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Golf Equipment Chronicles 2003 (Part 13)

Premium Graphite Shafts for Irons

By Leith Anderson

It’s been a great competitive golf season. The good news is it’s not over. Most of the rest of the country is looking at Labor Day as THE END but in the Bay Area, great golf continues right through the Fall. The Mountain View City, Palo Alto City and one of my favorites from last year, the Amateurgolf.com Christmas Classic at Del Monte. If you’re looking for tournaments to play, log into Amateurgolf.com. It’s the best source for tournament information and if you register, you’ll get a weekly update on tournament activity.

I had the best month that I can remember in competitive golf. After just squeaking into the money at the Palo Alto Stroke Play, I won an ILN event at the San Jose Muni (73) and beat my nemesis Reed at Stanford. Then I capped the month with a 71 in the NCGA 4 Ball Qualifier at Shoreline. That was my best ever round at Shoreline and I did it hitting 17 greens. Blue tees and the wind was blowing. My partner Chuck and I posted a best ball 63 and qualified for the 36 hole finals in Monterrey. Last year we qualified and played Poppy Hills. This year, we’re going to Spyglass. Now that’s a prize!

I’m giving at least partial credit to a new set of irons. And, it’s the shafts in those irons that inspired this article. The new generation of graphite shafts for irons might help you improve your iron game. Most of us buy new equipment hoping to find the “magic”. In the end, it’s only magic if your scores get better and your handicap goes down.

Readers who have been following the “Search for the Magic Driver” and the rest of the technical equipment saga know that I am convinced that graphite is the way to go in irons. Most of that opinion comes from personal experience, my game simply got better since I switched to graphite. (And I’ve had plenty of Rifle 7.0’s and TT X-100’s.) We see evidence every day at the Golf Lab working with players on our Achiever Launch Monitor that graphite is just as much about accuracy as it is about distance. I’m not going to go over those details again. If you missed the argument from last month, look it up at www.calgolftech.com. All prior articles are archived.

If you’re wondering about the Magic Driver, there’s an update at the end of this article. The bottom line is the 48-inchers are working for the players who have enough confidence to take them to the course. In competition, I don’t have enough guts . . . yet.

The Lure of Constant Weight Iron Shafts

Bob and I had a minor awakening earlier this year when we were working in the SST Tour Van at the AT&T at Pebble Beach. There is a great community of “travelers” who follow the PGA Tour to provide equipment fitting and tweaking for the touring pros. They spend weeks together on the road and share confidences provide mutual support and do each other a lot of favors. We had a chance to join the “club” if only for a few days to have an insider’s look from behind the practice tee. We’re always interested in what the pros are playing. As clubmakers, we like the idea of parallel tip shafts because they let you adjust the frequency (flex) by tip trimming to produce a set of irons with a perfect slope chart. When we asked the True Temper Tour Representative how many pros played parallel tip iron shafts, he said “none”.

True Temper taper tip irons are made the “old way”. They come in precise lengths from 41” to 35”. Each shaft is meant to go into a specific iron. You have a little leeway to “soft step” or “hard step” the shafts. (Soft stepping is putting a shaft designed for a two iron into a three iron and so forth throughout the set to give a slightly softer flex. Hard stepping is the opposite.) The problem with taper tip shafts is that there is no ability to trim the tip to increase frequency. What you get is what you get. Consequently, when you test the frequency and chart a slope for taper tipped irons, the slopes are usually not perfect.

The real story behind parallel tip irons is economic. The golf club manufacturers had inventory problems because they needed specific lengths and flexes for each iron. A thousand sets of irons would require eight thousand shafts of ten different lengths and at least four different flexes. That’s about forty SKU’s. Run out of one and you can’t build golf clubs. With parallel tip shafts, all shafts of the same flex are the same. Four flexes, four SKU’s. Most manufacturers get a pretty good frequency slope by positioning a set of shafts in a jig and cutting them in one fell swoop. Custom clubmakers take parallel tip shafts one at a time and tip trim to a precise frequency. With care, you get a perfect slope. The economic argument cuts in favor of parallel tips. Manufacturing is simpler and cheaper.

