ALDILA NV & ALDILA RIP NV
By Russ Ryden, A Golf Digest America’s 100 Best Clubfitter
Fit2Score, Dallas Fort Worth, Texas
Aldila NV
The Aldila NV design has been with us for a long time. It is hard to miss that shiny green shaft. But lately, I have not seen many of them in golfers bags. It is a classic design and many, many near matches can be found in other shaft companies product lines.The torque ranges from 3.7 in the 60R to 3.2 in the 70X shafts. The Aldila NV profiles are consistent from weight to weight and flex to flex. I have only checked a few radial profiles, by they were 99.5%, indicating the shaft can be installed in any orientation.
Aldila RIP NV
What do you do with a dated good design. Aldila created a second generation version rather than walking away from the brand name. The RIP NV applies the new interlay design to the classic NV design. The muted color scheme is more appealing to my conservative eye.
The torque ranges from 4.3 in the 60R to 3.2 the 65 Tour X shaft. Like all shafts in the RIP line, the torque value is printed on the shaft. These numbers are very close to our measuring standard and are a good guide to the overall torque of the shaft. The Aldila RIP NV profiles are consistent from weight to weight and flex to flex. The radial profiles are very good, the shaft can be installed in any orientation.
What we see different in the RIP NV is a reversal of the mid stiffness. Where one might refer to the original NV as mid soft, the RIP NV is viewed as mid stiff. This is a trend we see in may shaft designs over the past few years. RIP stands for reverse interlaminar placement. Aldila moved some of the bias plies of the shaft from the center, near the mandrel toward the outside of the shaft. This sandwiched the longitudinal plies in the center of the shaft walls.
