Playoff shaft by Bob's Golf

Hi guys,

This a little long write up is by Bob's Golf about playoff cpm shaft.

1. The first point to note is that there is no dispute that CPM is the correct approach.

2. What is the best practical way to fit ? A good launch monitor appears to be helpful. Currently at Bob's Golf we are behind the curve in that our launch monitor is outdated. We are in the process of getting a new one approved for use in Ping club fitting. Together with the N'Flight software we will have a pretty good up-to-date system for club fitting.
Unfortunately the numbers generated by the best equipment are far from enough, however impressive they may be. Interpretation and human judgements are involved. The best club fitter cannot in all honesty claim more than 25% success of first hit in shaft fitting.

There are many reasons.
a) Fitting situation not real life. Many golfers do not play the same way on the golf course as they hit on the driving range or when they come for fitting. It is common to find that your shot making is much better on the driving range than on the course. On the course there are many dynamic factors affecting your swing. It is therefore crucial to take into account playing experience to fine tune for better fit.

(b) Fitters still on the old school of L, A, R, S and X will have lower success due to limitation of that convenient classification system.

(c) Fitters who are aware that many golfers need shafts that flex in between L, A, R, S and X may try to create the required flexes by tip trim, length and/or weight adjustments. This involves a lot of guess work and not very dependable. The adjustments also introduce other complications.

The ideal is to get shafts with flexes that cover the relevant flex spectrum. In 2009 we found a China factory willing to make shafts that flex 170, 171, 172 ... all the way to 255 cpm. Our focus was on playing quality at affordable cost. We apologize to those who find the simple color scheme of the PlayOff shaft appalling. We really do not know if it would be better to pay $30 more for better cosmetics.

Anyhow we launched this ugly shaft in early 2010. Pick-up was extremely slow because very few people have heard of CPM. We found more people willing to try when we allowed shaft change (a few cpm up or down) for a small fee of $20. We got our first break through when Mr Foo Kok Swee came to re-shaft his whole set of Ping irons and woods. His drive became straighter and longer by more than 10 meters. His kakis all came for the PlayOff shaft. They called themselves the "Red Gang". We later learnt that Mr Foo's handicap dropped from 11 to 7 plus in a few months.
There are now a few hundred people, many at the S.I.C.C. using our red shaft

From our experience we feel that the most practical way to ensure greater success at shaft fitting is to allow customers to return to change to a softer or firmer shaft based on the customer's feed back. We allow our customers to do this within 3 months, irrespective of what shafts they started with. In other words you can come to us to fit any after market shaft and if it does not work, you can rely on PlayOff for a more fitting CPM as a backup. Replacement has to be with PlayOff as it is the only shaft covering a good spread of the CPM spectrum. We also allow customers buying clubs from us this fine tuning privilege

3. We do not market the PlayOff as a shaft that hits better than any other shaft. You can only play better if you are fitted with a PlayOff shaft with flex that better fit your swing. We are not surprised with a PlayOff shaft playing worse than the gentleman's stock shaft. It just showed that that particular PlayOff shaft was mis-fitted. Perhaps no other shaft, even a shaft costing $1,500 would play better for him because that stock shaft happened to be a perfect fit for him.

There are 3 main reasons for re-shafting:
(a) To experiment if you can hit longer and/or more consistent. If your current shaft is already a good fit you may not find any improvement.
(b). For clubs that perform poorly as compared with your favorite clubs or you experienced loss of distance, you should expect better performance.
(c). For broken shafts. You can expect same or better performance.

4. Fitting based on CPM is not a straightforward thing. We first check the "raw CPM " of each shaft. We need to factor in the club head weight and the grip characteristic and the finished club length to arrive at the desired "playing CPM".
In the last 2 years we have learnt a lot on CPM fitting and we can do a much better job now. But we are still learning. So please bear with us if you need to re-shaft 2 or 3 times before a good fit is achieved.

5. For golfers who find the PlayOff color ghastly, we will check for the closest fit among more desirable after market shafts. We know enough now to do a pretty decent job on this.

6. For golfers who have paid for expensive re-shafts that failed to work, we will be happy to replace your shaft with PlayOff for a fee of $20, provided you have used it for less than 3 months and there is no visible wear and tear.

Regards,
Bob

hey louis Suggestion re the color for shaft maybe a plain neutral matt black or titanium grey shaft is better than the current glossy half red/black.. colorful GR users can then jazz it up w colored ferrules and grips cheers

jeffman88 wrote:

hey louis Suggestion re the color for shaft maybe a plain neutral matt black or titanium grey shaft is better than the current glossy half red/black.. colorful GR users can then jazz it up w colored ferrules and grips cheers

Hi Louis
Agree with Jeffman...a matt black shaft would be nice

Hi guys,

Yup, we are looking into the matt finishing and as for color ...still searching.

