8 iron shaft in a wedge....

so a friend of mine does a lot of work for the pros........he was telling me that a lot of the pros have been putting an 8-iron shaft in their wedges and I forgot exactly why. I figure it keeps the flight down, but wanted to see what the crew here thinks. And if anyone has tried it with any success. Thanks in advance.

The tipping of an 8 iron would make it fly higher and spin more I would think. Maybe this is to try to get more spin from the rough with the new grooves? Not sure, never heard of that.

Definitely imparts more spin and a higher ball flight. Similar to the old rifle spinner shafts (not the current true temper version). I tried it several years back and found that it made the tip feel sloppy and loose, and was uncontrollable of full swing shots. I prefer straight inserted dgs400 any day of the week. Your mileage may vary, though.

there's a thread somewhere that has the info on putting 8i shaft in wedges...you have to go up by 2 flexes from whatever you currently play i think....so if you play px 6.0 put 7.0's in and butt cut them to lenth.

i did this with 2 of my wedges and really like it so far. lots more spin and i feel like i have more control too.

I do it routinely for any player who uses the wedge in question much more for part-swings than for full shots. It allows the club to load at a lower swingspeed and gives much more feel around the green. it does make the tip sloppier on full swings, and may make the ball fly too high and/or spin too much, especially if there's a lot of back hand in your swing.

So how do you go up 2 flexes from an S300/400. X-100 hard stepped twice? S300 tipped an extra inch?

They call it "Tiger" Stepping on Tour as he was one of the first to do it. It's really nice, a lot of guys do an S-400 tipped 1/4" to 1/2" 8 iron in the Lob wedge. Not always the Sand wedge as you hit it more full. I'm an aggressive swinger and didn't mind it, but I like my Nippon Proto's so much more that I aborted it.

You are mixing up 2 different things.

Taper tips CAN be trimmed, but only 3/8 if you will keep a .355 bore without problems. That will stiffen up the shaft by 3 cpm's or like hard stepping 1x (Tiger Woods in irons)

8 Iron shaft in wedges should be choose n 10 cpm stronger than the flex need and cut down (butt only), to make a"spinner" shaft.
- And yes, you can tip it 3/8 as well, but that will change your flex to be stronger than your irons, but if you start out with a #8 shaft 10 cpm stronger than needed, you will have the same over all flex as your irons, but much more spin. (tip will NOT be soft, because you play the tip of a shaft 2x flex classes stronger, but as stated, you can stiffen it up 3 cpm's as an extra option if you like.) 3 cpm will lower ball flight with 1 yard, but it also eats some of the spin you just made by using a #8 shaft.

I recently joined golfwrx in an effort to get some needed help on shaft lenght, types, etc. Not long ago my irons got fitted 3 - PW with half an inch extra lenght and honestly great improvement from high 80´s to low 80´s. I added half inch for my 3 wedges from their original standard lenght ( which was the same lenght for all 3 ) but I keep having plenty of issues with them ( just like the ones I had with my irons prior to fitting ) so looking around on the web, I have found people have tried their wedges with shaft lenghts similar to their 9 or 8 irons and they found great success - so after all this writing and the leght decided here is my question, I want to get more feel on my wedges ( try to feel where the club head is during the my 1/2 - 1/3 - 1/4 swings ) because now I have none .... for the rest of my set I have D. Gold S300 and I have no issue with them ..... so could you guys give me some pointers on shafts, I have read lots about the RIFLE models, but honestly get lost when trying to select one too much technical aspects that I do not know, I am looking as said earlier for club head feel, low trajectory and my swing speed is bout med-high if it helps ...

Lamark, The 8i length reference is not overall club length, but rather to the tip trim (the length of parallel tip section). Compare the parallel tip sections of your 8i and wedges. you should have an inch diferrence. To get more head feel, try increasing the swing weight of your wedges to at least D-7. Most irons are D-2, so that would mean increasing the head weight by 10 grams.

Hi, thats called soft-stepping or stepping the shaft up. Done on taper tips. It lengthens the tip to the first step, decreasing the stiffness about a sub-flex. It will increase the feel for the touch shots around the green.


Enjoy your game

[quote name='Howard Jones' timestamp='1309493162' post='3354433']
You are mixing up 2 different things.

Taper tips CAN be trimmed, but only 3/8 if you will keep a .355 bore without problems. That will stiffen up the shaft by 3 cpm's or like hard stepping 1x (Tiger Woods in irons)

8 Iron shaft in wedges should be choose n 10 cpm stronger than the flex need and cut down (butt only), to make a"spinner" shaft.
- And yes, you can tip it 3/8 as well, but that will change your flex to be stronger than your irons, but if you start out with a #8 shaft 10 cpm stronger than needed, you will have the same over all flex as your irons, but much more spin. (tip will NOT be soft, because you play the tip of a shaft 2x flex classes stronger, but as stated, you can stiffen it up 3 cpm's as an extra option if you like.) 3 cpm will lower ball flight with 1 yard, but it also eats some of the spin you just made by using a #8 shaft.
[/quote]
I've been reading this and other posts and am about to do this with my wedges and was wondering what the effect would be if you used a 7 iron shaft vs an 8? Only reason I ask is I can't find the right 8 iron shaft and have a 7 iron shaft to experiment with...also have a 9. Thanks.

