What's new for 1999?
By Al Taylor
While at the GCA convention in Austin, I attended several seminars
conducted by some of the shaft manufacturers. Here are some notes
on
these lectures.
Big Butt shafts are on the way down if not out completely.
This is due
to a lack of interest. Some co's. will slowly diminish their
output,
others will just quit making them.
Apollo has a new steel shaft coming out. Currently only for
irons but
the woods will follow. It has a hump or bulge or bubble??? about
10"
from the tip. Comes in various flexes, although they only had
"R"
available at the show. I was half asleep when they talked about
it so
don't recall the specs etc. Apollo Golf's parent company, Coyote
sports
has purchased Unifiber and they will now make Apollo's graphite
shafts.
Three shaft manufacturers are coming out with similar type
graphite
shafts. First of all they are all frequency matched, but only
Fenwick
indicates licensing from FM. Second, they are all precut to specific
club lengths. Third, they are all constant weights throughout
the set.
Let's do them one at a time.
Aldila is coming out with theirTGi shafts. The TGi's are a
constant
weight shaft with progressively stiffer tips. They are pre cut
to
length and are available in either taper or parallel tip. They
call
their launch profile low-mid. The aldila freq methodology: butt
clamp
at 6.25" head weight is given in their chart.
The TGi 100 "R"; weight = 100g, freq. 275-335, torque
2.0-2.5
The TGi 100 "S"; weight = 102 g, freq 290-352, torque
2.0-2.5.
The TGi 120 "S"; weight = 117g, freq. 290-352, torque
2.0-2.5
The TGi 120 "X"; weight = 119g, freq. 300-360, torque
1.3-1.8
Don't recall the price point but think they are trying for ~$15.
They
also have the TGw 60,70,80, and 90 for woods. The numbers correlate
to
the weights and the torque also goes down a bit as the weight
goes up.
Grafalloy has a similar club called the ProLogic. These also
are
constant weighted shafts and are precut to club length. They
claim a
+/- 2 cpm They come with pre prepped tips and are come in "attractive,
easy to display packaging".
Prologic "R"; weight = 71g, freq. raw = 320-400, finished
= 285-325,
torque 3.0-3.8
Prologic "S"; weight = 73g, freq. raw = 330-410, finished
= 295-335,
torque 2.9-3.7
They also want to keep the price in the mid teens. No wood shafts
available now.
Their finished frequency method is 51/8" butt clamp, 1"
hosel depth, 52
gram grip, and various club lengths and head weights from their
charts.
I thought Fenwick was coming out with a shaft, similar to Aldila
and
Grafalloy, as above, but their brochure and my notes don't confirm
that. Fenwick has entered into an agreement with Royal Precision
to
license their freq. matching system. Fenwick will now offer
frequency
matched graphite shafts. The new line is called the new World
Class and
has three basic shafts. The Tour, which will be a high end shaft,
the
Ultra lite which she says is the best value vs performance and
the Eagle
which will be their economy shaft. They don't have the price
fixed yet,
but thinks the ultra lite might be around $20. She said that
Fenwick is
going to be lowering it's prices on some models to become more
competitive in the market. My understanding is that they will
be sold
in sets just like the Rifles are. I also understand, but can't
find in
the brochures or my notes that some of the shafts will have the
same
"tour flighting" characteristics (sliding flex points)
as the tour
flighted Rifles do. I also mentioned to her my idea of them selling
a
bunch of 5 iron demo shafts. I.e.. a set of 5 irons with the
different
flexes, 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 etc. so we could make up test clubs for
fitting
and testing. She thought that it was a good idea and would try
to put
something together.
True Temper didn't seem to have anything revolutionary coming
out, but
their talk was it's usual excellence and it's usual heavy in techy
stuff.
Apache is not one of Golfsmith's suppliers, so they weren't
there. I
did receive an email from them explaining their new method of
measuring
and rating shafts. I read it twice and it sounds interesting,
but I
don't think I yet understand it. The picture of their machine
looks
like, dare I say it?, a spine finder. Oh me am I going to hear
about
that statement. I assume we will hear more about this new method
soon.
Golfsmith is currently testing a shaft's frequency by butt,
tip, zone A
and zone B. They have some preliminary data that indicates we
don't
really know all we should when we freq a shaft using our current
method. I won't try to repeat the stuff from their data sheets,
but I
am sure it will be available somewhere soon. They are finding
some odd
results when testing shafts of different stiffness' and flex points.
Some of the numbers seem to be the opposite from what one would
expect.
Anyway, expect all sorts of neat stuff from them in the near future.