Will a Stroke Lab shaft perform better than a steel shaft?

[fixyurdivot]

On 9/12/2023 at 6:53 AM, cnosil said:

Wanted to add a little background to this thread.   I am a putter ho and just like to try and experiment with different putters. I know, not great for my game but it’s what we do.   

Back in the early 2000s my favorite forum was Putter Talk and one of the regular contributors was Bruce Rearick who is putting instructor.  His company is Burnt Edges Consulting.  I like what he posted and began working with him in about 2010 and learned a ton about putting, fitting, and the putting stroke.  If you want to read some of his material you can find it here: https://brucerearick.substack.com

i follow him on other social platforms since Putter Talk is no more and always listen to podcasts where he is a guest.  

I’ve talked to him a couple of times about graphite shafts in general.  One if his latest podcasts is about shafts and shaft flexes so it got me thinking.  

https://gameimprovementgolf.com/213-making-sense-of-putter-shaft-flex-bruce-rearick-interview/

I thought the information he presented on the “stability” shafts and the player profile they may benefit was really interesting.  People always say that the stroke is so slow that steel doesn’t flex, but he references shafts like the TP Mills pencil shaft, Headspeed shafts, and YSC shafts that have different profiles that influence feel and tempo of the stroke.   As a result of this podcast and the fact that I came across a stroke lab shaft for a very cheap price I figured an experiment was in order.   Future updates might be an All-in shaft and a YSC shaft.  I have a couple of uncut YSC shafts but since they are .355 tip size I’d have to modify the post on the putter to make it fit and didn’t want to do that right away since the stroke lab was .370.   Hmmm, maybe retrofit the strokelab with the tip section from a YSC  

Yep, taking my putter tinkering to a new level with this experiment.   Is this for everyone? Definitely not.   Will the results be dramatic?  Probably not, although the path changes with the heavier putter seemed fairly significant…but path has little to do with putting results.  The putter weight change also had a little bit of influence on face rotation and in my mind shifting face direction at impact could be considered significant.  

I had no idea.  They say the first step is acceptance/acknowledgment .

Your testing has been fun to read.  Everytime I play with putters at golf shops I find at least one that catches my attention and stirs my imagination.  I have owned/gamed a total of 3 putters in my 56 years playing the game (four if you count my Chi-Chi kids set).  #1 was a hand-me-down Anser from Dad.  Can you believe the Anser design first hit the streets in 1967!  I gamed that until 1988 when I won a gift certificate to the pro shop at a company tournament. I used that to buy #2, a B61, which was in the bag (still has original grip) until the ER5v testing in 2021.  The only tinkering I did was adding a heel and toe side alignment mark (magic marker) to help me with reviewing the claimed benefit of Rife's Evnroll groove design.  I never removed the marks following the testing and, while faded, they're still there ... maybe that's what my problem is .

 

 

 

[RI_Redneck]

9 hours ago, cnosil said:

Sounds like you are doing what you should be doing.   The calibration is essentially building your feels for the day.   I personally just like keeping the equipment consistent from round to round because I believe from my experiences that changing weight impacts more than just the distance control aspect of putting.  

As I always say, to each their own. Incidentally, I travel extensively and experience a high variability in course conditions. Much more than I expect a typical golfer would. I figure that has a lot to do with it. For instance, the first two weeks of Oct. I will be playing in CO, GA, MD & WV with variations in grasses, conditions, elevations and probably weather.

BT

[cnosil]

26 minutes ago, RI_Redneck said:

As I always say, to each their own. Incidentally, I travel extensively and experience a high variability in course conditions. Much more than I expect a typical golfer would. I figure that has a lot to do with it. For instance, the first two weeks of Oct. I will be playing in CO, GA, MD & WV with variations in grasses, conditions, elevations and probably weather.

BT

Sounds like you are a professional     The different grasses that you mention are also an issue with PGA pros; some play better or worse based on the grasses they are playing on.  

[RI_Redneck]

On 9/19/2023 at 7:55 PM, cnosil said:

Sounds like you are a professional     The different grasses that you mention are also an issue with PGA pros; some play better or worse based on the grasses they are playing on.  

No, just travel a lot. And, where a professional GETS all their money from golf, all of mine GOES to golf. So I guess that makes me an anti-professional! LMFAO!!!

BTW, I'll post another weird aspect of my putting tonight when I get home and can take some pics of my putters.

BT

Edited September 25, 2023 by RI_Redneck

[cnosil]

Haven’t reported here in a while since it has been a couple of weeks since I played. While I have done some practice sessions on my exputt it doesn’t indicate on course performance.   I did get out for my weekly round yesterday and while I had 35 putts and a couple of 3 putts it wasnt a terrible putting day.  I felt like the problem was more setup related and missing the center of the putter face.  

looking back on the round there are always some putts you feel Iike you should have made and yesterday was no exception but that is how golf works.  What I am noticing is that my dispersion pattern is trending toward being long with more comeback putts which was not my typical pattern in the past.   

 

is the; I’ll say improved, dispersion pattern the result of the stroke lab shaft, a “better” putting strategy, improved confidence, or a combination of all of those things?   Trying to think of some ways to better measure/assess my putting.  

[cnosil]

One if the keys to putting well is consistent center face contact,   Over my lunch break I broke out the foot powder and simulated 20 putts with distance ranges if 5-30 feet to,see what my face contact looked like.  Hit a few a little on the toe but not bad.   Wish I had this pattern on my full swing clubs

[cnosil]

Another round testing out the stroke lab shaft.   32 putts today with 2 3 putts.   Ultimately it wasn't a bad putting day but I did have several putts over 40 feet which I left quite short resulting in the 3 putts.    