Today, most golf clubs are built with parallel tip shafts. However, practically all forged irons built for better players mimic the pros and use taper tip shafts. Component manufacturers have mostly given up on taper tip and supply their heads bored out for parallel. Curiously, premium Japanese brands are frequently found with parallel tip shafts.

Why Do We Care About Taper or Parallel Tip Shafts?

Here is the kernel: PGA Tour Pros like taper tip shafts because they all weigh more or less the same. Because each shaft is made individually to length and sorted for weight by True Temper, they can control the consistency of weight throughout the set. Consequently a shaft made for a two iron will weigh about the same as a shaft for a wedge. PGA Tour pros like the “constant weight” of taper tip iron shafts. You hear them talking about how a little heavier weight helps them “stay on plane” and the like. It should raise quite a few questions among amateurs who are playing parallel tip shafts that they have no company in the PGA Tour ranks. The bottom line is most PGA Tour Pros play constant weight, taper tip shafts in their irons. They do it because they think that it’s important for shafts to weigh the same through the set. They think that constant weight shafts improve feel and consistency. A corollary is that PGA Tour Professionals also seem to favor heavier iron shafts.

To be fair, there is a huge minority of the PGA Tour that doesn’t seem to care about constant weight. It is all players who choose to play Rifle shafts. Rifles are all manufactured in 44” blank form, sorted for frequency. If you build a set of Rifles, the shaft weight is going to decrease through the set as the lengths get shorter. If Royal Precision needs a set of “taper tip” shafts to fit a certain set of heads, they just “swage” the taper into the tip of a parallel tip shaft. So, not all PGA Tour Pros insist on constant weight shafts, Rifle players don’t seem to think there is a problem.

Royal Precision: exception to the exception. If you’ve been watching the current tournaments on television, you’re seeing quite a few Rifle Project X shafts among the leaders. Project X shafts are made in specific lengths and are constant weight. Oh well.

I took a long way around on this description for a purpose. The first generation graphite shafts for irons are all made on the Rifle model. They are produced as blanks, sorted for frequency. They are delivered with a parallel tip section that can be trimmed to adjust flex and trajectory. In prior articles, I have dealt extensively with choosing Rifle blanks and trimming options to produce customized trajectories throughout a set. This is a feature offered by Rifle and graphite shafts exemplified by manufacturers such as Apache and SK Fiber. If you want to customize a set of clubs for trajectory by mixing flexes and trimming the shafts appropriately, using blanks is the only way to do it. You’re going to have to get used to the fact that your short irons shafts will weigh slightly less than your long iron shafts.

Joe Model Irons with Fujikura Vista Pro 90 Shafts

Two months ago, I built myself a set of irons with Bridgestone “Joe Model” heads, custom ground to get the right shape and weight and a set of Fujikura Vista Pro 90 iron shafts. The Vista Pro 90 shafts are the second generation graphite iron shafts, built on the True Temper “constant weight” model. These are the clubs that have delivered the best results for me in competitive play that I can remember. My handicap has a chance to hit its lowest point in thirty years next month. That’s the acid test.

My experience wasn’t perfect. After the first two or three rounds with my new irons, I was disappointed. I was missing a lot of greens left. I had made a significant change in lie angle with the new clubs. I had noticed in my older set that I was cutting the divots a little toe heavy, despite a fitting indoors on the lie board that showed they were right. I made the new set 5 degrees upright. That caused enough of a change to make my misses go left. This experience points out that the ultimate judge is how clubs perform on the course. It also demonstrates that when you change clubs, it’s going to take a little while to get used to the new ones.

I made an unusual choice for me in head selection. A few months ago, I saw an interview with Darren Clark on the Golf Channel. I couldn’t get it out of my mind that he said he liked a slightly thicker top line in his irons. Now, that’s an opinion that’s going to be anathema to any Ôtraditionalist”. Classic style in irons is definitely “thin top line”. I’d been buying a few sets of Japanese blades on eBay just to see what they looked like; one of those sets was the Bridgestone Joe Model. I kept going back and looking at them even though they were significantly offset with a pretty thick top line. I just got the feeling that they looked very solid. Another advantage is that they were quite heavy, giving me the chance to grind a smooth little bounce sole. So, I decided to build them up with the Fujikura shafts.

