Golf in the time of COVID-19

Bay Area courses shuttered by Health Dept order
The coronavirus shelter-in-place order for six Bay Area counties – Marin, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, and Santa Clara – that was announced Monday, 16 March (with Sonoma County added the next day) has thrown Bay Area residents and business owners into a tizzy, and golfers and golf course operators are no exception.

The order allows certain essential businesses to remain open: healthcare, grocery stores, gas stations, etc.; those that fall outside of that definition are allowed to maintain “Minimum Basic Operations” (provided that employees comply with Social Distancing Requirements), which is defined as “The minimum necessary activities to maintain the value of the business's inventory, ensure security, process payroll and employee benefits, or for related functions.”

Most, if not all, businesses have some level of “minimum necessary activities” but golf courses have another problem to worry about: grass.

Turf maintenance is the biggest ongoing operational task at a golf course. Tee boxes, fairways, greens, and rough all require watering, mowing, and other tending, each with its own set of requirements. It’s an ongoing job which doesn’t stop just because no one is playing golf—and now they will have to do it with no money coming in to fund it.

I reached out to some golf course operators in the Bay Area to get a feel for what they are facing:

According to Jay Neunsinger, maintenance supervisor at Boundary Oaks Golf Course in Walnut Creek, in order to keep the course in shape for a resumption of play his crew have to mow greens three times/week; tees, collars. and approaches twice a week, fairways once a week and rough every 10 to 14 days. With this minimum maintenance schedule in place his “crew” consists of himself, his assistant, and one mechanic, working four to eight hours per day.

Tom Bugbee of CourseCo, a golf-course management company with 38 courses in six states, including over a dozen in the Bay Area, echoed this minimum maintenance schedule (Boundary Oaks is a CourseCo property), and said that their courses are using only about 20% of their usual maintenance staff while “shelter-in-place” is in effect.

Even with this ongoing minimum maintenance schedule, golfers can expect courses to need two to three days to get back up to speed once the shelter-in-place order is lifted and courses are given the go-ahead to reopen.

The flip side of the reduced maintenance schedule is reduced (or non-existent) income. While private clubs will generally still have dues coming in, public courses are taking a huge hit. The lack of green fees and the income from weddings and banquets represents a huge loss; Neunsinger estimated that Boundary Oaks will lose approximately $75,000 for the month of April.

The big question is, “Who will survive the shutdown?”, and the only answer to that is, “Only time will tell.”

But what about exercise?
The March 16 Health Dept order states that ‘… individuals may leave their residence only to perform [. . .] “Essential Activities.” ’, which includes “. . . outdoor activity, provided the individuals comply with Social Distancing Requirements as defined in this Section, such as, by way of example and without limitation, walking, hiking, or running.’

In case you were hoping that playing golf would fall under the “without limitation” qualification in that statement, you can forget it—at least for the local area. Santa Clara County’s online FAQs page (https://www.sccgov.org/sites/phd/DiseaseInformation/novel-coronavirus/Pages/frequently-asked-questions.aspx) shuts that line of thought down succinctly and unequivocally:

Can golf courses remain open? No. 

In some parts of the country golf courses are open, with strict limitations, but the selection is limited. GolfWorld magazine has been keeping up with the situation in the updating online article “Conflicting state directives create confusion for golf courses”. Here in the Bay Area, however, the direction is clear.

What does the future hold?
Polish up your crystal ball all you like, but my feeling is that, much like my quest to break 80, trying to predict what the golf world will look like in the aftermath of this unprecedented state of affairs is an exercise in futility. Some courses may close, and those that are able to remain open may see crowded tee sheets as deprived golfers rush back to the links after weeks (hopefully only weeks…) away from their favorite pastime. It’s a good bet that demand will certainly be high, so we’ll have to be patient—but won’t it be worth it to be out on the course again?

Saturday at the AT&T Pro-Am is two days in one

The unique format of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which is played on three golf courses, dictates a major difference between this event and your standard, week-to-week Tour event: Saturday becomes cut day and moving day in one. Factor in the differences in level of difficulty between the courses – weather being equal, hardest to easiest: Spyglass Hill, Pebble, MPCC; and throw in the fact that Pebble is more likely to get windy, and is more affected by the wind, and Saturday becomes a real crap-shoot when it comes to predicting how the field will shake out at the end of the day on Saturday.

