Regular vrs Stiff - X Stiff ?

RHenderson · August 20, 2022

Ok, guys & gals, another fun episode of golf questions.

So a playing buddy of mine has recently begun a trek on tweaking his equipment, which leads to some interesting conversations between us.

#1. Regular shafts versus Stiff- X Stiff? Last winter while board we got on this kick of building clubs just like the Pro's, since there has been so much published on WITB. And a pretty remarkable outcome emerged. We found the Avg, decent golfer CAN Play an X-Stiff in Driver with good results. ( Seems to be more accurate )

#2. Given our findings with Drivers we have turned to irons, where things get a little more interesting. On smooth controlled swings we have found regular or stiff shafts seem to produce more consistant shots, higher ball flight and more controlled, consistant outcome, but it's contrary to the X Stiff Driver shaft?

* So this evening while discussing our performances we turned to the perverbial question, does being fittted for the optimum set up lead to the best outcome or do we as humans adjust to the surrondings and adjust our swings or do we rely on what we perceive?

Do we as golfers adjust, allow, or try to hard to to swing a stick that is to much, to stiff, or just play? Meaning Thursday evening in our league my buddy shot a remarkable score using borrowed clubs from a senior freind and the outcome was truly unexpected. He played with a set of borrowed clubs in regular flexs and played better than he has all year. Was it the clubs, difference in shafts, the sense of nothing to loose or something else. he shot a 5 under on nine holes and said he felt he could play the round with ease, knowing he had nothing to loose but said remarkably the clubs performed better than he expected.

Greg the player in question, normally plays stiff shafts in everything but driver which is X-Stiff, he said he hit his drives equally as far but with less effort, said he hit them higher than normal but not ballooning, and said surprisingly he felt like he was more undercontrol?

So after seing him shoot a 30 almost effortlessly and really enjoying his round, can we say it was the equipmet or something else? Did the Equipment make a difference, was it the circumstances or a fluke? Our group has talked about this and tried to comprehend it but I think there might be something more to it.

P.S Greg said he was going to ask the fitter this weekend but I thought I'd break the ice and ask the Pro's here on WRX, Lets here your thoughts about Gregs freewheeling venture at our weekly golf outing, it's got us thinking we might want to reconsider our thoughts about what we have been seeing. One thing that comes to mind is hole #4 par 3 it plays 185-188, Greg normally hits his 6i, normally pretty well, sometimes long but safe. This week he hit 7i and hit it close, said the club did all the work? And on hole #9 Par 4 415 yards he hit the Regular shafted Driver smooth and had gap wedge to green, made birdie? Congrats to him and looking forward to hearing what the experts here on WRX have to say.

Thanks

Edited August 20, 2022 by RHenderson

Crn50 · August 20, 2022

Totally agree on xstiff shaft for driver, I get better dispersion about same distance as Regular shaft driver. SS high 90s, use Reg MMT graphite shafts in my T200 Irons. Thanks for the support "xstiff" cheers Colin..

Howard_Jones · August 20, 2022

4 hours ago, RHenderson said:

Ok, guys & gals, another fun episode of golf questions.

So a playing buddy of mine has recently begun a trek on tweaking his equipment, which leads to some interesting conversations between us.

#1. Regular shafts versus Stiff- X Stiff? Last winter while board we got on this kick of building clubs just like the Pro's, since there has been so much published on WITB. And a pretty remarkable outcome emerged. We found the Avg, decent golfer CAN Play an X-Stiff in Driver with good results. ( Seems to be more accurate )

#2. Given our findings with Drivers we have turned to irons, where things get a little more interesting. On smooth controlled swings we have found regular or stiff shafts seem to produce more consistant shots, higher ball flight and more controlled, consistant outcome, but it's contrary to the X Stiff Driver shaft?

* So this evening while discussing our performances we turned to the perverbial question, does being fittted for the optimum set up lead to the best outcome or do we as humans adjust to the surrondings and adjust our swings or do we rely on what we perceive?

Do we as golfers adjust, allow, or try to hard to to swing a stick that is to much, to stiff, or just play? Meaning Thursday evening in our league my buddy shot a remarkable score using borrowed clubs from a senior freind and the outcome was truly unexpected. He played with a set of borrowed clubs in regular flexs and played better than he has all year. Was it the clubs, difference in shafts, the sense of nothing to loose or something else. he shot a 5 under on nine holes and said he felt he could play the round with ease, knowing he had nothing to loose but said remarkably the clubs performed better than he expected.

Greg the player in question, normally plays stiff shafts in everything but driver which is X-Stiff, he said he hit his drives equally as far but with less effort, said he hit them higher than normal but not ballooning, and said surprisingly he felt like he was more undercontrol?

So after seing him shoot a 30 almost effortlessly and really enjoying his round, can we say it was the equipmet or something else? Did the Equipment make a difference, was it the circumstances or a fluke? Our group has talked about this and tried to comprehend it but I think there might be something more to it.

