Why am I getting 20-25 yards more from an X flex shaft with a very Avg. Joe swingspeed?

[pingfan0222]

If this is covered somewhere else, I apologize. I'm in my mid 50's and have never had a high swingspeed. On a good day I might get to low-mid 90's. Good ball striker, both irons and woods, and currently playing a Ping G series with a Fuji Motore VC 6.3 TS Reg. flex. I'm getting a carry of about 220-225 with another 10+ yards of rollout. Ball flight is high to me, and at times, it's a knuckleball that rises and then just falls out of the sky if I play it too far forward. I was fine with all of this.

 

Fast forward to last week when I grabbed my son's driver an '07 TM Burner TP 9.5 with a Graphite Design PM702 in X flex (prototype shaft for Phil that became the TourAD or the P9003?) and was striping it like I did when it was mine 10+ years ago out to 250+.

 

I have an aggressive transition from the top, but it makes no sense to me.

 

Should I be in a stiff? My 150 club is an 8 iron, 7 if it's uphill or there's wind in my face.

 

Help!!

[Stuart_G]

Not enough details about all the differences between the two clubs to determine how much the flex is contributing or not. The shaft in the burner is heavier and that could certainly be a contributing factor - but what's the loft of the burner? What's the playing length for that and your club, what are the swing weights? Are the grips (size) the same?

[zzyzxx33]

It looks me that your son is going to need a new driver!

[robrey85]

At a 150 yard 8iron, I certainly don't think you should be in a regular flex.

[Pepperturbo]

I am maybe 10yrs older than you. Still playing PX 6.0 shafts in irons and effective 17* 2i, and tip stiff PX7C3, 74gram, driver shaft in SLDR that gets me 240-250ish carry. Sometimes if I am feeling loosey goosey, 260. I have to do all I can to keep from running around in a circle... :rofl: lol

 

Anyhow, I too have a fast tempo and transition and aggressive hitter of the ball. That allows me to play TS and X shafts. Shafts that others even close to my age cannot. All depends on profile, including shaft weight.

[Cwebb]

For reference, not only is it an 'X' flex,...but that PM 702 design has one of the stiffest tip sections of all time.

 

There is a segment of players who produce better results with stiffer shafts than most fittings or formulas would suggest. There's also many players who prefer a full flex stiffer in their driver vs what they like in their irons. A driver is so much longer in length, that it always has more flex than a shorter length club

 

If it works well, do not overlook your real world results

[pingfan0222]

It looks me that your son is going to need a new driver!

 

He can't hit it, and really doesn't need to. He has a TEE CB2 that he hits out to 260+ consistently and can keep it in (or near) the fairway, but he also hits his PW to 150 regularly. He figures the club will end up back in my bag.

[pingfan0222]

At a 150 yard 8iron, I certainly don't think you should be in a regular flex.

 

I figured someone would note this, but my iron swing speed and tempo, etc., are much smoother on the irons, and I just moved to the reg. flex because I wasn't getting the 150 with stiff shafts....believe me, I tried.... Everything from Steelfibers, MCI's, DG's and KBS.

[pingfan0222]

Not enough details about all the differences between the two clubs to determine how much the flex is contributing or not. The shaft in the burner is heavier and that could certainly be a contributing factor - but what's the loft of the burner? What's the playing length for that and your club, what are the swing weights? Are the grips (size) the same?

Loft on the burner is 9.5 (or so it says), loft on the Ping G is 10, shafts are same length, both at D3 sw, grips are both No1 50 series and there's about 1/2" difference in length ( with the Ping being just over 45 and the TM right at 44-5/8. There's not a lot of difference other than the shaft and flex.

[pingfan0222]

I am maybe 10yrs older than you. Still playing PX 6.0 shafts in irons and effective 17* 2i, and tip stiff PX7C3, 74gram, driver shaft in SLDR that gets me 240-250ish carry. Sometimes if I am feeling loosey goosey, 260. I have to do all I can to keep from running around in a circle... :rofl: lol

 

Anyhow, I too have a fast tempo and transition and aggressive hitter of the ball. That allows me to play TS and X shafts. Shafts that others even close to my age cannot. All depends on profile, including shaft weight.

You are now my hero! I'm going to buy another vc 6.3 in TS Stiff or maybe try a 7.3 if I can find one, and give it a go. Thanks! Maybe it will get me that magical 10-20 yards that's so important as you get old.

[pingfan0222]

For reference, not only is it an 'X' flex,...but that PM 702 design has one of the stiffest tip sections of all time.

