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Shafts: Steel or Graphite?

June 10th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Golfers often ask about the performance difference between steel and graphite shafts, and how to choose between them. This issue of Golf Pro Tips is dedicated to answering those questions.

GRAPHITE SHAFTS: The main advantage graphite shafts have over steel, is their lower “static weight”. A lower static weight helps increase swing speed and produces more distance without additional swing effort. If you are able to swing within yourself and maintain good balance, a graphite shaft can provide the benefit of extra distance. Graphite is also very good compared to steel if you wish to reduce impact vibration.

High quality frequency and flex matched graphite shafts will have the same amount of flex strength as a steel shaft. So for golfers who can maintain an even tempo, these types of graphite shafts will offer the same excellent distance control found in steel shafts.

STEEL SHAFTS: Steel is a good choice for golfers who don’t need the extra distance graphite shafts can provide. These golfers prefer steel shafts because their heavier static weight assists with tempo control and also gives a feeling of more control over the club head during the swing. If a player is able to analyze and benefit from the added feedback (more vibrations traveling up the shaft), steel offers a benefit in this regard as well.

Another notable benefit, a steel club (built to have the same “swing weight” as a graphite club) will be shorter. A shorter club can make it much easier for a golfer to consistently hit the sweet spot of the clubface. In this sense, many golfers who tend to be less consistent may find the shorter steel shafts give them greater swing control.

*terms:
• Static Weight = weight of the club when resting on a scale.
• Swing Weight = weight perceived by the golfer while making a swing.

This article came from www.thomasgolf.com

Golfing Myths Exposed

November 15th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Article by Paul Smith

I see clients from all golfing walks of life and while working in the studio with them various golfing equipment myths inevitably pop up – all heard from a very knowledgeable or reputable source of course. Often I have to break the news that they really have no basis for truth. This list is by no means complete but contains the main offenders.

Flex Ratings Are All The Same
Not true. Why does an ‘S’ shaft from one manufacturer feel so different to that of another? Each shaft company has their own designs for shafts. They grade their shafts in accordance to their own flex ratings so an ‘S’ shaft from one company could in fact be an ‘R’ or ‘X’ from another. Even within a company different ranges of shaft designs will show different flex readings. It is very hard to compare apples to apples without a Frequency Analyzer. Table 1 below shows the results of three different manufacturers ‘R’ flex’s tested as raw full length 40″ shafts.

Two of the companies manufacture two ‘R’ shaft designs however I have not indicated which these are or what materials the shafts were made of. The pairs from within the same company were both either steel to steel or graphite to graphite.

The Higher A Golf Ball Bounces, The Further It Will Fly
Not true. Have you ever been in a golf shop and noticed a fellow customer bouncing a golf ball on a hard surface, judging which brand bounced higher and basing their purchase decision on that test? Possibly, as it happens often. The compression stress placed on a golf ball, even when bounced on a hard surface, is minimal compared to stress placed on the ball when it is being hit by a clubhead at speed. 800-1000kgs of crush versus gravity’s pull. Different types of ball construction (Fig. 1), two-piece, three-piece, wound balls, number of cores and construction materials will all have an influence on how a ball will fly.

The only way to find the best ball for your game is to try a variety out at the driving range or on the golf course. Or better yet, find a launch monitor and experiment with a variety of golf balls until you discover the correct one for your swing and club.

The Lines On The Putter Are The Sweet Spot
Not necessarily true. If a manufacturer has put sightlines on the top of a putter then they have to line up with the sweet spot. Well they should do, however each clubhead is built with mass quality tolerance levels so these sightlines may not always correspond with the sweet spot.

To find the sweet spot hold your club between two fingers up high in front of you and tap the clubface with a pencil on the toe or heel of the club (Fig. 2). It will twist around. Keep tapping toward the middle of the clubface until the clubface stops twisting and moves only back and forth rather than to the side. Your last point of contact is your sweet spot and should be marked as such.

Face Grooves Create Backspin
This one is common and one of the great myths of golf. The backspin is created by the balls compression on the clubface. This occurs between the time of impact and the moment of separation from the clubface. The clubs swing path and type of head rotation sees the ball mashed into the clubface. The loft presented to the ball distorts it in shape and gives us the launch angle and all of its backspin. The ball does not actually ever ride up the clubface, instead it gets imbedded in the face where the groove lines reside. High-speed photography has proved this. The more loft the greater the backspin.

