jaskanski

In terms of producing CNC machined putters with funky headcovers - They're about 25 years behind the curve. When they can come up with something more radical in terms of design, then maybe some people will sit sit up and take notice of the price tag. Until that time comes - seen it all before.

I think a lot of people also lose sight of the fact that the raw materials to actually make products on home turf probably come from abroad. The steel used for "made in USA' may not actually be 'sourced in the USA'. Imports are rife in any form of raw material for millions of products - not just golf clubs or their component parts. But if you ask the consumer to take a stance between environmentally and ethically sourced materials and their wallets, the wallet usually wins out every time. Personally, I'd like a company to use more recycled materials and use them more effectively to make products that eliminate global imports.

Not a great fit for a blade type iron in my opinion. The ultra light shaft has a flexible tip section to give increased launch and spin - great for low swing speed players who need help to launch their irons - not so good for skilled players who like to work the ball and take advantage of the control on offer from a bladed iron. A better option would be to look at the PX Catalyst in graphite which would mimic the qualities of the PX LZ shaft in terms of launch and spin but at a much lower weight.

Check this post:

Are you talking specifically about the Aldila Rouge Elite Blue 55?

Hard day blueprinting two sets of irons. Late afternoon reward is a Tamdhu 12 year old sherry cask and a Montecristo No.4. Nice.

I always think the most important shot is the one you're about to hit. Which number stroke that is could be anything, but ultimately you have to deal with the consequences of it (good or bad) with your next shot - which then becomes the next most important shot.

It never ceases to amaze me at what some people think constitutes a "fitting'. Swapping out shafts until you get an OK result is not a fitting. Without first establishing a set of baseline results to work against - you have not been fitted. Without establishing the weight you are comfortable swinging - you have not been fitted. Without establishing the correct shaft length - you have not been fitted. Without establishing the shaft profile and flex - you have not been fitted. Without establishing grip type and size - you have not been fitted. Without establishing loft and face angle - you have not been fitted....these are all metrics which can be physically measured - if they are measured to your specifics, then you can call yourself custom fit. And this could be before you've even got LM results! If someone tells you that 80% of improvement is down to the right shaft, they're full of BS. You could improve by a reasonable margin by having the right grip, stance, alignment, ball position and tee height before you even started your backswing. The simple act of getting the clubhead to deliver back to the correct position in the swing to the ball is not just about a shaft - it's about the sum of all the parts that make it happen. So next time you go into a store and the randomly swap shafts and use the 'trial and error' method of finding an acceptable result that is often short-lived, think about what 'custom-fitting' actually entails and achieves. The difference is night and day.

Having the traditional successful NASA launch cigar. Cheap and cheerful Honduran J.Cortes, but the sentiment is there...

You can still get the Prolaunch Red. Problem solved?

Players bag - thumbs up

I just saw Portmarnock in your sig - a beautiful course.... The KBS Tour V plays somewhat similar to the "normal" KBS Tour but at a slightly lower weight of 110g. DGS300 for comparison would be around 127g. The KBS Tour V provides a higher flight compared to the DGS300 but with comparable spin depending on your angle of attack - for links golf I'm guessing your swing is pretty shallow? Anyway, the shaft feels pretty comparable to the venerable DG but with a little more zip which you can feel through impact due to the weaker tip. It's not everyones cup of tea and in the wind (like on a links course?) can be a bit of a hinderance rather than a help. The DG 105 would be a similar story. The are other options like learning how to flight your irons down (easier with a bladed type iron) or just taking a longer club and swinging smoother - there's no shame in losing a few yards as you get older, but never assume an iron "owes you" distance. I would advise to see a professional to see what your combined options are with swing and shafts before committing yourself to purchasing a set of whatever you want. I'm not too sure of what the pro shop at Portmarnock has to offer but the short trip to Royal Dublin has a Trackman fitting centre that can help immensely. It's always tough when you've already made up your mind on the set you want, but you need to have the patience to get the set-up right. If Hogan are on your radar, you could try the reverse method of contacting the US office and seeing if they can ship to Ireland (they say they can) and hold out for a demo set, or go a see if you can demo the lighter shafts in another model . Again - don't put yourself into a shaft ball park simply because it's the only option a manufacturer offers in the irons. Best of luck in your golf.

