Golf shaft alignment is a topic I have spent a great deal of time on since the production of this video in 2011. Shaft spines on premium shafts are no longer common. Most premium shaft companies cull low quality, “spined” shafts. Not all, so it is still important to check for out of round golf shafts. The solution is to return the shaft for a quality shaft. The myth that there is benefit to spine alignment persists because some club making companies profit from selling the service.
I have preserved this video because it is an excellent review of shaft measuring procedures.
On my shaft review site, https://www.golfshaftreviews.info I publish the redial consistency of the shafts I measure. Radial consistency is the difference in frequency between the hard side of the shaft and the soft side. The lower the difference, the rounder the shaft. Round shafts are what we want to be playing, shafts that do not exhibit any “spine”. A shaft company director of R&D once put it simply, less than 2 CPM difference, tour grade, less than 5 CPM difference, consumer grade, more than 5 CPM difference, dumpster grade.
Think about your golf swing, when the shaft is horizontal to the ground, the toe is up and the load is heal to toe. At impact the toe is out, the shaft has rotated 90 degrees, the load is front to rear. In the Royal Precision scale, 4.3 CPM is the difference between half flex increments. For example, a 5.5 shaft is 4.3 CPM stiffer than a 5.0 shaft. So ask yourself a simple question, do you want to be playing a shaft that changes stiffness from a 5.0 half way down your swing to a 5.5 at impact. I don’t. That means that a shaft with a spine should not have been shipped. It should have been discarded. It did not pass a quality standard. No process of spine alignment can fix this shaft, it is junk.
Shafts that are round, 2 CPM or less between hard plane and soft plane do not benefit from any sort of spine alignment. The only benefit from shaft alignment of a round shaft is the profit made by the club maker selling the service.
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You have the personality of a goddamn potato. Animate yourself!
It's been almost ten years since I discovered this video. I maintain that identifying the main spine of a shaft with a bearing spine finder is the way to go. I shafted a set of MacGregor blades many years back. I used 5.0 Rifle stepless shafts. I found the set inconsistent with the exception of my 6 iron. It was my go to club and most consistent from shot to shot. I decided to break everything down, identify the spines in all the shafts, and re-assemble with the spines set to the target line. But first, I marked the target lines as they were in their random fashion. It turns out that my "go to" 6 iron was by chance, spot on the target line. Once I re-assembled the entire set, it was an amazing difference. Consistency and control. I know this is just anecdotal information, but ever since then, I spine to the target line on every single club I own. I am a very straight hitter. I think spining is responsible for making that possible. Also, in all these F.L.O. videos, no one ever mentions club droop. It's a real thing and I believe to be much more of a factor than people think. Keeping the spine toward the target also makes club droop pretty consistent. Just my single digit opinion.
In spite of all my efforts to resist, I have hit my senior years. I have steel shafts on my Mizuno irons. I know there are senior graphite shafts out there and I believe they are lighter in weight but I've heard they're not as stiff and tend to be less accurate. It doesn't make sense. We can send robots to Mars but we can't make a consistent golf shaft? And Scottie Scheffler shoots a 70 on Thursday and a 59 on Friday at the Northern Trust – with the same clubs! Explain that.
Very informative. One thought of the video. Wear a Hawaiian shirt. Golf is fun!
Is that a Marsh Landing shirt? 😀 Great video too!
Why are you marking the spine up by the grip? Wouldn't you want to mark it at the club head end to align it with the neck?
Since the center of contact with the ball is not inline with the center of the shaft and is indeed at least 1 inch or more offset,I believe the shaft at the moment of dall contact is subject to torsion or twisting,Steel shafts have a great deal more resistance to twisting than graphite.There is a possibility that proper alignment of the spine would help resist twisting but that calculation would scalar and involve vectors and would be unique to every assembly.
