Breaking a golf club with a big swing

[KiawahConnor]

Ok so I was in Edwin Watts the other day and some dad was talking to another dad and he said something along the lines of "my son is a beast and the first day he got the rocketballz irons he broke the shaft swinging the club" Can this happen???? Can somebody actually break a club swinging?

[MacDutch]

No problem. Did it three times in two years golf. And I am not a highspeed swinger. Happend at impact and normal conditions (no tree abuse ).  It happend only with woods.

When I took the wood back to the store, they said it was a first time and never had seen it before.

[saevel25]

Never broke a golf shaft during a swing, but it can happen

[shooter]

Yup, happened to me a few months back. Decided to use 3 wood instead of driver on the tee, took a normal swing and to my disbelieve the ball went all of 40 yards and the club head flew behind me a few feet, almost killing the rest of my group...Yea it could happen..I heard from others that 3 woods are prone to that because of the ground contact, and especially if you practise alot of mats and are know to hit fat shots (like i used to) that'll stress the kick point on the shaft.

[Wansteadimp]

Seen several instances of this.

Someone else's club head flying off the club at a range.

A mate hitting his bag after a crap shot, several holes later driver breaks on contact, next day 3 wood does the same - very very amusing.

My first set of clubs were, how should we say, on the cheap side, hit 6 iron into a green, club head actual fractures and flies 50 yards down the fairway, left with a shaft and a very jagged piece of fatigued metal on it.

[KiawahConnor]

I have a friend that broke his 3 wood by hitting the ball off of the hosel but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a shaft snapping at the split second during the transition between the backswing and downswing because of too much torque created during that transition

[ScouseJohnny]

Only if you're someone who eats spinach straight out of the can, maybe?

[Paradox]

outside of a damaged club prior to swinging it..theres no one on earth that could break a club by just swinging it.  At impact, there are pretty strong forces put on the shaft that make it possible but not during the transition or an air-swing.

[KiawahConnor]

outside of a damaged club prior to swinging it..theres no one on earth that could break a club by just swinging it.  At impact, there are pretty strong forces put on the shaft that make it possible but not during the transition or an air-swing.

This is the answer I was looking for. The guy at the store made it sound like his son was such a beast he just can't use graphite because he creates too much torque during the transition. I knew he was full of crap

[LuciusWooding]

You could do it with hickory, no problem. In fact, you could probably do it on purpose if you wanted to.

Steel, not so much. You'd need rust, acute metal fatigue, or damage to the shaft for it to actually shear off. This refers to the shaft itself breaking in the middle, but it can be stressed at the hosel and chewed up by it, or get the epoxy to cut loose. Maybe if you attached a 5 pound ball to the end, you could flex it enough with your hands to snap it. But the clubhead's inertia isn't enough of a force to break a healthy steel shaft. If it breaks, it had to be damaged or defective.

Graphite can crack or split, and the fibers can get damaged if incorrectly installed. If they're given a whack while in the bag, a ball is shanked, or they're compressed or given a shock, they'll crack and splinter rather than dent as metal would. A metal shaft will usually look and feel damaged before failing, where a graphite one can look fine and feel okay until it's stressed. However, they're able to hold a tremendous amount of flexion and basically don't fail from that as other materials would.

The guy was talking out of his ass, and no one would be proud of breaking irons in the backswing. Notice that players who can actually make contact with the ball go through fewer irons than people like him. Remember that breaking under that sort of stress is exactly what shafts are designed NOT to do. They could break in other ways from other stresses, but they flex a lot and are tempered in a way to make them resilient to vibration and flexion.

[DocWu1948]

The head on my 7 iron once came off the metal shaft and landed in the driving range. Not knowing it could be reglued, I just left it out there. My buddy had that happen with his 4 iron off the tee too.

Another guy I know smacked the dash of the cart after a miss and his iron snapped in half. It could have been worse had it hit me. This article is really depressing.

http://www.snopes.com/sports/golf/shafted.asp

[billchao]

outside of a damaged club prior to swinging it..theres no one on earth that could break a club by just swinging it.  At impact, there are pretty strong forces put on the shaft that make it possible but not during the transition or an air-swing.

Exactly. I've broken three driver shafts (yay manufacturer's warranty) and put a hairline fracture in a 5w. They all happened during impact. I've never broken the head off during the transition (though I pulled the 5w from my bag before the shaft completely broke). Even if I did keep playing the 5w, I'm pretty sure the head would have come off at impact before it came flying off on the backswing.

[KiawahConnor]

The head on my 7 iron once came off the metal shaft and landed in the driving range. Not knowing it could be reglued, I just left it out there. My buddy had that happen with his 4 iron off the tee too. Another guy I know smacked the dash of the cart after a miss and his iron snapped in half. It could have been worse had it hit me. This article is really depressing.   [URL=http://www.snopes.com/sports/golf/shafted.asp]http://www.snopes.com/sports/golf/shafted.asp[/URL]

Dude that article was depressing haha

[cooke119]

The shaft could have been damaged (cracked) during impact and gone unnoticed until it broke during his swing. But break a shaft during transition, I don't think so.

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by cooke119

The shaft could have been damaged (cracked) during impact and gone unnoticed until it broke during his swing. But break a shaft during transition, I don't think so.

Exactly, the last time I broke a club (several years ago when I was still a hothead youngster) was from ....

Originally Posted by Wansteadimp

A mate hitting his bag after a crap shot, several holes later driver breaks on contact, next day 3 wood does the same - very very amusing.

This. ^^^^  I hit a poor shot and slammed my wedge into the bag, went to hit my driver on the next tee ... which had beed a Titleist 975D, but on that hole turned out to be a Medicus ;)  (Bright side is that the new shaft I put in it was much better than the stock that had been there ... so glass half full)

Still, lesson learned.  Don't slam your clubs, and if you must ... try and break the offending club, not some poor innocent sap minding its own business in your bag.

[matluther]

I bought my first set from Walmart, and as they say "when you buy cheap, you pay more". It was my 9 iron that first flew off at the range to the surprise of everyone present. Next was my 8 iron, that flew off in my backyard. Next day, I lost my beloved pitching wedge. However, all of em flew off at impact...not in transition.

[teed off]

You can buy a new pair of shoes for $20 and i suspect you can get a set of clubs for $100...........you always get what you pay for.

[MJK3122]

This has happened to me on two occasions. Both on the same hole, both with the same club (both 4 irons, different sets). Both times the head broke away from the shaft and both times the head flew into the marsh in front of the tee box, with no chance to retrieve the club head. This happened in a two week period to me. The first time I was angry but the second time, even I had to laugh. What sucked was, they were both during tournament golf. Shots after your club breaks usually aren't very good.