The problem with online fitting tools is that they are based on your own self-assessment - which is nearly always biased towards your own opinion. Coming from DG S300 - what suddenly made you think you wanted (or indeed needed) a lighter shaft? Having said that, there is some evidence given your 6-iron distance that you may benefit from a lighter shaft with a more flexible tip section. Unless you can be specific on your swing and your launch numbers it is hard to fit a shaft to an individual because it is just that - individual. You really need to try them out to make your own mind up. Get fit, demo, borrow, maybe even buy a single club - but don't fit yourself into a shaft unless you know how it will play. Where in Europe are you?

Well - in order to form any sort of comparison between shafts, you have to do it on an objective basis. There has to be some common ground - otherwise there is no comparison at all, if you see what I mean. Shafts come in all designs, weights, flexes etc. so when comparing at least 3 different models they have to fall within a category that narrows down the options that separate them. In the case of the 3 designs listed by the OP, you could generally put them in the category of low launch. That's the easy part. Now look at the weight categories available - again generally as the weight goes up the shaft characteristics increase accordingly (ie they get stiffer, with less torque). Now look at each flex category - again generally each increasing flex class increases the relative shaft characteristic - but this time it is possible to get a heavy regular into the same ballpark flex category as a lighter stiff shaft and the same for each weight.flex category. Lastly, look at the sum of the total shaft characteristics and how to use that overall profile to benefit the player. That is an objective comparison based on any similar properties. If however you want a top 3 in no particular order you could do it in other ways - the Tensei White generally feels the smoothest, the Atmos Black generally spins lowest, the RIP Gamma is the easiest swinging because it's counter-balanced. It all depends what you're looking for really and what type of player you are. If I saw a swing video and some launch numbers I might not recommend one them over another or even one of them at all. So any comparison needs to be quantified before you can form any real opinion - even preference in colour...

Straight cut for me. I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to it, I guess it's just a case of what you maybe started out with. Having said that, there is some advantage to the straight cutter in terms of verslltily with different types of cigar vitola - some of which would be nigh on impossible with a v-cut or punch.

Luckily for starters - they're different colours....

No love for Jose? A personal favourite of mine lately has been Jose L Piedra - this one is the Cazadores 43 ring gauge. Pop these into your humidor for 6 months to a year and you have a wonderfully rounded and distinctly Cuban flavour cigar but without the top price - I pay around £80 for 10. Not a world-beater by any standard, but a nice earthy taste make it a great pairing for a Speyside Malt - in this case a double cask Tamnavulin. A great smoke for afficiandos or novices alike - even burn with good draw and never had a wrapper fail yet (I like to straight cut). 45 minutes of afternoon pleasure on a sunny day. Roll on summer...

Wishing Big Stu a speedy recovery. Keep your chin up and your ballfight down.

You could say I've made a few. Apologies if it sounded harsh - but I think you need professional help rather than anecdotal advice.

In my opinion - you're way off base and you should probably stop this delusion journey of self diagnosis and self-indulgence and go and see a professional. 37" wrist to floor at standard length and 2 degrees upright sounds spot on for a Ping static fitting, so unless you swing a club like an octopus falling from a tree, why on earth would you want to play at +1" at your height? (let me guess - because of what you think you need?) The same goes for your grips - you either need jumbo grips to fit your hand size or you don't - you never, ever fit a grip of the wrong size to simply satisfy a swing weight scale - that is delusional logic in the extreme. You need a reality check because there is too much info going on in your mind and it is clouding your judgement on what is going to work for your game. Leave the ego at home and go and see a professional who can guide you through the process of the swing and how it relates to your physique and your equipment and it will save you money in the long term. Or alternatively, you can continue the with the random guessing approach to self assessment BS. My 2 cents.

