Dynamic Gold Tour issue vs Dynamic Gold

[dcrsx]

[quote name='drewspin' timestamp='1321487756' post='3810019']
J.W. aligning a shaft along the weld seam or dominant "spine" of the club tends to make the performance of the shafts in a set more uniform, some would say minimally so, and others would say dramatically so.

There is some debate on how to actually align the dominant spine, once found, but the general theory of the practice is that the spine is more resistant to the strain forces that want to bend the shaft in various directions durign the swing.

If you align the spines in all shafts similarly, in an orientation that will take the most shaft strain during the swing... generally toe down for irons at impact and for woods, generally with the toe down and the clubhead leading the shaft at impact for woods... you will "optimize" the performance of the set.

Problem number 1 is that you or your clubsmith have to do this before shafts are installed (or pull them out and align them) the mass market manufacturers have not figured out yet that doing this would be a selling point... problem 2 is that the shaft manufacturers don't identify spines from the factory (apparently also not seizing the marketing opportunity) and problem 3 is with billboard graphics not aligned to spines, you'll have big a** shaft labels all over the place.

All of these problems are relatively easy to overcome.

The thing is that spining shafts through flat line oscillation (FLO) is relatively easy and inexpensive to do, and it would be TRIVIAL for the manufactuers to mark their shafts along the spine if they were willing to acknowledge that it does make a difference.

There are loads of threads discussing it here and elsewhere. Some keywords: SPINE, flat line oscillation (FLO), SST PURE, S1, S2, Neutral Bend Point (NBP), Dave Tutelman has a very comprehensive section on spines on his web site.
[/quote]

It's not trivial for a variety of reasons:

TT can produce close to 100,000 steel shafts per day, thats alot of Floing. It is added cost (you pay $100/set in the aftermarket for it) and then you upcharge the people (like myself) who think Floing, Spinning, Peaking, etc is snake oil. So if you want to do some with and some without to charge accordingly now you have to have to separate part numbers in your inventory and your distributors have to carry both. TT has public stated that their testing shows no benefit so why go through the heart ache for something you don't believe in, when the customer can do it themselves if the want to in the aftermarket.

At the end of the day, for all consumers that want floing, spining, etc they can have it done at their local club builder.

As for the TI vs Non-Ti, this is straight from a TT engineer: DGs get shipped to the Grafalloy facility, there they have the HT applied, get weight sorted into sets. Same shafts, tighter tolerances, no softer butt, no skinnier handle.

PS. Spine aligning the shafts to optomize performance is USGA illegal, if you care about that (I don't). You can only flo, spine, etc for shaft to shaft consistency. Any aligning done to change ball flight characteristics is illegal.

[Manz60]

factories don't spine steel shafts...but good ones (TT) know how to build [u][b]negligible[/b][/u] spine...theres a difference...this isn't the 1990's !

Cheers

[stage1350]

[quote name='Manz60' timestamp='1321497545' post='3810933']
factories don't spine steel shafts...but good ones (TT) know how to build [u][b]negligible[/b][/u] spine...theres a difference...this isn't the 1990's !

Cheers
[/quote]

When you orient the spine 45° off neutral and the head cannot FLO, I wouldn't call that negligible.
When the difference between a neutral spine and 90° off neutral spine is up to 8CPM, I wouldn't call that negligible.

True Temper makes excellent products. They are in almost every club I own. But the simple fact is that the weld seam on Dynamic (Gold, Tour X7, TI) shafts has been a known issue for years. That doesn't mean the shaft is crap, but it is absolutely worth the time to orient and neutralize the spine/seam to get a flat frequency slope. Just my opinion.

[joey3108]

[quote name='stage1350' timestamp='1321473947' post='3808883']

Spine ANY set of DG shafts (TI or not) and check the frequency slope. It's very smooth. Now randomly orient the same set and you will see frequencies all over the place. Aligning the weld seam is critical on Dynamic Golds and you will have different feel from club to club if it's not performed.
[/quote]
Praise to the lord! Amin!

[Manz60]

not to be argumentative, but why does DG , the #1 iron shaft on Tour according to TT, have such a spine issue? and why cant TT get it right with that shaft?

Cheers

[CarloGolfer]

[quote name='Manz60' timestamp='1321827528' post='3827965']
not to be argumentative, but why does DG , the #1 iron shaft on Tour according to TT, have such a spine issue? and why cant TT get it right with that shaft?

Cheers
[/quote]

TT maintains after years of testing that spine-ing provides no measurable benefit in performance, so they see no issue whatsoever.

[stage1350]

[quote name='Manz60' timestamp='1321827528' post='3827965']
not to be argumentative, but why does DG , the #1 iron shaft on Tour according to TT, have such a spine issue? and why cant TT get it right with that shaft?

Cheers
[/quote]

Because if you changed the weld seam, it would affect the flex/performance of the shaft. If it ain't broke, you don't fix it. You simply tune the shafts for optimum performance by spining them.

Given that the Dynamic shaft has been in production for around 50 years, it's technology was probably pretty good when it was designed. It's the B-52 bomber of shafts.

[Manz60]

Thanks Stage