Stulz Shaft testing

[gslabbert]

Went and got fitted today

I drove down to from Jacksonville this morning to get fiited or at least test the Stuz shaft to see what all the hype is about. Well IMO the hype is for real, this shaft is quite amazing. I tested 3 different shafts in 3 different lengths (hit a lot of balls) and then hit my Launcher 460 Comp with the 757 Speeder in it as a comparision.

My specs...
Age 50
Swing Speed 108
Swing type Hitter
Attack angle +3°
Ave Launch angle 12.5°

The 1st shaft I hit was a 65 gram stiff and it felt really nice, right off the bat, but then this is the shaft we all thought that I should be in anyway. The st thing I noticed was when you hit it off center the ball went straight, I really had to work it hard to make the ball go left or righ. I was hitting the ball with the clubface at about 1 1/2° open and was looking for a fade. What I got was about a 5 yard fade. Perfect. When I tied to work it left I REALLY had to fire through the ball hard to get a 5 yard draw, that swing with my Speeder or Diamana 73 would have been off the planet. With my SS @ 108 my ball speed should have been at about 161 mph and it was 165 mph , more effecient than I thought was possible. Gary Diehl then said here hit this in a 46" well I thought this would go right, but NO, dead straight or a little fade, ball speed up about 5 mph, so we then tried hitting the club in a 47". I have never swung a club that long and it felt initially that I was swinging my broom handle it was so long. When I hit the ball it too went straight, up another 5 mph, now we are at 171 mph ball speed. These we the best number I got all day. Honestly I would not recommend a 47" Driver even if you could hit it straight, it seems really unwieldly to me.

I then hit the 55 gram shaft in a stiff which was too light for me, I tried it in all 3 lengths but was never really comfortable with it. From there to the 80 gram, i a 45" driver, this shaft is really solid, but my swing speed was 2 mph down and the disperion was the same, all down the middle, even thinn shots that Ifelt should go right. I tested again in 46 and 47" and they club became too heavy for me to swing and my swing speed went down.

The last Stulz shaft I hit was the 65gram X, it was no straighter and the ball speed was down by about 2 mph, nothing really worth worrying about but why give that up when the stiff was every bit a straight .

Now with my very high transition speed I have never really considered a shaft in the 65 gram range, I thought and have been told by many well educated fitters that the 65 gram could not handle my transition speed, well this shaft can.

Lastly I hit my Launcher which is 45" with a Fuji 757 speeder (S), I could work this right without a problem, to make the ball go left I had to work this combo as hard to turn it over as I had the Stulz, but that I expected. After hooking the cr*p out of my Diamana I set this up so that left was not an option. ANyway I digress, My numbers on the speeder was 108 mph, with a ball speed of 157 mph with a launch angle of 12°, which I was told was too low. For what I want that launch angle is pretty good.

So in closing I bought a 65 (s) which frequencied out at 268 cpm at 43 1/4" with a 205 gram tip chuck in a 5" clamp. This was 5 cpm softer than what my Speeder flexed at.

The shaft to me felt very lively and had what felt like quite an active tip and did not feel anything like the boardiness of my 757. It sort of felt much like the tip action of the Diamana with a lower kick point.

I got back home and immediately pulled the Speeder and fitted the Stulz into the Launcher, and will report on what I found then I get to the course, if the numbers hold true I am going o be a very happy camper.

Lastly I do not work for Stulz and paid full retail for the shaft, so no sales propaganda here.

[justodd]

any updates?

[Greenie]

I am thinking??????? since this was posted Feb 7, 2006 . There won't be any updates anytime soon.

I have a Stulz shaft and really love it. I don't know why they never became popular.

[Chinese_PitchOut]

Haha I remember when Stulz first started making some prototypes, this guy who had some connection to Stulz(he was a member at a club i was assistant at) brought some for me and the other club pros to try out.

He brought some shafts and this wedge with maybe 8-10 grooves in the face. And the grooves werent parallel with the ground, they sort of radiated out from the hosel. It was great for chipping bc it put very little spin on the ball, but for that same reason was pretty much useless for anything more than greenside. We called it the Stulz Topspin Performance Wedge. LMAO, it was terrible. The shafts seemed ok though. Didnt they have 1 big step, kinda like those old aldilas? That was 4 or 5 years ago, guess they never got off the ground.