Does shaft flex make a difference i'm going to find out in this video my name's rick shields i'm down here at quest golf academy if you like this video hit that like button if you're new to my channel subscribe. And don't forget to comment down below and also maybe even share this around with your friends as well so i've got four shafts all identical apart from the flex and a little bit of the weight difference in each of the shafts i went to pick these up from my good friend nick hibbs at torx golf great facility and he gave me four the same shafts exactly the same length but with a flex which is seniors flex regular flex stiff. And extra stiff flex and i've had them covered and i've had them numbered by somebody that was not me. So i don't know what shaft is what more. For the importance is i don't want to have a preconception of the shaft before i actually hit it i'm going to use the same head. For this test which is the mizuno st 180 because the shafts are in mizuno setting. And i'm going to put it in nine. And a half degrees test on gc quad with pro v1s i'm gonna hit five with each shaft and then.
We'll have a look at the numbers and we can see if i could tell a difference. And whether actually the stats tell us there's much of a difference typically with a shaft that's too soft the the shaft will kick up a little bit. And typically point the ball a little bit further left pointing the head sorry a little bit further left and increase the spin and the shaft that is too stiff will go a little bit further right. And not particularly high enough it'll come out a little bit lower right i'm gonna give you a little bit of a guide as well at what kind of swing speeds each shaft should be looking for as you as a golfer as well let's get going shaft number one i'm gonna hit five shots with each. And then.
We'll have a look at the data so shaft number one okay. So that is five with shaft one i don't think i'm gonna know what it is until i test the others. But that was it felt okay. So next.
Up shaft number two okay. So that's five done with shaft two i guess i'd say it's a little bit softer than shaft number one let's move into shaft three next.
Okay. So shaft number three [Music] and finally shaft number four [Music] very interesting right that's all five done that one felt the worst out of the four um i'm gonna give you my predictions and then.
We have a look at the data my predictions shaft one stiff shaft two regular shaft three extra stiff shaft four a flex or senior flex let's reveal and have a look at the data okay. So i've got all the data together just to recap i felt like number one was stiff number two was regular number three was extra stiffer number four was the a flex the one i'm most certain about was probably shaft number four. So let's reveal that one first okay. So shaft number four i don't know the answers to these just as a bit of a caveat regular ah right that's confused me it's a regular with shaft four i was convinced that was gonna be the softest okay. So the next.
One that i felt i was confident with was shaft number three let's see i thought this was extra stiff. And it is extra stiff flex x got one right now i thought one was stiff now this is this has scared me because if this isn't stiff. And it was stiff flex stiff. So the one that kind of shocked me a little bit was shaft two i thought this was regular shaft number two. And now we know this is actually the a flex which is the seniors flex. So shaft number two flex a you can just about make it out shaft flex a if ever a test demonstrates how little difference a shaft makes it's this to the performance this is incredible looking at the data. So from feel yes i got the a. And the regular the wrong way round probably easy mistake to make they are the same weights. But i got those two mixed round i got the stiff and the extra stiff correct the data is unbelievable when i was hitting the shots apart from the feel. And and the the way i was hitting it i was really struggling to see any difference in performance of flight. And that is backed up enormously through the data. So as you can see on screen i'm going to change the shaft one two three. And four now to their respective shaft flexes i mean that is unbelievably similar there is there is almost are we talking you know we're talking three yards of carry distance of any of the shafts the extra stiff. For me did come slightly out on top on distance. And direction it was the straightest. And it was the longest with the lowest spin characteristic which i'd probably expect. So that was the extra stiff which is the shaft i normally use. So that kind of makes quite a lot of sense and i did guess it was the extra stiff as well. But it was also the heaviest out the four shafts. So was it the heaviness. Or the flex that could tell i would probably say a combination of both the a flex as a guide a flex senior flex would be swing speeds of 80 to 85 miles per hour as a guide i'm swinging at 110 miles per hour and i still managed to carry the ball 277 with 2 000 spin now granted it was the shaft that caused me to hit it furthest to the left which again makes a little bit of sense with the shaft being a bit more flexible. But that is staggering between a a swing speed guide of 80 to 85 an x a swing speed guide between 105 plus we're seeing three yards of distance hardly no difference in spin no difference in ball speed in fact the a gave me a little bit faster ball speed the way i hit it stiff. And reg very very similar didn't see a single bit of difference between stiff and reg at all it just kind of shows and it highlights yes there are lots of elements to a golf club there are lots. And lots of elements head grip shaft but don't get bogged down into thinking shaft is everything as. For not test shows i could feel the difference in the shafts definitely apart from like say reggae a reagan a regular in a flex the numbers i've not done anything for me it's astonishing it's astonishing to see that it really is it just goes to highlight you know who is regulating the shaft flexes who's telling us that these shaft flexes are a rag stiff extra stiff who's kind of giving us that information because sometimes you you question it whether it's actually making much of a difference at all do yourself a favor don't get bogged down in shaft flexes don't get bogged down in loads of different shafts get one that you like the feel of. And play with it and enjoy it that's the trick it really is you might at the top highest of the highest at the highest level yes there'll be a difference of shaft between the top top players in the world. But even i reckon if you asked those guys and lined up four shafts that were identical they would probably get something similar numbers to these thanks. For watching guys hopefully you enjoyed the video if you did smash that like button subscribe to channel if you're brand new if you've not. Yet already hit the bell icon so you don't miss a single video and that was really interesting a very interesting to test. And one that i'm glad i did. And one hopefully you're gonna learn from that shaft isn't everything thanks for watching guys stay tuned lots more to come we'll see you next.
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