The stiffer the shaft, the further left?

[Cactus Jack]

Ive been dialing in my driver shaft for the past few months and my results have been contrary to my expectations. Basically, the stiffer the shaft, specifically the tip section, the worse my left/hook miss becomes. 
 

For context I’m a 170s ball speed player who fights the lefts. I thought moving to a stiffer shaft would help limit the damage. What I’ve found is launch, spin, speed are all good but direction, my face/path control,  wants to go sideways. In response I tried a few softer tip profiles, and boom, my lefts were limited, and I even hit the ball right, which I normally cannot do for the life of me. 
 

Have you guys experienced this before? From everything Ive read my results seem counterintuitive. From a swing perspective I have a relatively controlled backswing and I feel the speed come in just before impact. My guess is my transition is quick but I don’t think aggressive.
 

Do the lefts with a stiff, tip stiff design, make sense? Is their a shaft profile I should zero in on? Thanks for your insight and I hope all is well. 

[bnperrone]

I've experienced something similar and I would describe my swing and transition just like you did. It's hard to get data and analysis to confirm the tip-stiff issue, but enough things have made me suspect it.

 

The first thing that made me think this was hitting an Evenflow White 6.0. I've had it in a hybrid and a driver. It was hot and cold for me. I'd hit my best drives but also my worst. When I stopped experimenting I wound up fitting into an Evenflow Black in 6.5 and it's super consistent for me. For our type of swing I think that profile lets the shaft load at once uniformly, which is something we probably need. I suspect that if the tip is overly stiff (regardless of overall flex), then the shaft might kind of load and unload before impact. This may not make much sense because I have a very hard time describing "feel" and "kick" and all. I just know what I like and what I don't.

 

All that said, I think we lag it pretty hard and if you're looking at profiles to consider you might look to WITB of players like Garcia and Rahm. In theory it seems like they'd be looking for the same action in their shaft. If nothing else it seems like a reasonable place to start if you don't have unlimited access to launch monitors and fitting tools and fitters and whatnot.

[Cactus Jack]

Thanks for the response, and suggestion.

 

One thing I noticed is Garcia and Rahm play heavier 70 gram shafts. Garcia plays a Ventus Black 70, which pushes 80g. The shafts I've tested all fall in the 60g range. Come to think of it, I recently tested a KBS TD 80g (didn't know it was 80) and hit it quite well. 

 

What weight do you play? 

[phizzy30]

The wrong shaft can dispersion worse and the ball can either go right or left from my experience.  There are too many variables in the golf swing to say for certain that the ball will miss a certain way/direction.  We have to think about factors such as tempo, transition, release, etc.  This is why there are many different shafts that not only cover EI profile, but flight characteristics as well.  

[Howard_Jones]

2 hours ago, Cactus Jack said:

Ive been dialing in my driver shaft for the past few months and my results have been contrary to my expectations. Basically, the stiffer the shaft, specifically the tip section, the worse my left/hook miss becomes. 
 

For context I’m a 170s ball speed player who fights the lefts. I thought moving to a stiffer shaft would help limit the damage. What I’ve found is launch, spin, speed are all good but direction, my face/path control,  wants to go sideways. In response I tried a few softer tip profiles, and boom, my lefts were limited, and I even hit the ball right, which I normally cannot do for the life of me. 
 

Have you guys experienced this before? From everything Ive read my results seem counterintuitive. From a swing perspective I have a relatively controlled backswing and I feel the speed come in just before impact. My guess is my transition is quick but I don’t think aggressive.
 

Do the lefts with a stiff, tip stiff design, make sense? Is their a shaft profile I should zero in on? Thanks for your insight and I hope all is well. 

Its face closure thats your issue, and YES, feel of flex (stronger than your comfort zone), can be the issue, since feel of flex is a trigger for how much power and aggression we put into the shaft, and that goes for wrist action too.

if flex feels to strong, in this case a stiff tip section, we often respond by using more power and "stress it all", instead of using swing tech, so i think its the feel that shaft delivers that causes to much wrist action and face closure...

Simply "slow down", and use swing tech, NOT power, and see what happens.
A pure impact will hardly ever feel bad, even if the shaft is stiffer than your preference, but we humans is often a bit "stupid", so we respond by using more power to make it feel right.
 

[PorkChopExpress]

Maybe Heavier shafts give ya a better feel

70-80g driver shafts, maybe it’s an overall weight 

[ChipNRun]

3 hours ago, Cactus Jack said:

Basically, the stiffer the shaft, specifically the tip section, the worse my left/hook miss becomes. 

 

I don't have nearly the swing speed you do, but I had a similar problem last season. I had heavy regular-flex shafts on my long clubs, and was starting to miss left. I wanted to play a draw that started out down right side and came back in, but I was getting a lot of pulls. Basically, I was fighting the shaft.

 

Solution: lighter shafts. With the lighter shafts, I could swing more on tempo, didn't have to kill the ball to get things squared up.

 

You might swap in one of your more flexible tip shafts, or slightly lighter shafts. See if this helps you swing on tempo and get straighter shots.

