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Is "Frank Talk" right on this about the drivers and shafts


scotte

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Here is a question for you, I usually read golf digest every month, and the "frank talk" colum is usually very helpful, but did anybody read the may 2006 issue?

 

Frank write the colum "frank talk" Frank Thomas, technical director of the USGA from 1974-2000

 

Anyway, someone wrote to him and asked him about the .335 tip shaft vs. 350 shaft and if it would have an effect on the stiffness of the shaft.

 

He said it would, the .350 would play stiffer and have less resistance to twisting, I would think he is probably write on this, but.............. He also said that the .350 tip was usually installed in driver with s and x flex, and the r flex and ladies were usually .335? I question this, is he right? I don't know, but for his former job title he should be up on this.

 

Thanks, Scott

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Perhaps he might not have been right on that very subject, but let's not be so quick to tarnish his name. Frank Thomas is a club designer, and has designed and/or refined several of the products we use today, such as the graphite shaft. There is a reason he's the equipment guru for the golf channel.

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FT seems to be bizarrely out of touch on many subjects - this would be one of them. The larger diameter will allow the manufacturer to achieve stiffer, torsionally tighter tip-sections with less expensive, lower-modulus materials, so it's a way of saving money. Shafts can be built to similar specs with less material, or less expensive material, or both. Most wood shafts on tour, even those which go into .350 clubheads like the Cleveland, are .335. You won't find more than a handful of shafts XX and stouter in .350 at all.

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Perhaps he might not have been right on that very subject, but let's not be so quick to tarnish his name. Frank Thomas is a club designer, and has designed and/or refined several of the products we use today, such as the graphite shaft. There is a reason he's the equipment guru for the golf channel.

 

I wasn't quick to tarnish his name. I have seen FT make incorrect statements time after time after time. Personally, he seems like a nice guy, but it is scary to me that he was head of the USGA equipment section for so long.

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Awalkspoiled is right. And I like what JoePeel said too. At first it seems like FT is way wrong. But if you qualify what is written in the article, then FT is correct.

 

FT is like GW. He means well, is passionate about his career, and certainly knows a lot...but somewhere between his mind and what makes it down on paper...something goes wrong and he occasionally comes across as an idiot.

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I got to go with Frank on this one. Why would he put something on paper if he wasn't absolutely sure it was true.

 

I don't know the answer to why he would put something on paper if it wasn't true...but the fact is that in this instance, and many others, he did!

 

While it is true that a larger shaft diameter will have lower torque and it might stand to reason that OEM's could use smaller diameter tips in softer flexes and maintain the same torque as in the stiffer shafts, none of the major OEM's change the tip diameter based on shaft flex.

 

Facts trump conjecture.

 

Keep an eye on FT's columns, he is truly out of touch with the facts.

 

As for an appeal to his authority, I don't take anything away from FT's past contributions to golf equipment design. But in the same light , I wouldn't ask Henry Ford for advice about the suspension on my C5 Corvette.

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He's wrong.

 

All my Titleist stuff(woods) is .335. I know some oem's use .350 for their woods like TM, but I don't think they use a larger diameter just to get a stiffer or lower torque shaft.

 

 

 

Titleist has used bore through hosels in the past on their drivers where TM doesn't. so for a shaft to play the same in both drivers it would have to have different tip characteristics... the .350 would need to be stiffer.

 

Perhaps we are caught up in this because most tour issue shafts are .335 and why would pros who swing the club at 110+mph want a weaker shaft.

 

Well the players play what the tour vans carry and if you are a shaft maker and have only a limited amount of room on your van are you going to carry everything in 2 sizes... NO... why not just carry the .335s and tip and shim as needed.

 

The reason the pros use a .335 is because it is more versitile for the tour vans.

 

now if I have a piece of wood that is a 1/4 thick and an identical piece expect for the fact that it is 1/2 thick, which will be stiffer...

 

so now if a shaft maker uses the same exact procedure to manufacture shafts with .335 and .350 which will be stiffer.