One could have been excused, then, for being only cautiously optimistic about 36-hole leader Nick Taylor’s chances of retaining the lead after 54 holes, with similar caution applied to Jason Day’s second-place position – each played MPCC and Pebble over the first two days in pristine conditions, and Spyglass Hill on Saturday. Phil Mickelson, who closed out 36 holes in solo third place, got there by way of Spyglass and MPCC, in that order, landing that sweet pick that puts him on Pebble for back-to-back rounds on Saturday and Sunday.

A third round at Spyglass has quashed more than one player’s chances over the years, but neither Day nor Taylor showed any signs of being slowed down by the Robert Trent Jones course about which Jack Nicklaus famously said, “…it makes you want to go fishing.”

Starting on the par-4 tenth hole at Spyglass, Taylor faltered early with an opening bogey and another at #13, a 460-yard par 4 that is the #1 handicap hole on the course, but recovered quickly with birdies at the 17th, second, and fifth holes, then put a little distance between himself and his big-name pursuers with an eagle-3 on the 549-yard par-five seventh hole. The Winnipeg native brought it to the house with a 3-under third round for a 17-under 54-hole total, which turned out to be good enough to retain his lead going into the final round.

Jason Day slipped back slightly while finishing at Spyglass Hill, carding a two-under 70, offsetting four birdies with two bogeys. He finished his Saturday in solo third at 14-under after having held a share of the lead earlier in the day.

Meanwhile, over at Pebble Beach, Phil Mickelson was being Phil, opening his round with a pair of birdies at holes one and two, then notching another bird at the par-5 sixth hole. Despite its daunting aspect, with a second shot that has to negotiate a looming cliff for a blind approach shot, has played easier than any other hole on the course in this year’s tournament.

The real “Phil-the Thrill” fireworks began at the next hole, the world-famous seventh, a jewel-like par-3 perched out on the tip of Arrowhead Point. His frankly mediocre tee shot caromed off the more-than-usually-firm putting surface into a fried-egg lie in the back bunker. Squaring up with a wedge, Mickelson hit a low pitch shot that would have run well past the flag if it hadn’t checked in the rough short of the green; instead, it pulled up at kick-in range for a par save that people will be talking about for quite a while.

After three pars to close out the front nine at 33, Mickelson continued with pars at 10 and 11 before making a slight misstep at the par-3 twelfth, landing in the front bunker, wedging out and two-putting for bogey.

At 13, the recently renovated 407-yard par-4, his tee shot went wide left, his second landed in the left-front bunker, followed by a highlight-reel chip-in for birdie. Similar drama followed at the next hole, the intimidating 582-yard par-5 fourteenth. Wide left off the tee – again, Mickelson’s second found the fairway some 90 yards short of the green. Coming up short when his approach checked up short of the flag and rolled back to below the false front of the green, his fourth, a back-foot chip-and-run drew a beeline for the hole, rattling the flagstick to drop in for his second consecutive birdie.

After par out of a left-of-the-fairway bunker on the fifteenth hole, a routine par at the sixteenth and a disappointing two-putt par from nine feet at the second most famous par-three on the course, #17, Phil found trouble right (for a change) with his second shot at the eighteenth hole.

After getting relief from an obstruction in the wood chips right of the green, he fired a skyhook flop shot that rolled past the hole by inches; he then drained the 4-1/2-foot putt for another birdie. After hitting nine of fourteen fairways, nine of eighteen greens and only 22 putts, Mickelson closed with a 5-under 67 to finish in solo second at 16 under.

Today’s round puts Mickelson in great shape to renew his oldest-winner title, and to share the back-to-back winner title with Sam Snead (1937, 1938), Jack Nicklaus (1972, 1973), Tom Watson (19777, 1978), Mark O’Meara (1989, 1990), and Dustin Johnson (2009, 2010). Most significantly, a win on Sunday will put Mickelson in sole possession of the “Most Wins in the AT&T Pro-am” title.

