Signs your shafts are too heavy/stiff?

[reefrash1043]

Title says it’s all. What’s the typical miss? 

[DPackers]

In my experience Poor strike consistency, Tendency hit flares, loss of the ability to locate the club head in the swing.

[Howard_Jones]

56 minutes ago, reefrash1043 said:

Title says it’s all. What’s the typical miss? 

All sort sorts of misses...
You will have to swing out of your shoes to make the shaft feel right (to stiff) and you will not be able to rotate you hips from the down swing start, but will need your bodý weight to jump start the club by shooting your hips target line, so it messes up your timing. You loose clubs speed if total weight is too high, not only because its more mass to move, but to hold back the club from hitting the ground (more grip pressure)...

Have a helping friend to watch you, when you make a "one arm, backhand tennistroke"
Its ok to help the club to the top with 2 fingers from the right hand, but from the top and down, use ONLY the left arm (right hand players).

Your friend should watch your left shoulder
It will snapp about 7 o clock if total weight is too high.
Thats a clear sign that weight is so high, you will need your right hand to prevent hitting the ground, so if you cant make that swing and stroke with the left hand only without your shoulder snapping and drop, go down on weight (its visible, but you want notice that)

The same with a normal swing.
In transition on the top, it will look like the club is frozen to the air, and you need to pull it free by using your body weight (too much hip shooting target line, insted of hip and lower body rotation who starts to late.)

Flex...
He shall pay attention to your face and eyes. We dont notice our self, but your friend will se that your face turns aggressive and get that "i will kill this ball look"....

Our body language has no training in lying, so its "free speech" with the truth....

Thats the short version on my fitting concept "Visual fitting" where a trained eye who know what he looks for, can see whats wrong with club specs and when they are like they should be, its visible on our body language and the way we swing the clubs, so we dont need a launch monitor at all to judge it.

I used it even for PGA and LPGA players who really know how to swing a club, and adapts fast to club specs due to talent, but body language never lies and tells that its talent, NOT a god fit if they get the club to work, so get a helping playing body to be the watcher, and show him this text, and he will see whats wrong, be it weight or flex, or both.

The Danish LPGA player Daisy Nielsen was one of them i did a full bag fitting and mods for, using this concept, so i know it works, and its easy for others to learn. The writings about her swing after this speaks for itself, where Womans Golf wrote this head line

"Does Daisy Nielsen Have the Best Swing You’ve Ever Seen?!

See the video added in the link for yourself, thats how it should look when the equipment is fitted and tuned up correct

https://womensgolf.com/daisy-nielsen

Edited January 16, 2022 by Howard_Jones

[Rosco1216]

What do you mean lead will shoulder “snap”?

[Howard_Jones]

Just now, Rosco1216 said:

What do you mean lead will shoulder “snap”?

it drops, like the shoulder goes out of its joint...you want be able to misjudge it, its clearly visible, but the player him self want notice that it happens

[MelloYello]

Observable:
Low ball-flight (shaft is too heavy)

Perceivable: 
Hard to hit draws (shaft is too stiff)
Impact feels harsh (shaft is too stiff)
 

 

If a shaft automatically encourages you to over-swing you can bet it's probably too heavy and/or stiff. 

[NPSpar4]

I found that anything too heavy/too stiff tends to cause impact to move more towards the heel and obviously harder to turn the ball over & draw it.  I also felt like i wanted to come more OTT in transition because , like others mentioned, your body/mind knows that this club is heavy and you almost want to use your bigger muscles to help swing it.   

[Jim53]

2 hours ago, Howard_Jones said:

All sort sorts of misses...
You will have to swing out of your shoes to make the shaft feel right (to stiff) and you will not be able to rotate you hips from the down swing start, but will need your bodý weight to jump start the club by shooting your hips target line, so it messes up your timing. You loose clubs speed if total weight is too high, not only because its more mass to move, but to hold back the club from hitting the ground (more grip pressure)...

