Titleist Advanced Fitting: High Speed Video Shaft Analysis

RC takes you through a quick snap shot of a driver fitting and explains how simple high speed video can convince a player that a stiffer, or X flex shaft is in order.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• softshaftanalysis

[de02239]

i see what you're saying, but the vid seems weird to me, to call it a club error. if the head of the club "regains" on the swing, like in the video, how it's leading the club at impact, would that necessarily but a too flexible club, or a swing that slows down, on the downward motion so the club is catching up when it shouldnt. I can see a stiffer club helping to correct a bad swing, but would you call this a bad swing instead of too loose a club? at least at first? or not?

[ryancrysler]

@de02239 During impact, the club/shaft rapidly decelerates causing a sort of instability. A particular shaft can enhance better contact with proper flex, weight, torque, length etc...and in this case, something much stiffer. All players have deceleration, it just depends on the rate of acceleration and deceleration that accounts for power.

[couchkilla]

i have a high swing speed 110-125 and i play and x stiff when i swing hard the ball goes very high with lots of spin,

would adding weight to the club head help reduce that?

[ryancrysler]

@couchkilla Not necessarily. Decreasing loft and a possible heavier shaft is the ticket.

[ebarr64]

is there a follow up video yet?

[ryancrysler]

@ebarr64 You know, we never got around to filming a followup but I can attest that the player drove the ball substantially better!

[jaminboy119]

That apparent shaft bend is due the to the way the shutter works on the camera. It's a slot that scans downwards so the pixels at the lower end of the picture are actually captured later that the ones at the top, therefore showing and apparent bend in the shaft.

[bogushavis]

Smithersandburns, you think that momentum from the downswing is throwing the club forward at the ball. It is centripetal force on the head that causes it to bend the shaft forward. de02239 is right about the video looking "wrong", it has been stretched from 4x3 to 16x9 making the bow look bigger. Lambertmt is right about this being a camera effect.

The "after" video would look identical to this regardless of how stiff the new shaft was.

[smithersandburns]

Lambertmt, there is no weight at the end of a long reed of grass, so that is a really bad analogy and the dynamic is totally different.  The weight of the club head causes momentum down there which throws it at the ball and bends the shaft forward.

[smithersandburns]

De02239, it's the shaft that's the problem, not the swing. This happens every time someone swings too fast for their shaft. And a stiffer shaft will not correct a bad swing. You have everything backwards here.