The Project X Loading Zone steel shaft is getting a lot of tour play. Our tester with a 117 mph driver speed has made the Project X LZ 6.5 his gamer in his irons. Now the same brand name is on a 90 gram carbon fiber shaft for those of us with more modest swing speeds. I first noticed the shaft when my 2017 Mizuno fitting cart update arrived. This year’s 90g shaft from Mizuno is the Project X Tour LZ in a 5.0 and 6.0 flex.
What really got my attention was the FlexLoc torsional bands in the mid section of the shaft. These are the same bands used in the Project X LZ driver shafts. In the driver shaft, these band maintain stable torque and hoop strength through a section of the shaft with reduced wall thickness that created the soft midsection loading zone.
To continue reading this section of the review, you must be registered at a higher level membership. Russ
To continue reading this section of the review, you must be registered at a higher level membership. Russ
The Precision Rifle Project X has been with us for a very long time. It somehow got missed when I was in the early days of measuring the vast number of shafts in the market. I noticed its absence when I measured the Project X LZ model. It was originally made by Royal Precision Shaft Company in Connecticut. They were acquired by TrueTemper and the production was moved to Tennessee. You will see many of the best players in the world playing this shaft. Compared to a Dynamic Gold X100, it is slightly softer in the butt and stiffer in the Mid. Unlike the TrueTemper Dynamic Gold, the Project X profile is the same for all weight/stiffness variations. The heavier the shaft the stiffer it gets. The profile remains the same for all flex designations.
This video was sent to me years ago by Dave Eagar, who mentored me when I first began measuring golf shafts. It is a brief history of the Royal Precision Shaft Company and a tour through the Royal Precision facility and manufacturing process. It is presented by Ron Chalmers, then President of Royal Precision with Dave Makarucha of Accra Golf Shafts as camera man. ACCRA was recently acquired by True Sports, parent company of True Temper.
Lets look at the profile:
The measurements are available only to registered readers
My friend and mentor, Dave Tutelman posted this comment in another discussion of the shaft stiffness range metric. I cannot express my thoughts about this new metric any better than he did. “A big advantage of “measuring” shaft stiffness by plotting the EI curve is that you can do mathematical operations like this. You chose a simple one, with simple arithmetic. But it isn’t that hard to use a butt-biased weighting function that will predict frequency, or a tip-biased weighting function to predict trajectory height. The combination of a known EI profile and spreadsheet capabilities means it’s just arithmetic. As we understand shafts better, EI will not become obsolete; just the way we use and display it will.”
True Temper introduced the term “Loading Zone” with the Project X Loading Zone driver shaft a few years ago. I was skeptical at first, having seen other shafts with severe approaches to mid shaft stiffness that did not work for many of my clients. I put a Project X Loading Zone shaft in my own driver and it stayed there for several months. It comes back when I finish play testing a new design. It loads effortlessly and gives my unfixable negative angle of attack the launch I need to buy some distance. I was anxious to see how this approach would be implemented in an iron shaft.
The Project X Loading Zone irons shaft has a rapid loss of stiffness in the mid zone of the shaft. It then runs out in a long stable tip. We have seen some very successful implementations of this design over the last few years. Each with its own particular flavor. But overall in my fitting experience a very playable shaft for a wide range of golfers. This design is easy to load, creates a moderately higher flight but remains workable for the highly skilled golfer. I have seen this design add distance without adding dispersion. As of this writing, the Project X LZ has won 3 PGA events and is being played by close to 20 players between the PGA and Web tours.
The technical discussion and measurements are available only to registered readers
Our player/coach/fitter partner has put these into his gamers for several weeks now. He replaced his Dynamic Gold Tour X100’s with the Project X LZ 6.5. His driver swing speed averages 117. He reports that he loves the feel of the shaft through impact. He gets a little lower flight and a lot more control. His ability to work the ball is improved. His dispersion is tighter. He reports he can trust the shaft to deliver the head consistently to shape his ball flight.
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The Project X HZRDUS Yellow is the third driver shaft in the Hand Crafted family from True Temper. It has a notably soft midsection. This is much like the first in the series, the Project X Loading Zone reviewed earlier. The bend profile is much like the profiles of the 70 gram versions of the Project X Loading Zone model. The soft zones of those shafts moved with weight and flex. I have fit a number of players into the 50 and 60 gram versions of the Loading Zone. Therefore, another shaft with that design grabbed my attention.
I had a chance just recently to test it during a fitting with a single digit handicap player that showed up with a 6 year old driver and a 103 mph golf swing. Working with the Yellow HZRDUS and a TaylorMade M1 we added 2 mph to his swing speed, 3 mph to his ball speed, dropped his spin 800 rpm all of which added 17 yards to his drives. His playing buddies are in for a surprise.
To continue reading this section of the review, you must be registered at a higher level membership. Russ
True Temper introduced the term “Loading Zone” with the 