Have a helping friend to watch you, when you make a "one arm, backhand tennistroke"
Its ok to help the club to the top with 2 fingers from the right hand, but from the top and down, use ONLY the left arm (right hand players).

Your friend should watch your left shoulder
It will snapp about 7 o clock if total weight is too high.
Thats a clear sign that weight is so high, you will need your right hand to prevent hitting the ground, so if you cant make that swing and stroke with the left hand only without your shoulder snapping and drop, go down on weight (its visible, but you want notice that)

The same with a normal swing.
In transition on the top, it will look like the club is frozen to the air, and you need to pull it free by using your body weight (too much hip shooting target line, insted of hip and lower body rotation who starts to late.)

Flex...
He shall pay attention to your face and eyes. We dont notice our self, but your friend will se that your face turns aggressive and get that "i will kill this ball look"....

Our body language has no training in lying, so its "free speech" with the truth....

Thats the short version on my fitting concept "Visual fitting" where a trained eye who know what he looks for, can see whats wrong with club specs and when they are like they should be, its visible on our body language and the way we swing the clubs, so we dont need a launch monitor at all to judge it.

I used it even for PGA and LPGA players who really know how to swing a club, and adapts fast to club specs due to talent, but body language never lies and tells that its talent, NOT a god fit if they get the club to work, so get a helping playing body to be the watcher, and show him this text, and he will see whats wrong, be it weight or flex, or both.

The Danish LPGA player Daisy Nielsen was one of them i did a full bag fitting and mods for, using this concept, so i know it works, and its easy for others to learn. The writings about her swing after this speaks for itself, where Womans Golf wrote this head line

"Does Daisy Nielsen Have the Best Swing You’ve Ever Seen?!

See the video added in the link for yourself, thats how it should look when the equipment is fitted and tuned up correct

https://womensgolf.com/daisy-nielsen

That swing is so easy, I can't imagine having any part of that swing in mine. Now being a old guy makes a lot of it hard anyway, but the ease she gets thru the ball is truly amazing.

 

I am a believer in your concept about weight and flex after seeing this, now to find someone to watch my wood cutting / sledgehammer lunge and see if they can identify any of the things mentioned above. I don't doubt I am playing too stiff presently, but that is what has been needed to help correct some other flaws (with the driver high spin) and the irons just feel better in the 100 g range. But I will change if I can find a better way to get around the course.

[cristphoto]

I went from Dynamic Gold to Dynamic Gold 105 shafts in my irons a few years ago.  I found finishing up on the back nine a heavy sensation in the clubs.  Suggestion - on first par three take three practice swings with a 4 or5 iron.  Should be no big deal. Then on the 18th tee take the same iron and again take three practice swings.  If you are like I was you will feel the heaviness.  

[avguy]

I recall a short time ago when many sets of irons from all the major OEMs came standard from the factory with TT DG S300 shafts.  Some would opt for R300 as their "custom" order - saving 5g.

 

The relevance to thread is that shaft goes 132g.  Lot of strong dudes swinging golf clubs in the general population, but I doubt the majority are doing great with irons at that weight of shafts.

 

Even more enlightening has been seeing Tour Pros not always playing irons at the top end of heavy in the current game.

[Trap Junior]

Howard. How do you go about choosing the right iron shaft for a player?  What do you think about to choose a shortlist of say 3 shafts and then what makes you or the player to decide with the one to choose in the end?

 

For example I was at a clubfitter who used a special club made by PURE which is supposed to tell you the right shaft.  It said Modus 120x for me.  However although this shaft flexes nice I find the overall weight too light and dont hit as many solid shots as a DG X100.   But the clubfitter siad ''oh no x100 are not for you''

[Stuart_G]

19 minutes ago, Trap Junior said:

For example I was at a clubfitter who used a special club made by PURE which is supposed to tell you the right shaft. 

