Misconceptions about Graphite Shafts for Your Irons

After getting fit at Club Champion a couple of months ago, I didn’t really walk away feeling great about moving forward with the purchase. I felt like there were a couple of issues with that fitting. I felt like the club fitter put me into shafts that seemed a little expensive. I was looking at somewhere near $1700 for the new set, and he fit me into Aerotech SteelFiber shafts, which seemed okay but they were expensive and I generally wasn’t hitting the ball great that day. I just didn’t walk away feeling that impressed.

Then I got an email from a local indoor golf simulator business saying they were doing free Srixon fittings. I thought why not and booked a fitting session. I was playing Srixon Z565 irons and it had been 8 years or so since I bought them. I don’t play enough for the grooves to be worn out or anything, but I also didn’t really get a real fitting when I bought those so I wanted to see if the outcome of this fitting would be similar to the one I did at Club Champion.

Right off the bat, the biggest difference with this fitting and the Club Champion one was that the fitter was fitting me based on a 7 iron, vs a 6 iron. To me this makes a lot of sense as an amateur because most amateurs are pretty comfortable their 7 iron, and a 6 iron may be the 2nd longest or even the longest iron they carry. This would mean the fitting of their shortest irons would be based on a club they probably don’t hit as much. I really think Club Champion should reconsider using the 6 iron as the base.

Anyway, the fitter worked for Srixon and was super chill and had me warm up with my current clubs, which I then proceeded to put on a stripe show. This was good and bad because the fitter had good numbers from me to try to challenge, but bad because I told him my miss I absolutely hated and wanted to avoid was the big hook, of which I hit none of during my warmup. He asked me what I thought of graphite shafts and I asked, isn’t that for older golfers or people who had slower swing speeds? He said this was a misconception because that’s kind of how it all started out decades ago but the technology had improved dramatically over the years. He had me try out a graphite shaft that was actually stiffer and felt more stable than my stiff flex steel Nippon shafts. I think I have a steeper angle of attack and had been struggling to get the ball higher for years, and he put me into the Mitsubishi MMT graphite shafts, in regular flex. He said with my swing speed I could play either stiff or regular but the regular flex might help get the ball a bit higher and he was right. I was getting the ball so much higher than I normally do with my steel shafts, and the Srixon ZXi5 heads just seemed more forgiving off toe strikes, which is where I tend to miss. I settled on a combo set where my 5 and 6 irons were the ZXi4 and 7 iron through approach wedge were the ZXi5. He also had the lofts weakened and I’m not losing any distance from that. I just received them the other day and I really like them. The shafts feel GREAT. I also got the Golf Pride MCC Plus 4 grips which fit my hands better and help me to not turn the club so fast. Ovearll, I wouldn’t say it’s a dramatic difference from my old set, but I’m definitely getting more height and more spin, which I need to hold greens better.

The lesson here is that you should take advantage of new technology if it is available to you. Put aside the misconceptions (and ego) and just get the equipment that helps you play more consistently. The game is hard enough as it is, so we might as well do what we can within reason to play the equipment to help you play better and have more fun. I don’t think this is something so dramatic that will shave 5 strokes off my score but it will lead to more consistent and reliable play. That should translate into lower scores overall. I need to find time to practice and play more but here’s to hoping this helps my game.