Correct Shaft CPM can help YOU hit straighter and longer

Hello golfers,

Just to share with you guys on shaft cpm that can affect distance and direction.

For practical convenience, the spread of over 100 cpm has been categorized into 5 classes of flexes : L, A, R, S and X. The range in each flex class is too wide to be effective in custom shaft fitting.

Shaft Loading and Timing

Redefined “shaft loading” Even though it can occur at the transition point between back swing and down swing, for most players the peak load occurs at some place during the downswing. The timing of this loading and most importantly the start of unloading is the key factor in club fitting. The key parameter in selecting a shaft is the time between the start of unloading or shaft release and ball impact.

The golf shaft is a spring. Depending on the stiffness of that spring it takes a certain amount of time for the spring to recover from the deflected position to the neutral position (for the golf shaft, straight). It is at this neutral position that the golf shaft reaches its greatest effectiveness (maximum speed and club face square).

As some may have suggested, if ball impact occurs at peak loading, the shaft will still be flexed and be much less than effective in aiding the golfer. Based on spring mechanics the stiffer the spring the shorter the time of recovery. The natural frequency of the golf club describes this recovery time and the mechanism that drives the shaft back to straight upon release.

Therefore the earlier the release is in the swing the softer the shaft and the later the release the stiffer the shaft. You will quickly find out using this system that shaft selection has nothing to do with club head speed as the industry has used it in the past.

In fact, if two players have the same time between release and ball impact, the one with the higher speed needs a softer shaft. This occurs because there are two mechanisms acting on the shaft to return it to straight and square. The first one, which we all understand is the spring action of the shaft that is described by natural frequency. The second one is the centrifugal force pulling down on the weight of the head to straighten the shaft and is a direct function of club head speed.

Since this Club head speed induced force is helping the spring action the spring action needs to be reduced to get the correct timing to be back to straight and square at the time of impact. Then since the high club head speed player gets more help from club head speed he would need the shaft with a lower frequency (softer shaft).

This timing and club release problem and selects the clubs natural frequency that will return it to straight and square at ball impact. So far no one today for club fitting can identify the point of club release during the swing. This timing is what best creates the feel and timing between the player and his clubs.

More to come soon......

cheers
louis

Thanks for sharing and expecting your next chapter

thanks for explaining.
finally some light at the end of the tunnel.

Louis, based on your post, it looks like Tom Wishon is way off in his article on the 10 myth of Golf Shafts.

Tom Wishon 10 Myths about Golf Shafts

By Spring do you mean....

A spring is an elastic object used to store mechanical energy. Springs are usually made out of spring steel. Small springs can be wound from pre-hardened stock, while larger ones are made from annealed steel and hardened after fabrication. Some non-ferrous metals are also used including phosphor bronze and titanium for parts requiring corrosion resistance and beryllium copper for springs carrying electrical current (because of its low electrical resistance).
When a spring is compressed or stretched, the force it exerts is proportional to its change in length. The rate or spring constant of a spring is the change in the force it exerts, divided by the change in deflection of the spring. That is, it is the gradient of the force versus deflection curve. An extension or compression spring has units of force divided by distance, for example lbf/in or N/m. Torsion springs have units of force multiplied by distance divided by angle, such as N·m/rad or ft·lbf/degree. The inverse of spring rate is compliance, that is: if a spring has a rate of 10 N/mm, it has a compliance of 0.1 mm/N. The stiffness (or rate) of springs in parallel is additive, as is the compliance of springs in series.

just repeating what is in the article about Myth #1 by Mr Wishon.

Shaft Myth #1 – The shaft is the engine of the golf club

If I had a dollar for every time I have heard this statement, I might not be rich, but I definitely would be able to go to a nice restaurant and enjoy a good dinner with a good bottle of wine! It is far more truthful to say that “the golfer is the engine,” while “the shaft is the transmission of the golf club.”

