OBAN ISAWA GLD Hybrid Golf Shaft Review
By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Builder
The Highlands Performance Golf Center, Carrollton Texas
Golf Digest Certified America’s 100 Best Club Fitter
The OBAN ISAWA GLD Hybrid shaft has much the same profile as the ISAWA GLD Driver Shaft. If you fit into a Driver/Fairway shaft, why not use the same profile in your hybrids. The Isawa GLD hybrid makes that possible. And like the GLD driver shaft, it is one of the most popular profiles for recreational golfers.
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Russ
TPT Golf is a division of a Swiss technology and composite firm that developed carbon fiber materials. They have produced America’s Cup yacht sails, lightweight racing car bodies, skis, snowboards, watch bodies, aircraft parts and satellite parts. They offered their prepreg to shaft companies and was told it was too expensive. Their only choice to enter the golf market was to make their own shafts. Their ultra premium shafts quickly appeared in the bags of several marque PGA players.
Thin Ply Technology (TPT) shafts have double the layers of material found in typical ultra premium shafts. Prepreg tapes are wrapped on the mandrel on CNC winders. Most other shafts are hand rolled, much like cigars. TPT makes the prepreg ribbon and can orientate the fiber direction in the ribbon. That creates a uniquely new method of creating golf shafts. They can adjust shaft properties in unique ways to adjust shaft performance. I have been to the Swiss R&D site demonstrating the process of EI measurement with my instrument and software.
Now that we have the fifth generation of the Speeder Evolution one wonders if this was a marketing strategy planned at the beginning or that evolved over the years. The fundamental design has not changed,a good thing. Along the way there were subtle tweaks.
