Syks7

Greetings Spies.  My name is Bill and I reside in southwest Montana. I'm ecstatic and honored to have been selected among the thousands of who applied to test the Stewart Q Follow Electric Caddie.  A HUGE THANK YOU to the folks at Stewart Golf and MyGolfSpy for providing this great testing opportunity!!  I find these forum-based product reviews to be very informative and meaningful.  Marketing claims are "put to the test" by fellow amateur players with no strings attached.  I have used these reviews as part of my recent equipment changes and will do my best to provide you all with a meaningful review of the Stewart Q Follow Caddie.

Please check out my introduction/bio here.  
So as many of you may know, through our discussions on the forum, my preferred mode of travel on the course is walking. 
18th hole at Wine Valley during this years PNW Spy Meet-up.

Unless the course does not allow walking, I rarely opt for an electric/gas cart. To be brutally honest, I just don't like bouncing around, getting in/out and traversing the fairway.  Further, many courses limit where power carts can go (i.e. 90 degree rule, off fairways altogether, and green approach areas).  I prefer the cadence that walking affords - allowing me to think about the upcoming shot (or blowing off steam from the previous shot 😊). If I want to stay in the shade of a tree line as the group makes its way down the fairway, or just mosey along enjoying the sights, I have that option. Plus, it's great exercise and helps keep me stay loose - especially on colder days. I recently upgraded from a Sun Mountain Speed Cart to a Caddy-Tek EZ-V8 (which I did an unofficial review on here). 
I've seen some of the various electric walking carts on courses and always was interested in them. At 62 years of age, I'm still in pretty good shape but will admit that some course terrain is beginning to tax the legs and lungs a wee bit.  Having a multi-mode, powered push cart seems like a great option. So when I saw the opportunity to test the Stewart Q Follow Caddie, I was really excited. From what I've read, this looks to be an industry leader in lightweight, compact design, and follow/tracker technology.
A few questions that immediately come to my mind and are of interest include;
battery life and how much it drops off (or not) during a round or even 27 holes recharging time stability on side hills ability to power through heavy rough and uneven terrain do I have to switch out of follow mode when walking onto the greens and tees? how easy is it to drive/steer using the remote? and, ultimately for me, will having the powered functionality offer a seamless transition from my many years using a simple push-cart? If you have any specific questions or things you would like myself and other testers to investigate, please reach out to us and we'll do our best to cover them in our reviews. 
 
Final Review - Stewart Q Follow Golf Trolley
 First Impressions (4 of 5 stars)
Once again, I want to open this review with a HUGE Thank You to both Stewart Golf and MGS for providing us the opportunity to test/review the Stewart Q Follow Caddie.  I don't mind repeating myself in saying that these forum product reviews are of more value to me than most all other reviews I read.  In fact, now when I consider buying new golf products, I always check to see if a forum, Hit Squad, or both have been done when whittling down information leading to a buy or move on decision.
My initial impression of this product was very well engineered and excellent build craftsmanship.  The shipping box was heavy duty and packing protection top notch. The packing arrangement makes for easy removal and, perhaps as important, easy to repack (I had the opportunity to test this out with our move to AZ).  Help instructions are in the right places - isn't that so often overlooked these days. My shipment had definitely seen some rough handling, and gave the protective packaging a serious test.


Upon getting the cart out and unfolded, I was quite impressed by its look - which I would describe as quite modern, stylish, and sleek.  The "black carbon" version we received has some nice accents (wheel fenders) that give it just the right amount of "pop".


Little details like pressed-fit, sealed wheel bearings, and cooling fins on the drive motor, are not features one would see on low end products.

The key technology of the Stewart Q Follow is the Bluetooth follow mode. With that function selected, the cart is seeking the handheld pendant. When I first trialed this in the yard, it was without a bag on the cart, and I found the cart quite erratic.  At first, I thought it was due to not holding the pendant still (as in clipped to my belt) but, after getting the clubs aboard, the cart became quite steady.  It still makes some jerky direction changes but nothing excessive.  The bottom-line is that the follow technology works as advertised.  Soon into my third round, I began not really thinking about the cart too much and just felt confident my clubs would be within arm's reach when I got to my ball.
Personally, I found trying to hook the pendant onto my belt or pants/shorts pocket each time I selected "follow" a pain.  Upon arriving at the ball, you can stay within the "no follow" zone, and it won't attempt to move to you.  But, on a several occasions, I would just get outside that range while setting up for the shot and the cart you suddenly swivel and move towards me. What worked best for me was simply carrying the pendant in my hand as I walked to my ball, then place it on my bag, take the shot, pick up the pendant and start walking.  My testing showed the carts steering to be nearly identical whether on my belt or in my hand.  I even swung the pendant around while watching and the carts steering was hardly affected at all.
 