--------------

(I ended up 10 grams lighter on all my long clubs, and have really straightened things out. I still draw driver, but have gone to fade with FWs and H.)

[BREWMASTER95060]

torque value for shafts you hit "straight"?

[Valtiel]

@Howard_Jones is right as usual. "Too much" shaft from a feel standpoint often has the effect of impacting our mechanics in a way that produces poor results. For some people the ball goes way right, others left, others get a two way miss.....it all depends on what happens in response to this feel that does not agree with us. 

Don't overlook weight as well since that is more likely to impact your mechanics. Both static weight, shaft weight, and head weight. Lots of folks have found that a stiffer tipped shaft benefits from a little more head weight, often in conjunction with a slightly shorter length to get the whole thing moving and loading a little more. 

[mogc60]

34 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

@Howard_Jones is right as usual. "Too much" shaft from a feel standpoint often has the effect of impacting our mechanics in a way that produces poor results. For some people the ball goes way right, others left, others get a two way miss.....it all depends on what happens in response to this feel that does not agree with us. 

Don't overlook weight as well since that is more likely to impact your mechanics. Both static weight, shaft weight, and head weight. Lots of folks have found that a stiffer tipped shaft benefits from a little more head weight, often in conjunction with a slightly shorter length to get the whole thing moving and loading a little more. 

Great info here. It really is personal because different players miss certain directions, and it’s not universal. How they react to the shaft, too stiff or too soft, dictates the miss. For me I learned a very long time ago that with a driver shaft, less than about 3.2 torque and the ball is most likely starting left of target. A stiffer tip shaft  usually works best for me but the lower torque shafts I don’t react well to. It’s finding what works best for you. 

[Cactus Jack]

6 hours ago, Howard_Jones said:

Its face closure thats your issue, and YES, feel of flex (stronger than your comfort zone), can be the issue, since feel of flex is a trigger for how much power and aggression we put into the shaft, and that goes for wrist action too.

if flex feels to strong, in this case a stiff tip section, we often respond by using more power and "stress it all", instead of using swing tech, so i think its the feel that shaft delivers that causes to much wrist action and face closure...

Simply "slow down", and use swing tech, NOT power, and see what happens.
A pure impact will hardly ever feel bad, even if the shaft is stiffer than your preference, but we humans is often a bit "stupid", so we respond by using more power to make it feel right.
 

 

You called it. I just got done with a Trackman session, and the issue was face closure. In fact all other metrics were solid, AOA was typically 3-4* up, and path was 0-4* in to out. However, my face angle was consistently 2-6* closed...terrible. While I hit some great shots, the hodgepodge of measurements resulted in more bad shots than good. I couldn't consistently keep the lefts at bay. As such, I called it a day and will reassess technique with a fresh mind and body tomorrow. 

[bnperrone]

8 hours ago, Cactus Jack said:

Thanks for the response, and suggestion.

 

One thing I noticed is Garcia and Rahm play heavier 70 gram shafts. Garcia plays a Ventus Black 70, which pushes 80g. The shafts I've tested all fall in the 60g range. Come to think of it, I recently tested a KBS TD 80g (didn't know it was 80) and hit it quite well. 

 

What weight do you play? 

In driver I was fitted to Evenflow Black 75g 6.5X pretty recently. In irons I moved from Royal Precision Rifle Flighted 6.0 shafts in a blended set of MP32 and MP60 (fitted into in 2005 when I was 25 years old) to C-Taper Lite X in MP20 MMC and I am planning to move to Modus 105X in totally new and different ZX7 heads to go higher bounce. I very happily play Project X LZ 6.0 in wedges and I feel it works great for full and partial shots in my wedges.

 

I'm still trying to figure out my ideal FW and DI/long hybrid setup but the driver, irons, and wedges I'm happy with and I can 110% blame myself when I hit them bad.

[PorkChopExpress]

What is it like on course? 
 

[Cactus Jack]

1 hour ago, PorkChopExpress said:

What is it like on course? 
 

Left all day long. I just started working with a coach and I’m slowly neutralizing the left miss with my irons, but still struggling with the driver. My ideal shot would be straight to a little push draw, but I need to keep grinding. 

[Drivingrangehero]

I’ve experienced exactly what Howard has mentioned. 
 

if a profile is too stiff, I will have blocks right, or snap hooks trying to swing harder to get the feedback I’m looking for.  I get out of sync, my tempo gets quick and I tend to “stand up” on it while my hands get close to my body, my hands roll over and FORE LEFT!!! 
 

I would do this with my Ping G30 with the Ping Tour 65x shaft. I added some weight to the head and it felt better to me. 
 

After going through the DIY Tune up, I end up playing my driver under 45” and usually I’m adding 6-8g to the head. 
 

 

The right profile is big for me. 
 

i find that too stiff is worse than too soft. Too soft I don’t have as much directional problems, I actually end up with too little spin from catching them a bit high on the face, and I’m already under 2000rpms on center strikes as it is.