A shaft does not create energy during the swing. It is simply the component that takes the energy generated by the golfer and transmits it to the clubhead to hit the ball. It is true that if certain elements of the shaft are not properly fit to the golfer’s specific swing characteristics, the golfer can lose distance by experiencing a lower clubhead speed or more off-center hits than he could generate from using a correctly fit shaft. At the same token, if the shaft is accurately fit, the golfer has a much better chance of fully optimizing his/her potential to hit the ball to the best of their ability.

Performance wise, the shaft, 1) can affect the dynamic loft of the clubhead at impact within a narrow range of 2 to 3 degrees, but only for those golfers with a later to very late release; 2) will chiefly control the total weight of the club, which in turn can have an effect on the golfer’s clubhead speed, 3) can affect some golfers’ (not all) confidence and swing consistency by displaying a “bending feel” during the swing that is either more preferred or less preferred by the golfer. That’s it, that’s the full list of what the shaft can do.

Finally what does Tom Wishon meant by Myth....

1
a: a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon
b : parable, allegory

2
a : a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone; especially : one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society <seduced by the American myth of individualism — Orde Coombs>
b : an unfounded or false notion

3
: a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence

i also suggest you research further before you embark on Chapter 2.

DGman

Eric, thank you for your feedback and concern regarding my shaft cpm article. This article was extracted from the Internet website and is not based on Tom Wishon's book nor written by me.

good thing is a copy and paste and not what you have written. care to PM me the link or give us the link here. its interesting how off your link article was in relationship to reality.

DGman

waybalegolf wrote:

Eric, thank you for your feedback and concern regarding my shaft cpm article. This article was extracted from the Internet website and is not based on Tom Wishon's book nor written by me.

Hey,

Possible to provide link here so that we can read different perspectives to learn more. Thanks in advance. Cheers.

Hello guys,

Since now I'm working on a shaft cpm project which I strongly believe that it will help mostly for golfers playing off hcp from 15 - 36. In the next couple of weeks, I'll be sharing with you guys more articles on shaft cpm information.

In golf, there is no right or wrong, it’s only how you perceive it and best of all ....willing to try it.

Just sharing my personal view on what I have learned and discovered during my stay in Uganda. I met up with Mr Bill Murray who was working for St Andrew R&A taking care of East Africa golf country clubs then. He ever reminded me to look into the performance of the shaft based on shaft cpm (regardless of the shaft brand) to fit the golfer based on his swing release timing. Of course, it is not easy to find a shaft with the same weight, same torque and same kick point with 5 cpm interval, he said with a laugh.

Soon we will be carrying out this (test group) project with a group of golfers of different hcp for 6 - 8 weeks to monitor their progresses on their wood shafts cpm that are based on their swing release timing, before looking into their iron sets.

As I said before, you can find this information from the Internet website, which has been around for many years. Of course, once this project starts to walk... you guys will know the associate from overseas whom I’m working with ..... Patient guys!

Do drop me a PM with your contact and hcp if you are interested to join the test group as I may need more golfers for this project.

Cheers

Hi Guys,

For those who have PM me ...thank you for your support on this project, will let you guys by mid June.

More to read guys.......

A successful golf game depends on a specific relationship between the reaction of the golf club and the player’s swing timing.

Any good athlete that plays a stick/racket ball/puck game can tell you the value of timing in the execution of a successful swing. Unlike most stick and ball games the golf club is a flexible stick and requires a second degree of timing. Not only does the player have to deliver the stick to the ball with proper timing to achieve the best results the flex/kick of the shaft must also be timed for peak performance.

This is where fitting the golf club for the individual player departs from an art form to a science. This then, leads us into a discussion of the science of shaft mechanics and the development of a new more exact Golf Club Fitting System.

Players, when being fitted are often asked how is your golf game? Are you interested in improving your distance or accuracy? A better question might be are you playing with golf clubs fit to your swing timing? The two are definitely related and for years now players have selected golf clubs based on marketing hype and their taste in club design. Little attention however has been paid to matching club shaft stiffness or timing to the players natural swing timing, except for the better player’s. These better players could feel the response of the club and adjust their swing to the clubs timing, which created a unique feel as the club moved through ball impact.