Believe it or not, I've seen a spate of these failures over the past few years - mostly with higher swing speed players. There's nothing inherently wrong with the shaft - it's the head combined with the shaft. The Ping G30 SF (not the normal version) has a shifted CoG to give it a draw bias. This gives it a bigger tendency to try to close the face through impact giving the tip section enormous stress. Lower speeds tend to be ok, but if you are a harder hitter of the ball the closure rate of the head opposing the shaft and it's desire to resist the twisting effect can lead to a failure over a period of time. It should be said that it not just Ping - plenty of other driver heads with a draw bias (ie with heel weighting) and a larger MOI are a recipe for failure if used to the limit of the design of the shaft - which is a problem for lighter higher torque shafts like the TFC - I believe the torque figure is something like 4.2 for an X-flex which means not a strong tip section in terms of fibre ply arrangement. Long story short, flimsy shafts and big twisting action is not a long lasting marriage. Not such a problem for firmer tip section shafts (which tend to get used by stronger players - who tend not to need draw bias drivers).

First off - check your tip size on your iron heads - if they're already fitted with anything other than KBS Max or graphite then they may not be .370" parallel.... Cutting down a shaft from 4-iron to 8-iron length (2" shorter?) is asking for trouble. Better to stick with the correct length shaft - the Nippon parallel tips are not standard length "blanks" which can be cut to length as you would with something like a Rifle shaft - instead they are all discrete to each club head as if they were taper tips, even though they are parallel - hence only the 8-iron shaft is designed for the 8-iron (or hard or soft-stepped either way) and the 4/5-iron shaft would also be specific to each head. Most of the mojo in the Modus 3 is the tip section which means tip trimming is out of the question. Cutting a chunk off the butt and you have big problems with swing weight - adding weight to the head to offset the reduction in swing weight will affect the flex... You could use the 8-iron shaft in the 4-iron but how will that fit in with the rest of the set? Like the 6/7-irons?? So if you're intending to get your long iron lengths down then you really need to work out in advance the overall build in terms of swing weight, flex and lie. It's not completely unachievable, but it's not really a task for the novice. I would recommend against it unless you're pretty competent. Radial quality of Nippon shafts is normally 99.5% plus - making spining a waste of time and money. Basically you would need a bit more of an explanation of exactly what you are trying to achieve?

A few things to consider here. Firstly, you can't make a stiff shaft into a regular one - you can get somewhere near it, but if you need to soft step to that extent, you might as well have used the regular shaft in the first place to get the trimming and weight right. Secondly, you need to consider the shaft profile. The DG CPT and XP will have an overall stiffer tip profile which is nothing like the Alta CB and won't really give any extra launch and spin that you're looking for - quite the opposite in fact. If the Alta has been specifically fitted, then the DG shafts will not really be a complimentary fit - they're designed for a late release and low launch. And yes, the CPT weight in the butt to counterbalance it will disappear if you trim an 8-iron shaft. Third is weight. The Alta CB weighs in at around 70g - even accounting for the counterweighted CPT, it would be around 30g heavier which in turn would feel heavier still in a wedge head. Even if your uncle prefers steel in the wedge (who doesn't?) I would err on the lighter side than the 100g+ offered by DG type shafts. Maybe start at XP95 and see what it plays like? Either way - and I hate to keep saying it - a fitting session will yield the best options and results. Don't play it cheap just because you can buy a shaft cheap.

No need to pull the shaft - just gently heat the ferrule with a hair dryer or steam from a kettle to soften it up a bit. Slide it back in place and glue it in place with a small dab of epoxy or even super glue. It won't creep back in a hurry - even if it eventually does, just repeat. To avoid creep in the first place, try not to store clubs in direct heat of the sun or in the trunk of your car on a hot day. Don't use hot water to wash clubs on a regular basis either. Remember, OEM fitments are made with the least amount of attention to detail so they tend to be the biggest culprits of ferrule creep for the lack of rigorous QC. But pulling the shaft to prove a point - a little extreme given the benign nature of what is essentially an aesthetic.

I believe the OP stated that the head was an old Fli Hi - which were stick and glue heads in "normal" form. The same applies to any head that isn't normally removable for shaft fitting or similar such as most irons and older woods etc. If the fitting cart version isn't the same as the retail version, you can normal bet that the fitting head will be non-conforming. I should add - even the markings to the head make a difference. Fitting cart irons with +1" or 1degree upright or something similar stamped on them are equally non-conforming because they are not the same in design , appearance and specification as those submitted for approval. The same applies to balls - even that you buy as conforming must match exactly to that submitted to the ruling body. If anyone has a long enough memory, Greg Norman fell foul of this rule when one of his Maxfli XS prototype balls failed to match the design submitted, even though it was identical in every other way.