Therefore, the grooves have zero influence on the launch angle or backspin on the ball. Well known club designer Ralph Maltby built a set of irons with no face groves at all and played with them extensively to prove this point to disbelievers.

Also, in the mid 1980’s the USGA undertook extensive groove type testing and concluded that in dry conditions it was loft, not grooves that put backspin on the ball.

So what good are grooves then? Rather like car tyres which work perfectly in the dry, we need them to work in the wet as well. Clubfaces without grooves work fine in dry conditions but with water and grass in the way, the grooves allow some of the trapped materials to be moved from the collision zone. Without groves you may get a high flyer with less spin and in this instance the ball does in fact run up the face - it actually skids up the face on the lubricating water and/or grass.

5 Irons Have The Most Backspin
This is an old wives tale. Following on from the face grooves myth above it is pretty obvious that the more loft we have on a club the higher the backspin rate will be.

Topspin Creates More Ball Roll
“I hit that drive with a lot of topspin. Look at it roll way out there”. To get the ball airborne we have to hit it with backspin. The backspin creates the lift the ball requires to stay up there. If we did hit a ball with topspin it would just knuckle ball into the ground. These days with the advent of launch monitors we see players trying to optimize the backspin on the balls being played so that they can improve length off the tee.

The perceived topspin is actually a ball that has been hit with a counterclockwise turning clubhead through the impact to separation zone, a draw spin. In this case the ball has been presented a clubface that has a little less loft shown than a shot where the clubface has been left open and opening further, a clockwise increase in backspin if you like, a high slice.

Forged Irons Feel Softer Than Cast Irons
Many players think a forged club feels sweeter to play than an investment cast head. Indeed at an atomic level the grains in a forged club are a little farther apart in comparison to an investment cast iron. But in a blindfold test hardly anyone can tell the difference. It is probably more a case of most forged clubs look really good and this mental image adds to the mystique of the real feel.

Golf Shafts Lose Their Stiffness
Many people surmise that if you keep using your clubs over a long period of time the shafts will ‘wear out’ and lose some of their stiffness and become weaker. This is not the case at all, even with steel shafts. The reason for this is that the loads put on the shafts never get anywhere near the break straining points which would be required to cause metal fatigue in steel. If you have kinked a shaft or there is rust present then this is a different matter but a good quality shaft, whether steel or graphite, will keep its flex.

7 Woods Are For Women & Seniors
Whilst in the US last year I walked by up to 200 golf bags a day on the driving range and I was actually surprised at how this old view just does not exist over there in comparison to Australia and the UK. A 7 wood flies higher and lands softer than a 3 iron for players with slower swing speeds. Many slower swingers cannot hit their 3 iron any farther than their 4 iron as the backspin they place on the ball is not high enough to keep it airborne. Learn to use a 4 iron from under a bush and the 7 wood becomes one of your best friends on course.

There are many more myths lurking out there.

If you really want to improve your golf game without all the myths, then you must visit Putt Lights Out. You can drop 5-10 strokes in your very next round by using the Putt Lights Out system.

Son of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani sues Duke over golf dismissal (Canadian Press via Yahoo! News)
RALEIGH, N.C. - The son of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is suing Duke University, claiming his golf coach manufactured accusations against him to justify kicking him off the team to whittle the squad.

Pete Dye's latest tour de force gives New York public golf something to brag about (Sports Illustrated)
Pound Ridge Golf Club

Giuliani's son sues Duke over downsized golf team (USA Today)
The son of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is suing Duke University, claiming he was wrongfully kicked off the golf team.

Teed Off at Not Teeing Up, Giuliani's Son Sues Over Dismissal From School Golf Team (Law.com)
The son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is suing Duke University, claiming his golf coach manufactured accusations against him to justify kicking him off the team to whittle the squad. The lawsuit also says the coach created a "Lord of the Flies scheme" under which reinstatement might occur. Andrew Giuliani, who contends he hoped to become a professional golfer, said in a statement ...

Giuliani's Son Sues Duke For Kicking Him Off Golf Team (CBS News)
Andrew Giuliani, a Duke senior and former member of the men's golf team, is suing the University and his former coach for allegedly illegally terminating his athletic eligibility, his attorney said Wednesday.

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