Do You Need Low Spin or High Spin Golf Shafts? Here's How to Tell

How important do you think the golf shaft is in your golf clubs?

Is it just the steel or graphite thing that connects the head with the grip?

Do you feel that the the golf shaft does have an important role, but it’s the technology in the golf clubhead that will dictate whether you hit the ball well or poorly?

The bottom line is that having the correct golf shaft in your golf clubs can profoundly affect the quality of your shots.

Profoundly might sound too strong to describe the importance of a golf shaft's role. However, fitting the right golf club shafts to your clubs can improve distance, accuracy, and ball striking, which is what we mean by improving the quality of your shots.

Understanding golf shafts goes beyond choosing between regular, stiff, or extra-stiff flexes. Scratching a little further below the surface reveals the importance of shaft weight, tip and handle profiles, and shaft spin profiles.

Don’t worry. We aren’t going to get mega-technical in this article as we explain these elements.

Our objective is to give you all the necessary information you’ll need to help you solve the puzzle of what shaft is best suited for your playing abilities.

We’ll keep things simple by sticking to three areas, which are:

• Understanding How Golf Shaft Profiles Affect Spin Rates
• How To Choose The Correct Golf Shaft For Your Swing Speed
• How Custom-Fitting Takes The Hassle Out Of Choosing The Correct Shaft

Understanding How Golf Shaft Profiles Affect Spin Rates

We’ve become better versed at understanding that players who generate high clubhead speeds need a driver that reduces and controls excessive spin rates to optimise distance.

These golfers gravitate more towards low-spin drivers, where the centre of gravity is positioned higher and closer to the face to achieve these desired spin rates.

At the other end of the spectrum, golfers who don’t generate high clubhead speeds are likely to need more spin. Drivers where the centre of gravity is positioned as far away from the face and as low as possible in the head are likely to help these golfers. The added boost in spin rates can help these golfers launch their drives better to achieve improved carry distances.

Golf club fitters often talk about an ideal “spin window”, which refers to the preferred spin numbers they want to see for any level of golfer, which will help to produce the optimised carry numbers that lead to longer and more consistent drives. But getting the head profile correct is only one part of the puzzle. Getting the correct shaft profile to hit that spin window is equally important.

When we discuss spin rates, our attention is primarily focused on the shaft's tip end and the type of profile it has.

Tip sections that are ultra-stiff, like those in a shaft like the Fujikura Ventus Black, are better suited to you if you have a faster swing speed or are aggressive in your transition from backswing to downswing.

The ultra-stiff tip section helps to stabilise the clubhead through impact and will help to eradicate unwanted excess spin on shots.

Because you already have the clubhead speed, your trajectory is much more easily controlled with a shaft that has a strong tip section.

If you attempted to play with a softer-tipped shaft, you’d likely see shots with a ballooning trajectory due to excessive spin being created, robbing you of maximum carry distance.

An additional characteristic of shafts that promote lower spin is that they sit on the heavier end of the weight spectrum. The heavier shaft weight also lends itself to creating stability because you are already generating enough speed in your swing for the shaft to load and unload properly.

If you sit at the other end of the spectrum and don’t generate a lot of clubhead speed, you are most likely to favour a shaft with a softer tip section to achieve your ideal spin window figures.

The softer tip helps to provide a little more kick down at impact, which can help launch the ball more effectively and add a little more spin to maximise carry distances.

If you were to try a golf shaft with a strong tip section, you’re likely to struggle to get the ball spinning correctly, leading to poor carry numbers, which could cause problems on the course if you have a lot of forced carry shots.

If we refer back to the Fujikura Ventus range, the Ventus Red or even the lighter, more flexible end of the Ventus Blue range could be a good choice.

Elsewhere, Mitsubishi Chemical’s Tensei 1K Pro Red or Diamana RB have equally compliant tip sections to help generate improved spin and launch figures for golfers with slower swing speeds.

How To Choose The Correct Golf Shaft For Your Swing Speed

Choosing the right golf shaft for swing speed is an equally important consideration.

If we look at shaft flex profiles, and you are using shafts that are too stiff, you will likely see a lot of weak shots flared out to the right (for a right-handed golfer).

If a shaft is too flexible, you’ll see many hooked shots, as the clubface will close down too quickly.

Either shot results from poor clubhead control because you can’t generate the necessary clubhead speed (shaft is too stiff) or overpower the shaft (shaft too weak) to stabilise the face through impact.

A key marker is understanding just how much clubhead speed you generate, which can easily be obtained in a custom-fitting session that we’ll cover in more detail shortly.

