Golf Shafts

Taper v. Parallel
There is a huge argument between proponents of taper tip and parallel tip shafts. On the side of taper tips, you have tradition and Tour Professionals. Taper tip shafts are made specifically for each club in a set. They are manufactured to "constant weights" which means that a three iron shaft weighs the same as a nine iron shaft. Tour pros think that this is desirable.

On the side of parallel tips you have every golf equipment manufacturer and anyone who plays graphite. The move to parallel tip shafts in the 1970's was primarily caused by the manufacturers' desire to control inventories. With parallel tip shafts there is only one model that usually comes 41" long. Manufacturers "fit" the shafts to individual clubs by "tip trimming" for flex and the "butt trimming" for length. One stock keeping unit (SKU) and they can make shafts for all their clubs. The big difference is that the individual shafts are no longer constant weight. The nine iron is lighter than the three iron by the weight of the shaft that was trimmed and discarded.

We have done a lot of testing on this subject and we come down on the side of parallel. To start, we can't tell the difference in feel between taper and parallel clubs. Perhaps professionals can.

The reason we are totally in favor of parallel tip shafts is that we can't get uniform frequencies from taper tip shafts. Sure, if you're a tour Pro, the Tour Van has dozens of taper shafts for each club length. They can sort through their inventory and find a frequency matched set. As clubmakers, we can't stock that quantity of inventory. Consequently, we buy our taper tip shafts a set or two at a time. They are usually good, because the product has been in production for 50 years, but they are never perfect. We much prefer parallel tip shafts that we can trim a little at a time and get a perfect frequency slope.

You can just forget about taper tip graphite shafts. They are inconsistent. We have never tested a set of OEM taper tip graphite clubs that was consistent. The only way to get a good frequency slope with graphite is to use parallel shafts and trim carefully.