After a few rounds,  I am not sure I have a definitive answer on whether the shaft is better.   To do a thorough evaluation it would require a system like Puttlab to assess all the delivery metrics and have two putters.   I could use the Exputt but I would need to record each stroke and not rely on averages.  

[GolfSpy_APH]

7 hours ago, cnosil said:

Another round testing out the stroke lab shaft.   32 putts today with 2 3 putts.   Ultimately it wasn't a bad putting day but I did have several putts over 40 feet which I left quite short resulting in the 3 putts.    

After a few rounds,  I am not sure I have a definitive answer on whether the shaft is better.   To do a thorough evaluation it would require a system like Puttlab to assess all the delivery metrics and have two putters.   I could use the Exputt but I would need to record each stroke and not rely on averages.  

If you were to just get to the course no practice prior play a round and on that first hole green have a putt for birdie which do you think you would have more success or confidence with?

[cnosil]

8 hours ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

If you were to just get to the course no practice prior play a round and on that first hole green have a putt for birdie which do you think you would have more success or confidence with?

Great question.   IMO, you are now getting into the subtleties that go with shaft fitting,  mental focus,  and player skill.

On full swing clubs the dispersion is more noticeable, because we are looking at yards and not inches.  With putters success or “failure” is defined by whether I make a putt or not.  I say failure only because most people judge a putt by whether it was made or not.  We hear I should have made that putt much more frequently that I should have hit that fairway or green even though the degree of error is basically the same…face was a degree open.     That idea gets us into the fitting side of putters.   Like it or not putter shafts have an influence on how we swing the putter.  Depending on your swing type you may perform better with a more flexible or a stiffer putter shaft since it influences feel which controls rhythm and tempo.   Putter shafts have different profiles but we seldom hear that discussion; the Fujikura, Kinetixx, and older Accra shafts are probably the one exception where they discuss the profile a little bit.   I’ve mentioned this before even steel putter shafts came in different flexes.   When looking at the original concept for the stroke lab shaft, it was about moving weight to out of the shaft to the head and grip to give better feel to the player.  We can also do this by just counterbalancing  which’s put the feel of weight into the hands but increases total weight;  in sacks Parente videos they talked about design is to move the weight out if the grip and shaft to feel the weight in the head without increasing the head weight and total weight.  Basically we move the balance point of the club around to build a feel the player likes to make their stroke more consistent.  
 

As I have progressed with this process, I have adjusted the feels to match what I think works best and I have confidence in my start line and speed which is all I can control.  Will that result in more success?  I think that is beyond my control since there are factors on the green that I can’t control that influence makes or misses. Maybe my tinkering overrode the intent of strokelab since my headweight is on the low side.  

 

too long of an answer,  here is the summary: For my mindset which is a bit more on the mechanical side I generate confidence not just by results on the course but by seeing objective numbers and at the level of detail I can see with the tools I have and the numbers I have captured, I think the steel vs stroke lab are equal options for me.   
 

 

[DukeStKing]

@cnosil Glad to see you got picked to review the Sacks Parente putters- considering the work you put into this thread, it’s well deserved and a wise choice. Congrats! 
Looking forward to seeing what you think. 
 

[cnosil]

9 hours ago, DukeStKing said:

@cnosil Glad to see you got picked to review the Sacks Parente putters- considering the work you put into this thread, it’s well deserved and a wise choice. Congrats! 
Looking forward to seeing what you think. 
 

That was part of why I applied.   It will be interesting to see since they are basically going the opposite way if counterbalancing and based on what I heard in the video the shaft is on the stiff side.   Those two things will probably result in a significant change in feel. 

[DukeStKing]

14 hours ago, cnosil said:

That was part of why I applied.   It will be interesting to see since they are basically going the opposite way if counterbalancing and based on what I heard in the video the shaft is on the stiff side.   Those two things will probably result in a significant change in feel. 

The SP putters intrigue me since I play an Evnroll ER2v with 3 dots (33 inch) at 34 inches with the Gravity Grip as a counterbalance- very heavy over all weight, but not that heavy swing weight wise. It’s been great for me- I putted better with it than my old stroke lab double wide. I liked the counterbalancing in the stroke lab, but I really don’t like the white hot insert- I think Evnroll have the best putter faces. Enjoy the SP reviewing experience. 

[cnosil]

9 hours ago, DukeStKing said:

The SP putters intrigue me since I play an Evnroll ER2v with 3 dots (33 inch) at 34 inches with the Gravity Grip as a counterbalance- very heavy over all weight, but not that heavy swing weight wise. It’s been great for me- I putted better with it than my old stroke lab double wide. I liked the counterbalancing in the stroke lab, but I really don’t like the white hot insert- I think Evnroll have the best putter faces. Enjoy the SP reviewing experience. 

It will be interesting since the SP is basically the complete opposite of counterbalancing.  Based on my reading of the website they are “normal” weight heads with only another 60ish grams in the grip and shaft putting them in the mid 400s for total weight which is way lighter than anything I have tried.  The putter in this experiment is 520 which would be considered light when compared to my other putters,   If you don’t like the white hot face you could go the Toulon route which is milled face.   Because of how the SP is constructed they will be extremely high in a swingweight measurement but swingweight in putters may not be an important consideration. As for the Evnroll face, it is a personal preference thing.  I read lots of comments from people that hate the softer feel and resulting slower ball speed.