By fitting the player to his swing timing for each club in his bag the player should realize this feel for each club. Such a set of clubs fit by swing timing most likely will not be on the standard slope the industry builds sets to.

When dealing with major manufacturers and Big Boy Stores the golf industry has been enchanted by club head speed or hitting distance as a means of club shaft fitting. The reasons for this are three fold 1. The ease of fitting, 2. It fits their production approach, and 3. It satisfies the good player’s ego. Yet the industry sticks with clubs built on a standard slope based on a standard shaft tipping procedure. The industry also leans most heavily on the importance of club lie fitting, which is simple to perform and is unquestionably part of any fitting system but really less important than shaft fitting.

Consider the following common problem with this practice of club fitting, with two players who generate the same club head speed or ball distance. At one extreme a player can take a long smooth swing and generate a club head speed of 100 mph. At the other extreme another player takes a very short-quick swing but still generates 100 mph club head speed. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that these two players need completely different club designs when considering timing. But how do you precisely determine and match the appropriate club for each of these players?

To understand the swing timing approach to club fitting you must first understand shaft mechanics or the reaction of the golf club during the swing. .......

That's all for this week.....

Cheers

Wow.....great info bro....

Heard that quite a bit of SICC/TMCC senior golfers fitted their drivers shafts by cpm from Bob's Golf and most of them are happy about it.

Is it true..bro?

Thanks and wait for more info.

Tks

Yes it is true that Bob's Golf is having shaft with 5 cpm interval that are using by seniors SICC and TMCC golfers for more than a year now.

So golfers who are using flex SR, Stiff or X shaft that weigh abt sub 60 grams with shaft cpm of 240 above can PM me if you want to try this shaft and I will give you more info on the cost and how to go about it.

Cheers
louis

hey, are you the same louis that fitted me with the Fujikara shaft this morning?

Yes blong, is me this morning....

Hi Guys,

More info......

To understand the swing timing approach to club fitting you must first understand shaft mechanics or the reaction of the golf club during the swing. The golf shaft is the key component in the golf club performance. This reaction affects both the players distance and accuracy. The golf shaft is a spring and unlike most, stick and ball, game instruments that are rigid. With a rigid stick the player only needs to swing the bat or racket through the ball with no concern for timing the flex of the instrument. The timing of the golf club’s shaft flex can add 10 to 12 percent to the rigid stick club head speed.

All the other fitting systems are designed to select Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) shafts, which are limited in cpm flex range, while some systems can select frequencies that can be used with any ones shafts, as well as suggesting frequencies for those players outside the OEM shaft range.

Many players think of this shaft reaction as shaft kick. It is this shaft kick that will add the 10 to 12% additional club head speed if it is properly timed. This kick action is directly related to the butt frequency of the shaft.

When properly fitting the golf shaft to the players swing timing so that the shaft is back to straight and square at impact we would prefer the high flex point. The high flex point will provided the player with greater club head speed. The only value of the lower flex points is greater accuracy when the shaft is not back to straight and square at impact or they are not properly fitted. The high flex point creates higher club head speeds because it will travel further in the same amount of time when lower kick point shafts are designed to the same ideal frequency.

Centrifugal force is directly related to club head speed .If we put the weight on the end of the string and swing it around so that the weight stays out on the end of the straight string, it Is being held out there by a force we know as the centrifugal force. The faster we swing this weight around the circle the greater the force is on the string. On the golf club the head of the club is the weight and the shaft takes the place of the string. In the case of a golf club at a high club head speed the centrifugal force will pull down on the Center of Gravity (C.G.) of the head. This radial force will tend to deflect the shaft based on the position of the C.G..