Mickelson and his amateur partner, former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young, are second in the Pro-Am contest going into the final round, behind Kevin Streelman and his amateur partner, Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. They will tee off with third-round leader Nick Taylor and amateur partner Jerry Tarde, editor-in-chief of Golf Digest magazine, Sunday morning at Pebble Beach.

Friday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am – Big Names, Big Moves

Friday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is different than Friday at almost any other PGA Tour event, and it’s not just about the amateurs in the field, a mix of high-powered business folks and figures from the entertainment world. What sets Friday at the AT&T apart can be seen from the official leaderboard – there’s no cut line.

Having three courses in the tournament rota means that the cut comes after three days of play, so that every pairing plays each course. Of course, a three-day cut means there is only one day left to make a move up the leaderboard – so, the golf gods giveth and the golf gods taketh away.

The upside of this format is the opportunity to play a bucket-list lineup of Monterey Peninsula golf courses – Spyglass Hill, the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, and, of course, Pebble Beach, with the added treat of playing Pebble again on Sunday if you make the cut.

The downside of the format is… well, when the weather is as nice as it has been this week, there is no downside.

While Friday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am doesn’t have the cutline pressure of a standard tournament, some well-known names made big moves up the leaderboard today regardless.

Phil Mickelson, who already holds one record at the event – oldest champion, from his 2019 win at age 48; and co-holds another – most victories, at five, which he shares with Mark O’Meara, posted a seven under 64 at MPCC to move up nine places into solo third place after 36 holes. Mickelson went out in four-under 33, starting on the tenth hole of the Shore Course, and opened his second nine with a four-birdie run, only to stumble at the close with a bogey on his last hole, the par-three 9th.

Jason Day, who has been flying under the radar in recent years with health problems and personal issues, made his move – ten places, to solo second – playing at Pebble Beach today.

“I love everything about Pebble and the landscape that all  three courses are on. The people are great up here, so I    really enjoy my time every time I come back here.”

– Jason Day

After a first-round 67 at MPCC, Day carded an eight-under round today at Pebble Beach on the strength of six birdies, and an eagle on the long par-five 14th hole, where he chipped in from the apron short of the green. With the eagle on 14, and three birdies, the former World #1 romped to a five-under 31 on Pebble’s back nine. His eight-under 64 equals his best tournament round on the course.

Two-time (2009 & 2010) AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am champion Dustin Johnson jumped 18 places up the leaderboard to T6 with a six under 65 at MPCC; an unfortunate bogey on his last hole, the par-three ninth, dropped him out of a potential T4 finish.

Canadian Nick Taylor posted a 6-under 66 playing at Pebble Beach today, and will sleep on a 36-hole lead.

Pebble Beach, Monterey Peninsula showcased by glorious weather on Day 1 of 2020 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of Monterey/Carmel real estate prices rising as a worldwide television audience is treated to views of Pebble Beach Golf Links, Spyglass Hill, and Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Shore Course in gorgeous, Chamber-of-Commerce weather on Day 1 of the 2020 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

The vista of these three immaculately prepared courses under a brilliant, jewel-blue California sky is sure to have well-heeled residents of the storm-ridden, snowbound portions of the country looking to their 401K’s, calling their brokers, and checking real estate listings. But when I say well-heeled, I mean it – the median price of a home in Monterey hovers just under $800k; in Carmel it’s just north of $1.3M.

But enough about real estate, let’s talk about golf. The clear, calm weather that is producing the awe-inspiring views here in the Del Monte Forest is also allowing the players in the field to put up some impressive scores.

Canadian Nick Taylor parlayed a windless day on the easier of the three courses in the tournament rota into an eight-under 63 and the 18-hole lead. Playing MPCC back-side/front-side, the 31-year-old native of Winnipeg opened with an eagle-three on the par-5 tenth hole, then went on to card a pair of birdies before making the turn. He then bookended the front nine with matching pairs of birdies to close out the opening-round lead in his seventh appearance in this event.

Asked about the closing birdies, Taylor noted, “Finished with two great shots, a 5-iron and 3-iron on the last two holes to set up two birdies there; … 5-iron into 8, 3-iron off nine tee, the par-3.”

