Hard and soft stepping

[GolfSpy WD]

http://3jack.blogspot.com/2012/03/wishon-on-soft-stepping-and-hard.html (I'm pasting just the part from Tom Wishon below)

 

It (soft stepping/hard-stepping) works the same way regardless if the shaft is parallel or taper tip in construction. You're still increasing the tip section length when you soft step (shortening it when you hard step) so when you soft step, you are in fact making each shaft a little softer both in overall stiffness as well as in the tip section bend profile stiffness.

 

Half inch on a soft or hard step isn't very much. Very few golfers will feel that difference. One inch is where it becomes much more noticeable to a far wider range of golfers.

 

The MAIN reason to do this is to change the FEEL of the shaft for golfers who are nuts about shaft bending feel and get really weirded out and lose confidence if their shafts do not feel just right.

 

Second and a distant second, is to try to change the launch angle and trajectory of the shot OR to try to reduce/increase spin. I say DISTANT SECOND because a half inch soft or hard step does virtually nothing to launch angle and spin. It can exhibit the very beginning of a FEEL difference, but it is very unlikely most golfers would ever see a LA or spin difference from a half inch soft/hard step of a shaft.

 

At an inch, some golfers who are VERY consistent with their swing and ball striking will start to notice some difference in LA and or Spin from soft/hard stepping.

 

But at the end of the day, taking it from someone who has been around the block a whole lot of times over a whole lot of years with a whole lot of different golfer types, soft/hard stepping is done far more for ego/image purposes than for real performance purposes.

 

TOM

[JBones]

I'm going to have to agree with this. I hard stepped my FST Pro's, in an effort to try and lower my ball flight and it did not work. I actually didn't really notice any difference at all in a standard XS and a hard stepped XS, in my 8 iron.

[JMiller]

I want to say that I agree that the shaft will feel better as it would be a better fit for a person that it is recommended for, a better fit feels better and would give more confidence yes. I do not agree at all with the ego/image statement as scientifically it changes the frequency line slightly on how the over all shaft plays, more specifically the tip section. At the end of the day what fits the best feels the best and preforms the best for a player.

 

However, there is not really a reason you would want to hard or soft step a parallel shaft. They can be tip trimmed to an exact frequency match if you know what you are doing. With the proper equipment you can get the frequency line for a player perfect with parallel tips. That's why builders / fitters love them it opens a new door int terms of "perfect fitting".

 

Soft and hard stepping is done primary with taper tips as there is not much wiggle room with them, 1/4" tip is about all you can do with them. So the KBS line clams that roughly soft or hard step changes the over all playing stiffness to about 1/3 (one step) and 2/3 (two steps) between their flexes (so 5 cpm between flexes would be 1.67 cpm per step)

 

A 273 @ 43" (7.3) 2x soft step would turn out to be be about (6.9), good for someone that fits into a S+ but wants a heaver weighted shaft for example. The other way 7.3 2x hard stepped turns into about a 7.6 flex, pretty rough with out about 100mph 6 iron. It has a purpose to help fine tune a custom fit for tapper tips basically, not just image/ego reasons.

[AKI]

How about project x and pxi…  If I understand it correctly the tip sections in those shafts are static through the bag per flex, so I was wondering how much flex delta could I expect per step.  I've heard .25 and I've heard .33.  Has anybody tried this (with project x or pxi) and what type of results have you experienced.  I know, I know...  it makes a diference when double stepping though...  8 iron to PW could dip below 6 and into the 5s from 6.5 if it's .33.  I'm doin it anyhow...  I just wondered if yall had any "stepping" experience with the project x stuff.

Edited August 14, 2019 by AKI
grammar, spelling