Shaft flex, how do you know?

How do you know what flex you need in your driver? I'm a new golfer as of Oct. 2007 and I purchased a stiff flex Taylormade R580. I'm very happy with it, but then somebody was telling me that because my swing speed is only about ~92mph that I should have a regular flex.

Here's what I'm thinking ... I'm only 26 here, just started, and I'm pretty sure I in the future my swing speed will be increasing, at least I hope it will. Should I stay stiff flex or ... how do you really know?

For now a regular shaft isn't bad, but as you progress I would get fitted for the right shaft, you are almost to where you need a stiff shaft though.

There are so many variables with shaft flex. What's a stiff in one brand is not necessarily a stiff in another. My recommendation is that you get fitted. If you don't want to do that, find a fitter that can give you tips. You'll want a shaft that is designed for how you swing the club and not necessarily club head speed. Torque, kick point, spin rate, weight of the shaft and the ball you are using are just as important, if not more, than actual flex.

Without seeing you swing and not knowing your tempo, I can't make a recommendation. However, if you have a fast tempo and swing hard, I would recommend a stiff shaft with a low torque.

I'm going to guess that you're swing speed will increase to the point where a stiff shaft will be necessary. I got totally outfitted with regular shafts (by what I feel was an incompetent clubfitter) and didn't have the kind of accuracy I began to have with stiffer shafts.

Focus on improving your swing mechanics and swing well within yourself. When you ease up a bit your swing speed will increase.

Obviously, I've got no idea what your swing potential is but since you have just begun I'm sure you'll see increased swing speed. Plus, you're young.

Go to a clubfitter. A good clubfitter should take you out to an OUTDOOR driving range and then give you a bunch of clubs, each with different flexes on the shaft.

A *good* clubfitter should have a ton of shaft flexes, preferably those which are "frequency matched." From there you should start hitting balls with the club with the stiffest shaft. Then keep moving down until you are finally hitting the ball the best. For example, I started off with a clubfitter hitting shafts with a frequency match of 335, which is extremely stiff. I couldn't hit that so then we tried a club with a frequency match of 325 and then went down by 10 until we found that I was best with a shaft of 305 (a stiffer than stiff). I also don't think swing speed is that great of an indicator. I used to play with a mini-tour pro who used regular flex shafts and used to hit the ball 325 yards off the tee without much effort. 3JACK

To know what flex you need in driver? Like everyone's said, get fitted.

Anyway, with just the info you gave (92mph swing speed) it tells that you're in between Reg and Stiff flex. If you want to be on the safe side I'd recommend the Reg flex, because the stiff flex requires you to always have that consistency to load/unload the shaft and the truth is you will get exhausted in the last holes. Once you get your swing speed around 100-110mph consistently then it's safe to pick stiff shaft. Now about your saying, "I'm only 26 here, just started, and I'm pretty sure I in the future my swing speed will be increasing, at least I hope it will". That is also what I told my clubfitter during my fitting session (my SS is 95mph with quite fast tempo and we're on the same shoes). My clubfitter said to me that it doesn't matter what I'm going to achieve later. The most important thing is what I have right now and he's going to fit me based on present time, not the future because incorrect fitting won't help my game at all. Hopefully, he added, I will achieve faster swing speed in the future and by then he'll set up another fitting session with me again. Oh by the way, he picked regular over stiff because I'm not sure myself how "fierce" I am with my driver on the course. I think he made the right decision because I've been hitting way straighter than before. Hope my experience helps.

That does help a lot, thank you very much. My other question is going to be this ... what's it going to do for me to have stiff flex clubs with my swing speed and very amateur status right now? I'm a slicer, is this a cause of that? The reason I went with stiff flex is because a few months ago (of the 4 months I've been playing) a guy at a golf shop told me stiff flex clubs were more accurate, and that to me said "wow more fairways!" Perhaps this isn't the case .... yet.

Stiff flex is more accurate ... for people who should be using stiff flex. Give J.B. Holmes my R-flex driver and watch him hook it into oblivion each time. Give me his driver and watch it slice. In both cases, the shaft won't contort right based on the swing speed to allow the club head to be square.

In general, too stiff sends the ball right and too weak sends the ball left .

I'm pretty sure I know what you mean here but this kind of comes off as saying people should play a stiffer flex to get more accuracy which is not always the case.

This is so true. I've met countless golfers who think that they "should be" playing with stiff or X-Stiff shafts and start using them and it messes up their game quite a bit.

Also, have the shafts checked out. Quite often a shaft that's supposed to be "stiff" isn't really stiff when using the frequency matching machine. It's been awhile since I've been so heavily involved in the equipment game, but I'm pretty sure that most club manufacturer's measure their shaft flexes by weight instead of frequency in order to help mass produce the product. That's not always the best way to measure shaft flex and leads to a lot of errors. 3JACK