 

There is a segment of players who produce better results with stiffer shafts than most fittings or formulas would suggest. There's also many players who prefer a full flex stiffer in their driver vs what they like in their irons. A driver is so much longer in length, that it always has more flex than a shorter length club

 

If it works well, do not overlook your real world results

 

No, you're right. I can throw it in the bag and play it, where when I first have it a try I figured there was no way I'd get it up in the air. I was quite pleasantly surprised!

 

Thanks to all for the responses!

[Stuart_G]

Not enough details about all the differences between the two clubs to determine how much the flex is contributing or not. The shaft in the burner is heavier and that could certainly be a contributing factor - but what's the loft of the burner? What's the playing length for that and your club, what are the swing weights? Are the grips (size) the same?

Loft on the burner is 9.5 (or so it says), loft on the Ping G is 10, shafts are same length, both at D3 sw, grips are both No1 50 series and there's about 1/2" difference in length ( with the Ping being just over 45 and the TM right at 44-5/8. There's not a lot of difference other than the shaft and flex.

 

Both 1/2" difference in length and 10 gm in shaft weight can each make a big difference on their own and shouldn't be dismissed so easily. For most, those two specs will play a much bigger role in the results than the flex. Although there are always exceptions and it's easy to test out though. Get some lead tape and add ~8-10 gm around the shaft below the grip to simulate a heavier shaft on your club. Might even want to add a few grams to the head to match head weights (His D3 at 1/2" shorter means a heavier head than your D3 at the longer playing length by about 5 gm). Then go test it choked up 1/2" and see what happens with the results. If you don't see any improvement, then the flex very well could be the important contributing factor.

[95124hacker]

I'm a low to mid 90's SS player myself and found the best driver shaft for me to be the KK Silver TiNI 60, X flex. Good in distance and accuracy. I tried a Diamana D+ 62, X flex but it's more boardy than the TiNI 60X.

[95124hacker]

Today I tried the Diamana D+ 62 X in a different head (R15 vs M1), and didn't find it to be boardy anymore. Will take it to my club tournament this Sunday. Fingers crossed...

[Golfer827]

Also, different manufacturers have different standards of flex. One manufacturer's Regular could be another's Stiff or one's X-Stiff could be another's Tour X Stiff. In my own testing from a while ago with a PING 'G' Driver, I found their shafts to be very whippy and could not find the club at any point of the swing. However, throwing in the stock Fujikura shaft within the XR-16 helped me not only find the club but stabilized a few points of that swing.

 

Different stokes for different folks as that tip section, said to be one of the stiffest in shaft technology right now, could be a benefactor to the aggressive transition.

[Pepperturbo]

Today I tried the Diamana D+ 62 X in a different head (R15 vs M1), and didn't find it to be boardy anymore. Will take it to my club tournament this Sunday. Fingers crossed...

 

You brave or way better at the game than I am. NO way would I put an untested shaft in my bag for a tournament. Cross your legs too. :beach:

[pingfan0222]

So, just as an update -

 

If you ever go for a fitting, and your fitter based everything on your swing speed, just walk out the door. I'll still play the reg. Flex in my irons because I don't care about anything but smooth swing and accuracy, but moving to stiff flex Fubuki J 70 in the driver and the Fubuki K in stiff 70 in the 3 wood (both tipped 1/2") has made a world of difference for me. Thanks to everyone who replied!

[bobcat]

As a wise man once said, "It's not how fast you swing it, it's how you swing it fast"

 

:golfer:

[Scottie68]

Suggest checking out Wishon's video on shaft flex and swing speed. Wraps many of the points made in past posts up into one video.

[sneaky_pete]

I just had a fitting. I swing my driver consistently at 105mph but I tend to get a lot of spin on my drives - avg. around 3400 rpm with my current driver. I ended up getting fitted for a 9* Ping G LS Tec with a Tour grade X Stiff shaft which lowered my driver spin to around 2000rpm. On pure swing speed numbers I shouldn't be using an X Stiff shaft. Swing speed is only part of the story. My angle of attack on my drives imparts a lot of spin so I had two options - change my technique or change to a driver head and shaft combo that lowers my spin rates. On trackman my current setup vs the Ping G LS Tec saw me gaining 40 yards with the Ping and better dispersion.

 

You might be experiencing the same thing - spinning your drives too much losing you distance off the tee and producing wild variations in dispersion due to the amount of spin on the ball.

[EddieEdwards]

If your hitting 8-iron 150, you should be driving 250.

[dbleag]

PingFan - I guess you probably want to know what it is about your son's driver that gives you another 20+ yards, but it really doesn't matter. And who knows if the specs on your driver are accurate and who knows if the specs on his driver are accurate.

 

The point is, his driver is better for you than your driver.

