It's All About the Shaft?

It's quite common to hear that a good club is all about the shaft. Once you get the shaft right you don't really need to worry much about the head. Recently I decided to put this to the test. I took three Callaway heads, Razr Fit Xtreme, X Hot Pro and X Hot and hit some drives with the same Grafalloy Pro Launch Red shaft in each head.

X-Hot, X-Hot Pro, Razr Fit Xtreme

X-Hot, X-Hot Pro, Razr Fit Xtreme

Grafalloy Pro Launch Red

I hit 12 balls, Pro V1 2011 model, with each driver and recorded the results on a Trackman 111 launch monitor. It was a calm summer's evening with no wind to speak of and temperatures around 20 degrees C. The club and ball numbers that are of interest are Club head speed, ball speed, carry, total distance, distance from target line, launch angle, spin rate, height, club path, face to path.

Club Specifications

The specifications of each club were as follows

Club	Length	Loft	Flex(cpm)	Head weight(g)	Swing Weight
X-Hot	45.875	9.5	258	187.5	D2
X-Hot Pro	45.875	9.5	256	188.6	D3
Razr Fit Xtreme	45.875	9.5	252	194.7	D6

Note, the X Hot driver was the 10.5 degree model but the Opti Fit hosel was set to O to bring the loft to 9.5 degrees.

It can be seen that the head makes a difference to the shaft. The exact same shaft was fitted in each club but the clubs come out with different flexes. The heavier heads Razr Fit and X Hot Pro make the shaft flex a little softer than the X Hot, 6 cpms difference between Razr Fit and X Hot which is the equivalent of half a flex.

Results

Club	Club Speed	Ball Speed	Launch Angle	Carry	Total Distance	Spin Rate	Distance from Target Line	Height	Club Path	Face to Path
X Hot	107.6	155.9	8.3	242.1	265.8	2827	67.1	73.3	1.6	-4.7
X Hot Pro	105.7	153.4	11.4	242.3	265.5	2393	28.97	84.6	-1.4	0.4
Razr Fit	104.7	152.9	10.9	242	260.8	2818	32.89	86.5	-1.4	0.3

 
We can see different results with each of the heads.

The main similarity is the carries were all around 242 yards on average.

Noteworthy is the extra speed with the X Hot which is slightly lighter than the others leading to the extra club speed. The face to path is 4.7 degrees to the left, again this is not surprising as the X Hot has a weight bias in the heel to promote a right to left trajectory. All the shots with the X Hot went left and averaged 67.1 feet left of target. It had a lower than expected average height, 73.3 feet, this was due to the low hooking flight caused by the heel weight bias.

The X Hot Pro has a club head weighting designed to lower spin and promote a left to right flight. We can see from the results the spin is the lowest. The dispersion of the shots were mainly to the right of the target going from 19 feet left to 74.5 feet right with only two shots to the left of the target. Very different to the X Hot, where all shots were to the left. Also the total distance from the X Hot Pro is almost identical to the X Hot, 265.5 to 265.8, despite the higher ball speed from the X Hot. The X Hot Pro's lower spin (2393) encourages more roll.

The Razr Fit Xtreme created much more neutral results then the other two drivers with equal number of drives missing right and left of the target from 59.7 left to 64.6 right averaging 32.89 feet from target. It also had more drives (4) within 10 feet of the target. Ball and club speed are down due to the slightly heavier head reducing speed. It still produced a good carry but overall distance was down due to slightly higher spin rates producing a higher landing angle and less run.

Conclusion

We can see different heads produce different results. Different heads can even alter the playing characteristic of a shaft. For the 3 Callaway heads, the X-Hot gives higher balls speed while also promoting a right to left flight. The X Hot Pro gives high ball speeds, more penetrating flights while also promoting a left to right flight. The Razr Fit Xtreme gives more adjustability in the head and excellent accuracy with good ball speeds.

So not only is the shaft important, the head and head design is just as important. Next time you hear, 'It's all about the shaft', what they should say is it's all about the complete club with neither the head nor the shaft being more important than the other. So if you like the feel of a shaft you should still try it in a few heads to see how they perform with it. Try before you buy!! Even better get fitted before you buy!!

Any questions or comments are welcome.