The head is rotated forward with respect to the shaft and causes an increase in loft. The golf industry has moved the weight back in the driver head, in recent years, to effectively increase the loft and help the lower club head speed player get the ball in the air. The fact is that this effect is not as great for the low club head speed player as it is for the better player with a higher club head speed. A much better approach to aiding the player with any club head speed, to get the ball in the air, would be to build the club with a higher loft in the head. This then is one of the reasons why the industry says that the low flex point shaft hits the ball higher. .........

Cheers

I am listening Louis .. Please keep it coming .. Thx

Very technical but useful reading.
My own mechanics of shaft fitting goes like this:
1) Ball doesn't fly far or goes where I want it to go - wrong flex for shaft. Or weight. Or length. Aiyah, shaft lousy. Then I CPM (cow peh mah)
2) Ball flies far and goes where I want it to go - Man, I'm good.

buzz1211 wrote:

Very technical but useful reading.
My own mechanics of shaft fitting goes like this:
1) Ball doesn't fly far or goes where I want it to go - wrong flex for shaft. Or weight. Or length. Aiyah, shaft lousy. Then I CPM (cow peh mah)
2) Ball flies far and goes where I want it to go - Man, I'm good.

u crack me dude.

Hi guys,

More..............

There are two other affects that the centrifugal force has on the club that we must be aware of. First of all we must realize that the greatest deflection that the shaft can have, produced by centrifugal force, is when a straight line from the grip end of the shaft goes through the C.G. of the head. To achieve this much deflection in the shaft the player must have a very high club head speed to load the shaft to this much deflection. Secondly in the case where the clubface rotates forward of the shaft and into a higher loft position, we must be concerned about the effects of ball impact. The head is in this position from the effects of centrifugal force generated by club head speed. To get in this petition the shaft had to be loaded against the spring action of the shaft. At ball impact the force of the impact acts on the shaft to reduce the bending. At the same time ball impact causes the club head speed to drop quickly and therefore relieve the spring load in the shaft produced by the centrifugal force. If we reduce the effects of centrifugal force at this point, the spring action of the shaft takes over and effectively pulls the club head back away from the ball. This affect then reduces the efficiency of the ball impact and the energy transfer.

If the shaft deflection is greater than having the grip end of the shaft lined up with the C.G. prior to impact, the additional deflection must be caused by the shaft kicking too early in the swing. This indicates that the shaft has kicked too soon to produce the peak performance that occurs when the shaft is back to straight. All of the deflection past the centrifugal force induced deflection represents a loss of some proportion of that 10 to 12% additional club head speed that can be contributed by the shaft kick. This loss of club head speed is even greater because of the reverse spring action at impact as discussed in the last paragraph.

Spine Alignment

The spine of a shaft is generally thought of as a hard spot in the circumference of the shaft that extends down the length of the shaft. However if the shaft is not perfectly straight the bow in the shaft will also effectively act as a spine. If the spine is not placed in the proper position with respect to the target, with the club at address, the stability of the shaft during the swing will be affected.
If we use a spine finding instrument which allows the shaft to freely rotate as we pull down on the tip of the shaft the effective spine will end up on top of the shaft in the deflected position. This position is where the shaft is stable and will continue to be stable under any further deflection. If the shaft is placed in a position so that this effective spine is toward the target the shaft will be stable during the swing. In the stable position the shaft will go straight back under loading on the swing path and when released, will return straight back along the same path. If the spine of the shaft is not properly aligned, depending upon its position, it will go either inside or outside of the swing path causing the shaft to return to the ball off line from the optimum swing path.

Shaft Load and Unload Sequence
In a final step of understanding shaft mechanics we must look at the shaft loading and unloading sequence. The timing of the sequence is the most important part of shaft fitting process. The most important time during which the shaft releases must be identified on the players swing and the various segments of that swing. The shaft release area in the segment of the swing where the shaft begins to kick back in the swing. If we look at a range of drivers with frequencies from 170 cycles per minute to 320 cycles per minute this release area takes place over 0.05 seconds. This means that the 170 CPM club will fit a swing that allows the club to start to kick back at the beginning of this 0.05 second time period. The 320 CPM club would fit a swing which starts to kick back at the end of the .05 second time period. If we wish to select a shaft that is within four cycles of the players swing timing we find that we only have 0.003 seconds to make that selection.

