Wood Graphite Stiff

who should use stiff shaft golf clubs?

Male 18yo hits 250 with a graphite 3-wood, 275 with R-5 Driver

Stratman:

These answers are partially correct. As a general rule, the faster you swing the stiffer shaft you should use. But there is another important factor: The amount of 'load' you place on the shaft. This is hard to explain but let me take a stab at it, I'll try to put it in layman terms.

We'll take two professional golfers.

1) Nick Price
2) Fred Couples

Both generate swing speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour. However Price has a much shorter, faster swing. He 'loads' the shaft much more dramatically than Freddy who has a kind of slow tempo which 'loads' the shaft much slower. Fred probably does not need as stiff a shaft as Price does. Keep in mind I'm just generalizing, I don't know what stiffness Fred and Nick actually use.

You can look at it this way: take a 12 inch piece of twine in your hand, hold it straight down, now rock it back and forth slowly, like a pendulum....see how the string stays fairly straight when you swing it slowly....the 'load' on the swing is not great when the rythm is slow.....now speed it up and you'll see the twine is much more volatile....there is a much greater 'load' on the string when the rythm is increased.

I hope this helps....if you hit it 275 with a driver, in general you should probably use a stiff shaft, but if you have a real long, tempo oriented swing, you might enjoy more 'feel' with a regular shaft. My advice would be to try a couple on the range and see how you hit them.

Good luck!