 |
How to Choose Proper Shaft Flex
The shaft flex can influence your ball flight. But which flex should you choose?
How will it Influence Your Shots
Flex is not stiff enough for you:
If the shaft flex is too soft for you, the shots will go too high. You will also hook it or block it to the right with this type of shaft.
Flex is too stiff
Golfers tend to slice the ball with the flex that is too stiff for them. It makes it harder to increase clubhead speed, so they might try to overswing to compensate.
Generally, if you have faster clubhead speed, you should use stiff shaft rather than regular shaft.
But it really depends on your swing type.
Jack Nicklaus had a fast clubhead speed but didn't like extra stiff shaft. He said he never was able to play well with extra stiff shaft.
When he won the US open, he was using the shaft that is between stiff and regular flex. He said if the shaft is too stiff, you couldn't feel the clubhead and would start to swing only with his arms and hands.
Of course, the technology is a lot different nowadays, but we can learn a lot from it.
If you pick a regular shaft, you might feel like you admitted having slower swing speed than other golfers.
But by choosing the correct shaft flex, you might gain more clubhead speed.
I don't prefer the shaft that's too stiff for me either.
Like Jack Nicklaus said, the flex that's too stiff will not let me feel the weight of my clubhead. So I try to avoid having shaft that's too stiff for me.