6 Facts You Need to Know About Golf Shafts

Is the golf shaft the most misunderstood piece of equipment in your bag?

I’d wager it is.

I have a buddy – several actually – who routinely drop $350 on a new shaft—all because a Tour pro used it to win last month or because his jackass friend (me) thinks it’s the best thing ever.

You probably know somebody like that. You might even be that guy.

Why is that so pervasive?

Golf shafts can be confusing

If there’s one thing in golf equipment that’s more mystifying than the plot of “Inception,” it’s golf shafts. Walk into any fitting center and you’ll hear terms like “tip-stiff,” “mid-kick” and “high-balance point” thrown around like they’re common knowledge. What if I told you most of these terms mean drastically different things depending on who’s saying them and which shaft they’re talking about?

As with many things in golf, the whole story is a bit more complicated so here are six things you need to know about golf shafts.

1. Flex is almost meaningless

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard a guy say, “I need a stiff shaft.”

Cool. What model?

In reality, there are no standards defining shaft stiffness. With that, one company’s stiff is another’s regular and a third company’s X-flex. It’s also true that flex can even vary significantly within the same manufacturer’s lineup.

While flex can provide a general idea of stiffness, the fact is that flex is not a continuous thing. On a relative basis, some parts of the shaft are stiffer than others. It’s the totality of the bend profile (or the EI curve) that provides the best indicator of shaft stiffness over its full length. And that’s before we start talking about things like torque and balance point.

But, again, there are no standards.

2. As a fitting variable, swing speed is less important than you think

While, for simplicity, shaft flex often comes with recommended ranges (see above why that doesn’t transfer from one brand to the next), tempo, particularly in transition, plays a more important role in shaft fitting. Guys with 100 mph speed and abrupt or aggressive tempos often fit into X-stiff (for real X-stiff) while guys swinging at a smooth 115 fit can fit into softer shafts.

These are, at best, loose guidelines because, again, there are no standards defining flex.

3. Launch and spin performance characteristics are far from guaranteed

Shaft companies need to simplify things for golfers so nearly every shaft is described in terms of its launch and spin characteristics.

That can be dicey.

As my friend Ian Fraser says, “shafts don’t spin.”

What does it mean when a company describes a shaft as low launch and low spin?

More often than not, they’re hinting at the fact that the shaft has a firmer tip section but you, the golfer, play a significant role in the realities of launch and spin.

My favorite example is the Fujikura Ventus Black. It’s described as low-launch and-low spin and for some golfers it is exactly that but if the profile doesn’t work for you and you can’t square it up, it’s going to produce shots that are really high and spin like crazy.

Likewise, if the profile of a high-launch shaft promotes aggressive closing, it’s going to fly low with not a lot of spin.

To their credit, shaft manufacturers are getting better about acknowledging these realities. The Mitsubishi chart at the top of this section, for example, includes the disclaimer: Just because they are all plotted this way does not guarantee performance will follow these characteristics exactly. All golfers swing differently and load and deflect a golf shaft differently. This is why we recommend using this chart to get a baseline of where to begin, then working with a fitter to dial it in exactly.

4. They’re all made the same (mostly)

While, over the years, shaft companies have occasionally promoted the fact that their shafts are hand-crafted or hand-rolled, the fact is that almost every shaft of consequence is made by hand-rolling layers of pre-preg around a mandrel and then baking everything together.

There’s nothing inherently special about the process. It’s how (almost) everyone does it.

The exception is TPT which uses a continuous fiber-winding method but that’s a discussion for another day.

5. There’s still a lot to learn about shaft fitting

While shafts have been around as long as there have been heads to put them into, there’s still plenty to learn about shaft fitting. Nearly every fitter has their own method, FlightScope has done some cool stuff by looking at acceleration profiles and, most recently, TaylorMade has suggested the key to shaft fitting may lie in Foresight’s Closure Rate metric.

I’m not ready to say shaft fitting is the final frontier of performance gains but it is an area where there is still room for exploration and opportunity.

6. Margins border on absurd

So-called exotic shafts, the stuff most commonly used on Tour, are expensive: $350 and up. And while often the high-end stuff features more complex construction and more expensive material than OEM-grade aftermarket options (and definitely more than the made-for stuff still common to some club lineups), it doesn’t come remotely close to justifying the difference between the $350 retail price and the $15-$20 unit costs paid by the club manufacturers for their stock offerings.

You can chalk up the difference to the fact that the most popular shaft brands operate under multiple business models. On the OEM side, it’s a volume game with tight margins. They make it up on the consumer end of the equation where volume is lower but margins are significantly higher.

Some companies do little to no OEM business while others, like upstart Aretera (Callaway) and Graphite Design (Titleist), have partnered with OEMs on more sensibly priced (though far from inexpensive) premium stock options.

What to make of all this

Finding the right shaft is a lot like dating—what works for your buddy might be a disaster for you and sometimes the one that looks great on paper turns out to be completely wrong in practice.

Bruh, you shoulda swiped left.

The truth is that it’s not the shaft—it’s the fit.

So the next time you’re tempted by that “game-changing” $400 shaft that promises to all but eliminate spin and add 20 yards, ask yourself this: What would happen if you spent that money on a proper fitting with a professional who understands that the shaft is just one piece of a complex puzzle: your unique swing.

It’s not always about having the most expensive equipment. It’s about having the right equipment for you. It’s even possible that the solution you’ve been searching for came stock in your driver.

Hungry for more?

For a deeper dive into golf shaft material, design, and more, be sure to check out our Shaft University series.