Interesting. I shall try this with an old wedge I have laying around.

Why is it that you don't want to do this to a wedge that you normaly would use for a full swing?

[quote name='wickedhook' timestamp='1351283762' post='5851187']
[quote name='Howard Jones' timestamp='1309493162' post='3354433']
You are mixing up 2 different things.

Taper tips CAN be trimmed, but only 3/8 if you will keep a .355 bore without problems. That will stiffen up the shaft by 3 cpm's or like hard stepping 1x (Tiger Woods in irons)

8 Iron shaft in wedges should be choose n 10 cpm stronger than the flex need and cut down (butt only), to make a"spinner" shaft.
- And yes, you can tip it 3/8 as well, but that will change your flex to be stronger than your irons, but if you start out with a #8 shaft 10 cpm stronger than needed, you will have the same over all flex as your irons, but much more spin. (tip will NOT be soft, because you play the tip of a shaft 2x flex classes stronger, but as stated, you can stiffen it up 3 cpm's as an extra option if you like.) 3 cpm will lower ball flight with 1 yard, but it also eats some of the spin you just made by using a #8 shaft.
[/quote]
I've been reading this and other posts and am about to do this with my wedges and was wondering what the effect would be if you used a 7 iron shaft vs an 8? Only reason I ask is I can't find the right 8 iron shaft and have a 7 iron shaft to experiment with...also have a 9. Thanks.
[/quote]

Going 1 shaft longer is soft stepping = 3 Cpm softer (using a #7 iron)
Going 1 shaft shorter is hard stepping = 3 Cpm stronger (using a 9 iron)
Both cases is just like "regular", but remember to start with a flex 10 CPM stronger

R300 in irons = use S300 #8 iron shaft
S300 in irons = use X100 #8 iron shaft
X100 in irons = No direct option as X7 is hard to find, but a S400 tipped 3/8 is a good option if 6-7 CPM softer than X100 can be used. (Tiger plays x100 in irons and S400 tip trimmed in wedges)

They are more consistent than DG spinners on full shots, and easier to load than standard #9 iron shafts on partial shots.

Only once i found spin to be to high but it was a Uniflex player where i matched flex to his irons, ended up using a DG S300 #7 shaft (Parallel) Spin went up to 13600 (58*) with 3-4 yards backspin after landing, so i dont think the #7 irons shaft is a good choise if you can get full stop on your PW as it is.

what exactly is a dg wedge flex shaft then?

im thinking of trying this in my 54 wedge, and then a spinner in the 60

[quote name='mizunostaffer' timestamp='1351319887' post='5853533']
what exactly is a dg wedge flex shaft then?

im thinking of trying this in my 54 wedge, and then a spinner in the 60
[/quote]

Wedge flex is most often a S200.

ah yeah I remember, its an s200. Indistiglishible difference between an S300 then

would I expect to loose some yardage if I went to a x1 8 iron shaft in my sand iron?compared to the dg s2...?

[quote name='mizunostaffer' timestamp='1351356326' post='5854623']
ah yeah I remember, its an s200. Indistiglishible difference between an S300 then

would I expect to loose some yardage if I went to a x1 8 iron shaft in my sand iron?compared to the dg s2...?
[/quote]

It depends on what #8 iron shaft you are talking about, and what flex you play in irons. If you choose a #8 shaft 1 DG flex up, you want loose any distance, and play flex will be close to your irons. Since you dont say what iron shafts you play, i have no idea if S200 is a good fit for you or not, so there is no answer to your question.

If you play X100 they are to soft, but if you play R300 they are just fine, and if its S300 in your irons it depends on how much spin you got in your PW.

I didnt know some of this stuff, pretty interesting

Im a S300 player, 90mph six iron ss, mid smooth tempo

thats why I thought id need a x1?

My pitching wedge spins about the same as my sand iron, maybe 5 feet of backspin on decent firm greens

I have done this in some Eye2+ wedges, I play PX 6.0 through the SW, then a 6.5 8-iron shaft in the lob wedge. I really like it.

I chose 6.5 because I would normally want a 5.5 in the lob wedge.

I have tried the DG Spinner, but felt it was just too soft. Great for short pitches and flops, but I didn't like it for anything more than 1/2 swing. And sometimes I feel that a 3/4 lob wedge shot can be handy. So I just got some Eye2 XG wedges to play around with. I'm thinking about trying the DG Spinner + in those. It's supposed to be stiffer than the regular Spinner, right?