Aesthetics (5 of 5 stars)
I really like the look of the cart. As I mentioned above, it has a very modern look with just enough bling in the right places. The light grey rubber handle inserts and bag strap, the exposed carbon fiber basket-weave fenders, grey wheel rims, and red inner wheel covers blend really well. Overall, it is quite compact folded up and not as large as one might think a "battery powered" cart would be.  

The battery nest fits perfect and simply blends into the cart base for a streamline look.


The Numbers (4 of 5 stars)
Unlike the accuracy of a range finder or carry distance for clubs, this category for a bag cart is a bit challenging.  But, I will touch on a key thing that can definitely effect "one's numbers (scoring)" and that is fatigue.  I've used non-motorized golf push carts for the better part of 45 years and while their designs have evolved to make them more compact and feature rich, they still require manual labor.  As we get older, that effort becomes more and more noticeable.  On courses with significant elevation and slope changes, I've really started to notice that my stamina wanes as the holes roll along.  Add in some heat index and that just makes manual carts feel heavier with each passing yard.
The rounds I have played using the Stewart Q Follow Caddie have significantly reduced the level of fatigue I feel as compared to my manual push cart. I cannot yet equate better scoring with the Stewart Q but it stands to reason that being less fatigued over the course of a round will more likely than not help ones scoring.

On The Course (4.5 of 5 stars)
The Stewart Q Follow worked better than I expected in both manual drive and follow modes. I say better than expected because I had visions of looking back for my clubs only to see them some distance back and off-track. I used the follow mode about 90% of the time and it always kept up with me.  With the exception of it finding a pothole as it left the cart path and falling over, it never had an issue.

The first course I tested on had a really good mix of terrain. The carts paths are mostly gravel and some not so smooth.  There were plenty of bumps and lumps which did tend to knock the steering off course a bit, but the tracking technology did a very good job of making corrections.  It did get a bit jumpy at times when this happened, but nothing all that drastic. 
While the cart does well going up hills, going down steep hills isn't so good - particularly if you walk at normal pace.  What I found worked was to just walk slow and kind of guide it along close behind. On a few grades, I noted the brakes having to engage to slow travel and skid the wheels. Of course the instructions suggest using manual steering and use of the handle in these situations, but what fun is that? 🙂.
The course also had plenty of side hills and I purposely walk up the slopes and in a zig-zag manner to see how the tracking worked.  It did a good job making steering adjustments but definitely was working the two wheel motors pretty hard.  Still, I was quite impressed with its ability to keep up.