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Titleist has used bore through hosels in the past on their drivers where TM doesn't. so for a shaft to play the same in both drivers it would have to have different tip characteristics... the .350 would need to be stiffer.

 

Perhaps we are caught up in this because most tour issue shafts are .335 and why would pros who swing the club at 110+mph want a weaker shaft.

 

Well the players play what the tour vans carry and if you are a shaft maker and have only a limited amount of room on your van are you going to carry everything in 2 sizes... NO... why not just carry the .335s and tip and shim as needed.

 

The reason the pros use a .335 is because it is more versitile for the tour vans.

 

now if I have a piece of wood that is a 1/4 thick and an identical piece expect for the fact that it is 1/2 thick, which will be stiffer...

 

so now if a shaft maker uses the same exact procedure to manufacture shafts with .335 and .350 which will be stiffer.

 

I've always seen it as kind of the other way around. The surge of .350 tips coming around has been driven by the switch to graphite and the amateur presence. When you hit the ball off the heel or toe of a club head, the graphite shaft undergoes a lot of stress due to twisting of the clubhead. The greater the mishit, the more likely failure is.

 

A lot of companies switched to the .350 tip to prevent excessive warantee issues due to broken shafts (not to mention the occasional ground first contact). A tour player hits dead center of the club face every time, there's no need to worry aobut mishits, and .335 are wide spread.

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I've always seen it as kind of the other way around. The surge of .350 tips coming around has been driven by the switch to graphite and the amateur presence. When you hit the ball off the heel or toe of a club head, the graphite shaft undergoes a lot of stress due to twisting of the clubhead. The greater the mishit, the more likely failure is.

 

A lot of companies switched to the .350 tip to prevent excessive warantee issues due to broken shafts (not to mention the occasional ground first contact). A tour player hits dead center of the club face every time, there's no need to worry aobut mishits, and .335 are wide spread.

 

 

I agree with you, the push to .35 has been to reduce breakage in the retail sector. What I am speculating is to why most tour shafts are .335 instead of .35.

 

Say you are Fuji and you are going to throw all sorts of R&D funds to make a couple 100 prototype shafts for testing on the PGA tour. Now you look at the driver heads these guys are playing half are .335 and half are .35. You certainly don't want to screw around with trying to shave tips and bore out heads when you can just shim it a little. It seems like a no brainer to me.

 

Either way I think Frank is right.

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I agree with you, the push to .35 has been to reduce breakage in the retail sector. What I am speculating is to why most tour shafts are .335 instead of .35.

 

Say you are Fuji and you are going to throw all sorts of R&D funds to make a couple 100 prototype shafts for testing on the PGA tour. Now you look at the driver heads these guys are playing half are .335 and half are .35. You certainly don't want to screw around with trying to shave tips and bore out heads when you can just shim it a little. It seems like a no brainer to me.

 

Either way I think Frank is right.

 

Agree 100% :)

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A tour player hits dead center of the club face every time, there's no need to worry aobut mishits, and .335 are wide spread.

 

 

No they dont. even the robot doesnt hit it in the exact same place everytime and it has a flawlessly repeatable swing. If they did that then there would be no reason to watch because they would hit every fairway and every green and play birdie golf.

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.350 tip diameter will be stiffer/stronger and less torque than a .335 tip diameter, if the thickness of the shaft walls are the same between the two shafts, becasue the .350 shaft will have a higher section modulous, allowing a higher moment of inertia (which in this case is more commonly measured as torque).

 

however, you can take a .335 tip diameter shaft with shaft wall thickness of "x" and make a equivelant .350 shaft but with a shaft wall thickness of "y" in which "y" would be less than "x". in this case the .350 shaft gains its strength because of the larger diameter rather than the higher section modulous.

 

or at least this is how it makes sense to me. i will confess, i am taking my limited knoweledge of steel structures and applying it to this situation.

 

if someone works in a shop they could solve this quickly by taking brand new shaft shafts from 3 companies in both .335 and .350 and frequency them.

