Purred Shafts

In September I went to Club Champion to get fit. I have a set of Ping 410 Hybrids that they re-shafted and purred. My question is this

If I move the setting on the Hybrids to make them flatter what happens to the purred shaft. Does it really make a big difference?

To your bank account yes, to your game no. In the past their website posted stats, I, being a stats geek analysed them, they posted data that showed their product has zero benefit.

I guess that is a happy shaft when it purrs like a cat. :)

no real expertise here but I expect you will see no difference, but if needed it will be a great excuse for that miss.

I did a fitting there over the holidays when they were running 50% off a full bag. I believe getting the shafts Pured is typically extra. Nothing was mentioned about it during the fitting and it definitely wasn't listed on my invoice, but I received an email with all the specs or details regarding my shafts being Pured.

That being said, at my skill level, I seriously doubt I can tell a difference.

Meow!!

If your shaft is a good quality shaft that oscillates back in forth in all directions, puring doesn't matter. If you have a lousy shaft that oscillates in circles in some directions, puring could be helpful.

Hopefully your hybrid shaft is a good shaft.

... Back when I was using steel shafts, especially dynamic gold, puring made sense. Some shafts were so bowed they could not roll on a cement floor. Putting the spines in a neutral position certainly helped with the variance. Fast forward to now and shafts are almost all close to 99% round so puring just isn't necessary, especially graphite shafts. I would add a major OEM shaft company did some high speed photography with all their shafts and found every single shaft they tested "flo'ed" in a straight line for the first two passes and only the least expensive offerings began to show signs of wobble after that. Since you only swing any shaft once when hitting a ball, the straight line on the first pass is all that matters. Testing with robots showed zero difference in shot patterns with their shaft in different alignments. So they stopped spine aligning and flo'ing their shafts and I have not done either since that day.

I agree. When I started golf 20 years ago puring would've made a slight difference in performance but now since manufacturing techniques have improved since then, puring isn't necessary. It is just a cash grab since Tour van technicians dont even pure their shafts for the best players in the world.

Some of you guys are carelessly dropping facts into a discussion. Take a moment to reflect.

CC doesn’t charge for puring for driver 3 wood or hybrid shafts. They only charge for irons and wedges.

I knew a cat that played purred shafts. Seemed happy with them.

BT

Could you enlighten me?

Tongue-in-cheek, Ben.

Has anyone said that it doesn't work yet? Could I be the first?

I heard great things about KBS C-Tapers, so bought a set off Golfworks and payed extra to have them purred. Needless to say, my game went in the litter box.

Like the perfect club, they are purr-fect

Would you expect anything different from a shaft company? Yes some shaft manufacturers are created a better product but still they are far from perfect especially when humans are involved. Puring came about as even in a perfectly straight shaft if you roll them, some will seek a resting point. Puring is not going to make a bit of difference in a bowed shaft as that shaft is to far gone to use. Trash them or return them.

Personally, I buy Pured shafts for my driver and fairway woods. I FLO (another subject) my other shafts.

I have a unicorn tied up in the backyard that pees on all my golf shafts, results are similar.

Residual bend and bowing is completely different from Spines/SST pure/FLO. They are not the same and don't really have much to do with each other. Ones a static property only, the other is entirely dynamic.

Although residual bend is one of the reason why bearing based spine finders are useless - so it's not surprising that anyone with any history with those bearing based spine finders (and 'rolling shafts') might confuse the two.

And as another FYI, there have been actual studies done showing that even up to 1/4" of residual bend in the shaft also has no effect on the golfer's feel and shot results. I wouldn't call them conclusive by any means but it makes sense since we really are mostly swinging the club head c.g. - the exact shape of the shaft between the hands and the head doesn't really play a big part in the swing. It's just the dynamic properties of the shaft that matters, not the starting shape.

I got my LA golf graphite putter shaft pured for my custom Bettinardi. It was something that I wanted and didn’t have to worry about paying extra so I was like sure. Why not.

TXG said they plan to do a blind pure'd vs non-pure'd comparison. I'm interested in the results. Theoretically, it could help but my guess in the hands of like 99.99% of Amatuers, it wouldn't matter. Forget pro's, they get it for free so we can't really include them, unless money isn't an object. However, it's really annoying to deal with because it can result in the graphics of the shaft facing in really weird/distracting directions from address. I skip it, and just because looks alone... I wouldn't even take it for free unless they would give me shafts only pure'd with the graphics face down.

Would you expect anything different than a large fitter like Club Champion who owns SST Puring (like they bought them years ago and it's now a Club Champion owned business) ? I've tried clubs that were pured and not pured. Didn't notice a lick of difference. I've also talked to tour reps on the pga tour vans who say the only guys that get stuff Pured are those who think it matters between the ears.

I can see value in purring metals. One of the best drivers I picked off of ebay had a pured shaft. It's not why I bought it but do believe it was a factor in how well it worked out.

I asked Taylormade in their question thread if they Pure shafts for players and they said no they don't. They said if a guy wants to pure his shafts he must provide them himself to the van and they will keep a stock. So what does that tell you lol

Tells me a lot less than 2 years of use.

So I'm doing a full build of irons and two metals. I've set up a FLO station using a lathe to mount shaft (important shaft is grabbed on at least 4 sides) and laser pointer mounted on a 300g weight. Find that two generalities to be true.

Reputable OEM's tend to screen label shafts on strong axis, strong axis is also exemplified by weld seam seen internally on steel shafts under light and magnification. On graphite, label line is a decent indicator. If you find axis, it will oscillate nicely two directions, Up & down and also side to side. Go off more than handful degrees wobble shows up. The question & debate then becomes, how do you mount them. General rule is strong axis in vertical, @ 12 o'clock to head. Weak side to target path, strong to shaft line. This how SST does it and most others do too. I will probably go this route, however may experiment with lining up with CG tipping point and see what, if anything it does. High speed analysis shows there's two types of shaft bend going on at impact. Fore and aft bend and also droop. Both exist but both are dependent on how one swings. Stronger better players tend to have less of both and the ratio between the two are tighter. We are talking 3-4 cm on both with driver. Probably half that on irons.

I don't think this will rock my world but if I'm using great components why not seal the deal with a build that includes normalizing FLO of shafts. If you don't want to bother, solid method is go labels (or seams) up or down and chances are you nailed it.

I hear what you're saying but in all things metalurgical, a weld is stronger than the materials beings welded together. They just are. I'm a machinist, I understand metal more than club building that much I know. On the Nippon's and TT's I checked, the screened lablels happen to line up with the weld. They just did. Either way, strong or weak axis oscillation pattern is the same, save for the frequency. The point of FLO is not to frequency match, it's to minimize oscillation pattern to a straight line.

There are lots of types of welding, with a wide variety of characteristics to the end result. The type of high end, large scale induction welding used in shaft manufacturing is really different from the type of welding you seem to be used to. Second, you have to look at the full manufacturing process and all the things that are done after the weld is done. Finally the bending stiffness is depends much more on the hoop strength of the tubular structure than it is on any irregularities of the material properties. All About SpinesAs for the point of FLO, the only purpose is to identify the weak and strong bending axis. Using a frequency meter to identify which one is which is not the same as frequency matching. It's not about manipulating the frequencies to match the other shafts in the set. It's simply checking the frequency of the two axis to identify which is the strong axis and which is the weak axis. Now if you want to use the results to also frequency match that's a separate step.

also might find these posts from those that are more intimately familiar with the manufacturing process interesting:https://forums.golfwrx.com/discussion/comment/12515190/#Comment_12515190