Mismatched shafts can shaft your game real fast!!!

BigZ picked up a set of Taylor Made RAC MBs from eBay. Apparantly they were made for the Kenny Perry, one of the most consistent ball strikers for a long time now, and 9th ranked last year on PGA Tour. Were they really made for KP? Who knows. I saw that he was playing the LTs when he won Colonial (check here - .Winner's Bags) but who knows, it might be true. Anyhow, they came with X-stiff shafts and BigZ and I were waiting for them with great apprehension, maybe even a bit of fear.

Well, our fears were well founded. First 10 shots with short irons did not feel that drastically different from the MP 33 with Precision Riffle S300 shafts but always seemed to be starting right and drifting a bit right. The middle irons started showing this even more and ofcourse we understood that we are not loading the shaft enough and that therefore there is not enough kick for the clubface to square in the impact zone. So how do you load an extra shift shaft? I have no clue. I can tell it is not by swinging harder. Trying to swing harder and around (flatter) resulted in one of my most dreaded experiences of repeatable shanks. After 10 or 20 terrible shots I simply gave up and picked up the 33s where I had mixed success, after the loss of confidence from the X-stiff shafts. BigZ had more success - in our fitting session at golf town it was showing that he had more bend in the shaft then I did so this made sense. However, he too felt that he needed to try to swing extra hard with the body while keeping his arms relaxed in order to generate enough load and whip through the impact zone in order to square the clubhead and generate a slight draw.

The conclusion - don't ever play shafts that don't match your game. I have a lazy swing that picks up speed gradually, up to 110 mph on standard length driver - I can play regular flex but the fitting session has indicated that stiff flex is the right one for me and apparently that is so. Trying to play with stiffer shafts than what fits your game can result in long term swing screw up so please, don't do it.

There is a happy ending to the story. I picked up my LTs (recently obtained from eBay) with nice S-flex and went to the range and law and behold, the swing was back. Full shoulder turn, smooth transition, solid contact, straight or slight draw. Just the way I like it. KP, you can keep your clubs - they might fit your swing just fine but not the swing of this amateur.