UST Recoil Parallel Iron Golf Shaft Review
By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Club Maker
The Golf Center at the Highlands, Carrollton Texas
When the UST Recoil Iron shaft was first introduced I was enthralled by the concept of hoop deformation storing and then releasing energy. Hoop deformation was not part of the discussion in the club fitting organizations I belonged to. There was no publically documented procedure in the golf shaft business for measuring it. I was given some hints by another shaft company and set out on a long discovery process to measure it. Eventually it redefined how I calculated golf shaft EI by adding a correction for hoop deformation in the 3 point measuring process. This did not happen overnight. The journey lasted a little over a year, hoop deformation measurements are now an integral part of my understanding of the golf shaft. While I am forever grateful to UST Mamiya for bringing this to my attention, I did not find anything extraordinary about the hoop strength of the Recoil shafts. Generally it is a function of wall thickness, fiber orientation and layup strategy.
I recently obtained a limited range of UST Recoil shafts, including the Recoil 450, Recoil 460, Recoil 660, Recoil 670 and Recoil 680. Before we look at the numbers I realized in a conversation with a shaft company executive a few weeks ago that I was remiss in explaining my rating of shaft stiffness, EI Area. An article on the metric has been posted.. The concept was presented to me by Jeff Meyers who was the shaft guru at Titleist for about 20 years. By using area under the curve, each measurement of the shaft, from tip to butt is given equal weight in the stiffness rating. Jeff found it preferable over frequency to predict how golfers would report their impression of shaft stiffness. Frequency is heavily weighted toward the butt, overlooking the remainder of the shafts. As you read the charts on this site, your can compare overall stiffness of shafts by looking at the EI Area number in the tables.
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Russ
To continue reading this section of the review, you must be registered at a higher level membership.
Russ
True Temper reintroduced the Rifle Iron Shaft in 2017. it is a parallel shaft which a True Temper Performance Fitting Certified Club Maker can trim to exacting stiffness. The Rifle shaft has a long history in the golf business and was once a popular shaft on the PGA tour.
When I was new to club making I attended what was then a weekend seminar to become a Rifle Certified Clubmaker. I learned the history of the research done by Dr. Joe Braly. That research pioneered the effort that is ongoing today to find a synergy between the golfer and the golf shaft. Quoting from my Rifle training manual, “The conventional process of determining shaft flex strictly by weight does not recognise a number of other variable that can stand in the way of producing a correctly matched set of clubs.” I am not certain that we yet fully understand that synergy. But, the research that resulted in the Rifle fitting system was a pioneering step in the history of club fitting. I know a number of golf pros that still speak fondly of their Rifle shafts sets of old.