What's more important to you when you are choosing a driver shaft? Feel or performance?

Do you play any shafts that feels bad to you but they give you the best numbers?

In the past, I would go to a fitting and hit bunch of shafts and just choose the one that gives you the best numbers.

Just curious how important "feel" is when choosing shafts.

If it'll give me great numbers I can get used to the feel.

Why not both? I get along Diamana shafts in woods.

For me feel leads to confidence, which leads to better swings/strikes, which leads to better distance.

I'm just not likely to swing a club that I don't like the feel of very consistently.

It's a good question but one that's not easy to answer. Or one that doesn't have one single answer. The devil's in the details.

The relationship between feel and results is complex and can vary a lot between individuals. The question of whether a shaft that doesn't feel good but still gives good results really needs to look a bit more in depth on why one really is getting better results, if in fact the results really are better. e.g. You might be getting better launch/spin/distance - but overlooking the fact that consistency and dispersion may have gotten worse - especially when swinging under pressure. Or (especially with a driver) a change in face impact location can potentially result in a less than ideal face impact location but still give better launch numbers if the gear effect is helping compensate for some other impact problem. Main point being don't' get tunnel vision when looking at the results.

The first thing one needs to try and understand is how does a change in feel from the shaft effect the swing itself. Some people can be like robots and put the same swing on the club regardless of what type of feel they get from the shaft. For others, the feel can have a very important influence on the swing. And no, feeling like you made the same swing is not the same as actually making the same swing. You really need to look at LM club data to verify that. It can effect a lot of aspects of the swing but some of the more common ways would be the release timing, how smooth or quick the transition, how well the upper and lower body stays synced during the swing. For example, for me a shaft that feels too soft or too stiff will both result in it being harder for me to close the face and wipey slice/fade. Of course that also means for me I'll pretty much never get better results with those type of feel problems.

Second, one has to understand that a 'bad feel' really is just a feel you're not used to or one that doesn't meet certain expectations. The more time you spend with a bad feeling shaft, the more you might get used to the new feel and the less bad it might seem. I say might because it depends on how deeply rooted those expectations are. Some might get used to a new feel in a week. Others might go for years and still not get used to it. So if the bad feel had affected the swing in a way that improved the results, and over time you start to get used to that feel, the old habits (and the old worse results) can reassert themselves and the decision to go with a shaft that felt bad was probably not the best option in the long run even if there are short term gains. Or another way to put it is that if the change in feel is acting as a band-aid for a swing fault, the fix may not be nearly as reliable as it first might seem. However, if the bad feel didn't effect the swing, and the improvements came from the change in shaft characteristics (maybe a higher or lower launching shaft), then there is nothing wrong with sticking with the shaft - although in that case another option may be to go back to a shaft that feels good and use loft to fix the numbers. Just because you're getting good results with a bad feel doesn't mean you can't find some other setup that gives both the good results and a better feel. So sometimes only time will tell which was more important.

It’s not a one or the other. If it doesn’t perform then feel isn’t going to matter. If it doesn’t feel good then I end up starting to change things to adjust to the feel and performance may or may not change.

i had a shaft that felt ok and performed well but I couldn’t get past the feeling of the shaft and went back to original shaft. Had another shaft recently that I love the feel of but when my swing is off it doesn’t perform as well as my normal shaft. I played it most of the season but got to a point where I needed better performance on the course and dumped the shaft

Be it irons or drivers, rarely does a shaft fitting yield one clear winner. Normally two will come pretty close in performance numbers. From there, I let feel be the decider.

Performance here. In driver or irons as long as the distance and accuracy are there I can learn to deal with the feel being in question.

If the performance is there and is consistently there I'll likely adjust my concept of 'good feel'.

In my experience, I won't have good numbers with something that feels "bad". I've never hit a shaft that was a wet noodle and then saw really tight dispersion with solid launch and spin, and vice versa.. never hit a piece of rebar that gave me great numbers. Most shafts that are "somewhere in the middle" of that feel relatively the same to me, so then it becomes little nuances that matter toward feel (does one feel linear vs crisp) but performance would then dicttate my numbers.

This happpened in a fitting a few years ago when I won a free Fuji shaft fit at club champ. The speeder ii, iii and iv all felt pretty good but the ii gave me the best numbers. So I went with the ii. I could barely feel a difference between them other than that the ii kicked the least.

I like a one piece fairly stiff feeling shafts for my woods. If it has a hinge or softer feel my swing gets out of sink. Could be all mental, is, so feel is most important to me.

The feelz

Feel will drive better performance for me.

Lots of good comments. Some people said that they can get used to the feel if the performance is there. Does this mean that you can always get used to the feel of the shaft even if you may not like it at first?

So if you get a shaft that's too soft or stiff but it puts out a good number, you can get used to that soft or stiff feel?

Shafts should be chosen by #1 Weight, #2 Feel, #3 Dispersion.....all 3 should be good, and i cant say i saw to many "high performers" who did not feel right, so in most cases, if feel is off, we alter our swing for the better or worse, it better be for the better, and something you like.

Honestly, I think it's an individual choice. Myself as an analytical person I go with the numbers, the main one being dispersion for me. Now feel can be an issue but usually, at least with me, that means I'm losing some club head awareness, then again if that happens dispersion is going to be off.

Think of it as a new car, it might offer the best performance it will just take a little getting use to compared to the older model.

Gotta be both. Either one being off will get in your head and cause you to make unconscious adjustments. Calamity results!

BT

Well, since the question is which is more important, I'm going with performance,,,,,,,,,,,,, PROVIDED that the feel and performance are close.

If the shaft feels totally out of control the performance probably wouldn't matter because I'd have no confidence in the club. And of course, if the performance is terrible,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

My previous driver was the Cally Fusion with a Hzrdus Black. Felt great and worked really well,,,,,,,,,,, until I demo'd the Epic Flash SZ. I first tried it with a leftover Hzrdus Yellow from last year's Rogue. Way too stiff (6.5) AND heavy (70 weight class).

Hit mid high and penetrating drives, one after the other, straight down the pipe with a touch of draw. Heaven. With a shaft I'd never consider. Tried many different shafts with it and nothing was better, really not close.

I even swapped the Hzrdus Yellow into my Fusion and the Black into the EFSZ and neither shaft worked well with the other head. Go figure. In both drivers though the Black shaft felt a tad lighter and a bit smoother (whatever that means). The Yellow felt more stout (of course given the 6.5/70 LOL) and didn't feel as though it swung as easily.

Bought the head AND shaft off the 'bay in April. Total $325 instead of $529+tax. Couldn't get myself to go with the 6.5 70 weight though and bought the Yellow in 6.0 60 weight. Best driver/shaft combo I've ever hit. Hzrdus Yellow still feels a tiny bit,,,,,,, well, awkward,,,,,,, but I've gotten used to it. The performance is just too good.

I've tried shafts that felt good but didn't perform well, but I've never tried shafts that performed well and didn't feel good. That said, I have tried certain shafts that "felt" different to me than I remember them to be from previous experiences, so clearly my sense of feel is somewhat fluid.

I'm not certain I could ever mentally get over the hurdle of trying to play a shaft that I think of as a component I don't like. I definitely want to know that it performs analytically but also like how it feels. Between the two, I could and have played shafts that I like the feeling of but didn't give the very best performance.