Shaft Stiffness and Club weight?

In my opinion the total weight and swingweight is the second most important factor to a club only coming in a close second to the having the proper shaft profile for your swing. I used to be a tour lock pro fitter and I literally saw with my own eyes how effective the proper total weight and balance of the weight is to a golfer, however most people have no clue about it and never address it. Swingweight and total weight are completely different and not the same at all. What I found was that adding weight at the proper depth within the shaft made a tremendous difference in how aggressively the club is delivered into impact. I added 75 grams to all of my irons placed at 17 inches deep (the swingweight doesn't register and I love it but with that same 75 gram weight I could easily get at low as a C1 swingweight) and actually gained distance because I could feel the club head tracking around me the entire time and released the club very aggressively. If you don't feel the club tracking around you it becomes very difficult to find the middle of the clubface and when you miss the middle of the clubface with a ultralight club the MOI of the club goes to crap. Adding weight to the right location on the club makes a huge difference in how the golfer will deliver the club to impact and it is a element of a club that cannot be overlooked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Righty to Lefty 

... If you don't feel the club tracking around you it becomes very difficult to find the middle of the clubface and when you miss the middle of the clubface with a ultralight club the MOI of the club goes to crap. ...

Heavier shafts will not generate the same clubhead speed as lighter shafts. But, as R to L notes, it's hard to feel a shaft that's too light.

Very light weight shafts (under 50 grams) can be unstable if you have even moderate clubhead speed. As one of the OEM reps said two years ago, the weight has to come out of somewhere, so the walls are thinner, including the tip.

Recent tests indicate that golfers must be excellent ballstrikers to swing the lighter shafts consistently. There's just not enough weight to feel the club "drop into the slot."

R to L also talks about backweighting, or counterweighting, something I want to learn more about.

I replaced my 2008 Callaway HyperX Tour (R.flex) driver - 330 grams - with a Razr Fit (R.flex) driver - 290 grams. I'm getting much more consistent distance with the lighter Razr Fit.  Fit shaft is only only 60 grams, compared to old 68.

Light enough vs. too light is something you just have to figure out on the launch monitor, and by "feel" once you narrow down drivers to a couple of finalists.