Graphite Designs AD Fairway Shaft Review

Graphite Designs Tour AD Fairway Golf Shaft Review

By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Club Maker
The Golf Center at the Highlands, Carrollton Texas

Golfers who first experience a fairway with a premium driver shaft universally have a jaw dropping experience. First at the performance then at the cost of the fairway club. There is sticker shock when they are told the shaft itself cost more than a retail fairway metal. Yet, when you see a tour player hitting a fairway you should realize, the shaft he is using is the same quality as his driver shaft. Heavier and perhaps stiffer, but it is an ultra-premium driver shaft.

The problem with the stock fairway shafts is there simply is not enough money at $250 to $300, the typical retail price of a fairway, to supply a decent shaft. In the price range we have come to expect at retail for a fairway, the manufacturer has a limited range of shaft options. What gets delivered is a high launch design. That shaft will have a soft tip zone to help get the ball airborne. However at that price point it will also come with high torque. When you watch your slightly off center ball strikes snap hook or block into the trees realize this, it’s not you, it’s the shaft. I have put a great many golfers into $550 to $600 fairways. Not all can or will make that level of investment into a fairway. Those that do have a rapid understanding of what shaft quality means.

Graphite Designs has joined Mitsubishi in offering a high quality fairway specific shaft at an approachable price. The Graphite Design Tour AD F-Series Fairway shaft has a MAP price of $250. That is 35% less than the price of a Tour AD driver shaft. The Tour AD FWY is painted to closely match this year’s Tour AD TP driver shaft. It is made with 40t carbon-fiber while the TP uses 50t material. Weights range from 72 to 95 grams. Let’s look at the measurements.

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Russ

Paderson Kinetixx Fairway Shaft Review

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Paderson Kinetixx Fairway Golf Shafts

By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Club Maker
The Golf Center at the Highlands, Carrollton Texas

Paderson makes a full line of filament wound carbon fiber shafts. They tension Kevlar ribbon during winding, a unique construction in the golf shaft business. To most of us, Kevlar is a material we associate with bullet proof vests, but as you will see in this Wikipedia article, it has a wide range of use. Many of them sports related. It is a high strength, low weight fiber. Paderson is not the only company to use Kevlar in golf shaft construction, but I am told they are to only company that can tension it during application to the mandrel, owning the patent for the process.

Most carbon fiber shafts are made by rolling sheets of material over a mandrel. Paderson ‘spins’ a weave of carbon fiber ribbon over the mandrel. This gives them the unique ability to tension the fiber during the weaving process.There is an in depth discussion of their technology and manufacturing process on their website. All but a few of Paderson’s shafts are filament wound. They are one of a very few companies that have this manufacturing technology. This video copied from their site illustrates the process.

Paderson offers a range of tension wound Kevlar fairway shaft weights and profiles. A great matrix of designs for a fitter to work with. The catalog price of $150 puts in at the low end of the range for premium shafts. Lets take a look at the measurements of this very wide range of products.

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Russ

Mitsubishi Diamana Thump Fairway Review

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Mitsubishi Diamana Thump Fairway

By Russ Ryden, A Golf Digest America’s 100 Best Clubfitter
Fit2Score, Dallas Fort Worth, Texas

The Diamana Thump name has been used before in a line of iron shafts and in a hybrid shaft. The irons have been discontinued. The Diamana Thump Hybrid is still available, now a special order item. It is my all time favorite Hybrid shaft and has been in my bag for a very, very long time. When I saw the name thump applied to a fairway shaft I had high expectations, and the measurements of this shaft met them. Mitsubishi discontinued the Fubuki AX Fairway shaft in 2014. It occupied a unique niche, a fairway only shaft, 43″ long uncut, at $250 MSRP, with all the unique qualities of the premium Mitsubishi $400 driver shafts. The Diamana Thump Fairway once again fills this niche. At $250 it puts delivers premium quality at a more approachable price point.

As I worked my way through the measurement of this shaft I left torque for last. Everything looked very good, would the torque be low enough to compete with the premium Diamana’s I have been using in custom fitted fairways. The answer, yes. Tip zone torques of 2.3 in the 70 and 80 gram versions put it into that special class of shafts that can comfortably control the extra weight of a fairway and maintain club head alignment during a preimpact brush with the turf.

Radial quality of the review samples was 99.6% with a 0.4% standard deviation. Translation: shafts don’t get any rounder, don’t bother with alignment and use this shaft without reservation in a rotating hosel fairway head. Look again at those torque numbers. This is a high launch design, something most of us want in our fairways. The typical shaft that delivers high launch is also high torque. If the stock shaft in your fairway has a tendency to create hooks when you lean on it, you should consider replacing it with the Diamana Thump Fairway. Replacing your stock fairway shaft with the Diamana Thump will create a club you can trust.

I have built countless numbers of custom fit fairway metals with the Diamama Red and the KuroKage Proto TiNi driver shafts. They launch high, with adequate spin to deliver drop and stop shots. The Diamama Thump Fairway, at about 60% of the price, has a very similar design. It is a bit stiffer in the butt section which for those with an abrupt transition is a good thing. The profile of these shaft from high mid to tip is hard to tell apart. And they all sit in the same torque range. The Thump Fairway and the KuroKage Tour Proto TiNi have much the same hoop strength.