Appreciate your suggestion.

Cheers

Thanks for your passion in this topic. I would like to see you succeed for your contributions to golf shaft research.

louis graphics suggestion for ur new playoff shaft?

Swee, The blue colour looks like copyrighted by BFG

jeffman88 wrote:

louis graphics suggestion for ur new playoff shaft?

Very very swee!

Louis, even the matt shaft you showed me just now was nice. But....this is class!

Looking Good!!!

Nice!

Cheers

Very swee.

Like +1

jeffman88 wrote:

louis graphics suggestion for ur new playoff shaft?

Looks damn sweet lah!

Well done bro Jeff!!!

Matt black sounded serious!
Nicz...up fr yr success, Louis!

Jeff,

Very class man....hope Mr Bob knows that some GR golfers are supporting his cpm concept...

Also Thank You hkhamateur and pinpin for the encouragement....my main obective is to try and help golfers to play a decent golf on the course by finding a right cpm shaft for them so that they can find more fairways.

Cheers

Got my Cleveland DST Launcher 3 hybrid fitted with a Playoff CPM shaft yesterday. Louis suggested to use a shaft with a CPM that's 10 points lower than the current shaft.

Brought it to Toa Payoh Range just now to have a go at it. Hit about 30 balls with it.

Summary of hits:
- Topped 2 balls but they went straight and low like bullet;
- About 5 faded right
- Pulled 3 shots
- The rest played to my natural draw but........I now need to re-caliberate my distance.....it went darn far!

Will give it another go tomorrow.

So far the Playoff CPM shaft has been working well for my driver and 3 hybrid.

IMHO, the performance of this shaft is worth every cent that is spent but the looks can be improved with either a matt black or matt white shaft. My 2 cents worth!

Hello golfers,

The 5 series playoff cpm shaft trial will come to end on 31st August 2012 at 5pm.

With the positive feedbacks from you guys on the shaft, color, design and artwork we have sent the artwork to our shaft manufacture. Hopefully can get the samples out soon.....

The 4 series and the 6 series playoff shafts are in our planning stage....will keep you guys posted once it is ready to launch.


4 series ----sub 42-45 grams
5 series ----sub 55-61 grams
6 series ----sub 65-71 grams

For golfers who have tested the playoff shaft and able to find more fairways...congrats to you for doing something good for yourself.

For those golfers who have tested the playoff shaft and yet to return for cpm adjustment, kindly PM me as I need to know the outcome after our first meeting.

Of course, there are some golfers who tried it and don't come back for adjustment as they feel that playoff shaft don't fit them. I hereby say thank you for trying the shaft.

Lastly, there will be on going activities once we move to Bukit Batok Crescent in two weeks time.

Cheers

Helping Louis to upload new shaft photo，

ooo any more promo like previously?

timang84 wrote:

ooo any more promo like previously?

Ya Louis, is the promo still on? I bet there are others keen and will benefit from it.

The new shaft designs definitely looks better and awesome in my opinion.

Perhaps I can share my views later when I have time to write a short review for anyone who's keen to find out more.

For those who missed out the August 2012 promo.....I will discuss with Bob's Golf boss whether should do it again in Dec 2012 before the new "makeover " playoff shipment eta by year end.

Hello golfers,

Just for your info......

To play a good round of golf, your ball dispersion pattern (in my opinion) must be within the following range:-


Driver/wood carry distance above 200m ....offline target left/right /- 25m

Wood/hybrid carry distance 200 -170m......offline target left/right +/- 20m

Hybrid/long iron carry distance 170 -150m...offline target left/right +/- 15m

Mid iron carry distance 150 -120m...............offline target left/right +/- 10m

Short iron carry distance 120 - 80m............offline target left/right +/- 8m


If your ball dispersion pattern are most of the time go out of the range, then you will be struggling to save boggey or more.

Go to your club fitter and check it out using the launch monitor and see how your ball dispersion pattern for each of your club behave.

Ball dispersion pattern, your swing release action and shaft cpm play an important role in it.

If you get all these right, your ball dispersion will definitely be 80% within the above range.

Cheers

Hi Louis any promo for 2013?

Actually.. White Matt/Glossy shaft with the same design looks cool too I feel.. Sm ppl prefer black, quite a num of ppl likes white too..

Just 2cents worth =))

Are the matt black shafts in already?