“This is one of my favorite events of the year every year. You just can’t beat these three golf courses; they’re so fun to play.”

Patrick Cantlay, the SoCal phenom who fought back from back issues early in his pro career, rode a roller coaster around Spyglass Hill today – alternating birdies and bogies for the first five holes, then lighting up the back nine with five birdies against one bogey, posting a first-round 66 (6-under) on the acknowledged most-difficult course in the tournament rota.

Six-under rounds were also put up on Pebble Beach and MPCC Shore by Chase Seiffert and Harry Higgs, respectively.

Harold Varner III, who is making his first appearance at Pebble Beach since playing in the Champions Tour First Tee event 13 years ago, posted a 5-under round at Pebble Beach, carding three birdies a side, with a lone bogey on #12, the longest par-three on the course – and a deceptively difficult hole that has stunned more than one player over the years.

Another half-dozen players closed out their first round at five-under, including former Cal Men’s golf player Max Homa and Stockton native Ricky Barnes.

Former Stanford Men’s Golf star Maverick McNealy opened strong at Pebble Beach, carding three birdies on the front nine, but went a little flat on the second nine with no birdies, a bogey on the 11th hole, and a four-putt double-bogey seven on the 18th – a disappointing effort that was made even more painful by the two-foot bogey putt that horseshoed around the hole to leave an 18-incher for double. McNealy goes into the second round at even par.

San Jose’s Joseph Bramlett, another player who has battled back problems early in his career, closed in even-par 71 at MPCC Shore, with two bogies per side against a total of five birdies.

Second-round play starts Friday at 8:00 AM, with the weather forecast calling for continued clear and slightly cooler conditions.

When It Comes to the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, John Hawkins Doesn’t Get It

Earlier this week Morning Read pundit John Hawkins posted an opinion piece about the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am entitled “Pebble Beach deserves better fate with PGA Tour”, in which he opined “A golf tournament at Pebble Beach in February is like Christmas in June”. The gist of the article is that this magnificent seaside venue deserves better than to be saddled with a February slot in the schedule and a hit-and-giggle pro-am. Among his suggestions? Make Pebble Beach the venue for the Tour Championship, in August.

After the statement above, Hawkins went on to write, “…instead of hosting a premium event in glorious conditions on prime-time television, Pebble peddles a Saturday full of Bill Murray in a multi-venue pro-am featuring some of the most inclement weather known to golfkind.”

Let me say this right now – Hawkins hasn’t got a clue. He tries to spin the piece as if he is suggesting improvements to better showcase this iconic venue, but what he doesn’t get, among other things, are the traditions of the event.

The Pebble Beach Pro-Am, in its original incarnation as the “Crosby Clambake”, originated the pro-am format, and still defines it. The event started in 1937 at the San Diego-area’s Rancho Santa Fe Golf course when Bing Crosby got a few golf pros and entertainment-business friends together to play golf and raise money for local charities. The original “Clambake” went into hibernation in 1942 due to the onset of World War II, and was revived in the familiar Monterey Peninsula location in 1947. 

Another prominent California-based pro-am golf tournament, the Palm Springs-area event now known as the Desert Classic, is a copy-cat that got its start when Crosby’s “road movie” co-star Bob Hope decided that he wanted to host a pro-am tourney of his own. It’s a tried-and-true formula that draws legions of spectators. You wouldn’t want to see it every week, but a time or two per year, it’s fun.

Another of Hawkins’ gripes is the weather during the event. Originally played in mid- January, the weather was known to sometimes be… tempestuous – not for nothing is the term “Crosby weather” a Monterey-area shorthand for wind and rain – and yes, there was a snow delay in 1962.

The tournament bounced around within the month of January over the years in search of better weather before settling into its current early-to-mid February time slot in 1979. The weather can still be problematic – witness last year’s delay due to a brief but intense hailstorm, which forced that bane of golf writers everywhere, a Monday finish – but compared to the weather patterns that dominate most of the continental United States in February, the Central California coast generally serves up the kind of enviable conditions that put smiles on the faces of the local Chamber of Commerce, and realtors.

