact. Put the two together and you give yourself the best chance for repeatable good scores.

Equipment fitting didn't help me. I got fitted 3 times. Come to think of it, coaching (5 different instructors) didn't help at all and actually made me worse in some ways. The game was much simpler, easier and more fun early on. Friends and I just figured out how to hit the ball high, low, left or right. chipping/putting mostly feel. all the equipment instruction mumbo jumbo has made the game more of a slog and my scores are no better. Equipment tweaks and instruction may benefit for some, but i gather there is at least a few out there that wish they could go back and not get sucked in.

If one has the money, I'd say maybe get a full bag fitting once every 5 years and/or after any major changes to your swing. Instead of endlessly tinkering, just bite the bullet and let a pro fit you and then buy what's recommended or if you're savvy, buy the equipment on the used market and build up the set yourself to save $$.

So much of this game is mental.

I’ve tinkered with equipment a lot, and taken a bunch of lessons. The first allowed me to indulge in getting what I liked the look of, and the second helped me hit that about as well as I can.

But what has given me the most pleasure and satisfaction has been going out and playing. Like I used to when I first started playing as a teenager. Just playing what I like, and figuring out my game along the way. Not planning to make wholesale changes to my swing anymore. Will fit equipment to me, rather than the other way round. But still going to try and keep some of the basics i learnt along the way in the back of my mind.

So in response to OP’s question in the title, I feel like I have come full circle in a mental way, rather than from a purely equipment standpoint.

Edit: realized that this turned into an unexpectedly self-indulgent post. My apologies for sidetracking...

This was so helpful to hear. I am still feeling like there is room with my swing to improve in the sense of squaring the club and better contact. I am getting a bit closer lately with help from folks on this forum. Honestly i will always be curious about the golf swing. However, for me, I am convinced that formal instruction and equipment preoccupation of any kind are a detriment.

it really does disturb me that there are shafts out there that could be much better for my swing but i have not tried them.

I play with a guy who i was out driving 15-20 yards when he had a titleist driver and shaft that came with it..

he changed to a ping 410 with an Oban shaft and he is 30 yards in front of me sometimes. You can't really test all driver shafts to really find what works. must as well stick to what you have and not care about others

I spent 2 months testing shafts and ended up with setup that was a surprise. I feel fitting gets you in the zip code but it does not buy the house. I'm building several sets right now, I'll go with two that I'm comfortable on but I'm wanting to experiment so for those, do a couple of irons and make a call after 500-1000 strikes. Shafts alter swing (slightly), they pull it in a direction, good and bad. Feel you have to allow that process to happen before a solid decision can be made.

Need to do this for metals, will probably go "get fitted" and then buy a driver, live with it, maybe experiment a bit, then purchase matching fairways. But key will be to slow the whole thing down.

couple more thoughts. I’ve had several coaches that made me worse, but I kept looking and found one that really helped. So my experience if you find the right coach it can make a big difference. On equipment, swing speed matters and stiffness of shaft can have big impact on spin if it doesn’t fit your swing. Now whether you choose a tour level Fujikura shaft or some other similar high dollar shaft with similar characteristics, the difference probably won’t be noticed by most. I think at that point it’s more about the “Indian” as opposed to the “arrow.” Like nycgolfnut says, so much of Golf is mental.

I started playing golf at age 25 and was terrible - lucky to break 100. I just turned 44 and shot my lowest score about 1 year ago, a 69. I don’t think that would have been possible without the right equipment and good coaching, but then again my talent or lack of talent could be part of it?