The Good, the Bad, and the In-between (3.5 of 5 stars)
The "good" points are:
The cart is very compact folded up which will really help those driving cars with limited trunk space. It is very easy to unfold and refold once you get the sequence down. Battery life is as advertised. We received the 36 hole battery and, following each of my 18 hole rounds, the app showed close to 60% remaining. The battery app is easy to use and provides status whether connected to the cart or charging cords. The quick dis-engage design of the rear wheels, for full manual mode, is very easy.  Removing and replacing the battery is easy and the recharge time for it and the remote pendant as described in the user manual. The cart adjusts well to the players walking pace.  I found this really helpful when slowing down and "helping" the cart through odd terrain.  This even works on moderate downhill grades. Switching to manual/pendant steering is easy and one quickly gets the feel for how much left and right arrow is needed to make course adjustments. The cart had very ample torque and climbing power.  I took it up a few quite steep inclines and it had no problem.  The two "wheelie wheels" do a great job at keeping the cart from tipping over backwards.  The "bad" points are:
The handle is a bit on the flimsy side.  On several holes with moderate contours around the greens and tees, I dis-engaged the rear wheels from the motor and pushed the cart.  I found the amount of flexing in the handle a little concerning.  When using my current cart, I sometimes will give it a pretty hefty shove going over curbs. I would be concerned about this handle holding up under similar situations. To be fair, maybe it will sustain way more flexure and stress than I think... but it just made me nervous. Storage is pretty much non-existent. I found myself really missing the mesh cargo net bag, storage tray, and zippered storage pocket on my current Caddy-Tek cart. For me, this was a big negative that affected scoring. The "In-between" points are:
The cart folded is a bit heavy and I could see this maybe being an issue for older folks (even more so for women) lifting in/out of car trunks. It seems the "glide stop" mode should be the default.  The carts stops quite abruptly if this mode is not on, and I should think most users will want this on... so why not make it the default? The cart does work fine with lighter than optimum weight bags, but the tradeoff is that the cart tends to pop wheelies a bit more when starting off and when following up steeper inclines. Play it or Trade it? (4 of 5 stars)
To be brutally honest, I'm on the fence on this one.  I walked one of my (new to me) courses today using my cart and was taking note of all the uneven surface changes I went through moving from greens to tees.  Most of the cart paths stand several inches higher than the ground and I could see myself having to do quite a bit of "helping" the Stewart Q cart through this - whether in follow or manual steering.  Staying on the concrete paths would be a solution but there are a good many more direct/shorter paths through packed gravel that the walking folks use. I need to get a few rounds in with it on the courses here to make this final decision.  I do think it will help reduce fatigue, especially on hot days, and that is a BIG incentive. While my Caddy-Tek cart is quite light and easy to push, I still feel it towards the end of rounds.  I'm definitely going to put the Stewart Q through more paces and testing here and see how it works out.
One factor I'm interested in is battery life and and adverse effects of use and storage in hot climates - like Arizona hot in summer months. They recommend charging at near room temps, which is fine and doable, but what about use and storage in a garage that's near 100F?
I'm quite sure I would not have spent the MSRP for this cart.  I had previously looked at battery powered, manual steer units and opted not to invest the $700 to $1000 for some of those. I do think the build quality and technology are excellent, and the follow mode a really helpful feature, but the price seems a bit high IMO.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, the Stewart Q Follow Caddie is the real deal and does what it was designed to do.  With the exceptions noted above and two key design aspects (weak handle and virtually no storage), the cart manual and follow steering modes work very well. It works well over moderately uneven terrain; gravel paths, over tree roots, and low curbs (say up to an inch).  Straight out of the box, the cart is assembled and, with the help of fantastic instructions, requires only a few base and handle movements to be ready to load your bag and head off to the tee.  After the round is done, the fold and store sequence is very easy and surprisingly compact.  It is a little on the heavy side and could be an issue for some lifting into and out of deep trunks. 
The ability to quickly disengage both the rear wheels is great in the event of either the cart or pendant batteries running out, a system malfunction, or forgetting to bring the pendant with you (which I nearly did 😬 ). With the wheels disengaged, the cart feels very much like any other push cart.  It rolls along fine but keep in mind the weight of the battery will require expending a few more calories.  It's also worth noting that the handle is no where near as rigid as most carts and tends to twist/flex a bit if pushing forward over curbs, cart paths, etc.  There are other reviews on this product where handles breaking have happened - so just something to consider and remember when using.
It seems to work well with various golf bags.  I used my Sun Mountain Four 5 kickstand bag and it had no issues.  Stewart Golf does recommend using a bit heavier bags to minimize "wheelies" during drive motor starts, but I did not find that an issue.  While perhaps not optimum, it's nice to know the cart can be used with a pretty wide range of bags.
The $2699 to $3099 MSRP (depending on options) is pretty high as compared to other battery powered, manual pendant steer carts.  Because I'm not real familiar with the competing products, I won't try and justify the cost of this product except to say I think the Stewart Q Follow is a top-shelf product with respect to engineering and build quality.  
I think the bottom-line is that if you really love to walk but are finding doing so with a manual push cart too taxing, and you want a high end, quality built cart with state-of-art follow mode feature, the Stewart Q Follow should definitely be on your list.  I must say that the follow mode is quite cool.  Simply walking from shot to shot with "Stewey" tagging along and having your clubs there when you get to the ball could be habit forming.
Thank you for reading this review.  Be sure to check out the "comments" section with the many posts we testers made chronicling our experiences using this product.  Also, check in periodically as myself and the other testers will be adding more findings in the comments section as we get more experience using the product.  
Final Score (25 out of 30 stars)
 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus³ Tour 115 shaft Official MyGolfSpy review by Steve Davies (DStar) - 14th June 2022
 