I still haven’t had enough time with the clubs to know exactly why they’re producing, but here are my impressions. First, I think I believe in the constant weight theory, or maybe it’s just that the Fujikura shafts are 90 grams and my previous Apaches were a little lighter. I think that the most outstanding difference is distance control. It might be that I was more careful to adjust lofts, but I’m noticing most of my shots are hole high, even if they miss a little right or left.

I have been concerned about offset in the short irons. My last set of irons was slightly oversize and progressive offset, which means the longest irons had the most offset, gradually decreasing and disappearing from the eight iron up. There is absolutely no doubt that I’m hitting the best 4-6 irons of my life. For whatever reason, the offset in the Joe Model is just right.

The three iron is a little spooky, occasionally delivering perfectly and sometimes missing badly. I’m going to cut a quarter inch off of the length to go for a little more control. This is a method we’ve used at the Golf Lab to increase consistency in the longer irons. If you’re having trouble hitting your long irons consistently, think about cutting off the length of your 3 and 4 irons. That sounds preposterous, but it works. If trimming the 3 iron fails, I’m going to pick a hybrid utility club to fill the role of the two and three irons.

The short irons have been a different story. Since I adjusted the lie angle, I can’t remember missing a green right or left. My most frequent miss is a little thin or fat, a little long or short, but almost never very far left or right. The heads are oversize and have that Japanese rounded toe shape that takes a lot of getting used to, but they are the most accurate clubs I’ve ever played. It’s the short irons that benefit the most from the constant weight shafts.

It’s pretty common for graphite shaft manufacturers to say their shafts “play like steel.” I’ve often wondered why that’s an advantage, if you want shafts to play like steel then why not buy steel in the first place? But now I think I know what they’re talking about. With the Vista Pro 90 graphite shafts, you can get your hands ahead of the shot and trap the ball just like you might do with steel. Knockdown shots are just like steel. That is a feeling I’ve not had with graphite previously. The main difference between graphite and steel is that graphite transmits less shock back to your body. Even the softest Rifle and Nippon shafts have a little “clanky” echo. However, it is imperative that you play graphite shafts that are the same length as your steel shafts. Do not ever buy into the fiction that graphite shafts should be 1” longer than your normal length. That is pure baloney.

After about six weeks with my new irons, I really got excited. New clubs, better play, lower scores. Now I want an even better set. Many manufacturers are beginning to make second generation constant weight graphite shafts for irons. The 64-dollar question is “Can anything beat the Fuji Vista Pro 90’s?”

New Product Options and Testing Methodology

Three companies came to mind with that could compete with the Fujikura Vista Pro 90’s. I’m sure that in coming months there will be more contenders as well.

First was Fujikura itself. They have Speeder 717’s for irons and were kind enough to provide a set for evaluation. That’s important because a fair price for “PUREd and Perfect Speeders” in a set of clubs would be somewhere in the $2300 range just for the shafts. That’s very expensive, even for a clubmaker who buys his shafts wholesale. In fact, it sounds preposterous to imagine paying over $2000 for a set of shafts, but then the Japanese have been setting price records with their premium brands for years. Definitely an “exotic” price level. But I wanted to know how the Speeders compare with more “normal” products.

The second option was Penley. Penley was one of the real pioneers in the graphite shaft business. The company seemed to lose its way through the years but has new investment and a revived aggressive attitude. They came out with a premium priced, constant weight set of graphite iron shafts aimed at the PGA Tour and better amateurs. Penley’s pricing positions the IMS shafts north of $100 per club PUREd, frequency matched and installed in a set of irons. Definitely a premium product.

Finally (for this month) is Rapport Composites, distributed in the US by Swing Science out of Indianapolis. Rapport Pro Wound shafts are much more value oriented but high quality filament would shaft produced in Taiwan. PUREd, frequency matched and installed in a rebuilt set of irons, they would cost around $70. Three options, three very different price points. Would it be possible to tell the difference in performance?

Testing Methodology

Clubmakers use “frequency testing” to produce a set of clubs with perfectly matched flexes. (If you want more information on frequency matching, check out previous articles archived on www.calgolftech.com.) The basic method is to choose a raw shaft with a slightly softer flex than desired and then gradually trim the tip to increase the frequency (flex) with a “dry fitted” head to arrive at the target frequency.

