Shaft Help

[Davie81]

Currently looking to upgrade my cobra speedzone driver which currently has the HZRDUS smoke yellow stiff shaft in it with 60g, 3.5 torque and low spin spec. I’ve found a good deal on both the cobra ltdx and Aerojet models but I’m unsure which of the following shafts are similar….

Mitsubishi kai’li blue

HZRDUS smoke im10

Tensai av raw white

Any thoughts or help would be appreciated.

[klineka]

Since you're staying with the same brand why wouldn't you just swap your current shaft into the new head? 

You could then take the old head and the "new" shaft and pair those up and sell that on like FB Marketplace or something. 

[Davie81]

I’m going to do a trade in to get some money off the new driver

[klineka]

I'd compare the trade in value vs what similar ones have sold for recently, there's a pretty high chance you can sell it yourself for more than the trade in value plus you'd get to keep the shaft you like.

[Ty_Webb]

1 hour ago, Davie81 said:

I’m going to do a trade in to get some money off the new driver

You might even get more money for the trade in if the trade in is the old head and new shaft rather than old head and old shaft. I certainly can't imagine they'd offer less for it.

[Typhoon92]

These trade in places give you absolute crap on upgrades shafts.  Guy I know was trading in his Stealth Driver online and they were giving him an additional $25 for the upgraded Ventus Black Velocore.  The shaft is a $300 upcharge…. Club was 2 months old… an additional $25.🙄

[klineka]

41 minutes ago, Typhoon92 said:

These trade in places give you absolute crap on upgrades shafts.  Guy I know was trading in his Stealth Driver online and they were giving him an additional $25 for the upgraded Ventus Black Velocore.  The shaft is a $300 upcharge…. Club was 2 months old… an additional $25.🙄

He's an idiot if he actually traded that in. He could get $200+ easily online for that shaft alone. 

[Typhoon92]

8 hours ago, klineka said:

He's an idiot if he actually traded that in. He could get $200+ easily online for that shaft alone. 

The guy had the clubs in the box ready to ship out!!🙄.  I gave him $50 more for the club right there and then less than an hour later sold the head only to a friend and went online and sold the shaft for over $200 like you said.

[gg194]

Something I’ve been thinking about. I watch a lot of club tests, retired and get up way too early, and there’s something I think in my opinion might be being done wrong. They might pick several drivers, could be something different, and use the same shaft so things will be equal. In my mind a shaft might be good in one club and not in another. Learned the hard way, had my best ever driver at the time, G410, and kept hearing about how great the G425 MAX was. Since I sometimes have trouble finding senior shafts we traded heads and the 410 shaft never seemed to work out in the 425 head for me. Wasn’t as straight or as long so I have moved on. Don’t think everyone was wrong about the G425, just think that combination maybe didn’t work for me.  

[ChetlovesMer]

35 minutes ago, gg194 said:

Something I’ve been thinking about. I watch a lot of club tests, retired and get up way too early, and there’s something I think in my opinion might be being done wrong. They might pick several drivers, could be something different, and use the same shaft so things will be equal. In my mind a shaft might be good in one club and not in another. Learned the hard way, had my best ever driver at the time, G410, and kept hearing about how great the G425 MAX was. Since I sometimes have trouble finding senior shafts we traded heads and the 410 shaft never seemed to work out in the 425 head for me. Wasn’t as straight or as long so I have moved on. Don’t think everyone was wrong about the G425, just think that combination maybe didn’t work for me.  

You are not wrong. The shaft and the head together both contribute to the performance of the club. I'd also suggest that they contribute in different amounts depending upon whether we are comparing a driver, an iron or a wedge. (We could argue all day about how much is the head and how much is the shaft... and I would enjoy the argument.) Having said that, in order for a youtuber or anyone else for that matter to completely optimize the club and then hit it in comparison to another completely optimized club is all but impossible. Just one of the many reasons why all club tests should be taken with a generous pinch of salt. 

Not only that but even in robot testing there are variables that are outside the areas of control. I've personally been lucky enough to witness robot testing first had. It's fascinating how non-repeatable the results can be. Let me elaborate. With an 7 or 8 iron the robot can land balls over and over again in an area the size of a kiddie pool. However, when the testers moved away from a 7 or 8 iron, the results got less and less precise. Interestingly it didn't matter if they went up or down the bag. With the robot hitting short pitches and even chips, relatively, more variation than full short iron shots. Similarly, long drives with the robot created more variation as well. This is without the effects of wind, variations in the surface and texture of where the ball lands etc... 

In addition, this doesn't take into account possible bias, either consciously or unconsciously of the tester. The testers I got to witness (these happened to by Taylormade guys, but I'm sure it doesn't matter), confessed that they could influence the results if they wanted to. They could take two clubs and make either of them "win" with robot testing if they wanted to. They made to the point to illustrate that in their job they had to constantly make sure they were fighting bias and/or putting in double checks, but never-the-less when I now read about any testing saying X club is 7 yards longer, I think back to their statement. 

So, if it's that difficult to get really good results out of a robot imagine how difficult it is to get quantifiable results out of a human swinging a club. 

Here's a fun test to try. Hit your driver 10 times on a launch monitor and gather the data (You can do 20 or 30 swings it doesn't matter). Now group the data into 2 sets, the odd numbered swings and the even numbered swings. Look at your two data sets. I guarantee that one data set will look "better" than the other. Even though, it's the same person swinging the same club on the same day. But if you just happened to be testing a driver against your driver on that day, Even if you gather your data by switching back and forth between the two drivers you may get misleading results. I've done this test a few times in my life and it's interesting to see how the "odd numbered me" or the "even numbered me" always produces different results, sometimes one will win by a large margin. 

In summary, I too enjoy watching reviews of the new clubs that come out, especially drivers. But it is information not data.