Here's a link to my original introduction: 
https://forum.mygolfspy.com/tests/34-nippon-modus-115-iron-shafts/?do=findComment&comment=7900
Introduction:
Firstly, a huge thanks to MSG and Nippon for giving me the opportunity to test and review the Modus³ Tour shafts.
I’m 48, happily married with 2 amazing girls and I live in a lovely little town called Malvern in the heart of England. It’s a town made famous by its water, Morgan Motors and The Hills, 13 miles of stunning countryside. 
I’m a CNC programmer by trade so have a keen eye for quality and finish which I shall be running the shafts under.
I’m now playing off 12 after starting on 24 last year so my game is coming on well but inconsistency is my main problem. I’m practising as much as I can and would love to get to single figures by the end of this year - that’s my goal. 
I’m quite a physical player, high swing speed and like to attack the pin - maybe I should play the percentages more but I just can’t help it!
First Impressions: 5 out of 5
Unboxing golf shafts is not going to be the most exciting thing in the world. We see shafts every time we play so there’s nothing ‘new’ about a chrome tube. 
That said, I was a little excited as I’ve only had used shafts in the past as I have only bought used irons off eBay. 
As part of my pack I also received a nice Nippon goody bag with a couple of tee shirts, caps and ball marker which bumped the score to a solid 5! 


 
Aesthetics: 5 out of 5
As I am a manufacturing engineer by trade, machining high quality components to very tight tolerances, I have a very keen eye for quality. Access to some very accurate measuring equipment helped in checking the physical quality. 
Initial measuring of the shafts found that they were very accurately produced, weight - length & tip diameter all very accurate.
The Nippon Modus³ shafts did not disappoint in this area. 
The finish and quality of the shafts is excellent. Weight, length and tip diameter were all exceptionally consistent. There were no sharp edges, poor graphics or damage to the shafts. 

The bright red logos were all in perfect alignment from the tip of the shaft. Nice, clear printing on the butt end showed the specifics for each individual shaft including length, batch number and manufacturing date.

 
The numbers: 4.5 out of 5
The main aim of the test is to see how these shafts perform against the claims of the manufacturer and to see if the performance claims are true or just marketing gumph.
Nippon say:
“A fusion of flexible control and powerful straight-line performance made possible by a decade of commitment”
“The predictable medium trajectory and mid-low spin results in performance that closely matches your intentions, encourages confident shots and maximises the potential of both you and your club”
My current Dymanic Gold S300 are, from what I have read, a low launch - low spin shaft.
I have only used these so cannot comment whether, or not, that is true. I know, from testing on the GC2, that I have a bunch of figures as a start point and we will see how the figures for the Nippon Modus³ compare.
I know all manufacturers have different takes on spin, launch etc and there is no industry standard to work from so it cannot be a direct comparison. 
What I was looking for was a higher launch, more spin and tighter dispersion.
Here are the figures from my testing: 
 

 
From my data it shows that the launch is slightly higher on the short irons and carry is slightly down on the old shafts but the spin is quite a bit higher. The ball speed is much more consistent across the new shafts too. 
The flight of the ball does seem to start a little lower but peak height seems higher and the ball is definitely stopping quicker on the greens which leads me to believe that there is a steeper angle of attack.
I’m not too familiar with how to extrapolate all of the data from the GC2 but dispersion was also much tighter.
Although I was looking for a higher launch, the fact that these do launch lower but come in steeper is a real game changer for me as I have been struggling to hold the greens which had altered how I was playing.
I find I’m now much more confident in attacking pins as I have more faith that the ball will hold.
The slight drop in distance is, I believe, down to the extra spin and is something I have no issues with. 

Out on the course: 5 out of 5
 
On the course I can only report good things about the shafts. My scoring has been better and my confidence higher since I’ve started to get used to the new shafts. 
It may be, in part, due to going to a shaft with an X-flex which may suit my swing better but these work! 
The reduced weight (approx 12g per club), compared to my old shafts, has made a real difference in my ability to know where the clubhead is during my swing and I feel I’m getting to the ball better, the doubt has gone and I feel I can be more attacking in my shot choice. 
I’ve even been able to shape - at will - a few shots which is something I’ve never felt I could do with the S300.
The ability to hold the ball on the green has made a massive difference to my game. We’ve got fast, hard greens at my course (running about 10 at the moment and they’ll get faster as summer progresses) so being able to go for the green is fantastic.
Here’s a downhill/down wind, 190y 6 iron:

Not a chance of doing this with my old setup!!
 
The good, the bad and the indifferent: 5 out of 5
As you may be able to tell, I don’t have anything bad to say about the Nippon Modus³ Tour 115 shafts. 
They look great, perform really well and have made a big difference to my game.
If I was to be picky I could say that the launch is lower than expected but the end result is something I was looking for, hence the 0.5 point reduction on the numbers score.