The overall weight of the shaft can also contribute to golfers' struggles to control the direction and trajectory of a shot.

Lighter shafts tended to sit more at the “whippy” end of the spectrum, while heavier shafts sat at the stronger end of the scale.

Shaft technology has advanced to the point where lighter shafts can have stronger flexes. This can be achieved by stiffening up the mid to lower section of the shaft to create that additional level of stability. 

Again, Fujikura’s Ventus Red 5 perfectly demonstrates this point, being available in a lightweight 59-gram senior/ladies flex. If the red profile suits your swing but you have more power, you can be fitted for the still lightweight Ventus 7, which weighs in at 78 grams in an extra-stiff flex.

If you think that is still on the heavy side, you only have to wind the clock back 15 years to see a standard stiff graphite shaft weighing 75 grams.

Composite shaft manufacturers such as Fujikura, Mitsubishi Chemical, Graphite Design, and True Temper now offer shaft ranges with various weighting options, helping fitters find the correct shaft for any level of golfer much more effectively.

Steel shafts have always been heavier than their composite counterparts. However, with technological advancements, even steel shafts can be offered in a wider variety of weights to suit golfers of all levels.

The fundamental connection between playing more consistent golf shots comes down to a professional custom golf shaft fitting service, which is what we are going to look at more closely now.

How Custom-Fitting Takes The Hassle Out Of Choosing The Correct Shaft

It’s important to remember that the technology used in clubheads is complemented by having the correct shaft fitted, and that comes down to custom fitting.

Why an experienced fitter can find the correct shaft for any level of golfer comes in part to the data obtained from a high-spec launch monitor.

A launch monitor like GC Quad captures clubhead speed, ball speed, launch and spin rates, shot dispersion, trajectory, carry and overall distance.

If you are looking to obtain more distance by finding the correct golf club shafts, the fitter will assess your current baseline data and find areas where more speed could be gained.

The launch monitor data forms a large part of the decision-making process, but the fitter is also looking at your swing tempo and feedback from you about what your typical shots are like on the course and where you feel you struggle.

The starting point is the indicated clubhead speed the launch monitor captures. Knowing your clubhead speed will help the fitter pinpoint the ideal shaft weight. The fitter is helped by the wide variety of shaft weights available in popular ranges such as Mitsubishi Chemical’s Tensei Pro range.

From the clubhead speed, the fitter can also start to determine which tip profile is best suited to your game. Higher swing speeds mean stronger tip profiles for more stability, while slower swing speeds mean softer tip profiles.

Clubhead speed will also play a key role in deciding on the shaft flex to choose. Once a trial shaft is selected, the fitter will ask you to hit a number of shots to measure the results against the baseline figures collected at the start of the session.

The data can then be analysed to see where improvements have been made. The fitter will also continue asking for feedback on how the different shafts feel when you swing them.

While looking for the right shaft, the fitter will also assess the correct shaft length for your objective.

Shafts that are too long can help increase clubhead speed but can sacrifice shot accuracy through inconsistent ball striking and poor clubface control.

Shortening a shaft can improve strike efficiency, which can still get you hitting the ball further because you are now finding the centre of the clubface more often. An additional benefit of shortening the shaft can also improve accuracy, which will also help to improve your confidence on the course.

The fitter must be careful when shortening the shaft, as reducing the length makes the shaft stiffer. Any reduction has to accommodate your clubhead speed.

The session concludes with a shaft recommendation and the fitter explaining the benefits of opting for the new shaft.

If the objective is to gain more distance, the fitter will demonstrate improved spin numbers (remember, we talked about the ideal spin window earlier), launch rates, ball speed, carry distance and overall distance.

Custom golf shaft fitting services can have a profound effect on your golf game. Finding the correct golf club shafts can add distance through improved clubhead speed, improve your ball striking, and increase your accuracy.

Understanding the shaft profile that helps to reduce or create spin can help you know which shaft might be a good fit for your game.

Ultimately, taking risk and guesswork out of the equation means booking a session with an experienced club fitter.

At Nine By Nine Golf, we pride ourselves on being independent club-fitting specialists. We help every level of golfer get more out of their game through custom-fitted golf clubs.

We carry a wide variety of shafts from the best manufacturers in the world, and using our GC Quad launch monitor technology, we can find the perfect shaft fit for any golfer.

You can book a tailored fitting session through the Nine By Nine Golf website. Once your session is complete, your new clubs with optimised shafts are built in-house by our experienced technicians using tour-standard equipment to ensure 100% accuracy in the construction of your clubs.

If you have any questions about the benefits of being fitted with ideal shafts for your game or about any other aspects of the custom-fitting process, we would be happy to help.