What's New: From the Lab

Fujikura is back on track with a solid mid-price point shaft.  The EXS line-up includes woods, hybrids and irons in various weights and profiles that allow us to really dial in our customers when we fit them.  The EXS line is a great complement to the Motore Speeder line-up of premium shafts.  Now we can build clubs with low-launch, mid-launch, or high-launch shafts that match what we are trying to accomplish for our golfers.  These shafts run $135 installed.

What a sweet looking shaft!  The pic here does not really do the cosmetics justice.  Just completed our 23 point static evaluation and here is what we found.  The shaft was designed to have a similar profile to the Kuro Kage black but with the TiNi to add stability.  Our testing shows almost identical profiles of the black and the TiNI Prototype but the TiNI is a little lower in torque so it should feel more stable.  The 60 is about 5 grams lighter than the black 60.   As usual, the Shaft Quality Index (SQI) is a 5 star (out of 5).   Our next step is to put the 60 and 70 to the test and see how they compare to the black and other like shafts in terms of launch, spin and feel.

The 2013 Master’s is in the books and Adam Scott clearly showed he could handle the pressure.  But how in the world did Bubba pull off “The Shot” in the 2012 Masters.  TrackMan, the official ball flight monitor on the PGA Tour shows us how it was done here… http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=9167311&categoryid=2630020

Finally had an opportunity to test the OBAN Kiyoshi White this weekend.  When we did the static testing, this shaft was everything OBAN said it was…soft butt section with a stiff mid section and tip.  When we build clubs to a particular frequency, or butt stiffness, shafts that have this design tend to feel pretty stiff, or as we say, they play “stiff to their flex”.  I play a 6.0 at 45″ in my driver and this shaft definitely felt stiffer than 6.0!  While OBAN says this is a mid-launch shaft with low spin, for me this shaft built to my specs launched low and also with very low spin.  I ran out of time so did not get to test a slightly softer version of the White 65.  Feel was VERY solid.  I always test shafts built to my butt stiffness, length and swing weight and always do shaft testing with the same head (in this case a RAZR Extreme 9.5) and ball (TaylorMade Lethal).  The only variations in distance and dispersion are then caused by the effective loft and spin of the head and “feel” that may slightly alter the way I swing the club.  Remember that the Kiyoshi shafts all play stiff. ... Read More

Just completed our static testing on the Graphite Design Tour AD GT series of shafts.  This shaft certainly tests out to the quality you would expect from the Japanese issue shafts hitting the US market.  Our SQI (Shaft Quality Index) across all 20 shafts tested was 95 out of 100.  We will be testing the shafts dynamically in the next week.  Our profiling indicates that these will launch on the higher side of the mid-trajectory ranking given by Graphite Design.  With torque in the 3-4% range and the mid section testing on the softer side, these shafts should feel similar to the DJ series.  Looking forward to getting spin and launch numbers on these shafts.

The Golf Etc. Farmington crew, Lee Cothern and Bob Beck, just built a set of Mizuno JPX-825 Pro irons with the UST Mamiya TourSPX Recoil 800 series, F2 shafts.  As usual, we go through each shaft, even though the TourSPX paperwork gives us all the specs and has each shaft laser engraved.  The eight shafts were all within 2 cpm and FLO (flat line oscillation) was easy.  Very consistent shafts as we were getting 6 cpm per inch when cutting for frequency matching the set.  Very easy set to build.  Now, Bob, go out and take about 4 strokes off your game!

As a preferred fitter for Callaway, we have access to the Tour model shaft cogs.  This means we will be able to give you 9 adjustable settings instead of the normal 3.  In addition, we have access to weight kits that allow us to make the head play heavier or lighter in order to control feel, shaft flex and accuracy.  The RAZR Fit Extreme comes with a 13 gram weight in the heel and a 1 gram weight in the toe.  This makes the driver play with a draw bias.  So, if you like to tinker, tinker with new shafts and maybe even an extra one as we will have all of the special adapters to fine tune your game.

I feel like Steve Martin in “The Jerk”…the new phone book is here!  Yet with all the anticipation, we see the list has a lot of big names sweeping Gold awards (Ping and Mizuno most notably), and a few upstart companies making the list (Wishon, KZG, Powerbilt and Yonex).  The evaluation process is pretty thorough from a decent cross-section of players, retailers and scientists.  The selections are heavily weighted towards Performance and Innovation (75% of the score) with Look/Sound/Feel and Consumer Demand weighing 25% of the score.  We are in the process of testing all of the new clubs on TrackMan so stay tuned for our independent evaluations.  For the complete 2013 Golf Digest Hot List go to http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-equipment/hot-list.  And, as always, make sure you get fit for these clubs to maximize your performance!

We recently conducted a series of tests for a major shaft company to understand the differences in launch angle, spin, carry distance and total distance among several shafts.  We tested 10 shafts, both graphite and steel, of varying weights.  All shafts were built to within a half a flex of the specs for both golfers testing the shafts.  The test head was a Mizuno MP-58 6 iron.   The launch angles were in a very tight range.  Less than 2 degrees separated the highest launch angle from the lowest.  Spin was quite a different story with the lowest spin rate at 4796 and the highest at 6264.  The big difference was that each shaft had quite different characteristics so the effect on distance was significant.  Up to 12 yards separated the longest average distance from the shortest – literally a full club difference.   So, make sure you have the right shaft in your irons to give you the best distance, accuracy and control so you can hit more greens in regulation!         Min.           Max. Launch Angle 21.85 23.15 Spin Rate 4796 6264 Carry Distance 153.2 163.8 Total Distance 160.7 173  

Callaway X Hot made the Golf Digest Hot List and are definitely hot.  Good looking club with solid feel.  More when we get back from the show.