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  1. #1
    Hall of Fame jvincent is on a distinguished road jvincent's Avatar
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    Graphite shafts in irons

    OK, so it's that time of year again and in order to keep the golf itch alive, I'm going to do what I do every year, think about tweaking the set in the off season.

    This year I tried a graphite shaft in a 4i head as an experiment and I was surprised at how well it worked. Overall I think it was a better club than the 4-hybrid that I was using in that I was able to hit it high or low off the tee or fairway whereas the hybrid was high ball flight only.

    So, I am pondering reshafting one of the iron sets with graphite. All the way down to the wedges.

    The shaft in the 4i is a UST V2 95g, which while not nearly as heavy as the steel shafts I currently play (125g or 115g) is still on the heavy-ish side for a graphite.

    The particular shafts I'm eyeballing are the AXE iron shafts which are 85g in S-flex. I'm thinking of the AXE because I put an AXE-7 in the driver and an AXE-FWY into the 4W at the end of the season and they are very good.

    Does anyone on the board have any experience with the AXE iron shafts? If not, any thoughts about going this route? I haven't decided if I will try to get the SW on the graphite set to match my steel set or whether or not to play them at a lower SW. If I do match the SW I haven't decided whether to play them at steel length with tip weights or play them a little longer. Heck, I might just MOI match them for kicks.

    Thankfully there's lot's of time from now until next April to figure this out.........
    Not fat anymore. Need to get better at golf now!

  2. #2
    Postaholic downhillslider is on a distinguished road
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    The word is you are a pretty good ball stryker. My experience with your idea yielded some good, some bad results. Long story short, I went with DGR300 HL's butt frequencied at 4.7 on the Precision chart, ( quite a bit of tipping / club ),6,7,8,9. PW, GW, SW and LW have Spinner 5.5's. The 5I has a Wishon 335 Tour Weight graphite "R", ( .335 tip ) the 4H has the same shaft. Like you, I was hitting my 3H a little high with this set up so I opted for a Mizuno Hi Fly 21* (.350 hosel ) with a Fuji E150 "R" .350 wood shaft tipped to get it to 4.5 on the RP chart. It's a tad light but it works very well.

    I found that the scoring clubs had to be heavier as not to mess up my rithym, also the longer the club got, the easier it was for me to control with graphite.

  3. #3
    Hall of Fame jvincent is on a distinguished road jvincent's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by downhillslider View Post
    The word is you are a pretty good ball stryker.
    My advertising campaign is paying off! Thanks.

    I found that the scoring clubs had to be heavier as not to mess up my rithym, also the longer the club got, the easier it was for me to control with graphite.
    That's the kind of the thing I was wondering about. I know that with driver if I go too light with the shaft I can get a little wild so the same might happen with the irons unless I manage to get the SW high enough to be able to keep the head feel.
    Not fat anymore. Need to get better at golf now!

  4. #4
    Postaholic downhillslider is on a distinguished road
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    Quote Originally Posted by jvincent View Post
    My advertising campaign is paying off! Thanks.



    That's the kind of the thing I was wondering about. I know that with driver if I go too light with the shaft I can get a little wild so the same might happen with the irons unless I manage to get the SW high enough to be able to keep the head feel.
    Forget about the SW, it's the total weight of the club that is the concern. Your irons are for specific yardages and finness shots that require feel and touch unlike the driver that is used to hit the ball as far as you can.There are 3 basic reasons for wanting to switch to graphite; to possibly increase your swingspeed enough to add yardage, a vibration dampning affect to ease the pain on your joints and to change the feel of your clubs. Graphite shafts for irons have come a long way with the availability of 90+ gr shafts in recents years, but they are not cheap and the heavier ones have bend profiles that are geared towards the better player. So unless you fall in to one of these catagories... Also, forget about lengthning graphite shafts to achieve a certain SW. Go with the lenght of club that suits you best. Lenghtning graphite shafted irons for SW purposes is an OEM thing designed to cut corners and save $$

  5. #5
    Hall of Fame jvincent is on a distinguished road jvincent's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by downhillslider View Post
    Forget about the SW, it's the total weight of the club that is the concern.
    That's been my experience with the driver,i.e. cannot get total weight too low, but the 4i results were surprising, which is why I'm interested in doing this.