Here is feedback from my first sale, “Went away to Atlanta for a golf weekend with the new Thump shaft in my 3 wood. I was embarrassed hitting it consistently 250 yards in the fairway and 10 yards past my partners’ driver tee shots. Didn’t bother pulling out my driver the last 36 holes. Too bad it can’t help my putting!” Robert V.

Mitsubishi Fubuki Golf Shaft Review

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MITSUBISHI FUBUKI DRIVER AND FAIRWAY SHAFTS

By Russ Ryden, A Golf Digest America’s 100 Best Clubfitter
Fit2Score, Dallas Fort Worth, Texas

It was hard to miss noticing the Fubuki Tour on Television on Sunday afternoon. The distinctive white color is became so common it got copied by other brands. It is a variation of the White Board profile with a stiffer tip but softer mid. The second generation white board, the Diamana ‘ahina brought in an even stiffer tip. The Fubuki Tour shaft is now often used by tour players in fairways. The profile is similiar to the Diamana ‘ahina, with a softer, higher launching tip. The Fubuki Tour will be phased out in 2014. The profile of the Fubuki K offers the same feel and loading characteristics with a slightly stiffer tip.

The softer tip of the The Fubuki Tour introduced a slightly higher launch to the popular White Board design. It is a perfect pairing for a player looking for a slightly higher launching fairway, while still retaining the feel and control of a mid stiff shaft. Like all Mitsubishi Rayon golf shafts, the profiles of the Fubuki Tour are consistent from weight to weight and flex to flex. The butt torque ranges from 4.1 in the 50R to 2.6 in the 80X. The tip torque of the Fubuki Tour 70 and 80 x is 2.0, a great number for a fairway shaft.

Mitsubishi Fubuki Alpha

A 2010 profile from Mitsubishi called “Acceleration Technology”. It is promoted as delivering high launch and low spin. I have found it to be a mid to low mid launching golf shaft design. I refer to this as a Kai’li on steroids. The profile is a blend of the ‘ahina and Kai’li designs.

It is available in 55 – 75 grams. Among the sub 60 gram shafts it is unique. A tour profile in a light weight shaft. The butt is not as stiff as the Kai’li and the mid is not as soft. The tip is tight in both longitudinal and radial directions. The white driver shaft you saw on TV on weekends, this was it until the Fubuki K came along. The overall torque of the Fubuki Alpha ranges from 4.1 in the 50R to 2.5 in the 80X. The Fubuki Alpha profiles are consistent from weight to weight and flex to flex. The radial profiles are excellent; the shaft can be used in any orientation. The Fubuki Alpha 65 gram is the stock shaft in the 2012 Adams Fast 12 LS driver. That makes the Adams Fast 12 LS driver a unique value proposition.

Mitsubishi Fubuki K

The Fubuki K was introduced in late 2011. The MDT shaft material is enhanced with a metallic “lace” in the butt section. This creates a stable butt without having to add a lot of carbon fiber. The profile called “Acceleration Technology” by Mitsubishi is similar to the original Fubuki Tour with a slightly firmer butt and tip.

The Fubuki K, unlike the Fubuki Alpha profile, is very similar to the ‘ahina with a higher tip to butt ratio resulting is a higher launch. It is a soft tip ‘ahina. The torque ranges from 4.1 in the 50R to 2.5 in the 80X shafts. The tip torque of this shaft is among the lowest I have measured. The Fubuki K profiles are consistent from weight to weight and flex to flex. The radial profiles are excellent; this shaft can be used in any orientation. Yes, the tour version 80X is in my driver fitting system for you gorillas out there. Like the original Fubuki Tour, it is a perfect compliment to the ‘ahina as a higher launching, higher spinning fairway shaft.

A look at the EI profiles of the Mitsubishi Fubuki golf shafts shows the similarity between the original Tour and the third generation K versions. The Alpha is a different design and launches lower.

Mitsubishi Fubuki Ax Fairway

The Fubuki Ax is a fairway shaft. The raw shaft is several inches shorter than a driver shaft. The weights range from 50 to 85 grams. It is a close match to the Diamana Blue Board. The profiles and torques are much the same. Its a mid high launching shaft. The Fubuki Ax fairway is a mid price shaft, making for economical fairway clubs with a high performance shaft. The comparison with the Fubuki Alpha is shown below. A stiffer butt design follows the preference of many tour players in their fairways. The overall torque of the Fubuki Ax Fairway ranges from 4.3 in the 50R to 3.1 in the 80X. Tip torques on the heavier, stiffer versions are around 2.5. The Fubuki Ax profiles are consistent from weight to weight and flex to flex. The radial profiles are good; the shaft can be used in any orientation. The 65 gram version of the shaft is standard in the Adams 2012 Super XTD fairway.

As with all Mitsubishi shafts, you should see a club fitter to select the best fit of profile, weight and stiffness to your swing.

Miyazaki Kusala Golf Shaft Review

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Russ