Graphite Design Tour AD UB Shaft Review

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Graphite Design Tour AD UB 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 Graphite Design Tour AD UB is the second shaft from Graphite Design to use Torayca ® M40X pre-preg. Torayca ® M40X has both high strength and does not deform when loaded. Tensile Modulus is the mechanical property the relates force to deformation. The material in the UB does not elongate when loaded. In a golf shaft, the energy applied is not lost to elongation. It is stored in the shaft and theoretically is released at impact resulting in higher ball speeds.

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Russ

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

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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.

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

Fujikura Speeder Tour Spec Golf Shaft Review

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Fujikura Speeder Evolution Tour SpecDriver Shaft

Russ Ryden, Golf Digest America’s 100 Best Clubfitter
Fit2Score, Dallas Fort Worth, Texas

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Fujikura offers a Tour Spec version of most model. The Speeder Evolution Tour Spec model is different enough from the Speeder 757 that it deserved a separate review. This shaft is one of the standard option in the 2015 TaylorMade R15 driver. It is manufactured by Sino in China unlike the Speeder which is made in Japan.

The technical discussion and measurements are available only to registered readers

Speeder15TS_DeflectLoadsHowever it is not that easy to forecast how a shaft will launch in your hands. In this illustration the softest of the Speeder Evolution Tour Spec, the 661S to the 757X are subjected to progressively heavier loads. You can see how much more the 661S bends than the 757X. And, how the intersection of the two curves moves under load. The launch of a shaft is a function of how you load it.

The objective of the professional fitter is to find that combination of shaft profile, weight and stiffness that creates the tightest impact pattern, centered on the club face. Then to the degree possible, fine tune your launch with close variations of profile, weight and flex. Doing so is enhanced by how much your fitter understands the golf shafts he is using.