Graphite Design Tour AD VR Shaft Review
By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Club Maker
The Golf Center at the Highlands, Carrollton Texas
The Graphite Design Tour AD VR driver shaft released in late 2018. Like the Tour AD IZ and the Tour AD TP its construction includes TORAYCA T1100G carbon fiber pre-preg with NANOALLOY technology in the tip section. it is quite similar to these two shafts until we get to the tip section. There it is a combination of those two designs.
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Russ
TPT Golf is a division of a Swiss technology and composite firm that developed carbon fiber materials. They have produced America’s Cup yacht sails, lightweight racing car bodies, skis, snowboards, watch bodies, aircraft parts and satellite parts. They offered their prepreg to shaft companies and was told it was too expensive. Their only choice to enter the golf market was to make their own shafts. Their ultra premium shafts quickly appeared in the bags of several marque PGA players.
Thin Ply Technology (TPT) shafts have double the layers of material found in typical ultra premium shafts. Prepreg tapes are wrapped on the mandrel on CNC winders. Most other shafts are hand rolled, much like cigars. TPT makes the prepreg ribbon and can orientate the fiber direction in the ribbon. That creates a uniquely new method of creating golf shafts. They can adjust shaft properties in unique ways to adjust shaft performance. I have been to the Swiss R&D site demonstrating the process of EI measurement with my instrument and software.
Now that we have the fifth generation of the Speeder Evolution one wonders if this was a marketing strategy planned at the beginning or that evolved over the years. The fundamental design has not changed,a good thing. Along the way there were subtle tweaks.