wow.......more to come....

cheers

Been reading ur posts with interest tho im not entirely sold with ur idea but sure makes for an interesting reading. I believe forumers here appreciate fitters like urself and DGman who spends time to share knowledge on fittingetc rather than just selling ur wares.

buzz1211 wrote:

Very technical but useful reading.
My own mechanics of shaft fitting goes like this:
1) Ball doesn't fly far or goes where I want it to go - wrong flex for shaft. Or weight. Or length. Aiyah, shaft lousy. Then I CPM (cow peh mah)
2) Ball flies far and goes where I want it to go - Man, I'm good.

I like this theory better!

Googling this statement “The golf shaft is a spring” resulted in a few websites:

http://www.fitchip.com/specifications/ by PERFECTED GOLF GROUP LIMITED
http://m.naplesnews.com/news/2010/mar/16/jim-suttie-does-your-shaft-fit-your-swing-better-f/ by Dr. Jim Suttie 2010http://www.tutelman.com/golf/shafts/FLOphysics.php by Dave Tutelman - January 2, 2008http://www.agc.com.sg/Cfc%20Guide%206%20Shaft%20Flex%202007.htm by Philip Anghttp://www.hickorygolf.com/downloads/shafthistory.pdf by Jeff Summit
http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/229947-best-shaft-for-slow-swing-speed/ by Ken Smith

Will leave it to Louis if he wanna reveal his exact links eh?
Anywayz all above interesting reads!

When applying science into new areas hitherto run by tradition, experience, gut-feel, trial and error, touch et al, art as it were, some ruffling of feathers is usually unavoidable.

If we were to learn something in the process, whether the science is eventually proven right or wrong, or even just incomplete and still evolving, it would have advanced our knowledge of the subject and therefore a worthwhile exercise.

I think equipment can only represent 5-10% of your performance, basics and fundamentals are still important. Without the proper coaching and expect wonders by just changing equipment, then I would like to say good luck to you.

waybalegolf wrote:

Hi guys,


Shaft Load and Unload Sequence
In a final step of understanding shaft mechanics we must look at the shaft loading and unloading sequence. The timing of the sequence is the most important part of shaft fitting process. The most important time during which the shaft releases must be identified on the players swing and the various segments of that swing. The shaft release area in the segment of the swing where the shaft begins to kick back in the swing. If we look at a range of drivers with frequencies from 170 cycles per minute to 320 cycles per minute this release area takes place over 0.05 seconds. This means that the 170 CPM club will fit a swing that allows the club to start to kick back at the beginning of this 0.05 second time period. The 320 CPM club would fit a swing which starts to kick back at the end of the .05 second time period. If we wish to select a shaft that is within four cycles of the players swing timing we find that we only have 0.003 seconds to make that selection.

Thanks for sharing, although I have no idea where you get the numbers like 0.05 sec or 0.003 seconds? I'm but a weekend social golfer, but an engineer by training. So experiments and how such numbers come about do interest me.

Anyway, people talk about shaft loading, kick point, when the shaft kicks, and club CPM. As far as I have observed most, if not all club fitters in Singapore. Club freq is measured by this device where the shaft is butt clamped. Meaning butt of shaft in clamp, and freq measured by device at tip.

Graphite weaving/wrapping technologies allows for the shaft manufacturer to come up with different kick points/load profiles, etc. If so, then why is the freq only measure at butt? Shouldn't it make sense to clamp at middle or tip and measure freq? Of have some kind of loading device to better understand the shaft profile, rather than just a butt clamped freq reading?

And thanks for sharing your knowledge.

SS,

Good question. I was thinking perhaps the butt-clamp machine really only measure the flex of the shaft. Kick-points and Torque (or twist?) probably require more sophisticated (and expensive) machines to measure? I am not sure does "loading" means something different in golf talk?