    There are 3 basic reasons for wanting to switch to graphite; to possibly increase your swingspeed enough to add yardage, a vibration dampning affect to ease the pain on your joints and to change the feel of your clubs.
    I'm not worried about the first two but #3 is definitely the goal of this experiment.
    Not fat anymore. Need to get better at golf now!

  6. #6
    Hall of Fame jvincent is on a distinguished road jvincent's Avatar
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    The unexpectedly nice weather allowed me to get out today with the graphite sticks.

    I haven't played in almost 3 weeks so the game was a little rusty but I honestly didn't notice that they were overly light. Feel with the wedges was about what I'd normally expect.

    Except for one particularly bad hole, my fault, I was quite pleased with the way they played. As an added bonus, my bag is also a pound lighter!

    The forecast is nice for tomorrow as well, so I'll probably try to get out again.
    Not fat anymore. Need to get better at golf now!

  7. #7
    Moderator Big Johnny69 is on a distinguished road Big Johnny69's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jvincent View Post
    The unexpectedly nice weather allowed me to get out today with the graphite sticks.

    I haven't played in almost 3 weeks so the game was a little rusty but I honestly didn't notice that they were overly light. Feel with the wedges was about what I'd normally expect.

    Except for one particularly bad hole, my fault, I was quite pleased with the way they played. As an added bonus, my bag is also a pound lighter!

    The forecast is nice for tomorrow as well, so I'll probably try to get out again.

    And how did the second round go? Are the graphites staying in the bag, or back to steel?
    "A life lived in fear of the new and the untried is not a life lived to its fullest." M.Pare 10/09/08

  8. #8
    Hall of Fame jvincent is on a distinguished road jvincent's Avatar
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    Round 2 was 11-GIR and score of 78, so the graphite is safely in the bag for next season.

    I hit two bad irons all day. Oddly enough, both were 4-irons and were typical crap swings for me so I can't blame the graphite. In general the feel with the irons was quite solid.

    The SW of the graphite shafts came out at D0.5, which is higher than I expected and that was without tip weights. I think that they may have designed the shafts to be more tip heavy.
    Not fat anymore. Need to get better at golf now!

  9. #9
    Golf Padawan nokids is on a distinguished road nokids's Avatar
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    i tried Jv's clubs yesterday and i am definitely considering picking up some graphite wedges. Soooo light!

  10. #10
    Hall of Fame jvincent is on a distinguished road jvincent's Avatar
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    If you like we've heads you have now just get them reshafted with graphite. Much cheaper that way.
    Not fat anymore. Need to get better at golf now!

  11. #11
    7 Iron rtto5588 is on a distinguished road
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    Quote Originally Posted by jvincent View Post
    If you like we've heads you have now just get them reshafted with graphite. Much cheaper that way.
    I've been looking at reshafting some wedges. Not sure with which shafts though. What graphite wedge shafts would you recommend and places to purchase?

  12. #12
    Golf Canada Rules Official L4 BC MIST is on a distinguished road
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    Quote Originally Posted by rtto5588 View Post
    I've been looking at reshafting some wedges. Not sure with which shafts though. What graphite wedge shafts would you recommend and places to purchase?
    FWIW: Another good graphite shaft for those a mite stronger than the average is the ** Aerotech Steel Fiber. http://www.golfworks.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_AT0004I

    Played with them this season and felt very comfortable with them. Matt Kuchar plays these shafts in his irons. **They are not cheap.

  13. #13
    Hall of Fame jvincent is on a distinguished road jvincent's Avatar
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    I used the Excaliber shafts that are available at Golfworks.
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  14. #14
    Gotta Post Break68 is on a distinguished road Break68's Avatar
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    Obviously you're not a golfer.

  15. #15
    Hall of Fame jvincent is on a distinguished road jvincent's Avatar
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    That's them.

    I always forget that it's Xcaliber and not Excaliber.
    Not fat anymore. Need to get better at golf now!

  16. #16
    Hall of Fame jvincent is on a distinguished road jvincent's Avatar
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    Yeah, I was looking at the Aerotech's as well. As you point out, they aren't cheap.

    I went with the Xcaliber's because they were less expensive and I am quite pleased with the way the wood shafts are working.
    Not fat anymore. Need to get better at golf now!

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