One of Hawkins’ suggestions is to move the Tour Championship, with its late-August time slot, to Pebble Beach, fleeing the heat and humidity of Atlanta, or as he put it: “Playing for $15 million in gleaming August twilight on golf’s largest postcard turns common sense into the ultimate no-brainer.” While it’s true that the Monterey area serves up weather that’s much preferable to Atlanta’s late-summer conditions, the summer months tend toward overcast on the California coast, so – and as a native of the area I say this with love – his “gleaming August twilight” is more likely to be a gloomy, gradual dimming instead.

That summertime gloom is the reason that the PGA Tour Champions event that is held at Pebble and nearby Poppy Hills (home course of the Northern California Golf Association), the PURE Insurance Championship Benefitting the First Tee, moved from June back to its original September time slot a few years ago.

Hawkins’ ultimate proposal is to reposition the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am back-to-back with the First Tee event. This idea has as its first drawback an untenable logistics problem; as its second, a diminishing of the event by moving it into the former Fall Tour portion of the schedule; as its third, a potential conflict with the Safeway Open, an established early-season event held at the Silverado Resort in the Napa wine country, three hours north of Pebble Beach; and last but not least, a major loss of revenue for the resort resulting from shutting down for two weeks during its best-weather high season period.

The bottom line is that Hawkins’ opinion piece displays a comprehensive level of ignorance of the essence of this event. It may no longer be the glamorous “Clambake” of old (Bing’s widow sold the tournament to AT&T in 1986, deleting the Crosby name over son-and-tournament-director Nathaniel’s objections) – but the weather, which even in rainy (or worse) conditions cannot completely disguise the beauty of the locale, and the pro-am format, with its slow rounds, ugly swings, and sometimes silly behavior (I’m talking about you, Bill Murray…) are hallmarks of the event.

Any significant change to the tournament, whether a time slot move or a change in format, would compromise the history and traditions of an event which holds a unique opposition in the PGA Tour’s parade of week-to-week, cookie cutter tournaments.

Dan Jenkins’ Last Hurrah – “The Reunion at Herb’s Café” ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (out of five)

I’ll admit that it is difficult for me to be totally objective when I write about Dan Jenkins. Reading Dan’s work, specifically, his first golf novel, Dead Solid Perfect, sparked my nascent interest in golf and inspired me to try my hand at writing about the game myself. Since that first encounter with his words I have done my best to keep up with everything he wrote subsequently, and have backtracked to read his old columns in Sports Illustrated and Playboy, and his earlier books.

Jenkins’ death, on March 7, 2019, was a great loss to the world of sports writing, but fans of Jenkin’s work got a welcome bit of news when it was announced that the manuscript of a final book was on his desk when he passed, which would be published after a quick polish by his daughter, Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins. This book, The Reunion at Herb’s Café, is the result.

Reunion is a walk down Memory Lane for Dan Jenkins fans. Built around the core story of Herb’s Café being purchased from Herb’s widow by Fort Worth hometown boy Tommy Earl Bruner, the story is mostly an excuse for bringing back some beloved characters from Jenkins’ earlier novels and providing a “where-are-they-now”–style wrap-up on what they’ve been doing with their lives since the novels they featured in were closed out.

It’s a fun read, especially for fans of Semi-Tough and its followups, Life Its Ownself and Rude Behavior, and Baja Oklahoma, whose characters are featured. New character and narrator Tommy Earl Bruner, a long-time buddy of Billy Clyde Puckett, Shake Tiller, and Barbara Jane Bookman, is introduced and given the usual Jenkins protagonist treatment, mirroring the author’s own life. Twice-divorced but newly hooked-up with a fabulous new gal, former Paschal High/TCU/pro footballer Tommy Earl becomes a business partner of Barbara Jane’s daddy, “Big Ed” Bookman, when he strikes oil on a large plot of snake-infested prairie that he inherits from his parents.