 

There is no device out there that can account for the subjective aspect of how well a shaft does or does not fit to a player.   All those tools can do is provide a starting place for the fitting process based on rough generalizations of what tends to be a higher percentage chance of being a good fit.  Which is a big difference from using actual results to verify that it's a good fit.

 

A good fitter learns to see how the those subjective responses effect the swing and the results and uses that to find the best fit - including the importance of how much confidence the feel generates (or not).  A bad fitter thinks of those devises as gospel or is fixated on generalizations and things like: such and such a swing speed or type of player must play a certain kind of shaft or can't play some other type of shaft.

 

If you find any fitter that says you should or shouldn't play a certain shaft w/o being able to show you the data in the actual testing results to back it up - leave them and find someone else.

 

[Trap Junior]

7 minutes ago, Stuart_G said:

 

There is no device out there that can account for the subjective aspect of how well a shaft does or does not fit to a player.   All those tools can do is provide a starting place for the fitting process based on rough generalizations of what tends to be a higher percentage chance of being a good fit.  Which is a big difference from using actual results to verify that it's a good fit.

 

A good fitter learns to see how the those subjective responses effect the swing and the results and uses that to find the best fit - including the importance of how much confidence the feel generates (or not).  A bad fitter thinks of those devises as gospel or is fixated on generalizations and things like: such and such a swing speed or type of player must play a certain kind of shaft or can't play some other type of shaft.

 

If you find any fitter that says you should or shouldn't play a certain shaft w/o being able to show you the data in the actual testing results to back it up - leave them and find someone else.

 

Yes you are right.

 

I havent a bottomless pit of money and resources but I build my own demos and then go ont he course and try them out. I use Trackman sometimes to check them too but what I have found is this:

 

A club can perform well on trackman in terms on distance and direction and dispersion compared to another but on the course on grass may not perform well.

 

I am trying to find a set of shafts that flex nicely, overall weight feels nice and distributed evenly and allows me to hit the ball solidly the most with decent distance and accuracy for that club.

 

The Modus 120X feels nice but I find it light in the handle area and find it hard to find the middle of the clubface as often as a X100.  The modus feel beautiful when you do hit one out of the middle but on mishits they provide more of a nasty vibration than the X100.

 

I was also on the Mizuno optimizer which recommended the $ Taper X but cant get my hands on a demo to build and also they are ridiculously expensive, KBS Tour 130x were also recommended but find the handle area a bit light

 

I seem to get on with heavy shafts ( 130g) even though I am not particularly fast nor strong.

 

Give me a senior club with a super light graphite shaft and I will almost top the ball

[Tupperwolf]

I have a Miura 3i with a $-taper 130 (x flex).  Clubhead feels so sweet but it only launches low stinger bullets with no spin.  That's how I know it's too heavy/stiff for me.

[phizzy30]

From my experience, if a shaft is too stiff for me(pretty rare), I have a hard time squaring the club face so my miss tends to be a push fade/slice.  I believe that you should play the lightest shaft possible that you can still control for driver.  Irons are different so there are more variables to consider IMO. 

[5hort5tuff]

For me, I've noticed a nicer and more consistently higg ball flight since I switched to somewhat lighter shafts.   For me, testing everything on grass is important. I typically stripe everything off of a mat....but when j play poorly my miss is a chunk. 

 

Over the next 5 years or so I think many people will switch to graphite shafts throught the bag...well maybe excluding wedges. 

[ProStryker]

I tried to hit a friend of mines driver once, he was a mini tour player with crazy distance.   It was a really stiff X-flex.  {I play stiff}.  I proceeded to hit a couple of over the top low-left pulls with his driver. I presume it was due to my attempt at trying to load the shaft….

[Howard_Jones]

13 hours ago, Trap Junior said:

Howard. How do you go about choosing the right iron shaft for a player?  What do you think about to choose a shortlist of say 3 shafts and then what makes you or the player to decide with the one to choose in the end?

