Project X IO Golf Shaft Review

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Project X IO Golf Iron 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 Project X IO was released in 2020 with the Project X LS and shares the new True Temper look of a matte brushed chrome finish. It is in the same weight range as the discontinued Project X PXi but has a different EI profile. It is lighter and has a low tip to butt stiffness ratio to promote a higher launch.

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Russ

Grafalloy Prolaunch SuperCharged Golf Shaft Review

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Grafalloy Prolaunch Supercharged Drive Shafts

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 Grafalloy Prolaunch Blue and Red Supercharged drive shafts are 2015 additions to the ProLaunch product line. They are $60 shafts with radial quality of 98.3% with a standard deviation of 0.6%. If you have not been reading this site and looking the radial quality numbers I will translate this for you, one word, impressive. Shaft to shaft consistency of the review sample profiles was equally impressive. I did not think a $60 shaft would get my attention. I was wrong.

If the $300 to $500 high end works of shaft art technology are not in your budget, try the Grafalloy Prolaunch Supercharged in your driver. You are going to give up some hoop stiffness and might experience some ovalizing. If that is a problem you can always get a similar design in the Project X LZ for around $350. The SuperCharged Prolaunch has a similar design to the handcrafted Project X LZ shaft, an active midsection. Does this design work for you? If you are not close to a fitter that can let you test the Project X LZ you can try a low cost test on your own with the ProLaunch Supercharged shafts.

The Blue is a higher launch design, the Red a lower launch.  To my eyes they are much the same profile. The Red is heavier and stiffer. The bend point is higher. Those two properties are going to lower launch. This is not really complicated stuff to understand. Stiffer is lower for any particular golfer. Find the stiffness you feel you can load. Then, going a little softer or stiffer will move the launch up or down.
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Look at the balance in this chart. These shaft are counterweighted to restore club balance when using the current generation of heavy driver heads. This is not seen at this price point.

This profile, a softer active midsection is gaining traction with the shaft companies. With this set of profiles, this particular pattern got my attention. Soft midsections are among the most popular shafts in the business. Exaggerated soft is a design I am beginning to see from a lot of shaft companies. it looks like one needs to go in my bag.

Grafalloy ProLaunch Golf Shaft Review

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Grafalloy ProLaunch Driver Shafts

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

GrafalloyBlueRedImages
The Grafalloy Prolaunch is not a new design, it has been with us for a long time. It got a new paint job this year. As companies get better at making shafts, the quality and consistency of products gets better. What I saw in measuring a the $40 ProLaunch Blue and Red was beyond what I expected. Radial consistency was 98.9% with a 0.8% standard deviation. These shafts are round and will get no benefit from alignment. And the bend profiles were also consistent. There were no outliers in the 10 shafts I measured. That is not always the case, and it is rarely the case with a $40 shaft. I am impressed.

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Beginning with this review I am introducing a new method for rating shaft stiffness. The method comes from inside one of the major club companies that has an EI measuring instrument. They use area under the EI curve to compare shaft to shaft stiffness. Frequency measured at the butt of a shaft works on shafts with the same bend profiles. When shafts have different bend profiles butt frequency does not give an accurate measurement. Have you ever heard or said, ‘this shaft plays softer (or harder) than it measures. Did it ever occur to you that you were basically saying the measurement system you were using does not work?

Using area under the EI curve takes into account every point of the shaft. The correlation with deflection measurements is incredibly high. It appears that we have stumbled on a shaft stiffness rating system that actually works.

Grafalloy rates the launch of the Blue as higher than the Red. Look at the chart above and you will see that with the same stiffness rating the Red deflects less than the Blue. The launch rating given by Grafalloy is validated. The more expensive, $80 Grafalloy Blue is also rated low launch and is validated by the deflection numbers. It has a stiffer tip, pushing the kick point up the shaft. Radial quality of the Grafalloy Blue, 99.6% with a standard deviation of 0.5%. Translation, great quality and consistency and a notification to the shaft business that quality is possible in affordable products.

Matrix Program F15 Iron Shaft Review

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Iron Golf Shafts – Matrix Program F15

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

ProgramF15Image
The Matrix Program iron shaft has been with us for some time. The 2015 Matrix Program F15 is a subtle evolution of what has been a very successful shaft. Matrix, acting on club builder input, creating balance points in this version of the Program that will easily build into D2-D3 swing weights. The earlier Program shafts were white. If you had tested the Program and liked it, as many did, you lived with the white. The change to a neutral color, a shiny silver gray, removes an entry barrier for many.

The Matrix Program F15 is available in three weights, 80, 95 and 125 grams. As is typical with most shafts, weight and stiffness are interrelated. One thing you will notice when handling this shaft is the wall thickness. In carbon fiber tubes, wall thickness creates hoop stiffness and torsional rigidity. The Program F15 has both, the torque numbers are as low as it gets, and the hoop stiffness negates any possible ovalizing during the golf swing. That means the head is going to follow your hands. When you square off you hands the head is going to follow. The impact wave coming up the shaft is solid thud.

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Russ

KBS Tour 105 Golf Shaft Review

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Iron Golf Shafts – KBS TOUR 105

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 KBS Tour 105 Constant Weight Taper released in August 2015. The label looks much like the KBS 105 Parallel that is offered in the 2015 Taylor Made RSi irons, the shaft is not. The KBS Tour Taper 105 is generally stiffer and has a firmer tip than the TaylorMade only KBS 105 Parallel Shaft.

My fitting experience has taught me that the 105 to 115 gram weight range is the best fit for most amateur golfers. My understanding from the tour fitters is that this range is rapidly gaining traction among professional players as well. The KBS Tour iron shaft profile is not new. It is available in two 90 gram versions and the ‘standard’ version that ranges from a 110 gram R to a 130 gram X in 5 steps, 5 gram increments. The Tour 105 overlaps that range as seen in the table below. It comes in 5 gram increments, a 108 gram R, a 111 gram S and a 117 gram X. The 111 and 117 are much the same as the same weight KBS Tour shafts.

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

Now look closely at the difference between the profiles of the short and long irons in the two sets. You will see a flatter short iron vs long iron in the C Taper profiles than in the Tour set. This is what is referred to as a flighted set. Neither set is intentionally flighted, but one would expect the CTaper Set to deliver lower, more piercing short iron trajectories than the Tour set. And this is precisely why it is important to know set profiles not just 6 irons when fitting irons. The KBS Tour model will flight high throughout the set while the C Taper will offer some assistance in launching the long irons while keeping the short iron trajectories lower. Which is best is simply a function of your individual style. Knowing the profiles, your fitter can match you to the iron set that enhances your game.

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

Fuikura SIX Driver Shaft Review

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Fujikura SIX DRIVER SHAFTS

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

FujiSix_ImageThe Fujikura SIX is an update and new release of a past Fujikura design. I did not know the original shaft so I cannot comment on the similarity. This short video will give you the history of the design.

As mentioned in the video, it is a classic design. A slightly soft mid in relation to tip and butt. As you noticed in the video, the term soft causes most in the shaft business to flinch. Perhaps some day I will learn to say stiff tip stiff butt rather than soft mid. I start most fittings with a soft mid shaft, it fits most players so it is no wonder this shaft was once popular on tour.

The technical discussion and measurements are available only to registered readers