It’s difficult to have to say this, but this book is further evidence, after 2017’s weakly conceived and executed Stick A Fork In Me, of Jenkins’ final-years decline. It is, overall, a nice stroll down Memory Lane for Jenkins’ fans, unfortunately marred by the increasingly strident diatribes against “libs and socialist college professors”, and an ending—which I will not discuss specifically, to avoid spoilers—which is ridiculous, and frankly, disappointing. It is these aspects of the narrative, which come late in the book, which let the reader (or at least this reader) down. I rank Reunion a notch above  Stick A Fork In Me, which is faint praise, but it falls well short of  Dead Solid Perfect, Semi-Tough and his other classic romps through the worlds of sports, and Texas.

The Case for Stiff Club Shafts

When golf clubs are being discussed, especially drivers and fairway clubs, a lot is written about club shafts: length, weight, materials, flex—all the physical attributes that affect a shaft’s performance. But how, and how much, does the shaft’s behavior really affect the club’s performance, and ultimately, ball flight? And how important is the single most-discussed aspect of a club shaft—stiffness?

[Before I get much further, let me get something off of my chest: Most articles about club shafts misuse the term “torque”. Torque is a force input—the moment of a force acting perpendicular to an axis—but it seems as if every article I read uses the term to denote a shaft’s reaction to that force, e.g., referring to a “low-torque” shaft; instead of the force itself. In this usage a “low torque” shaft is one with high torsional stiffness; that is, a high resistance to twisting.]

One very important thing to understand about the club shaft—and something that many golfers are probably not aware of—is that the majority of its influence on ball flight happens before impact. Doesn’t sound right to you? Let me explain:

The ball and club face are in contact for such a short period—contact time is measured in milliseconds—that there simply is not enough time for the shaft to react to impact forces and significantly affect the interaction between club and the ball[i]. However, the forces acting on the club head during the swing have plenty of time to affect the shaft, which in turn affects the orientation of the club face—and that’s where the physical properties of the shaft come into play.

The downswing is initiated when the golfer accelerates the grip end of the club. The higher the acceleration—that is, the more quickly the golfer gets the club up to speed—the greater the force acting on the club head, at least in the initial portion of the swing. [If you remember anything from Freshman Physics, it should be F=MA (Force = Mass × Acceleration).]

Thanks to inertia, the club head wants to stay where it is while you are accelerating the grip, and this inertial lag induces a backward bend in the shaft at the beginning of the downswing while the club head catches up. Studies have shown, however, that this effect is short-lived, and is quickly overcome by the forces acting on the club head as it is comes up to speed[ii].

You may have heard the term kick point in reference to club shafts and envisioned something like the shaft flicking the club head forward and adding impetus to the impact—but you would be wrong. While the club head is rotated forward in response to the forces acting on the shaft during the downswing, it is not a “flick”.

CAUTION

Actual science/engineering content follows. Marketing/sales personnel may feel free to look away, or skip entirely.

This is how it works: The centrifugal force generated as the club is swung acts through the perpendicular distance between the center of mass of the club head and the line of the shaft—the moment arm—to produce a twisting force, or moment, which bends the shaft forward, increasing the loft of the club face. The point in the shaft at which it begins to flex under the influence of the swing-induced moment (frequently manipulated by changing material and/or thickness) is the kick point.

The kick point is one of four factors which affect the magnitude of this phenomenon: 1) swing speed, 2) club head center of mass location, 3) shaft stiffness, and 4) kick point location. The least intuitive of these factors is the location of the center of mass, but think of it this way: the further behind the club face the center of mass is located, the longer the moment arm is that is being acted upon by the force generated by the swing speed – in simpler terms, the force acting on the club head has more leverage. (I break this down a bit more a few paragraphs on.)

Centrifugal force acting on the center of mass of the club head produces a twisting moment that can increase the loft of the club face.

You hear a lot about Trackman data showing that pros and elite amateur players have a negative attack angle with driver—they swing down on the ball—while recreational golfers are told to swing up on the ball. Well, part of the reason that elite players get away with a negative attack angle is that, even with the stiffer shafts they play, their higher swing speeds generate an increase in loft, resulting in that high, soaring flight that we all wish/hope for off the tee.

What Does It Really Mean?

So how does this play into selecting the best shaft for your game? Delve deeply into that question and it starts to look like a real can of worms.

