Shaft Review – Oban Kiyoshi Tour Limited

Written By: Tony Covey

Oban is not your typical shaft company. Apart from eBay and forum sales, you can only purchase Oban shafts through an authorized Oban dealer, and if the dealer is following the rules, only with a tip and grip installed.

You will occasionally find Oban shafts featured in higher end OEM offerings upgrade offerings like TaylorMade’s Super TP series, but you won’t find Oban shafts offered as a stock shaft offerings in anyone’s lineup, and you’ll NEVER have to wonder if an Oban-labeled shaft is one of those lower-quality, watered-down, made for variants that habitually plagues certain OEM offerings.

The latest offering in Oban’s Kiyoshi series is the Tour Limited. Released earlier this season, the Tour Limited is an ultra-premium offering (even by Oban standards), and as you’ll discover in the review, it was designed in direct response to a popular industry trend.

Design

With stiff butt, mid, and tip sections, it’s not a huge surprise that Oban would classify the Tour Limited shaft as a stiff bend profile offering alongside the Kiyoshi Black and Devotion.

What’s interesting about the Kiyoshi Tour Limited is that while the bend profile suggests a low launch/ low spin shaft, in the 60 and 70 gram weight classes, the Tour Limited plays as a mid Launch and low-mid spin offering.

For reference purposes, Oban’s own trajectory chart puts the Tour Limited between the Kiyoshi White and Kiyoshi Gold, though we suspect most will find it plays closer to the White than it does the spinnier Gold.

The curiosity here is that the torque rating (3.7 stiff, 3.2 X-Stiff) is actually closer to that of the Kiyoshi Purple.

What you should take from all of this is that while partial comparisons can be drawn to other shafts in the Oban line, the Kiyoshi Tour Limited is a distinct offering.

The Kiyoshi Tour Limited combines 46 ton pre-preg composite with 4-axis material, running the entire length of the shaft. In the majority of Kiyoshi designs, the 4-axis material is limited to the butt and tip sections of the shaft.

The graphic below illustrates exactly what 4-axis means. Oban claims that its design not only reduces ovalization, but can increase swing speed as well.

Adapting to the Trends

Tour Limited was created as a direct response to the emergence of forward, and I suppose low/forward CG heads. For all the ball speed advantages offered by forward CG designs, there are trade-offs.

With forward CG comes decreases in Dynamic Loft (why you need to “Loft Up”) and Dynamic Closure Rates (why some golfers struggle to square the face), as well as a loss of feel…or at least a change in feel that many consider unpleasant.

The Kiyoshi Tour Limited is designed to help the golfer reclaim dynamic loft, square the face, and improve the feel of forward CG heads, without adding an overabundance of spin to the equation.

The Data

We put the Oban Kiyoshi Tour Limited in a TaylorMade SLDR head and hit it side by side with our Control shaft. Our control is a popular mid bend profile shaft…it’s your basic middle of the bell curve offering.

With the Kiyoshi Tour Limited we saw:

• 2 MPH increase in ball speed
• 5 Yard increase in Carry Distance
• 4 yard improvement in accuracy
• Modest decrease in launch angle coupled with a 200RPM decrease in spin
• More consistent ball speed (based on STDEV)

All of this is typical of what we see when a premium shaft performs as advertised. While internet forums may say otherwise, we don’t expect to see several hundred (or a thousand) RPM drop in spin from a shaft change. A couple hundred RPM decrease with only a modest decrease in launch angle is about as much as we ever see.

The ball speed improvement is significant, as is the less quantifiable notion of feel. The Tour Limited livens up the SLDR giving it less of a dull feel.

If you like the performance you get from heads like TaylorMade’s SLDR, but don’t love the feel, the Kiyoshi Tour Limited might be exactly what you’re looking for.

The fitters I’ve spoken with, including Josh Chervokas of the New York Golf Center, have told me that accuracy is where they often see the most significant improvements as a result of a shaft change. That was certainly the case for me with the Tour Limited.

Oban Kiyoshi Tour Limited Considerations

As with any shaft, if the Kiyoshi Tour Limited works well for you in one head, that does not guarantee it will work as well in another. For example, SDLR and G30 are very different heads, and shaft performance will reflect that.

While overall trajectory should be closer to the Kiyoshi White, fans of the Kiyoshi Purple should appreciate the feel and kick of the Tour Limited.

For higher spin players, the Kiyoshi Tour Limited could be an option in a front CG head, but may create too much spin too much in rear CG heads such as the PING G30 and upcoming Cobra FLY-Z.

Like others in the Kiyoshi line, the Tour Limited tends to run heavy compared to other manufacturer’s offerings. The 60g model is 69g in an X-Flex, while the 70g model is 79g in an X-Flex.

Oban Kiyoshi Tour Limited Specifications

The Kiyoshi Tour Limited (like all Oban shafts) is available exclusively through Oban’s Dealer Network.

MSRP for the Oban Kiyoshi Tour Limited is $490. For more information visit Obanshafts.com.