Ive found the spinner plus to be fine on full swings, its 131 grams so its a stronger shaft than the normal spinner which is lighter and weaker

[quote name='Howard Jones' timestamp='1351317600' post='5853495']
X100 in irons = No direct option as X7 is hard to find, but a S400 tipped 3/8 is a good option if 6-7 CPM softer than X100 can be used. (Tiger plays x100 in irons and S400 tip trimmed in wedges)
[/quote]

A follow-up question to this:

So they use an S400 .355 Taper and then tip trim it 3/8 inch?

Wouldn't tip trimming tend to produce less spin?

[quote name='Howard Jones' timestamp='1351317600' post='5853495']
[quote name='wickedhook' timestamp='1351283762' post='5851187']
[quote name='Howard Jones' timestamp='1309493162' post='3354433']
You are mixing up 2 different things.

Taper tips CAN be trimmed, but only 3/8 if you will keep a .355 bore without problems. That will stiffen up the shaft by 3 cpm's or like hard stepping 1x (Tiger Woods in irons)

8 Iron shaft in wedges should be choose n 10 cpm stronger than the flex need and cut down (butt only), to make a"spinner" shaft.
- And yes, you can tip it 3/8 as well, but that will change your flex to be stronger than your irons, but if you start out with a #8 shaft 10 cpm stronger than needed, you will have the same over all flex as your irons, but much more spin. (tip will NOT be soft, because you play the tip of a shaft 2x flex classes stronger, but as stated, you can stiffen it up 3 cpm's as an extra option if you like.) 3 cpm will lower ball flight with 1 yard, but it also eats some of the spin you just made by using a #8 shaft.
[/quote]
I've been reading this and other posts and am about to do this with my wedges and was wondering what the effect would be if you used a 7 iron shaft vs an 8? Only reason I ask is I can't find the right 8 iron shaft and have a 7 iron shaft to experiment with...also have a 9. Thanks.
[/quote]

Going 1 shaft longer is soft stepping = 3 Cpm softer (using a #7 iron)
Going 1 shaft shorter is hard stepping = 3 Cpm stronger (using a 9 iron)
Both cases is just like "regular", but remember to start with a flex 10 CPM stronger

R300 in irons = use S300 #8 iron shaft
S300 in irons = use X100 #8 iron shaft
[b]X100 in irons[/b] = No direct option as X7 is hard to find, but a S400 tipped 3/8 is a good option if 6-7 CPM softer than X100 can be used. (Tiger plays x100 in irons and S400 tip trimmed in wedges)

They are more consistent than DG spinners on full shots, and easier to load than standard #9 iron shafts on partial shots.

Only once i found spin to be to high but it was a Uniflex player where i matched flex to his irons, ended up using a DG S300 #7 shaft (Parallel) Spin went up to 13600 (58*) with 3-4 yards backspin after landing, so i dont think the #7 irons shaft is a good choise if you can get full stop on your PW as it is.
[/quote]

What if you play X100's softstepped once in your irons?

[quote name='reg1900' timestamp='1351377569' post='5855837']
R300 in irons = use S300 #8 iron shaft
S300 in irons = use X100 #8 iron shaft
X100 in irons = No direct option as X7 is hard to find, but a S400 tipped 3/8 is a good option if 6-7 CPM softer than X100 can be used. (Tiger plays x100 in irons and S400 tip trimmed in wedges)

So if I play soft stepped x100's I could go an x100 7i? I'm guessing this is only to be done in your lob wedge or highest lofted wedge?
[/quote]

Why dont you READ before you ask ? This post has never suggested to use a 7 or 8 iron from the same flex as you irons

[quote name='Howard Jones' timestamp='1351381342' post='5856071']
[quote name='reg1900' timestamp='1351377569' post='5855837']
R300 in irons = use S300 #8 iron shaft
S300 in irons = use X100 #8 iron shaft
X100 in irons = No direct option as X7 is hard to find, but a S400 tipped 3/8 is a good option if 6-7 CPM softer than X100 can be used. (Tiger plays x100 in irons and S400 tip trimmed in wedges)

So if I play soft stepped x100's I could go an x100 7i? I'm guessing this is only to be done in your lob wedge or highest lofted wedge?
[/quote]

Why dont you READ before you ask ? This post has never suggested to use a 7 or 8 iron from the same flex as you irons
[/quote]

Thanks for the help Howard, you sound like a top bloke. Terribly sorry for disturbing you and asking a question like everyone else has so far, including the guy in the post above mine.

I did READ the post, it suggests using an 8i shaft thats a flex stiffer than what you play, which is easy to understand when you play R or S. As I said I play soft stepped x100, for which a solution has not been mentioned.

I beg your forgiveness

I am currently playing ping i20's +3/4 S flex hard stepped 1x. For my wedges should I go with a 9i shaft in X-flex butt trimmed to get a spinning wedge shaft?.

Thanks,

according to what ive read here, you should go with x flex 8 iron, tipped 3/8th inch

as for the soft stepped x1 question, id say its the same answer, x flex tipped 3/8

according to what ive read here, you should go with x flex 8 iron, tipped 3/8th inch

as for the soft stepped x1 question, id say its the same answer, x flex tipped 3/8