New shaft for GBB 2 - any suggestions?

[Rusty]

Hi;

My brother in law gave me his broken Calaway Great Big Bertha 2 driver for Christmas. He snapped the shaft, he wouldn't say how, and I had admired it when I played with him this fall.
Anyway it has a RCH Pro Series 5.2, he loved the shaft, but he hits the ball 270-290 and I only hit 240 on my good days(I have a fairly smooth tempo). Should I just send it to Callaway and ask for it to be reshafted with the same shaft?
I am very happy with my Callaway 3 wood that has the yellow and purple UST 65 regular flex, would this be a good match for the GBB 2? Has anyone else had success with reshafting a GBB 2, and who did it for them? I understand that some people on the forum are club builders, any ideas?
I have been playing for 3 years now and am looking forward to this next summer to really kick it up a notch.

Thanks

Russ Porter
Rusty

[el tigre]

Rusty:

My advice is to go to Chuck Brown's with the head and the broken shaft and have it sent back to Callaway for replacement. Callaway's customer service is second to none, and IMHO chances are good to excellent that they will replace the shaft at no charge. I have had two shafts replaced by Callaway (driver + 3-wood) with no questions asked, so it is very likely that they will do the same for you. You can then decide if you like the original or not.

[Chieflongtee]

If el tigre's advice does not work I have a Callaway RCH 96 regular flex sitting in my garage. It is already tipped for a bore thru head. Good luck. André.

[rockford35]

Russ,

I picked up a pretty much new GBBII on E-bay a few weeks before X-mas for a steal-of-a-deal (sub 200CDN) with the Tour Stiff shaft in it. I was suprised to find that the "stiff" shaft in the GBBII was alot more flexable than my existing Hawk Eye VFT Tour series stiff shat.

This prompted me to do a little research. I sent out about 16-18 e-mails to many golf component groups to get both their input, as well as the tendancy of orders for such a request for the GBBII. I recieved over a dozen replies with all but one stating that by far, the Grafalloy Blue was the shaft to get for this head.

Granted, I stated within my e-mails my specifics that i wanted for ball flight, roll, the degree of loft, ect for my golf game, which, of course would make an impact. But when all said and done, many people came back to me with this.

I put in my order just after X-mas for my Blue shaft, stiff flex. I can't wait to put it together!

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

rockford35

(But I do agree, that Callaway does have phenomenal customer service. See what they can do for you. I've had nothing but fantastic help and feedback from them! Cheers!)

[Rusty]

Thanks for the suggestions, I dropped it off at Chuck Browns and Callaway put a new series 60 firm shaft in it for only 75.00. Even got them to throw on a V50 full cord just like the rest of my clubs.

Again Thanks

Russ Porter

Hi;

My brother in law gave me his broken Calaway Great Big Bertha 2 driver for Christmas. He snapped the shaft, he wouldn't say how, and I had admired it when I played with him this fall.
Anyway it has a RCH Pro Series 5.2, he loved the shaft, but he hits the ball 270-290 and I only hit 240 on my good days(I have a fairly smooth tempo). Should I just send it to Callaway and ask for it to be reshafted with the same shaft?
I am very happy with my Callaway 3 wood that has the yellow and purple UST 65 regular flex, would this be a good match for the GBB 2? Has anyone else had success with reshafting a GBB 2, and who did it for them? I understand that some people on the forum are club builders, any ideas?
I have been playing for 3 years now and am looking forward to this next summer to really kick it up a notch.

Thanks

Russ Porter
Rusty

[haribo]

Too bad i saw this thread too late. In my opinion Callaway stock shafts are pretty crappy shafts. I would have suggested to send it back to Callaway but ask them to replace it with a Fujikura shaft (SIX, 661 or 757 ...). Fujikura shafts are absolute awesome shafts and Callaway offers an upgrade to these kind of shafts for an additional $60 (something like that). That's a pretty good deal for a shaft that goes for $200 US commonly!!!!!!!

haribo

[Chieflongtee]

A crappy shaft can be turned into a supershaft if lined up properly. Mercury shafts are excellent shafts and you can get them for a lot cheaper.
www.mercurygolf.com

[haribo]

A crappy shaft can be turned into a supershaft if lined up properly. Mercury shafts are excellent shafts and you can get them for a lot cheaper.
www.mercurygolf.com

Sure, that's why you see so many OEM stock shafts being used by PGA Tour player's. Right.
I don't know mercury shafts but I don't think they can compete with a Fujikura. There's a reason why Fuji's are the most used shafts on Tour. And they don't pay a dime to a Tour player for using them.

Re: properly lined up. Well, spining/flowing makes a shaft perform better. Granted. But look at the bigger picture. Every graphite shaft has 3 spines, one being dominant. You got to align that properly to get the most out of the shaft. Fujikura on the other hand, has also 3 spines. BUT the quality is so high that there is no such a thing as a dominant spine.
Another thing is consistency. Take for instance a well known shaft like the True Temper EI-70. Take 100 of them and try to find 10 shafts that are absolute identical in specs. Truth is, you will have a hard time to find even 5 out of 100. Now, take 100 Fujikura SIX. or 757 or any other Fuji for that matter. Out of 100 you will have 100 identical shafts. That's how high the quality standars are. Period. That's one of the reason Fujis are so popular on the PGA. These guys change clubs like we change underwear. They demand consistency from a shaft.

But all that was actually not the point I tried to make originally. All I said was that Callaway offers for a few bucks more an awesome upgrade to a shaft that costs aftermarket regularly 3 times as much. Most people just don't know about it.

haribo

[Chieflongtee]

Sorry. Three spines. You've got to be kidding me. There is one spine and one neutral bend point in any shaft graphite or steel. The best shafts have very litlle stiffness differential between the S plane and the N plane. i.e one or 2 cpm.(Sk Fiber, Mercury) Read the following tech note if you don't want to take it from me.Regarding Mercury shafts how come no company out there out is taking their $10,000 challenge. As far as the tour that's another story. If one guy wins one tournament using(i.e one of the big ones)whatever shaft or clubs the endorsing company will be making big bucks in the following months. I'd like to test your shafts in my frequency analyser. If you'd like I can post many articles from the spinetalkers forum or the Neufinder's forum that will back up my claim regarding spines and NBPs
I got the following from the following web site:
http://www.csfa.com/


Wobble

NOTE 3: If you get into the hairiest of mathematics you'll find any shaft has two natural frequencies and they are always located 90 degrees apart on the shaft. At one point you will get one of these frequencies and by rotating the shaft 90 degrees you'll get the other. If the shaft is flexed anywhere in between both frequencies will be excited and the two will beat against one another causing the shaft to wobble. The two frequencies in a steel shaft or a filament wound graphite shaft are generally very close such that very little wobble will occur. In wrapped graphite shafts this is not always the case due to the seam and wobbling can be pretty wild. I've seen as much as 12-cpm difference between these two frequencies in some shafts. If a shaft is regular along one axis and stiff along the other how do you install it in the club? It's best to buy good shafts. Again the frequency analyzer is a great quality control device. By the way, that vibratory gyro I mentioned in an earlier Tech Note had its two natural frequencies matched to a small fraction of a part per trillion. Like I said it wasn't a cheap device.