Stock vs Aftermarket Shafts, Why We Don’t Use Standard Shafts

My Golf Spy recently released some fairly controversial information on shafts used by some of the big golf companies. It's one of the main reasons why we build our own clubs.

How Much Do You Really Know About the Shaft in Your Driver?  

Read the full article on mygolfspy https://mygolfspy.com/made-for-shafts-a-closer-look/

MyGolfSpy spoke specifically about the three different types of “groupings” of shafts that end up in golf bags all around the world. The article uncovered some of the eyebrow raising methods used by some of the big golf companies when selecting the shaft that goes into their heads.

Here’s some exerts from the article, they talked about the three main areas that shafts are used in as:

Aftermarket

“Premium or Real Deal aftermarket shafts showcase a shaft manufacturer’s best technology, often utilize so-called premium materials, and are engineered to meet the expectations of touring professionals. Sold through custom fitters, dealers, and as OEM upgrades, they also carry hefty price tags which approach, and sometimes exceed, the cost of an off-the-rack driver.” 

Co-Engineered

“…..Co-engineered shafts don’t have the same eye-catching, sexy graphics, but strip away the paint and you’ll find the same high-modulus/low resin pre-preg and advanced technology you find in aftermarket shafts.”

The Stock Shaft

“When purchasing off-the-rack clubs, the shaft(s) which come standard are referred to as stock. Generally speaking, stock takes a one (sometimes two or three) size fits most approach, which allows less picky consumers to find something that provides a decent fit and with it, reasonable performance…….As the name implies, such shafts aren’t available from dealers; they’re made specifically for an equipment OEM – with the “winning” shaft company in any given year being the one which can work within the confined margin requirements of the club company. It’s ultimately a price point conversation – so long as the quality is good enough.”

Consumers can’t know what OEMs won’t share and because stock shafts have no set definition or boundaries, OEMs are free to operate with as much (or little) conscience as they feel necessary.”

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As a Club-maker, I found this article very interesting and wanted to hat tip the guys at MyGolfSpy for sharing something I have struggled to communicate to the wider golfing public for a long time. 

Here’s some of my thoughts, 

Controlling the specification of the shaft that ends up in the golf club is one of the most important aspects of club making. 

It is one of the main reasons why we prefer to build our own clubs and never use “standard” stock shafts for testing or building.

 

• At ForeGolf we only use Aftermarket Premium shafts for all our clubs. We are one of the only places in Ireland that can do this, as we are the only outlet in Ireland to hold component licenses from the major brands to build the clubs on-site.
• All of our shafts come from the Tour Department of the different shaft manufacturers. From our time and experience from building clubs on Tour, we know that the shafts from this section of the factory go through a number of special extra quality control checks.  
• We custom build using our own shafts that are used in our fitting/testing. That way we know, we can reproduce the club that’s tested in the ClubRoom. We don’t have any stock or “standard” shafts for fitting – we only use Aftermarket shafts for our fitting/testing. 
• We build all our own clubs onsite, so we can control the quality of the shaft that is used. With so many different levels of shaft quality out there we wanted to make sure our customers got the very best quality shaft in every club. 
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  written by Derek Murray – ForeGolf 

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Tags: Shafts Standard vs Custom