Nowadays it is harder to buy a golf club than ever before. With all the adjustments you can make to the club head, multi-material head designs, weight ports and sliders, things can get tricky relatively fast. Not to mention the intimidating world of custom shaft options. The good thing about the age we golf in is that the average golfer has access to an unlimited selection of shafts to help fine tune the ball flight, and more importantly the feel and consistency of their clubs. The opposite side of the coin is that most sales people and reps don›t know enough about shafts to really dial in the performance for someone. If you go into a fitting with a basic idea of how shafts work, it will make the fitting a much better experience for you.
A shafts job is to present a feel and some resistance to your swing. When you have the right amount of resistance from the shaft, your body will be able to make an aggressive motion while staying in balance and keeping a proper swing sequence. Think of a baseball bat. If you have a plastic whiffle ball bat, you can swing fast but you won›t be able to control it very well. Conversely if you have a Louisville Slugger, you will be more consistent but your speed and technique will suffer. But if I gave you an aluminum bat, you would have the best of both worlds. You could swing in balance while still generating maximum speed. Shaft flex, weight, and profile all have the same affect on your swing. Finding the right combo will give you the best results giving you higher ball speeds and better launch and spin numbers, in order to maximize distance.
So when it is time for a fitting make sure you can try shafts that have different weight, flex, and profile options. A lighter shaft will not inherently go faster, a longer shaft will not necessarily go farther, and a «whippy shaft» won›t make you hit it into the woods. Having a fitter that knows the profiles of the shafts available and how that would correlate to your swing is crucial to getting the best final product, but knowing what to expect out of a shaft will make the process easier, and a little less intimidating for you.