P.S Greg said he was going to ask the fitter this weekend but I thought I'd break the ice and ask the Pro's here on WRX, Lets here your thoughts about Gregs freewheeling venture at our weekly golf outing, it's got us thinking we might want to reconsider our thoughts about what we have been seeing. One thing that comes to mind is hole #4 par 3 it plays 185-188, Greg normally hits his 6i, normally pretty well, sometimes long but safe. This week he hit 7i and hit it close, said the club did all the work? And on hole #9 Par 4 415 yards he hit the Regular shafted Driver smooth and had gap wedge to green, made birdie? Congrats to him and looking forward to hearing what the experts here on WRX have to say.

Thanks

There is no industry standard for flex letters, so we will often find opposites vs expectations for feel of flex, so lets use other words here, and call it "softer or stronger", so we at least is sure what we are talking about.

The player is the only one who can "adjust", the club will always be as it is, so we players always adjust our swing one way or the other, depending on what feedback of weight, balance and flex/profile we get from that club.

Everything in life is relative, so if we say that this player was playing a shaft (his gamer), was stiffer than he should play, that shaft and feel will trigger the player to speed up his tempo, it will speed up his transition, and most likely trigger a rather brutal downswing and release. If this becomes "too much of the good stuff", the player will swing out of his shoes, and his scoring will suffer.

If we now give him a softer shaft, a shaft where he better can feel the shaft load and release, he no longer have to step on it to make it work, so now the players "adjustment" to his swing, will be more in direction of use swing tech and good timing, instead of "brutal power".

Thats the short version, if you want a more in-dept explanation, follow this link to my DIY driver tune up, and the sub chapter VISUAL FITTING. In that chapter im explaining how a trained eye can SEE club specs when the player swing the club. We are able to see both good and bad, and adjust the right direction vs what we observe. Its VERY easy, and im telling you what to look for and when in the swing, and how to judge that, only by seeing the player swing. We simply read the players "body language" who tells us the unfiltered truth about that club vs this player.

The fitting concept here is developed in my fitting studio, and was used for PGA and LPGA players from all over Europe, so i simply used club specs to trigger the players swing into the very best for him, so in that link, you will find a video from Womans Golf where a player i did a full bag fitting for is swinging her clubs to such a level they are asking if she has the best golf swing in the world.

She looks like Iron Byron when she is swinging, but i can promise you it was noting like that when she came in my door, she was about to give up her professional Golf, she had lost all confidence on her self, thanks to silly club specs from Titleist fitting HQ for Europe in UK.

Since 2013, ive shared this fitting Concept with more than 155.000 players on the globe, so today its way more players that has a bag fitted this way than i was able to build from my studio. The link goes to post #9 VISUAL FITTING, but if you dont know the DIY DRIVER TUNE UP, read that one too, its the first post in the tread.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Howard_Jones

NHenson815 · August 20, 2022

I’ve tried everything from Autoflex to Smoke Green 90TX (and even a driver modified to take a Modus 120X 2 iron shaft). I don’t see a massive difference in carry regardless of the driver shaft. The autoflex certainly requires the least amount of effort, but I can only take about a half backswing with a gentle wrist whip. It’s unbelievable how far the ball can go with so little effort and still be decently accurate, but it feels like cheating and is not as fun, so it mostly sits in my garage.

The other side of the spectrum is much more fun, so I tend to gravitate towards that. I only carry about 260, but that is at a very low trajectory and the flat piercing ball flight just looks awesome.

I’m sure the best answer for me is somewhere in between, but it just seems boring to play with equipment in the normal ranges. Admittedly though, I am 40 and age is starting to take its course, so I’m sure I’ll eventually need to give up on my ridiculous experiments just for the sake of comfort and injury avoidance.

Stuart_G · August 20, 2022

10 hours ago, RHenderson said:

We found the Avg, decent golfer CAN Play an X-Stiff in Driver with good results. ( Seems to be more accurate )

10 hours ago, RHenderson said:

#2. Given our findings with Drivers we have turned to irons, where things get a little more interesting. \

How many different "ave decent golfers" participated in these tests? Was it a blind test? How long were they allowed to "get used to" the club?

For these tests, Did you you make sure everything else about the club was identical? Length, static weight (shaft weight), grip, swing weight, face angle, lie angle, same model head?

10 hours ago, RHenderson said:

* So this evening while discussing our performances we turned to the perverbial question, does being fittted for the optimum set up lead to the best outcome

Yes, at least it's generally found to be the shortest route to the best outcome. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the only route to the best outcome.

10 hours ago, RHenderson said:

or do we as humans adjust to the surrondings and adjust our swings or do we rely on what we perceive?

Yes to both. They are not mutually exclusive. Some individuals are just better at adjusting than others. And some rely more on the internal (body) vs external (equipment) keys than others.

That's really the key here. EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT! What seems to work for one person or a few - doesn't mean that's what will work best for everyone. So the is no point in trying to come up with any hard conclusions based on generalizations especially based on such a small sample size.

But if you really want generalizations - for a good percentage of the average golfers - stiffness feel and flex is really not that important. Many can adjust but there will still be plenty that cannot. And for those getting the right fit for stiffness feel will be a requirement to getting the best results.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Stuart_G