Play it or trade it: 5 out of 5
These shafts are staying in the bag for sure, the improvement in my game has been nothing short of huge and I now have confidence to go for the pin and my playing partners have commented on how much better I am hitting the ball. 
If you're looking for a new steel shaft to give more spin and confidence I would highly recommend giving the Nippon Modus³ Tour a try.
 
Final score: 29.5 out of 30
 
Conclusion: 
It's been a bit of an eye opener for me as I'd never been fitted or really tried anything other that the clubs I've purchased off eBay based on my own assumptions of what I thought I needed. I can now see the benefit of trying different shafts and, going forward, I will be looking at fitting the rest of my bag properly.
I'll be trying the Nippon wedge shafts as soon as possible as I love the feel of the iron shafts and think it could be advantageous to have that feeling through all of my irons, especially the scoring clubs. 
 
I’d like to say a massive thanks to MyGolfSpy & Nippon for being able to test and review these new shafts. 
These opportunities are really fantastic for us average golfers and shows why MGS is such a valuable and reliable resource for us all. 
 
 
 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour 115 – Official MGS Forum Review by Tim Root

As most of us on this forum are, I am an avid golfer, always looking for ways to improve my game.  In my Golf Lifetime, equipment manufacturing companies have done a tremendous job convincing me that if I play this ball like my favorite PGA Professional, or that driver like the winner of last week’s tournament, or buy this training device as endorsed by the “world’s greatest” teacher… all I have to do is show up to the course loaded with equipment (though not as previously loaded with cash) to shoot below par.  And to a certain extent, there is a lot of merit in finding the right piece of equipment to fit my game – but I won’t find it by watching tv commercials or looking at what the pro’s play… I will find it – as Ben Hogan would say… “in the dirt” (not to say I haven’t taken the bait more times than I care to admit). 

As far as equipment is concerned, probably the last thing on my list for potential game improvement was the shaft… and more specifically, iron shafts.  Driver heads, iron sets, putters, wedges, balls, even grips are more likely to garner my excitement than an iron shaft.  Not to mention tees promising 4 more yards 😉.
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
So when I saw that MyGolfSpy was looking for participants to test iron shafts, my first impulse was to pass on this one… hoping the next opportunity to test would be a sexy piece of golf equipment to put in my bag and marvel at how amazing it looks… while searching for my ball in the woods.  Now, “common sense” and “my golf game” don’t often collide in the same sentence – but in reconsidering this opportunity, I started to research iron shafts, and how important they are to maximize performance in what I consider to be the single largest opportunity for improvement in my game… approach. 
I spent the last 8 months playing T200 irons fitted with Mitsubishi Tensei Blue Graphite shafts and honestly never felt I synced with them.  The club swung very monochrome when I was used to a full color palate.  I couldn’t feel the head, contact felt “clacky”, and even balls that seemed to fly on the intended target path and distance weren’t at all satisfying.  Initially I blamed the “game improvement” T200 completely for this.  Even though the T200’s are forged, they do have that pesky plate on the back, and it was hard not to overcome my mental thought of them having “plastic” as part of the DNA.
But the reality is – while that true forged head feel I had grown accustomed to with my old Mizuno MP-33’s and not quite so old MP-68’s was not as evident with the T200s – the bland feel was more to do with the shafts, not the heads.  I didn’t know this until I had these Modus3 Tour 115’s installed in the T200’s. 
The N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour 115 shafts actually seemed to address several of the concerns I have with my “gamer” shafts.
From the Nipponshaft.com website:

 

Trajectory control?  Spin Control?  Directly transmit power to clubhead and ball?  Lighter weight… but not too light described as a “golden spec”?  Yes, Please!!  I threw my name in the hat, and as good fortune would have it… I was chosen to be a tester.
First Impressions: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
 
AESTHETICS:



They look great installed, don’t they?
These shafts look sleek, hot and fast.  The red graphics across the chrome silver shaft remind me of the Deltawing Racer from years back.

Again, it is hard to understand or convey how a shaft’s looks make me more confident over a shot… but that box is checked with these Tour 115’s. 
Aesthetics: 5 out of 5 Stars
 
DATA:
Statistical analysis is a conundrum for me.  To my own detriment most likely, I put a lot more weight in “feel” and on the course results than I do into data analysis.  I am only just starting to gain understanding on launch monitor data and what it means beyond carry distances.  Though other testers will have better data and analysis than I have, I will offer a few data points from my Mevo+Pro (caveat – the LM data below is based on short range into net shots – total of 30 feet from LM to net).  
I recorded these samples just a few days apart using the same 7 iron head, first with the graphite shaft, and then with the new Nippon N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour 115 shaft for comparison purposes. 