Part of the problem with using constant weight graphite shafts is you lose some of the freedom to produce a set of clubs to a specific slope. The constant weight graphite shafts have parallel tips but the parallel tip section is usually short. You can usually only trim 1” which might move a shaft five to ten cycles.

To make sure that I could actually finish a set with the provided shafts, I set up a preliminary test. I have a set of heads that is closely matched to the “industry standard” head weights with a nearly perfect weight progression. (If you are new to clubmaking, it might be a surprise that iron heads have standard weights and a standard 7 gram progression between heads.) I then dry fitted the heads at full length to see what the result would be if installed “as is”. Manufacturers say that the constant weight sets should be installed without tip trimming.

That led to the first problem. The Speeders tested out OK. A little soft in the three and four irons, but with a reasonable chance to trim enough to produce the target PCS Equalizer 6.0 slope that would be identical to the Vista Pro 90’s. The Penley’s weren’t quite as good. There was a wide deviation in the preliminary flex test with the four iron testing at a PCS 3.5 and some of the shorter irons north of 6.0. I decided to take this problem up with Penley and postpone building the set for a month.

The Rapport Pro Wound shafts looked good on the slope test, but they had another problem. They were quite soft. This is exactly opposite the usual problem. Shafts are normally too stiff. I received an “R” set from Rapport earlier and it seemed soft so I thought the “S” flex would work. However, the preliminary test showed that it would be impossible to get a PCS 6.0 slope from the set. Since I wanted this set to test myself, I felt they would come out too soft. So the Rapport shafts went on the “back burner” as well.

Building out the Speeder 717’s

To make the test between the Speeder 717 iron shafts and the Fujikura Vista Pro 90’s even more relevant, I went to my private stock for another set of “Joe” heads which I’d been saving for just such an opportunity. I thought that since I already had what was my best set of irons to date, it would make the most sense to build out the new set as close to identical as possible. Consequently, I built out the new set of irons as identical as possible to the original Joe heads and Vista Pro 90 shafts. Lengths and swingweights were identical. Lofts and lies were identical. Even grips were identical.

Quality Indicators

We SST PURE ª all shafts that we put into our custom sets. The first of the PURE tests involves measuring the consistency of a shaft around its circumference. If there is very little deviation (less than 2.5%) the shaft is graded an “A”. Fewer than one in ten shafts are normally graded “A”. Out of the eight Speeder shafts, five were graded “A” by the SST System. Extraordinary.

After I trimmed the three and four iron to try to bring them up to the PCS 6.0 slope that matched the Vista Pros, I got a near perfect result. The three iron ended up a PCS 5.5 (stiff) and all the rest of the shafts were within a couple of cycles of 6.0. I judged this to be a great result, more consistent than other shafts that I’ve tested. All quality indicators were top notch.

On the Course

I had the chance to play in a charity scramble event sponsored by Charles Schwab to benefit prostate cancer research at Lake Merced on August twelfth. I just finished the new Speeder irons and thought I’d give them a tryout on the course. I got there late and didn’t have time to hit many practice shots. On the course, the irons were disappointing. I lost several shots to the right. Despite the fact that the flex tested out exactly to 6.0, the results seemed to indicate the shaft played stiffer. It’s been almost two months since I lost a shot to the right so this was a shock. The results weren’t totally horrible, I did hit several good iron shots, a couple very good, but overall the results were disappointing. It also seemed like distance was a little short and shots into the wind didn’t quite hold their line as well as the VP 90’s. It could have been that I just didn’t give the clubs a chance. My last set took several rounds to break in, but the experience was still disappointing.

Back to the Lab

After the round I took the clubs back to the Golf Lab and hit several sets of shots on the Achiever to compare the VP 90’s with the Speeders. The results were, to be polite, inconclusive. The first set seemed to favor the Speeders, the second set the VP 90’s. There were hints of less sidespin with the Speeders. In the end, the data didn’t prove that the MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE Speeders were better performers.

Back to the Range

Anxious for a breakthrough I took both sets to my favorite practice range, the Pin High the next morning. I hit a jumbo bucket, straight through the set. I was getting some pretty good shots with the Speeders, but not good enough to get me excited. I began to feel like the shaft weight was the problem. It’s hard to imagine that twenty grams in the shaft is that noticeable, but I think that it is. I was beginning to think that the Speeders were just too light. Comparing the specifications, the Speeders have a few tenths more torque and are listed as mid bend point versus high bend point.

