One of the more remarkable shafts that  performed exceptionally well for  a wide range of my customers towards the end of last year was the unique Handcrafted series from Grafalloy. These shafts are basically made out of their tour-issue only production facility in San Diego. These are truly unique shafts that are still literally “Hand Made” with only 50-60 being made per day.  As such the tolerances, quality, and resulting performance make these shafts some of the best in the business. This is how the shafts are made for the tour players and not the general public whose shafts are basically mass produced somewhere overseas.  I had a chance to meet Russ Ryden last month who is a pioneer in the shaft testing department so I’m going to pass along some of his data that he extracted regarding the testing and performance of these great shafts. I would encourage any of you gear heads to sign up to Russ’ website where he continually pumps out some great data (www.golfshaftreviews.info).

The Project X LZ (loading Zone) has a soft zone in the middle of the shaft which you can visibly see is reinforced which resembles a filament wound shaft. Here is what Russ profiled:

WOW!!! – I thought Kate Upton had some great curves!!!

These shafts are also counter-weighted which makes them an ideal option with most of the current day heavy heads. I had numerous fittings myself over the course of last year (when I was able to get my hands on some prototypes), and can attest to their quality. I was able to fit this shaft into several of our areas top amateur players and all raved about the increase in distance with tighter dispersion that these shafts produced. This achievement was considerable as most of those guys test and/or play and and/or all of the higher-end shafts that I’m able to get my hands on. Pretty much all of them commented on how much less spin they were able to get while also gaining significant ball speed due to the added “kick” at impact. Everyone also commented on how much more roll they were able to gain along with a more shallow angle of ball descent.

This is a great illustration from Russ’ flightscope which really shows how much the shaft head accelerates  at impact thus producing the higher ball speed (the lower right-side of chart which represents the impact zone).  Although these shafts are on the pricey side – they are worth every penny in my book.