 
Shot Patterns from Mitsubishi Tensei Blue Shafts:


 
Compared to the N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour 115 Shafts


Aside from the obvious (I’m old and out of shape, similar to my mental acuity, my swing is weak and slow), a few things jump out at me – even not fully understanding what the LM Data is telling me.
Consistently (though poor) swing between shafts – evidenced by fairly tight variances in swing speed, smash factor, club path, face path and face to target.  Eliminating some of the concerns I had about swinging better or worse from one day to the next. Carry distance was essentially the same between the shafts – which in itself could be included in point #1, but with point #3, I believe it deserves it’s own bullet. Height is about 7 yards lower in flight on average, Flight Time is the same, even with the lower ball flight. If I didn’t mention it before, the stability and consistency I was “feeling” with the Modus Tour 115 shafts is evident in the dispersion pattern in the samples above.  This is the confidence builder stat for me. Data that I’m not sure how to decipher: AoA was increased in Modus3 sample, which may have resulted in a lower Dynamic Loft (and lower ball flight).  Also, spin was a bit lower with the Modus shaft.  I should also mention, that the results from the LM data are extremely indicative of the results I have seen across all my irons with the Nippon shafts in range sessions and on the course. This may be anecdotal, but when I changed to the Tour 115’s my scoring average started improving.  In the 20 rounds I have played with the Tour 115’s, my average score has dropped by 2.15 strokes and my handicap reflects the improvement as well:

Statistics: 5 out of 5 Stars
 
ON THE COURSE:

Because I’m a feel and results player (whether that is good or bad is up for debate), equipment satisfaction is derived from my swing feeling like it has life.  Knowing where my club head is throughout my swing, feeling it kick through the ball, being consistently in my expected flight window, going the distances I expect, and reacting on the ground the way I want it to.  With my iron shots, I’m looking for a boring flight (meaning not a pop-up, but more of a frozen rope), holds its line when struck correctly, hits the green with a hop and stop.  I struggled with my previous shafts on all those aspects.  The graphite shafts felt like a board through my swing – no “action”, with high trajectory shots that were inconsistent distances (both short and long) and line, and rolled out on the green.
However, the moment I installed the Modus3 Tour 115’s on the T200’s, all that changed.
Though the club feels noticeably heavier, that isn’t a detriment… if anything, I prefer the weighty feel.  I can feel the club head throughout my swing and can feel the shaft working for me as it loads for impact, kicking through the ball.  The trajectory is low and boring hitting my window, the distances are consistent and my shots seem to be holding their line better, probably due to a better trajectory and spin profile… which also gives me the ground reaction of “hop and stop” I want to see.  How much of that is confidence in the shaft to make a good swing, and how much is actual performance of the shaft… don’t know… don’t care…   RESULTS are king.
Course Performance: 5 out of 5 Stars
 
TAKE AWAY:
I fully admit I was predisposed to liking these shafts.  Being disgruntled with my pre-Modus3 setup, I was looking for a change.  But I wasn’t expecting that change to come solely in the form of a shaft.  And I certainly wasn’t expecting to LOVE my T200’s the way I do right now.  Granted, they aren’t butter like a Mizuno Blade, but with a better shaft fit for me – they provide every bit of feedback on my swing I need to execute good golf shots.  These Nippon N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour 115 shafts are ALIVE, and brought those T200 heads back to life too.  What more can I ask?

As irony would have it, I recently received the long ago ordered Mizuno Pro 221’s, so I will try to contrast and compare as much as possible in post-review comments (though two totally different heads makes it very subjective).  However, I can say it is VERY difficult to put down these T200’s … even with those shiny new blades looking at me (which is a HUGE statement for a tinkerer like me).  One thing I want to better understand is where the 115g weight fits with my swing compared to the 105g that I have in the Mizunos.  I really enjoy the extra weight compared to the graphite shafts previously installed in my T200’s, but will I get better performance from shaving off 10g?  With a slower swing speed such as mine, maybe… but if it means giving up the ‘action’ and ‘feel’ I am experiencing in these 115’s… the benefits would need to be pretty significant for me to consider it.
Take Away: 5 out of 5 Stars
 
