Shaft Design & Construction

A couple of videos from Shaft manufacturers and shaft designers. There seems to be a great deal of confusion about what Flex is in golf shafts. It is important to know that there are no industry standards for flex in the shaft industry. Each company determines flex designation based on their ideas about what a Regular shaft is, or when it becomes a Stiff shaft or Senior flex or Ladies flex or even Extra Stiff, or more. These videos give you some insight into how shaft designers do what they do and why. It is important for you to understand that Manufacturers use EI curves to measure shafts for stiffness and clubfitter use frequency the same way. We have some evidence that an EI curve and a Frequency curve are much the same when compared side by side. The EI is a bit more precise for manufacturing but the Frequency is accurate enough for fitting. More importantly for golfers the Frequency equipment is affordable for individual club builders and the EI equipment isn’t. A Regular shaft by one company might be a Stiff shaft for a different company. Frequency has made it possible for the golfers around the world to get better fitting golf clubs. 

AGCP clubfitters and club builders have prescribed ways of evaluating golf shafts for fitting. We use BMT in two ways. BMT is an acronym for Butt, Mid, Tip and it’s the areas we use to fit shafts. Swing Speed determines the frequency range for the butt flex of a shaft, downswing tempo and transition force determine the frequency range for the mid section of a shaft and Wrist cock release point determines the tip section frequency. Wrist cock release for fitting is defined as the moment when a golfer begins to uncock his wrists on the downswing. At this point the club will only move at the speed of the golfer’s arms as all stored energy from the shaft flexing at the top will be dispensed. The longer the golfer holds his wrist cock release the more effective the stored energy created in transition will be.

Enjoy