 

For example I was at a clubfitter who used a special club made by PURE which is supposed to tell you the right shaft.  It said Modus 120x for me.  However although this shaft flexes nice I find the overall weight too light and dont hit as many solid shots as a DG X100.   But the clubfitter siad ''oh no x100 are not for you''

Club fitters who let the tools lead them, dont understand that its the player who shall swing the clubs, not the tools. (Sw scale syndrome...i need D3)

Shafts is all about weight, feel and dispersion
We have to start with weight to narrow down option.
Then start testing to find minimum and maximum wgt
Now we have the actual selection based on this 2 weight points in each end.
Profile testing is next, NOT for ball flight, but to trigger the players swing.
(ball flight is a head/loft issue, not a shaft issue)

The shaft is the players "dancing partner", and its impossible to dance if your partner is out of rhythm with you, so this is where flex and profile comes in. We simply try options of different profiles, to find the profiles who "jives" with your swing, and at the same time, find the flex in those profiles who trigger your swing into whats good for you. Some benefit from a feel and profile that speeds them up a little, other by a profile and flex who slows them down.

I used "visual fitting" for all this tasks, combined with player feedback from questions, so its not really that advanced or hard to dial in what works, and no fitting tools can do this. The best of them can only deliver a suggestion for starting point, but if that weight, flex or profile triggers the player in the wrong direction or dont feel good for him, it does not matter what this tools say, its the player we shall fit for shafts, NOT the tools.

Its visible both on the players swing, and his impact pattern when its right, the same when its wrong

Edited January 18, 2022 by Howard_Jones

[cristphoto]

"Dancing partner" is the best analogy I've ever heard regarding golf fitting.  Clubs need to fit you.  

[mgoblue83]

15 hours ago, ProStryker said:

I tried to hit a friend of mines driver once, he was a mini tour player with crazy distance.   It was a really stiff X-flex.  {I play stiff}.  I proceeded to hit a couple of over the top low-left pulls with his driver. I presume it was due to my attempt at trying to load the shaft….

 

Also due to reduced ball speed and spin. Ball can't stay in the air under those conditions. 

[Howard_Jones]

3 hours ago, cristphoto said:

"Dancing partner" is the best analogy I've ever heard regarding golf fitting.  Clubs need to fit you.  

If you look into my DIY driver tune up from 2013, and scroll down to post #8, you will see that the same term "dancing partner" is used there to. It goes for the whole club actually, so its more than just the shaft itself, Its total weight and balance also. The issue with that post is that the text is "messed up" after a WRX forum update, and i never took the time needed to edit the text back to how it was, so its hard to read now when its all compressed to one fat block of text. That post goes deeper into the details about butt, mid and tip section etc, so we can actually SEE club specs thats wrong, and why they are wrong, buy judging the players swing and body language.

Direct link below, and again it was shared with all of you 9 years ago, and you want find a fitting concept like it anywhere, its all developed by myself in my studio, using many many volanternes, who got a free loft and lie job or other mods for their participation. I put them into "all sorts of crazy club specs", and used high speed cams for analyze, so i could study "what happens when", and it did not took that long before i noticed how easy body language was to judge, so we dont need cams or anything when we know what to look for, and its all described in that post, so its all for free and can be used by anyone, just like the DIY driver tune up above on post #1.

As long as 2 players can help each other to watch each other, they can use it with the knowledge you get there, and its NO need for any advanced tools, only a players eyes who watch. We all know what a good golf swing looks like when we see it, its really that simple in the end, but here you will learn why that players swing dont look good, if its equipment related, and for "better players" it most often is They might get it to work one way or the other, but its easy to see that they struggle to make it work. When the club fitting is done right, it looks so effort less and easy, just like the swing of Daisy Nielsen on Womans Golf magazine.

Club spes FORCES the player to swing the club a certain way, the club WANT change, it is like it is, so its the player who have to adjust one way or the other to make it work, and by using the steps of Visual Fitting, you will be able to see whats wrong so you can change that and "tweak" the players swing into whats good for him and works.

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Howard_Jones