PLAY OR TRADE:
My comments above have given a pretty clear indication on this, but let me double down…  these shafts are staying in my Gamers (T200’s) – without a doubt.  In fact, when I am ready for my next new set of irons (being a member of the Club Ho’s Anonymous thread… that could come sooner than later) I will be purchasing heads only, as I have the shaft that works for my game right now.   
Play it or Trade It: 5 out of 5 Stars
 
CONCLUSION:
The Nippon N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour 115 Shafts meet or exceed every expectation I had for them. 
Compared to my previously installed Mitsubishi Tensei Blue Graphite shafts, the Tour 115’s offer a better weight profile for my swing; lower trajectory for better control with no loss of distance; tighter dispersion on both distance and direction; and gives me the ability to feel my clubhead throughout the swing.  The Tour 115 shafts excel in stability through impact, and gives me confidence to make swings for shaping my shots when needed.  Where my previous shafts seemed to be a one trick pony, I rate the Tour 115’s as a team of stallions in my bag.
My shot making, and as a result my scoring, has improved since installing these shafts.  I would recommend these shafts to anyone looking to upgrade their irons.
Final Score: 29.5 out of 30 Stars

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)

 

Nippon Modus 115 Iron Shafts – Official MGS Forum -- Review by Syks7 (Jonathan Gilliam)
 
Intro
Hi everyone, I’m really excited to be part of this test.  I’m a 39 year old architect in Southern California and am currently a 11.4 handicap. There’s been a lot of other tests I’ve wanted to take part in a lot of tests since I joined the forum, but this one is actually the best fit to my game and level of knowledge.  I’ve started building my own clubs so it gives me some flexibility with testing that should be pretty handy.  

More intro, my equipment, and testing plan
 
Early impressions (5/5)
Unboxing Those of you that have bought shafts know that it's a pretty no frills unboxing that involves a non-descript box of golf club length with the shafts you order bundled up amidst butcher paper and rubber banded together.  This is no different, though I will say this is the first I've encountered each shaft being in an individual plastic sleeve.  It's a nice touch to keep them from gathering dust or scratches along the way.
 
Build wise they look and feel like premium iron shafts.  All of them penciled in within 1.3 Gm of 117g with some slightly lighter and some slightly lower.  Lengths were cut within 1/16"  of the stated length.  There was also a nice stamp stating Flex, Length, batch number?, serial code, build date, and build location.  It's helpful to keep organized when building organization and in a spot that will be covered by the grip eventually.   Link to more build info & Images



 
 
 
 
First Swings I put the the shafts in play immediately and my first swings were at the range the day before a men’s club tournament.  It did not take long for me to get acquainted or comfortable with them.  I found that they fit my tempo quite well (moderate) and that I did not have any trouble feeling where the head was.  They were very easy to load and consistently produced a baby fade (when I was striking well) for me and did not produce any head scratching results short of producing a lot, lot of rollout on partially thin shots.  On well struck shots they produced a nice mid high penetrating flight that stalled out and landed softly.  I did not have trouble holding greens.  
From 210 w/ the 4I.  Pretty soft landing.

 
Aesthetics (5/5)
In my initial impression I mention how clean the shafts were looks wise when I first got them.  That opinion hasn’t changed after a month and half of testing.  The graphics are really simple and sharp without being distracting if you install graphics up like I did.  They’re also not so huge that you’d still see them if you installed graphics down.  Beyond that, they might be a bit too polished when they show up (borderline Mirror) but that fades with use so it’s a non issue and I have no reason to deduct any points.

 
The Numbers (5/5)
The numbers for me were pretty good with a few caveats.  These shafts are in the same weight class category, flex, and same moderate tempo range as the shafts I’m fitted into.  I played the crap out of them (4 weeks 108 holes and boatloads of range time) I can confidently say that I have hit more golf balls this month than I ever have before.  Now onto the numbers which I’d class as all positive.
I did tend to shoot lower with Modus in the bag, but towards the end I played around and I shot lowest with a mix in the bag (including a new personal best).  Swing speed was well within the same range as my gamers Dispersion stayed very close but saw a bit more right variation in the pattern Carry distances were so similar to my gamers that I played a couple 9s with alternating clubs.  PW,8,6,4 in one and 9,7,5 in another – a bit weird the first 9 and unnoticeable the second. (other than the head) I played one 9 hole shootout with only irons in the bag between my gamers and the Modus and the difference over 9 holes was a single stroke.  +3 for my gamers vs. +4.  The trajectory of the modus is slightly different.  It’s more penetrating but the launch monitor disproved my observation that apex and launch were lower.  There was minor variations in both and descent angles were also very similar.     Spin numbers were slightly lower with Modus but only down couple hundred RPM in the long irons and even less in the short irons. No deductions here.  Directly compared to the shafts I’ve been fitted to there was nothing I would class as a large variation or anything bad.  They were immediately playable for me.