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Guys - all I know is that I usually play a stiff flex in all OEM .335 fairway shafts.

 

I demoed a magnificent 5 wood - the Cally X Fairway - in regular flex .350 tip, thinking, oh well, we'll see how the head does anyway. I'll lay off the shaft.

 

I took it to the course and hit the four best 5 wood shots of my life. Straight, high, penetrating, far.

 

So I gave in and bought the retail stock regular flex in the .350 tip - I think there is some credence to FT's statements re .350 tips - they play a bit stiffer than a comparable .335 shaft.

 

I played the new club and had the same results as the demo. I don't know how consistent the shaft will be since I've been off for two weeks and just getting back into swinging shape. But so far, so great.

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A tour player hits dead center of the club face every time, there's no need to worry aobut mishits, and .335 are wide spread.

 

 

No they dont. even the robot doesnt hit it in the exact same place everytime and it has a flawlessly repeatable swing. If they did that then there would be no reason to watch because they would hit every fairway and every green and play birdie golf.

 

I guess you've got to be PC everywhere now :beee:

 

I'll amend my statement to say, "A tour player hits dead center of the club face JUST ABOUT every time"

 

Does that make you happy? :)

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I think some of you are missing the point...

 

Its true that some OEM's use .335 and others use .350. I will also grant that, all other things being the same, a .350 shaft will have a lower torque value than a .335 (subject to certain qualifications, e.g. Aldila NV available in .335 or .350 with identical torque values).

 

However, FT says some OEM's use .350 in their stiffs and .335 in the regs. and this is simply false.

 

Name one manufacturer that varies tip diameter based on stifness?

 

As for tour players preferring .335 I think there is more to this than the tour vans stocking only .335 because these guys pretty much get to play whatever they want. Its the players that dictate what the tour vans stock, not vice-versa. Plus, the example given to support the tour van theory is not wanting to stock twice the amount of shafts from e.g. Fujikura who actually only make their high end shafts in .335, so that theory doesn't really float.

 

What I can say from experience is that .335 shaft tips feel a little more lively, even if the torque value is equal to its .350 counterpart. But that's a whole other conversation for another thread.

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As for tour players preferring .335 I think there is more to this than the tour vans stocking only .335 because these guys pretty much get to play whatever they want. Its the players that dictate what the tour vans stock, not vice-versa. Plus, the example given to support the tour van theory is not wanting to stock twice the amount of shafts from e.g. Fujikura who actually only make their high end shafts in .335, so that theory doesn't really float.

 

What I can say from experience is that .335 shaft tips feel a little more lively, even if the torque value is equal to its .350 counterpart. But that's a whole other conversation for another thread.

 

 

You can't be further from the truth.

 

Tour Vans stock what their companies tell them to stock. Players get what they are given... now granted most of the time tour vans will bend over backwards to get their product in a players bag.

 

I think we are over-estimating the average Tour players equipment knowledge. I bet mast players wouldn't be able to tell you the tip diameter of their shaft. These guys are payed ot play golf companies have equipment gurus to help them with the techie stuff. Take for example the post int eh Tour thread about all the misguided statements Phil M. has made about his equipment over the years.

 

Face it most of us know a lot more than the average tour player about equipment technology. Of course while we are at our computers bickering about .015" of shaft diameter they are out perfecting their swing.

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You can't be further from the truth.

 

Tour Vans stock what their companies tell them to stock.

 

 

That's fine, but their company can't tell them to stock a .350 Fujikura Speeder 757 when its only made in .335. Hence, the reason they only stock .335 is because its only made in .335, as opposed to the "out of convenience" theory.

 

Now, whether tour players prefer .335 because that's what they're given (and used to), or whether the top manufacturers produce high end shafts only in .335 because that's what the players like is synonymous to the chicken v egg argument.

 

But not to distract the thread from the point, Frank Thomas is still out of touch for the reasons aforementioned in prior posts.

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