When I entered the golf club fitting business about 15 years ago, there wasn’t any way to compare golf shafts. There was no standard rating system for golf shaft stiffness. That was and still is a problem. Understanding what shaft is best for your game is essential. Properly fit golf gear leads to a better game.
Describing golf shaft properties is not a simple task. So as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. Shaft company marketing staff developed terms, “kick point”, “stiffness”, “launch” and “spin” to describe shaft properties. These terms developed into a mythological language for describing golf shafts. Shaft engineers and designers define golf shaft stiffness as a profile, the shape of stiffness down the length of the shaft. When I had the opportunity to tour a shaft company R&D lab and my understanding of golf shaft technology was shaken to the core.
That lead to me designing and manufacturing a simple but very accurate EI measuring instrument. It is now owned and used by several shaft companies. I have been writing about EI profiles on this journal for 10+ years. The term EI profile, is now becoming part of the discussion shaft companies are having with golfers.
Golf Shaft Reviews is my freelance journal about golf shafts. If you want to understand golf shafts you have come to the right place. Here you can learn why some shafts work better for you than others. And more important, how to recognize the properties of shafts that make you a better golfer. Please share your comments about what you experience with the shafts reviewed.
Creating a uniform system to define the distribution of flex down a golf shaft was possible, in fact many shaft companies have such systems. But the information, for fear of giving that information to their competitors, is not shared with golfers or golf professionals. It took a few years to refine my EI Instrument and many, many years to acquire and measure the popular golf shafts. This journal provides you with uniform measurements of thousands of golf shafts. If you are new to my journal, the TECHNOLOGY MENU is a collection of articles that will help you understand golf shaft design.
This journal is entirely supported by subscription. To insure my integrity, there are no ads on this site, that allows me to remain unbiased in the articles. If you believe as I do, that your golf shafts are essential to good golf, please subscribe. Testing shafts and writing articles takes a great amount of time. Your subscription underwrites the time and resources needed to keep this journal going and growing.
This video is a detailed discussion about golf shafts stiffness and the history of how they were measured and marketed. It is one of many videos about golf equipment technology and golf club building on my youtube channel, Devoted Golfer.
It took years to understand shaft measurement and many more years to accumulate a meaningful database of shaft measurements. The magnitude of that accomplishment did not occur to me until a golf shaft company owner said it to me. Several golf shaft companies now use the EI measuring instrument I designed and manufactured. If you are a golf professional and would like access to more data there are two choices. Golf Professional subscribers get access to a larger set of data and individual profiles of all the shaft model weights and stiffness variations that were made available. Fit2Score Affiliates have access to the entire database through Excel. To hear a recent podcast interview I did about golf shafts with Tony Wright, a Fit2Score Software Affiliate, Click Here.
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By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Builder
The Tensei AV Series has been updated to AV2. AV2 is the designation on the shaft label which you will not be able to see if there is a grip on the shaft. But, there is a unique label over the weave that will tell you this is the updated version of the Aluminum Vapor Weave. 
