Early on golf clubs contained wooden shafts, most often times made of hickory. These shafts were durable and stood up to the forces fashioned by the golf swing, nevertheless in contrast to modern, far more stiff shafts, their high flexibility needed a skillful swing to yield dependable results.
Previous to 1935, hickory was the leading material with regards to shaft engineering, but it showed very difficult to master for most golfers, as well as being quite frail. Steel would become the ubiquitous option for much of the subsequent half of the twentieth century. Despite the fact that heavier than hickory, it is considerably stronger and a lot more consistent in its functionality. Preceding to steel, a player would require a relatively different swing for each shaft provided the inherent variances in the hickory shafts. The graphite shaft was first marketed in 1970 at the PGA Merchandise Show nevertheless did not acquire wide-ranging use til the mid-1990s and is at this time used on virtually all woods and some iron sets, since the carbon-fiber composite of graphite Golf Shafts exhibits maximized flex for improved clubhead speed at the price of moderately reduced precision due to increased torque. Steel, which commonly has lower torque but reduced flex than graphite, is still vastly preferred by many for irons, wedges and putters as these particular clubs stress accuracy and reliability over distance.
Graphite shafts began to appear in the late twentieth century. The graphite shaft was created by Frank Thomas in 1969 while working as Chief Design Engineer for Shakespeare Sporting Goods, in collaboration alongside Union Carbide. The initial graphite shafts made by Shakespeare Sporting Goods were actually filament wound, had remarkably consistent properties and were very expensive. Following, less expensive flag-wrapped models of the graphite shaft offered by other corporations a number of years later had inconsistent properties and as an outcome professionals and skillful amateurs were in the beginning skeptical of the new technology when compared to steel; having said that, progress in technology, developed by Bruce Williams, an engineer working with an Ohio-based composites company, ultimately changed this belief.
The shaft is about.5 inch/12 millimeters in diameter around the grip and between 35-48 inches/89– 115 cm in length. Shafts weigh between 45 and 150 grams depending on the material and overall length.
Graphite shafts are blended from carbon fiber and are typically less heavy in weight than metal shafts. Graphite shafts came to be popular amongst amateurs, just because lighter weight helped generate raised club-head speed. The carbon fiber additionally depleted some of the stinging vibrations that were produced by inadequately hit shots.
Shafts are gauged in a multitude of different approaches. The most popular is the shaft flex. Basically, the shaft flex is the extent that the shaft will bend once placed under a load. A stiffer shaft will not flex as much, which requires more power to bend and “whip” through the ball effectively. This results in much higher club speed at impact for more distance. Whereas a more flexible shaft will most likely whip with less power needed for more ideal distance on more relaxed swings, but might possibly torque and over-flex if swung with too much force causing the head not to be square, resulting in diminished reliability.