reg or stiff shaft

apologies if this query has been posted elsewhere on the site.

i had an unfortunate accident with my driver(taylormade E200 10.5deg steelshaft) the other night and basically its goosed! i went to my local golf shop and he loaned me some drivers to take to the range to try. i really liked the mactec macgregor NVG 10.5deg better than the others it has a reg flex graphite shaft. distance was fantastic shots start out straight but tended to fade right after about 80/90 yards. would i be better suited to a stiff shaft?

your advice would be greatly appreciated

__________________
cheers slats
"Golf can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle"

I would say yes judging by your results with a regular flex, however ask your pro for advice, theyd be able too help you out and make the right decision. Though look at the degrees also, 10.5 is alot, most players use 9.5*

hi raclt7
2 problems there mate i dont have a pro to ask and i am playing my first comp a week on sunday so i wanted to get one this weekend and spend all week getting used to it. optimistic i know!

I think I described this similar ball flight somewhere else.

The ball goes straight for 50-100 yards, then it fades. Sometimes hard, sometimes not, but always left to right.

My problem was a soft shaft. Going stiffer solved it.

thanks lowpost,
i was pretty sure going for a stiffer shaft would be the answer just thought it better to run it by you guys first to see if you agreed!
thanks again

It's better for me - I can't guarantee it will be better for you. But you've gotta try it, IMO. It also depends on your swing. If you hold your lag pretty well, you may be lagging the face open. But if you pop your swing early (release your wrists early), I'm not sure that'd be the problem.

If you have a fast swing then you should get a stiff shaft. A slow swing speed requires a regular shaft as it is more flexible and adds extra whip through the ball. If you use a flexible shaft with a fast swing, you might not get through the ball correctly.

Hope this helps.

Lee

Going to have to disagree on this one, if you are fading a stiff shaft will make that worst, not better. You have to understand what a shaft is doing in a golf swing. It bends forwards not backwards at impact. Meaning, at impact the center of the shaft is further from the target then hands and clubhead, this has little to do with open or closed and more to do with adding loft or reducing loft, more loft, more backspin means less side spin. Less flex shaft means less bend at impact, which reduces loft. You can also effect this by low/high kick points. Swing faster means more bend, this is why faster swingers (105+) benifit by stiffer shafts. Fast swing with too much flexs, adds alot of bend and alot of loft. So to get the correct shaft, and maintain your loft spec on the driver, you NEED to determine what your swing speed is, good rule of thumb, if you hit your 7 iron 150 use a reg flex, 8 iron for 150 use a stiff, or if you already use a stiff in your irons and hit an 8 iron 150 yds, then use xstiff. Oddly enough the optimal launch angle for a driver is 11 degrees, most players use a driver with too little loft, they fair better with 8 degree and 9.5 degree, because they hit up too much, usually caused by playing the ball too far forward and a little early on the release. If you are using 9.5 and a stiff shaft, you may also benifit from a low kickpoint to retain the loft.

P.S. A little secret I learned, what ever common sense is telling you to fix your swing, do the oposite, usually works, golf is a game of OPOSITES.

Since this can be very confusing, I added some basic drawings to better convey what I'm talking about. Notice how MORE flex will add MORE loft. This is greatly affected by swing speed. Release the club to early and you get the top picture, you loose the load on the shaft. This changes your loft, you loose power, less backspin allows more side spin (hooks/slices) and reduces trajectory. Hope this helps

Attached Images

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GoNavy, you make some good points. However, I went to a more flexible shaft (at first), and hit it worse. Try it. Go demo an LL flex driver. If you're not swinging as smoothly as possible, you'll run into all sorts of problems - like too much lag, which never lets the shaft recover - which never lets the clubface square up without over-manipulation of the hands. The result is a slice.

Well actually that is my point, if you have a faster swing 105+ and try to use a lite flex (ladies/senior) you will bend it way to much, the club head will get to the ball way ahead of the hands, to correct you would really have to lean the shaft forward or as you say swing very smooth, which actually would be slowing your swing down to an acceptable speed to use the shaft, a little counter productive in my view. Easier to match the shaft to your swing, then match your swing to the shaft. Has to over manipulating your hands, because the shaft is bent so much and the clubhead is so far ahead of your hands, you must rotate your hands and forearms really early to compensate. With a shaft too stiff, the player fails to bend the shaft at all, this results in difficulty closing the face, and with little or no loft no backspin, ball flys low and ANY side spin causes big curves left or right. Took me years to figure out the correct shaft flex and bend points, todays folks are really lucky, with launch monitors and what not, this is a fairly easy fix.

For Slater, surely there has to be someone nearby that does club fitting that has a swing monitor, if not you most diffinately need to buy one, and start making some money fitting people, take an internet course, this is the wave of the future.

Here is an amazing story, years ago they looked at Ben Hogans clubs, all aquired over his years of play, bought at different times by different makers, he selected by feel alone, no monitor, scales, nothing, just feel. They spec'ed out his clubs after he retired, believe it or not, they were all with one point of swing weight, same flex, same kick point, same lies, every thing except his 8 iron, which he said he never liked, and couldn't find one that worked right. Just absolutely amazing he could do that by feel alone. So here is the golf version of the chicken and the egg...did he play good because he found the perfect match for his swing, or did the perfect match clubs make his swing great...lol

hi lowpost and gonavy
thanks for your input guys it makes interesting reading i really am a technophobe when it comes to golf.
ive bought a stiff shaft 9.5 deg with a neutral face. the 10.5 has 2deg draw bias but the launch angle is quite high so i settled for the 9.5 now i dont know if ive done the right thing.ive not hit it yet so i suppose i could always swap it tomorrow. the bottom line is i need to groove a good swing to cure the slice something i hope to do soon with some private coaching

__________________
cheers slats
"Golf can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle"

Was that Hogan or Bobby Jones? I've heard the same story, but it was Bobby Jones. Either way, I'm sure it was some great golfer, and is probably true.

Your probably right I started to say it was Bobby Jones, but then was thinking it was Hogan. It was one of them..lol..I'm a sometimer, some times my memory is good, some times it's not, I heard this story years ago, the only reason I said hogan instead of Jones, I was thinking when I wrote it, they didn't call them 8 irons back then, but niblicks, or brassees or spoons, or soemthing when Jones played, but I know they didn't have a swing weight scale..lmao.

No - that's what makes it all the more remarkable, is that Jones picked them all by feel - and they all swingweighted out evenly. (Save the 8).