Ralph Maltby

Spotlight Comment

"jim859, here is what I can evaluate from the information you gave me. To start, all the ProForce V2 shafts are great shafts and quite easy to hit. However, these shafts are designed to get the ball well up and into the air. The tips are relatively soft for a hard hitter and one with your swing speed. The V2 is a good shaft to install when you want the bulk of all the players that hit it and to like it. Sort of a middle of the road shaft, but again a great shaft for many golfers. I don't know if the following shaft recommendation will work for you, but a great shaft that combines both super light weight (54 grams) and a stiff tip section designed for very good players is the CT-250 Tour S shaft. This is a shaft that I helped design and frankly, it is a little too much for me to play. It's only $29.95 so it's a good value in a top grade shaft. If you do not want to go super light (a super light shaft will require some weight to be added to the head) I would recommend trying the ProForce 65 or the ProForce 75. Both of these shafts are very firm in the tip and have been used by tour pros. Another shaft to consider that is also used on tour and I think will work very well in your case is the Grafalloy ProLite 3.5S. It is a lighter weight at approximately 65 grams but will help keep the ball flight down. As a side note, you mentioned a launch angle of 16.3 degrees (too much) and a ball spin rate of 3300 RPM (usually too much). This is basically caused by the fact that the loft of a driver head is increased coming into impact because the head is actually bowed ahead of the shaft. The softer the tip of the shaft, the more the loft is increased in this manner. Also, if you are a very late releaser of the wrists thus generating high swing speeds, (sounds like you) the problem is only worsened if the tip of the shaft is not stiff enough for the golfer. I have been thinking and writing here as I went along, so, my first shaft for you to try is the Grafalloy ProLite 3.5S. Keep in mind that there are a number of other great shafts but we need to start somewhere and since I cannot possibly evaluate every shaft made, I go with the ones that I know will work."

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