Mitsubishi Diamana TB Golf Shaft Review

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Mitsubishi Diamana TB Series Driver Shaft Review

By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Club Maker
The Highlands Performance Golf Center, Carrollton Texas 
Golf Digest Certified America’s 100 Best Club Fitter

The venerable Diamana Blue Board is now in its 5th generation, The 2021 Diamana TB series. Rather the reading me talk about what is new, just watch this video from Mitsubishi Chemical. 

The Diamana Blue defines the most popular shaft archetype, a soft mid profile. This archetype is available from virtually every driver shaft company. Many brands produce exact copies and many other produce variations of the archetype. The EI profiles of the Diamana TB Series are not much different than the 4th generation BF series. What is noticeably different are manufacturing tolerances. Mitsubishi Chemical is vertically integrated. They make their own fiber, resin and prepreg. That gives them full control over design and manufacturing. The TB series is available in 21 versions from 40 to 80 grams and in flex designations from R2 to TX. I validated what they claim, there is very little variance in Butt diameter and balance through the matrix of shafts. That makes life easy for the fitting technician.

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Russ

Project X Loading Zone Iron Shafts

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Project X LZ Iron Shaft Review

By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Club Maker
The Golf Center at the Highlands, Carrollton Texas

I_PXLZ_ImageTrue 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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Russ

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Mitsubishi Fubuki J Golf Shaft

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Mitsubishi Fubuki J Driver Shaft

By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Club Maker
The Golf Center at the Highlands, Carrollton Texas

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The fourth generation Fubuki, the Fubuki J, released to Mitsubishi Golf Club Fitters in June of 2014. It is still in play, the unique pattern was hard to miss in the final round of the 2016 Open. The Fubuki J is an update of the second generation Fubuki, the Fubuki Alpha. I see the Fubuki family as two different profiles and discussed them in an earlier article. Here is a quick overview of the two profiles.

MRC_Fubuki_TourvsK The original Fubuki Tour and the Fubuki K,introduced a few years later, are very much like the Diamana White and the second generation White, the ‘ahina. The third generation White, the Diamana ‘W” series is a different profile. The Fubuki Tour was discontinued in 2014. The Fubuki K is still in the product line.
MRC_Fubuki_AvsJThe second generation Fubuki Alpha and the fourth generation Fubuki J are also the same profile. They similar yet subtly different than the Diamana ‘ilima and the KuroKage Proto TINI. The differences make these unique designs that must be tested to find your best fit.

 

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Russ

Aldila Rogue I/O Golf Shaft Review

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Aldila Rogue 110 MSI I/O Driver Shafts

By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Club Maker
The Golf Center at the Highlands, Carrollton Texas

Rogue_IO_ImageIOTipLogoThe Aldila Rogue I/O is an update the the Rogue Silver. The tip section of the shaft has a notation, RIP I/O. The tip section of the Rogue I/o is made with Aldila’s RIP technology. RIP (Reverse Interlaminar Placement) means some of the bias wraps are moved from the core of the shaft to the outer wall. Outer layers of material exert a greater influence on tube performance than inner layers. The bias (angular) wraps of material create torsional and hoop strength in a tube. Moving those layers to the exterior of the shaft generally means lower torque and higher hoop strength. In the Rogue I/O the torque and hoop strength of the original Rogue Silver shafts are matched in the Rogue Silver RIP in a 5 to 9 gram lighter shaft.

The technical discussion and measurements are available only to registered readers

- Golf Professional Notes -

Dynamic Gold AMT – Tour Issue – Golf Shaft Review

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Dynamic Gold AMT Iron Shafts

By Russ Ryden and Mark Maness

By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Club Maker
The Golf Center at the Highlands, Carrollton Texas

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AMT stands for Ascending Mass Technology. It is not a new concept. Ping has had ascending weight shafts for many years. Nippon 999’s were ascending. Aerotech Players Spec were ascending. If you are not a club maker you probably have not been exposed to the concept. Briefly, there are primarily two kinds of shafts; constant weight tapers and parallel’s. Constant weight tapers are made to length in the factory and the shafts in the set are all the same weight even though they are different lengths. Parallels are made to one length in the factory. The club maker cuts them to the length needed for the club he is building. As they are cut shorter they weigh less. The shafts in a set are lighter in the short irons than in the long irons.  I wrote an article about this some years ago in the technical stuff section of this site; Constant Weight vs Parallel Iron Shafts.

Iron heads get heavier as the the numbers get higher. The 4 iron head is heavier than the 3 iron, the 5 iron is heavier than the 4 iron and so on down to the gap wedge. In sets made of parallel shafts, the shafts get lighter while the head gets heavier. In sets made from constant weight shafts, the shafts are the same weight while the heads get heavier. In ASCENDING WEIGHT sets, the shafts get heavier as the heads get heavier. This has always been an attraction the club builders that create MOI, Moment of Inertia, matched sets.

The technical discussion, measurements and testing results are available only to registered readers

This is a great step forward in iron shaft technology. Keep it coming, True Temper, the club building community has waited a long time for a set of iron shafts like this!

Mitsubishi KuroKage XM Driver Shaft Review

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Mitsubishi KuroKage XM Driver

By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Club Maker
The Golf Center at the Highlands, Carrollton Texas

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Some shafts are simply too good to change. The Mitsubishi KuroKage Proto TiNi is one such shaft. The new KuroKage XM is the KuroKage Proto with new graphics and a wider range of weights. It is promoted as a mid launch – mid spin shaft. I view launch and spin as a propensity not an absolute. Your angle of attack, the club head loft,  where you strike and how the shaft, interacting with your loading and release, deliver the head are all part of the launch and spin equation. The XM, in the right hands, is not what I would define as mid launch / mid spin. But, shaft companies have to fill in those words for the golfing public.

The Mitsubishi website has always presented shaft EI graphics alongside their verbal descriptions. If you spend years looking at those charts and testing them on a wide range of golfers they being to have meaning. I view the difference between the KuroKage XM and the KuroKage XT as more feel related than launch. The XT has a stiffness bump low mid. That bump does contribute to a lower launch, but more important, gives a better sense of tip stability to a hard swinging late release golfer.

The technical discussion, measurements and testing results are available only to registered readers

To continue reading this section of the review, you must be registered at a higher level membership.
Russ