The master who makes my clubs and sees my swing runs a shop called Hummingbird Sporte in Oyabe, Yokosuka.
How did you come to create a club with a soft shaft that makes you faint in agony?
I have been asked this many times, so I would like to share it with you.
After this article, please listen to my experience weekly.
more than 20 years ago,
It's the era of haunted products like Callaway's Big Bertha and Seiko's S Yard.
The master ordered a shaft from a customer and replaced it.
When I ask customers about their condition after re-shafting, most people say,
He thanked me with compliments, saying, "That's good. He's gotten better."
However, many customers who have shafted like that do it within a few months or even half a year.
A new club replaced me.
My master couldn't make sense of it.
At that time, I came across Fujikura's speeder.
There were 11 different hardness variations, so we finished all the clubs with precisely the same head (including weight), the same length, and the exact grip and had close to 100 people hit them over about two months.
Some were young; some were old. There were single-handicappers, some with over 30 years of golf experience and others just starting.
At the same time, we also measured the head speed, so it seems that there were various people with head speeds of over 50 to people in the 30s, but the average was around 40.
Surprisingly, nearly 90% of the customers who had him do the test said that among the 11 types.
The result was that the softest ball was the easiest to hit and had the longest distance.
The hardest one has a frequency of 275 CPM
The softest one has a frequency of 230 CPM
Significant manufacturers do not publish this kind of information even if they know.
I think this is excellent data.
In particular, he said that anyone with a hardness exceeding 255cpm
It seems that he did not say, "This is good! Buy this!"
Most (self-proclaimed) advanced players, after looking at the shaft hardness data,
"This is too soft for me" is a constant.
Does being honest about "too stiff for me" matter?
(It turned out to be a bit of a dominant emotional remark 😅)
When I used this club, the person who accompanied me tried to use the squishy shaft.
While twisting, almost the same line as "What is this?"
Some of them have even advised me, "You're too soft! You're younger than me."
Even if you are with me again on another occasion and have forgotten my face and name,
It seems that the club is the one who remembers, "Ah! That funyafunya club person?"
Return to the test results.
The master did not tell the subjects any hardness data, which felt stiff and soft.
Nevertheless, almost all the testers evaluated it.
as a result
"I feel the actual hardness softer as it is harder,
The softer things felt harder."
More than half of the evaluations.
Then my master started making clubs with super-heavy heads on soft shafts. It kept escalating.
As for putters, I started to design and sell prototypes based on the basic idea that "the less you move the putters, the less they move."
(The putter is also recommended. It became a hot topic at Turnberry in Scotland.)
*I added the link information to the above link without asking my master 😀
The clubs I use are of that type, and Fujikura makes the shafts, but they are custom-made, not commercially available.
Finally, "The golf swing is a pendulum movement."
There is a common misconception that the shaft is twisted and then untwisted to increase clubhead speed, but centrifugal force pulls the clubhead and injures the body.
It is also an afterthought from my master's, but I would like to discuss it later.
If you love golf, keep an eye out for future articles.