Back to the Course

Last chance for the Speeders. I have a Tuesday afternoon tryout for new players on the Palo Alto Saturday Match Play Team. I thought it would be a good chance to try the Speeders one more time on the course. I hit some good shots, but lost a couple to the “high (weak) rights.” The Speeders are just too light for me. This is an agonizing conclusion as you might expect. A free set of Speeders. Two thousand dollars of shafts. Tomorrow I’m going to take my new set apart and give them to Bob try out. Maybe they’re not too light for him, but I doubt it.

Here’s my conclusion. I have two identical sets. The Speeders are worth a lot more than the VP 90’s but for me, the performance of the VP 90’s is better. The VP’s are staying in the bag. Whatever works . . .

Check in next month and see how Bob likes the Speeders. If not, there will be a great bargain on a set of Speeder 717 shafts at the Golf Lab.

Update on the “Search for the Magic Driver”

My current “Magic Driver” is a Titleist LFE with a Speeder 757 in “R” (really an “SX”) flex that was a customer return (sorry customer). It’s been the best driver I’ve had so far. It’s a little strange that with a couple of months of tournament play with great results, I haven’t been able to invent a suitable name. I don’t want to call it something stupid like “Mr. Speedy”. The head was refinished in powder coat by Jim Russo at Custom Club Coatings. At least a dozen people a week hit it at the Golf Lab. It earns its keep. If you have an inspiration, send me a name.

Some days I think it’s the LFE shape that works. I’m a chronic “toe hitter.” The LFE has a big fat toe area and is kind to toe hits. With that in mind, I started buying up some future inventory on eBay. I currently have at least 6 LFE’s with various lofts in the Golf Lab. What I have in mind is reshafting the lot with the hottest shafts today just to see what can compare to the Fujikura Speeder 757. The Speeder is not the longest shaft I have tested with the Achiever Launch monitor. That honor goes to the SK Fiber Lite Revolution. But it is definitely the straightest. Time after time, when strangers hit the LFE/Speeder combination with the Achiever looking over their shoulder, the key indicator of accuracy, sidespin, goes down. The visual pattern on the screen becomes straighter. At the range and on the course, the same thing happens. The Speeder is simply straighter. You can prove that for yourself. Find a clubmaker with a launch monitor and drivers with Speeder shafts to demo. If you can’t find one close to home, you can always come to Palo Alto.

The price of a Speeder is a shock. Fujikura has a direct distribution model. They only sell to clubmakers and retailers, no distributors. The direct distribution model cuts out the distributors’ profit. Nevertheless, Fujikura “International Series” Speeders sell for around $175 at the wholesale level. Most clubmakers install the shafts and charge their customers somewhere between $300 and $400. That’s a lot of money for a shaft, a detail that has not gone unnoticed by other shaft manufacturers. They’re all looking for a “Speeder Beater”. They are intensely jealous of Fujikura’s hefty price.

The new Aldila “Speeder Beater” is green in color and code named “NV” (think “envy”). The NV is an example of showing frustration in new product packaging. We haven’t had the chance to try it on the course but we’ve put several through the SST PUREing process. We won’t know for sure until we test more, but they have a very interesting geometry, with four distinct spines in the examples we’ve tested. They can be PUREd in at least two directions. We’ll follow up on that story next month. Ben Curtis used the NV to win the British Open. The Darrell Survey of shafts in use on the PGA Tour is showing increased numbers of “green with envy” Aldila NV’s.

I bought the TM 580 and it didn’t work out. Too closed. I bought the 983 E. I’ve been hitting the stock Titleist shaft in the net. Not great. It gets a new shaft next month. I’m still hoping to catch Reed.

Meantime, if you have the confidence, you can still think about the extra 20 yards you’ll get if you can handle a 48” driver. It takes more confidence to put the long driver in play in competition that matters. Maybe next month for me. Stay tuned.

Leith Anderson is a partner in the Golf Lab in Palo Alto. He will answer all questions related to clubmaking and clubfitting personally. Contact Leith Anderson by email: Leith@calgolftech.com. Cell phone 650-743-2816.