 
On the Course (4.5/5)
On the course the Modus 115’s performed very well.   The stability of the shaft regardless of swing tended to help me out on longer approach shots where I can have a bad habit of overswinging or transitioning like a madman to try and ‘get’ it there.  With my gamers that kind of heavy transition either ends with a nasty block fade or a cannon pull.  With the Modus 115s those kind of mishits were not as pronounced.  The head was delivered squarely more or less to where I expected and I wasn’t spraying the ball into oblivion on mishits.  The other thing that I really liked on course was that I felt like I had a variation in the trajectory I could hit all the way up to 7 Iron.  Depending on how high or low I hit on the face I could get it to hit and check up on the green or I could get it to run like crazy down the fairway on an approach.  The only thing I didn’t like as much was the distance on mishit.  For me the mishits tended to be a little hot and like to run.  I overcooked more than a few greens even landing well short of the green.  Its obviously my issue but vs. my gamers which still check up on mishits it’s worth a half point deduction.
(So happy to have her out with me that I can forgive stepping on my birdie line)

The Good, the Bad, the in between (4.5/5)
The bad
As mentioned in on course performance the only middling issue I would have is that my mishits with them tended to run and run like hell.  Something that was not the case when I had my gamer shafts in the heads that currently are attached to the Modus.  It’s not a huge issue but it’s the only head scratcher for me with these shafts.  The in between
 
The weight class.  I like this weight and I am used to it from playing similar shafts, but some might find it too heavy and it may exacerbate elbow issues that you have.  I will note that the slight difference in kick combined with weight did cause an old elbow twinge from when I first transitioned to steel shafts to resurface for a couple days.  The good
  The weight class again.  It’s not so light that it doesn’t feel stable or lack feel but also not so heavy that it feels like you’re swinging a sledge.  They are very easy for me to load without feeling whippy and heavily lend themselves to the tempo of my swing.  (Most of my acceleration happens at the bottom and my transition isn’t where the shaft initially loads).  These shafts are responsile for one of a big lightbulb moment for me with my swing when I realized that a ¾ speed towel drill strike was getting out almost as far as my full swings.  Contact>Raw speed.  The smoother my swing got the better the Modus 115s did for me. Despite the shaft doing better when you swung smooth it didn’t get out of sorts when I couldn’t stop myself from trying to step on it and swinging too hard or transitioning aggressively.   The result of those swings wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t bad.   I didn’t generate very many pull hooks or banana slices playing them.  Something definitely not true of my gamers. Ease of use.  I could adjust the trajectory pretty easily and get different types of shots out of the shaft without much effort. More Swing Videos
Play it or Trade it (4.5 / 5)
I’m keeping these though I haven’t settled on a final bag yet.  For now I’m going mixed bag with 4/5 in Modus and 6/PW in the TT Elevate Tours I’ve been playing.  I’ve played it a couple times that way and it’s akin to mixed heads – more stable and forgiving at the top end and more workable at the bottom end.  The runout on mishits is a concern for me but in the end a straight-ish ball rolling over the green is much preferable to a hard pull into the trees.  I’ve already been hitting more greens with the 4 and 5 iron attached to the Modus shafts than I was before.  
That said I’m still going to be testing for the foreseeable future to settle on whether to fully migrate to the Modus 115s.  I’ll be tinkering, starting with trying a couple modus shafts out in my PW & 9 to see whether or not they perform better than the gamers in the 639 cb heads.  I’ll keep updating as I do.
 
Conclusion 
I was genuinely curious to test them in comparison to my gamers.  The descriptions said they’d be similar, but I didn’t expect for them to be so immediately playable for me.  I’ve played with a lot of other shafts that are moderate tempo mid/mid’s and I hadn’t encountered one that I got along with as well as the Modus 115s aside from the TT Elevate tours.  They don’t disappoint, are very stable, and provide good results for me both when I’m swinging well and when my swing is not at its best.  With that in mind I think that Nippon has a very strong product on their hands that could even managed to stand out amidst the rest of it’s stellar lineup.      
Final Score (28.5 / 30)