 

If we all had a chance to hit dozens of different drivers with dozens of different shafts, we would eventually have the same thing happen to us - we'd find the one that best fits our swing.

[endurancechiro]

It could just be the weight and flex point matches your swing better. I saw the same thing on the track man today. I'm not a tour level swinger, but my dispersion, distance, and smash factor all got better with a 75g x shaft.

[augustgolf]

Interesting point. Jimmy Walker playing in Hawaii w/ a 42" driver to keep it in play better...NO LOSS OF DISTANCE and the course is very wet

 

Lesson to be learned for us all?

[CCS]

If this is covered somewhere else, I apologize. I'm in my mid 50's and have never had a high swingspeed. On a good day I might get to low-mid 90's. Good ball striker, both irons and woods, and currently playing a Ping G series with a Fuji Motore VC 6.3 TS Reg. flex. I'm getting a carry of about 220-225 with another 10+ yards of rollout. Ball flight is high to me, and at times, it's a knuckleball that rises and then just falls out of the sky if I play it too far forward. I was fine with all of this.

 

Fast forward to last week when I grabbed my son's driver an '07 TM Burner TP 9.5 with a Graphite Design PM702 in X flex (prototype shaft for Phil that became the TourAD or the P9003?) and was striping it like I did when it was mine 10+ years ago out to 250+.

 

I have an aggressive transition from the top, but it makes no sense to me.

 

Should I be in a stiff? My 150 club is an 8 iron, 7 if it's uphill or there's wind in my face.

 

Help!!

I just got fitted last week at a Golf Digest top 100 fitter. I had been playing Ping G5 irons stiff for about 10 years, but never found a driver I really liked. I took one of my son's reg flex 10.5 deg drivers and cut it down for control and was doing OK with it, good enough to shoot a 76 and 77 at the end of the season. I am about your age with a similar index and distance.

 

My fitting showed everything (irons, hybrid, 3W) reg flex except for my driver. They put me in a 10.5 deg G30 with a Tour S65 shaft. The Trackman was showing 255 yard carries, which beat anything I had previously done on the course. Let's hope that proves to be the case this spring. I was getting +4 deg angle of attack and 15 deg launch angle and about 2200 rpm spin rate. We tried a bunch of shafts.

[Hack Daddy]

My SS hovers +/- 103. I've always played stiff, and most recently an x. Had a fitter hand me a regular and my world changed. 20 more yards and my dispersion tightened up considerably.

 

I run regular D/FW and regular in graphite iron now. The greatest thing Ive ever done equipment-wise to my game.

 

Key: It's all about your transition. SS means absolutely nothing.

[Sean2]

My swing speed dictates I should play Regular flex, however there is a lot more to choosing flex than swing speed. I was fit with stiff shafts in all of my clubs, except the driver. It's worked out very well so far. I can also hit the X7's...not as far or as high, but they go dead straight.

[KBong]

My swing speed dictates I should play Regular flex, however there is a lot more to choosing flex than swing speed. I was fit with stiff shafts in all of my clubs, except the driver. It's worked out very well so far. I can also hit the X7's...not as far or as high, but they go dead straight.

You are still playing 'regular' shafts.

 

The Recoil 460 F4 in stiff is a 67 grams low kick/high launch shaft and would feel like a piece of spaghetti compared to a stiff in a Dynamic Gold S300 or Project X 6.0 weighing nearly twice the weight of the Recoil....the Recoil in stiff would still play very soft compared to a R300 or 5.0.

 

The Green Board in 40 & 50 grams are also some of the softest shaft in the Diamana series.

[dmeeksDC]

I don't think your results are unusual, but I agree with Stuart that shaft weignt and length are far more important than flex. I have found thaf I do best with a driver shaft around 70g, give or take, 44.5 to 45 inches, and more often than not an X flex. My driver tops out at 103-105, so I can usually play either stiff or X, but that does not seem to matter as much as the other specs.

 

In a Rogue Silver 60 I was fit into an X flex (which despite being named 60 is around 70g) but in a Hzrdus Red 75g, it was a 6.0. In a Hzrdus 65g Red, better with a 6.5

 

I like the driver at 45 inches or less, hence tI prefer the 70g shaft to keep the weight up. In a Diamana Whiteboard 70, it is a stiff for me, the X launched too low. In a Blueboard, the launch goes up and the X is better.

 

I have learned not to get hung up on flex.

[PKennedy13]

The graphite design is giving you optimal numbers. I'm not one to say that flex doesn't matter because it does but say if some guy swings 110 but gets better numbers with a stiff rather than an x it's just because it suits how he delivers the club. I. Your case the x suits your swing