Stiff or Regular Flex?

[jmanbooyaa]

What exactly is the difference between a stiff & regular flex and why would one need one or the other? Is it possible to hit say a 5 wood with regular flex shaft and hit a 3 wood with a stiff flex or hit a driver with a stiff flex shaft and vise versa?

[LBlack14]

I play stiff in everything but my fwy woods. There is no "standard" and 1 companies stiff may be another's reg. etc. The only way to get an idea of the shaft's actual flex is to do a zone profile on a frequency machine.

[enis750]

  jmanbooyaa said:

Originally Posted by jmanbooyaa

What exactly is the difference between a stiff & regular flex and why would one need one or the other? Is it possible to hit say a 5 wood with regular flex shaft and hit a 3 wood with a stiff flex or hit a driver with a stiff flex shaft and vise versa?

dude your new here, so.....

please do us all a favour

please please please use the search function at the top of the page

i guarantee you will find the answer to your questions, BEFORE you start another thread, on another topic that has been covered....13 times

thanks

[LBlack14]

Ask away I say....damn. 14's my lucky number!

[Danattherock]

Below is some pretty good info that should answer your question...

http://www.taylormadegolfpreowned.com/custom/clubfitting.aspx

-Dan

[jmanbooyaa]

Thanks for the link Dan. I am not really sure how fast my swing speed is at this time, plan on taking a lesson or 2 right before the season really kicks off. I suppose if a regular flex is no good for me I could always pay to have a stiff flex put on so at least all hope is not lost just $. But what in this world doesn't cost $ these days. Thanks for the help, and to the person who said to search the forums I will try to remember to do that but when I do remember there are a lot of them and most often are out dated by a bit but will try top make sure I check.

[BrushCaddy]

Great information Dan, thanks for the post.

[zeg]

Interesting.  According to Dan's link I should look into getting my club's lies adjusted... guess I should stop over at the shop and see if they'll do a proper fitting.

Regarding flex, most big name shops (and many smaller ones) have monitors that can tell you your swing speed.  In my experience, they'll either do this if you ask, or incidental to your trying out a few clubs.  Just go over and try to get a sense for what your typical swing speeds are.  Bear in mind that you probably don't perform your best in street clothes in a hitting bay with little warm-up and a salesperson watching over your shoulder.  In my case, my true swing speeds are a fair bit faster than show up when I have done this at Golfsmith.  A better test was when Bridgestone and crew came through for a ball fitting---it was at a range and I'd fully warmed up and was probably 3-5 mph faster with my driver.

The rule of thumb I've heard is that, if in doubt, go with the more flexible shaft.  The one exception I'd see is if you're relatively young, new to the game, and planning to put in a lot of practice.  In this case you're likely to improve the speed quickly as your technique improves, so it may be economically sensible to just go ahead and gamble that you'll grow into the stiffer flex quickly.

In my case, I play regular on everything except my 3W, which is stiff.  I am right on the border (Dan's page actually suggests I should probably be hitting stiff on my irons, based on my 6I distance) between regular and stiff.  I'm not sure if it's the shaft, the age of the club, or just psychological, but I have a lot of trouble hitting that 3W.  My suspicion is that, since I know it's stiff, I tend to try to put more into the swing than I do with my other clubs and wind up overswinging.  So if you're mixing up the shafts on your clubs, that's something to watch out for.

[jmanbooyaa]

Dumb question but am I suppose to ask the salesman to watch me swing so I can get the proper shaft flex or does it go further to the point where I need to sign up for a special program within the store that will tell me the specs I need based on my swing performance?

[zeg]

The launch monitors that they usually have will just spit out your swing speed if that's all you want.  In the bigger stores this is usually a big screen display, in smaller it's often just a little box that sits on the floor and has a little display on it.  For that, you really shouldn't need a special program or sign-up or anything.  If you want a full fitting, that'd be a different story.  You probably want to do a little research before that, though, as you want to be sure to get someone who knows what they're doing.  For a full fitting, they will likely charge a fee, which would probably be waived if you buy the clubs from the fitter.  But just for a swing speed I don't think you'd need to pay anything.  I've had mine measured a few times for me without even asking, just by asking to demo a few clubs.

[jmanbooyaa]

Played for about 3.5 hrs today. Got to use my Cleveland DST 5 wood reg flex. 1. Did not hit it well off the tee at all. 2. Plays well from the fairway and rough 3. Plays extremely well when striking down on the ball. 4. Like it a lot better than the TM rescue club I traded for it.

Still need to play more with it but I think I prefer a stiff flex.

[tristanhilton85]

  zeg said:

Originally Posted by zeg

The rule of thumb I've heard is that, if in doubt, go with the more flexible shaft.  The one exception I'd see is if you're relatively young, new to the game, and planning to put in a lot of practice.  In this case you're likely to improve the speed quickly as your technique improves, so it may be economically sensible to just go ahead and gamble that you'll grow into the stiffer flex quickly.

Not bad advice, however I've always been told that if you are in between flexes you want to go with the more flexible shaft if you are seeking distance and the stiffer shaft if you are looking for greater accuracy.