Shaft Reference
Some of them are measurements. Some of them are marketing. This page sorts one from the other, in the order we use them during a session.
If we could only know one thing about a shaft before recommending it, we would ask for the weight. It changes swing weight, it changes tempo, it changes where your hands feel the club load, and unlike flex it means the same thing on every label in the building. Sixty grams is sixty grams whether the shaft came from Japan or Illinois.
Flex, by contrast, is a name a manufacturer chose. Two shafts both stamped Stiff can differ by fifteen counts per minute of measured frequency, which is more than the gap between adjacent flex labels within a single family. That is not a scandal, it is simply an unregulated word, and it is why a fitting bay stocks a frequency meter.
These are starting points, not prescriptions. A smooth-tempo golfer at 100 mph frequently ends up one band lighter than the chart suggests, and an aggressive transition often ends up one heavier.
| Clubhead speed | Typical band | Goes lighter when | Goes heavier when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 85 mph | 45–55 g | Tempo is smooth and long | Transition is abrupt |
| 85–95 mph | 55–60 g | Strike sits high on the face | Strike scatters horizontally |
| 95–105 mph | 60–70 g | Ball flight is too low | Dispersion opens up left and right |
| Over 105 mph | 65–80 g | Rarely — usually holds | Release timing is early |
| Profile | Steel band | Graphite band | Usual reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moderate speed, joint comfort a factor | 85–95 g | 60–75 g | Reduce impact shock, hold speed |
| Mid speed, consistent strike | 105–115 g | 80–95 g | Standard fitting territory |
| High speed, steep delivery | 120–130 g | Rare | Control dispersion under load |
| Set blended with graphite long irons | Mixed | Mixed | Match frequency slope, not weight |
A shaft does not have a single stiffness. It has a stiffness at the butt, another in the middle and another at the tip, and the shape of that curve does more to determine launch than the flex letter does. Two shafts of identical weight and flex will send the ball to different heights if their tip sections differ enough.
We describe profiles in three words — soft, even, firm — applied to each section. A firm-butt, soft-tip shaft behaves nothing like a soft-butt, firm-tip one.
Torque is a degree figure describing how much the tube wants to wind up around its own centreline under load. Lower is not automatically better. A very low torque shaft in the hands of a moderate-speed golfer feels harsh and boardy, and that feel changes their delivery in ways the shaft was supposed to prevent.
Torque also interacts with weight: lighter shafts almost always carry higher torque figures because there is less material to resist the twist.
Clamp the butt, hang a weight from the tip, pluck it and count the oscillations per minute. That number is the only stiffness figure on our bench that is directly comparable across brands. We measure it on every shaft that goes into a build.
Within a set, what matters is not the absolute figure but the slope — how evenly frequency steps from the long irons to the short ones.
One uncut blank will yield several different stiffnesses depending on how much material comes off the narrow end before it goes into a head. This is why a shaft model can appear in one club feeling perfectly matched and in another feeling completely wrong.
Every build here records its trim in the session sheet, so a future re-shaft can reproduce the club rather than approximate it.
A shaft will not fix a strike pattern. If the ball is leaving the toe of the driver, the fastest route to more speed is a shorter club and a lie angle check, not a different graphite tube. We put geometry ahead of components for exactly this reason, and it means a fair number of sessions end with the shaft the golfer already owned.
A shaft will also not add distance in the way advertising implies. What a well-matched shaft does is tighten the spread — the good shots stay good and the misses stop being disasters. Across a round that is worth more than five yards of peak carry, but it does not photograph as well.
We will measure the shafts in your bag and tell you where they actually sit, whether or not you book a full session afterwards.