Impressive to hear this, although 7 years later. Appreciated explanation of the highest order. Thanks
I have watched the video several times. As I understand this concept of spine and FLO, could it be possible to find the vertical plane with the laser, and turn the shaft 180 degrees for the opposite plane. And the final step to find the CPM of both planes for the stiffness. Could the spine finding be eliminated all together? I have a Maltby Analyzer with the goal posts, and a few lasers from Golf Mechanics, and I was thinking, could it be done all in one the same step? As long as I stay consistent with my clubs, would I not be accomplishing it without finding the spine?
Also, at the end of the video, you mention that the FLO lines are placed in positions such as – directly at the target, 90 degree, or 12 o'clock….? You mention that your clubs are measured and assembled following this approach, so, what alignment of the FLO line, do you assemble your golf clubs?
After reading the comments, some related, but I did notice that you mentioned it is difficult to find a FLO on a quality shaft. So, just spine those, or according to the silk screen, and other shafts, maybe FLO? I understand that this concept is mocked quite heavily, however, I am believer. So, I appreciate your video. Thank you
What diff does it make with all the drivers now having adjustable shaft positions. You just keep moving the spine several degrees when adjusting the loft of the club with these tips, i.e. Taylormade, Ping, Titleist, etc.
My experience is that if you deflect any decent shaft vertically and release the tip, the laser will transcribe a vertical path for the first few cycles, or at the very least, for the first cycle. What happens with regard to oscillation in cycles 2,3,4 etc is most likely irrelevant to golfers, as the golf ball is hit during the first cycle of flex and release, ie before the shaft starts to oscillate.
I will soon make an update to this video. Adjustable Drivers, Fairways & Hybrids require good shafts. One simple test is to put the shaft in a clamp and see how severely it wobbles. The good stuff will wobble some, the bad stuff will wobble all over the place. And the location of the flat line oscillation plain will be very tight. Owing the the severity of the elliptical nature of shaft stiffness on that bad shaft. On the good stuff, the FLO can sometimes be hard to find.
To follow up on my reply – the best type of shaft to use in a driver with an adjustable hosel, if you are planning to change it frequently, is one that has very little or no spine. And the type of shaft that will always have that unique characteristic is a filament wound shaft. It's very difficult to manufacture a sheet wrapped/table rolled shaft without creating a spine, no matter how high quality or expensive it is. But a filament wound shaft will never have a spine due to the way it is made.
Using a hosel that rotates the shaft requires that the shaft have radial consistency. Most quality aftermarket shafts do. The test is to compare the frequency of the strong and weak planes of the shaft. A low difference, 0-2 CPM is a tour quality shaft, 3-6, consumer quality, 6+ trash. And I have pulled out some real trash, 10-15 cpm difference from off the rack clubs. As a fitter you recognize that 8.6 on the Brunswick scale represented a flex point, 4.0 vs 5.0. What does 15 CPM imply?
Well my question Rusty, what does this mean for the Adjustable drivers on the market today, Taylormade, Cobra, Callaways all have adjustable loft clubs and when you change the loft you are moving the shafts orientation to the head, so what issues is that going to mean for those who would pay 3 – 400.00 for those drivers?
errr 1:20 both are symmetricle
Volume please!
I bet that particular shaft is not for sale. It must be considered as evidence. In fact I was constantly waiting Mulder and Scully to show up at some point 😀
Trust no one. Get aligned!
Hi Russ. I am curious, since the strong plane dissects the shaft, are there 2 supposedly ideal correct positions being 180 degrees from each other? Thanks…
@GolfFitter – In my opinion, spine alignment does two things. Firstly, and most important, allows the golfer to maintain light grip pressure throughout the swing. Without identifying and aligning the spine, the club begins to "twist" during acceleration of the downswing.. The golfer feels this feedback and unconsciously grips tighter, which is not good. Secondly, it allows the clubs to flex in a similar fashion. I just believe that a bearing based spine tool is more than sufficient.
Agreed that identifying the spine and aligning it properly is the way to go.. but this precision scientific hair splitting is a waste… Bearing based spine finders are way close enough. Think about it. As soon as you glue on the head, the weight distribution and off center nature of the head design takes the "extra science" out of the equation. Then, what about opening the face for fades and closing it for draws? Bottom line… bearing based spine finders are the way to go.