SHAFT REVIEW! – Nunchuk Hybrid Shaft Review

Introduction

(Written By: GolfSpy Matt) Yet, another golf shaft review you absolutely do not want to skip over.  Miss this one and you might be leaving some strokes on the course.  And once again it doesn’t come from one of the big shaft companies who are household names in the industry.

A while back, I reviewed the original Nunchuk shaft and found, much to my surprise and many others, that it did exactly what it claimed: helped me to hit the ball straighter.  At the PGA Merchandise show this past year, the guys at nVentix released the next member of the Nunchuk family: the Nunchuk 370 hybrid shaft.  Will this new, hybrid-specific Nunchuk live up to the reputation of its big brother?  Read on to find out…

Notes, Feel, Price, and Miscellaneous

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the concept behind the Nunchuk, it’s this: the tip and butt sections are very stiff with the only flex being in the middle of the shaft (just like a…what’s that martial arts weapon…oh you, a nunchuk).  They claim that this eliminates the drooping and twisting that you get with other shafts, thus making your shots fly straighter.

The Nunchuk is very heavy.  The original version was over 100 grams and the .370 version is certainly no lighter.  The “lighter is longer” types can probably stop reading right here.

Perhaps the most unique thing about the Nunchuk is that it is offered in just one flex, one weight, and there is no tipping required or recommended regardless of what you install the shaft into.

With regard to feel, the shaft is definitely stout, just like the original version.  The tip is absolutely stable and the kick/flex, if there is any, is clearly in the middle of the shaft.  This is the kind of shaft you can swing as hard as you want without fear of it “not keeping up.”

The Nunchuk 370 retails through the nVentix website for $175.

Performance

As usual, I’ve broken the Performance section into two pieces: Data (launch monitor testing) and Real World (range and course).  For the launch monitor testing, I put the Nunchuk up against a number of other shafts in two different heads.  The first test was against the stock shaft in a Tour Edge Exotics XCG5 hybrid.  The second test was conducted with a TaylorMade Rescue 11 with the Nunchuk against the Kuro Kage and RIP hybrid shafts.  I hit 10 “good” shots with each shaft, changing frequently so that fatigue was not an issue, nor did I get grooved with one shaft to the detriment of fairness.  I went through this process three times and averaged the sets of data.

DATA

ANALYSIS

Well, once again, the Nunchuk has lived up to the hype: it was straighter than anything else that I put it up against.  Particularly impressive for me was that it quieted down the hooks that I’ve been fighting lately.  As I said in the original Nunchuk review: you can still hit pushes and pulls with the Nunchuk, but the ball doesn’t seem to curve as much as it does with other shafts.  The launch monitor data seems to bear out that impression.

It was also interesting that the added weight did nothing to slow the ball speed.  If anything, I had the confidence to swing a bit harder knowing that the Nunchuk would keep me from hitting it off the planet.

REAL WORLD RESULTS

To learn about the Nunchuk’s real world results, all you need to do is check what’s in my bag.  The Nunchuk went into my XCG5 hybrid and hasn’t come out yet.  It’s absolutely helped reel in the big misses and provides me with a nice consistent trajectory.

The Peanut Gallery

I passed the Nunchuk around to a number of players to get their reactions.  To a man, they all commented on the weight.  In spite of that, the vast majority swung the Nunchuk pretty well.  The players with lower swing speeds did tend to comment that there was limited “feel,” but the higher swing speed players liked the fact that they could go after it a bit harder.  Most were put off by the price (“For a hybrid shaft?” was a common response), but the faster swingers did like the performance.

Conclusion

Bottom line: the Nunchuk 370, much like its predecessor, does exactly what it claims to do: helps to straighten out crooked golf shots.  While you can question the “one flex, one weight” approach, the numbers don’t lie and they tell me that the Nunchuk works.

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