The Clubhead And The Shaft
Here’s a great way to look at any golf club when you are either analyzing your own game or buying new clubs. Always think of the shaft and the head as two separate independent entities when hitting a golf ball. Each has a job to do. The shafts job is to bring the clubhead into impact the same way every single time with your given swing. The head’s job is to impact the golf ball and send it on its way with the desired trajectory, direction and best distance.
Use MPF Shaft Playability Ratings to find the right shaft for you.
At impact, the clubhead can actually be considered a free wheeling object. It reacts on its own mass and dimensional qualities. For example, on an off center toe hit the clubhead rotates slightly open and about its own center of gravity. It does not rotate around the shaft. The clubheads mass moving at a certain swing speed imparts the energy at impact to move the ball forward. This is what makes the design parameters of the head such as center of gravity location, weight and moment of inertia so important regarding playability.
The golf shaft is bending and twisting during the swing because it is basically a flexible hollow rod. As the golfer swings the club there is a point where the wrists release coming into impact. When this occurs the clubhead is traveling faster than any point along the shaft. This causes the shaft to bend in a forward direction with the clubhead ahead of the shaft as it approaches impact. This forward bending causes the clubhead loft at impact to be increased and the clubhead face angle at impact to be closed slightly. Also, because the clubhead’s center of gravity is not located in line with the axis of the shaft, centrifugal force acting on the shaft causes it to also bend downward thus flattening the lie angle. Oddly enough all this shaft bending action in multiple directions actually causes the clubs length to be shortened.
This is why a club that played just ok can play so much better if the proper golf shaft is fitted to the golfer. Finding the correct combination of clubhead and shaft is very rewarding. Take a look in the shaft section of the GolfWorks catalog and you will be able to find a number of choices in shafts that fit your swing by using the MPF Shaft Playability Ratings. Hundreds of shafts are listed, so simply use the 5 simple steps in the catalog to guide you. Any manufacturer’s clubheads can be selected by playability using the Maltby Playability Factor for Irons guide which is listed on this website. The Maltby Playability Factor for Irons book is also available for the enthusiast who really wants to get into all the playability differences of many of the most popular irons and learn why these differences exist.
So, always think of the shaft and the clubhead as two separate entities in hitting a golf ball. If you look at it this way it will make it much easier to learn how to fit shafts, find the best shaft for you and also select the proper clubhead for your game.
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Recent Comments
If i understand your article correctly, then much of the marketing info on shafts, esp expensive graphite shafts, is just hype. The shaft does not play a significant role in spin, or energy. Is this correct? Just launch angle, control and speed to a certain extent?
mike167, it is usually measured at face center.
Mr. Maltby: Can you please tell me at which point on the sole of an iron the sole width is measured. As the sole generally tapers from narrow at the heel and wider at the toe. Are your listings taken in the center? Thanks mike167
bkstacy, all I can say is that personally, I like 4 degrees between each iron in the set. The 5 and 6 degree thing makes no sense to me.
Ralph, Why in most iron sets do the short irons have 4 degrees of loft between them and the longer irons have only 3? Furthermore many sets I look at have between 5 and 6 degrees between the 7 and the 6 irons? My own thinking is that it would make more sense to have larger gaps between the longer irons because they are harder to hit as consistently thus giving you better distance gaps on average?
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