Mitsubishi Diamana WB Golf Shaft Review

The Diamana WB returns the white board profile closer the the first few generations than I saw is the last version, the Diamana W. I see a profile that is almost identical to the Tensei Pro White 1K.

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Russ

UST Mamiya V2 ProForce Driver Shaft Review

UST V2 ProForce & ProForce HL Driver Shaft Review

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

I have limited access to UST shafts as they do not provide review samples. This review is of the shafts available as a custom shaft selection from TaylorMade. The Proforce shaft has an interesting history. A lunch meeting of UST management after a tour win in the 90’s reflected on how little attention the bland color of the shaft received. The engineer at the table picked up a jar of mustard and declared he would fix the problem, he would paint them mustard color. The tour rep was horrified with the idea. Over his objection, he was handed mustard colored shafts. Soon after, Jose Maria Olazabal won the 1999 Masters with the Proforce Gold golf shaft. As a result UST could not make them fast enough for the tour rep to hand out on tour. I have verified this story from three of the four that were at that lunch. It is a colorful (pun intended) story about the history of golf shaft marketing. It is now 24 years later and the ProForce shaft is still with us. It has gone through updates to deal with driver head design and shape. It remains a viable design imitated by many shaft companies.

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Russ

Fujikura Ventus Blue TR VeloCore Golf Shaft Review

Fujikura Ventus Blue TR VeloCore Golf Shaft Review

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

The Fujikura Ventus Blue TR adds a woven fabric to the shaft reducing hoop deformation where the thin walls of a driver shaft collapse. I have seen a number of woven materials in this area over the years. There have been many attempts to stabilize driver shafts were the wall thickness is thin. The  effectiveness of this reinforcement can be seen by  measuring hoop deformation. Only recently have materials been developed that have a measurable effect on reducing hoop deformation. The first I recall was the carbon kevlar weave used in the Mitsubishi Tensei driver shafts.

When I first got interested in golf shaft technology Fujikura was promoting the Speeder shafts as controlling hoop deformation. I did a quick check of and old 757 and a 553 and did not see the hoop deformation decreases I currently see from woven carbon which Fujikura calls TOW. This can be seen across all weights but is especially pronounced in lighter weigh shafts. In heavier shafts, 70g and 80g, the weave control of hoop deformation is slight. But in light shafts, 50g for example, it is pronounced. The lighter weight models have significantly less material in the butt and the wall thickness is so thin, hoop deformation is pronounced.  

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Russ

Fujikura Ventus Red TR VeloCore Golf Shaft Review

Fujikura Ventus Red TR VeloCore Golf Shaft Review

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

The Fujikura Ventus Red TR VeloCore bears the same relationship too the Ventus Red VeloCore without TR as do the Ventus Blue models. I wrote an extensive discussion of the TOW weave in the review of the Fujikura Ventus Blue TR so I will not repeat it here.

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Russ

Fujikura Ventus Black TR VeloCore Golf Shaft Review

Fujikura Ventus Black TR VeloCore Golf Shaft Review

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

The Fujikura Ventus Black TR VeloCore bears the same relationship to the Ventus Black VeloCore without TR as do the Ventus Blue models. I wrote an extensive discussion of the TOW weave in the review of the Fujikura Ventus Blue TR so I will not repeat it here.

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Russ

Fujikura Ventus Blue Velocore Driver Shaft Review

Fujikura Ventus Blue VeloCore Golf Shaft Review

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

The Fujikura Ventus model introduced VeloCore last year. It took some time before I acquired a comprehensive array of the shafts to measure. The current count on their website is 40 models. It takes me 20 minutes to do a full set of measurements of a shaft. To measure the full matrix of 40 shafts is a few days work in the shop. This and the next few reviews cover representative samples of the Ventus VeloCore driver shafts.

Lets start with what Fujikura tells us on their website and then look at how that translates into what the measurements so us.

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Russ