Why Do the Best players Use the Stiffest Shafts Part I

[Yoda]

A seeker recently asked, "Why do the best Players Use the stiffest Shafts?" Yes, Virginia, there is a reason, and here it is:

The reason is because that is what must be done to prevent an unintended deviation of the Clubface Alignment during Impact. Let me explain.

Do you remember those old pictures of Ben Hogan in the book Power Golf? The shaft was actually bowing backwards! Before people like Homer got involved, that was considered an optical illusion, but it was not.

What is happening is that the the Sweetspot is attempting desperately to maintain its straight-line relationship with the #3 Pressure Point. The Clubshaft -- being the medium of physical attachment between the #3 Pressure Point and the Sweetspot -- is attempting to do the same thing.

Unfortunately, not being part of God's original plan for Centrifugal Pull, the Clubshaft simply cannot keep up. Hence, the "bow" back you see in the old golfing photos (whose slower shutter speeds heightened the effect). And the weaker the Shaft, the more the backwards "bow."

The effect is visually minimized with today's cameras ,but like the fly bending the rail it walks on and the tide in your coffee cup, it is still there. And the Ball knows it.

To understand the effect this bowing has on the Clubface Alignment, take a driver and bend its Shaft forward. Examine the Clubface, and you will see that it is now closed (in relation to its original alignment). Such a distortion during the Impact Interval (in an otherwise sound Stroke) will produce unintentional Hooked Shots. This is exactly what was happening to Sam Snead in his earliest days on Tour. And then Henry Picard gave him the super-stiff shafted 1 1/2 wood that Sam used virtually the rest of his prime playing days.

Larry Nelson represented The Ben Hogan Company for many years and would play only their stiffest shafts. We talked about this one day, and he told me that he had just visited Ben in his Ft. Worth offices, and that he likewise preferred the stiffest shafts.

When I asked Larry how stiff Hogan said he wanted those shafts, he replied:

"Somewhere between a fence post and a telephone pole."

Now, I might add that the weaker shafts are often correctly prescribed for the average player. Unfortunately, the reason they are prescribed is typically for "more whip," i.e., greater ClubheadSpeed. This, of course, is simply wrong. Again, the Sweetspot is attempting to maintain its straight-line centrifugal pull relationship with the #3 Pressure Point, and a weak shaft contributes nothing to this process.

Nevertheless, there are two reasons why weak Shafts and weak Players are made for each other. First, because of the weak Player's greater tendency towards Throwaway, the additional flex provided by the weaker shaft means there is just that much more Shaft stress that must be lost before the Clubhead Lag is completely dissipated. Hence, the weaker shaft makes for a more forgiving Club. Secondly, the weaker Shaft's unintentional hooking of the Clubface alignment can be extremely helpful for average players. Providing of course, that they are slicers -- which, not coincidentally, most are.

Hope this has cleared the fog.

[Yoda]

Thanks for re-posting this, Kevin. As has been previously explained to Archive readers, our original import program produced run-on words and sentences in places, making posts sometimes a challenge to read. That was the case here, so I manually corrected the original import errors.