Fernando H. Green Blog: The Lowest Spinning Driver Shafts

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

The Lowest Spinning Driver Shafts

What's the lowest spinning shaft?

Phrased any number of ways, I'd wager it's one of the most asked questions in the history of golf equipment forums. Many of you have asked the question yourselves. Many more have likely chimed in to offer suggestions.

But is there really a single shaft that spins less for absolutely everyone?

We doubt it. We approached this testing hoping we'd find a definitive answer, but aware of the reality that we might not.

11 Companies, 12 Shafts

Allowing for the fact that universal truths in the golf equipment world are few and far between we reached out to 12 shaft manufacturers and asked them to send us the model from their current lineup that they believe would generally produce the lowest spin. 11 of them agreed to participate, and one company sent two models.

12 shafts, all designated as low(ish) spinning, but what does that mean? How would they perform on a relative basis? More importantly, what would we learn that would be of value to you?

All of that's coming next week.

As a preview of sorts, we wanted to share with you the list of shafts we received. If you're looking for a low spinning shaft for your driver or fairway wood, this is where you should start, not because we say so, but because 11 manufacturers have told us that these are their lowest spinning.

Similar, But Different

While we received a variety of weights and flexes, we did the official testing with shafts designated at +/- 65g and stiff flex. Even within that narrow definition, there are as many differences as there are similarities. The measured weights of the shafts range from 64.3g to 73.3g. Assembled swing weights run the gamut as several of the models we tested are counter-balanced. For those who enjoy sorting through EI Profiles, we took our own measurements using an Auditor Shaft Testing Machine from Golf Mechanix.

Here's what that looks like:

I know...it lacks details. There's more to come.

As we work to prepare our report, here are the lowest spinning driver shafts as identified by the manufacturers that produced them. Note: shaft weight is based on the model closest to 65g.