BSG Golf Shaft Analysis - Surprising

[DaveLeeNC]

I stumbled across a reference to a shaft analysis at BombsquadGolf somewhere here on Sandtrap. I found the right link ( http://tinyurl.com/795djb ) and thought I'd post my own view of this for discussion here.

What BSG did was to hit balls with an Iron Byron with about 50 different clubs all hitting the same head (but 50 different shafts). They basically "fit" the Iron Byron to a specific shaft (the control shaft) and used that setup for all the other shafts. The shafts were mostly middle to high end shafts like Matrix Ozik, Mitsubishi Diamana, Fukijura, Graphite Design, Accuflex, etc.

The parameters measured were ball speed, spin, launch angle, and two measures of dispersion. Since, by the defintion of the test, none of the shafts (except the control shaft) was "fit" to the "golfer" (Iron Byron), I don't think you can learn a whole lot from the ball speed, spin, and launch angle numbers.

But the dispersion numbers were EXTREMELY interesting. Unfortunately BSG is being very guarded with the data that they release. There is no information about how many balls they hit and no other data other than an ordering (best to worst) of the shafts in each category and how much better the best was vs. the worst. That's it.

But the best to worst numbers were eye opening. We'll start with the less interesting measurement which was "dispersion". This is simply "how far off-center". But according to the forum discussion the data was 'signed'. By that I mean that two balls, one 10 yards left and one 10 yards right is the same as two balls dead center. Or stated another way a shaft that is totally worthless, hitting balls alternately 50 yards left and 50 yards right, generates the same dispersion as a "perfect" shaft which always hits the ball dead center. I have no idea why they recorded the data in this manner and don't know what to do with this information other than ignore it.

But the "maximum dispersion" (MDD) numbers were eye-opening. MDD is how far the ball furthest left landed (without carry) from the ball furthest to the right (without carry) for each shaft. Of course the only data that we have is how much worse the "worst one" was vs. the best one. But the MDD of the Matrix Ozik Altus (the control shaft interestingly enough) was 56 yards less than the worst shaft (Mitisubshi Bassara, an ultra light shaft).

Let me repeat this whole situation. Iron Byron was given a control club and hit some unknown number of balls with identical swings (as close as Iron Byron could come) and the distance between the two furthest left/right was measured (the MDD). Then the same head was put into a Mitsubishi Bassara (both X flex and driver head speed of 110 mph) and swung as identically as Iron Byron can swing them. The MDD was again measured and it was 56 yards more than the Matrix shaft. I am astounded to think that any reasonable club in that situation would generate an MDD of 56 yards, much less 56 yards more than some other shaft - I found this astounding.

I can think of a million "yes-but's" such as there is no rotation in an Iron Byron swing (roughly 90 degrees for golfers), Iron Byron hits out of a firm clamp while golfers hit from soft hands, golfers make (mostly subconscious) adjustments during swings that don't happen during Iron Byron swings, and any number of other considerations.

And if you look at Dave Tutleman's site at "Lessons from ShaftLab ( http://www.tutelman.com/golf/shafts/ShaftLab.php?ref= ) you'll see that there is a lot going on near impact in a golf swing with a lot of lag.

Regardless of all these "yes-buts", that single number (all BSG reported unfortunately) is a huge surprise to me. I would have guessed something like 10x less.

The other thing that I did was to play around with TrajectoWare software, duplicating as best I could the kind of launch conditions seen in this experiment, to see what kind of face error it takes to be 56 yards off line (carry). It turns out it is 3.5 degrees. Keep in mind that is 3.5 degrees MORE than whatever it was for the best performer. This is a huge variation for identical swings, but maybe not impossible I guess.

All this leaves me with the question of whether these results indicate that the entire Matrix Ozik line of shafts is more accurate than all the others tested, or whether that line of shafts just 'fit the swing' better than the other shafts. In an ideal world the BSG folks would have done more investigation of what is really going on here. But from what I can tell this was a VERY expensive exercise (for them) and further investigation was probably not practical.

This data is enough to get me to try out a Matrix shaft other than the fact that they are damned expensive. I have a long/smooth type swing with a somewhat early relese, so am pretty tolerant of differing golf shafts which further dampens my motivation.

Ultimately I'm not sure what to think about all this and I'm not sure which is "more wrong"

1) Taking this data at face value
2) Assuming that this experiment measures nothing

Since I've never seen this kind of experiment in any shaft manufacturers marketing material, it seems to me that somebody is missing something here. Maybe me

dave

[glebert]

Based on everything I've heard about BSG I would go with option #2.