There are three club-related factors that affect ball flight—swing speed, swing path, and club face orientation—and since swing speed also affects the orientation of the club face by way of the deformation that it induces in the club shaft, it is doubly important when analyzing the swing.

Shaft weight and the overall balance of the club (“swing weight”) have some effect on swing speed, but the overall stiffness of the shaft and the location of the transition, or kick point (if there is one), are the most important characteristics of the shaft when it comes to affecting club head position at impact.

As mentioned above, the shaft’s response to swing speed—that is, the amount of “kick”—is dependent upon the overall stiffness of the shaft, the location of the kick point, and the magnitude of the force acting on the shaft. The magnitude of the centrifugal force is determined by swing speed and the length of the moment arm, M, which is determined by the location of the club head’s CG, or center of mass. Now do you get what I said about a can of worms?

A look back through that shopping list of factors which determine how the shaft affects club face orientation at impact can set your head spinning when you consider the variability of those factors—and perhaps the most variable of them all is the swing.

Reducing The Variables

Variability in swing speed can be a matter of inconsistency or design. We don’t always swing at the same speed, even if we are trying to. Sometimes we may take a real big whack at it, trying to out-drive a playing partner, or carry a hazard, and sometimes we throttle back—and as swing speed varies, so does the amount of change in loft that is caused by the forces acting on the club head.

A good club-fitter, with the right data-gathering technology and a wide variety of shaft/club head combinations at their disposal, will be able to sort through the variables and put any golfer into the optimum combination of shaft and club head for their swing. But which swing are you being fit for? Your usual 9/10ths driver swing? The little poke you take to keep the ball in play on a narrow fairway? Or your all-out, swing-for-the-fences lash for those long carries or ego-tempting drivable par-4s? Is one shaft going to be satisfactory for the full range?

Because swing speed is so variable, and because the ripple-down effect of swing speed on flex-induced loft increase varies with swing speed, I think that reducing one area of variability in the swing—shaft flex—can go a long way toward producing consistent ball flight, and the best way to do that is to go with a stiff shaft.

But Your Swing Speed Determines Your Shaft Flex, Doesn’t It?

So why are more flexible shafts usually recommended for slower-swinging players? The popular wisdom is that they are generally lighter in weight, and therefore easier for players with less strength or less-efficient mechanics to swing at their best speed. The problem with that hypothesis is that studies[iii] have shown that within the normal range of shaft weights, a reduction in weight has little effect on swing speed.

I think that the real effect here is actually a sort of back-formation; that is, since lower swing speeds produce less loft increase, these players can use a more flexible shaft without inducing a large increase in loft which would cause the ball to launch at a too-high angle. Also, shafts that are more flexible generally also have a softer “feel”, a purely subjective aspect of club performance that many players associate with improved touch and control.

Launch angle is the aspect of ball flight that is probably most affected, and most directly affected, by the kick point loft increase that we have been discussing—but launch angle can be controlled more consistently by ball placement relative to stance, and by teeing height. Set up with the ball more forward in the stance and/or teed up higher, and a higher launch angle results; moving the ball back in the stance and teeing it lower will do the reverse.

So why, when launch angle can be managed directly and more consistently by these two very controllable factors, would a player rely on the highly variable factor of kick-point loft increase to achieve the desired launch angle? Looking at the problem from that point of view, I have come to the conclusion that the best shaft for any given swing is the lightest shaft which is stiff enough to minimize shaft flex before impact.

I feel that, in general, the golf industry makes things a lot more complicated than they need to be when it comes to designing and selecting club shafts. Fine-tuning flex and kick point for swing speed in order to optimize the increase in loft that arises from the centrifugal force acting on the club head is a complex task. As a design engineer I always look for the simplest solution to a problem, and to my way of thinking the lightest, stiffest shaft possible is the best way to go. 

Depending upon shaft flex to provide loft-up to help get the ball into the air brings into play cumulative effects from two factors that change when the swing is dialed back or pushed up—reduced/increased kinetic energy and less/more loft increase—due to the change in swing speed. Going with a stiff shaft eliminates, or at least reduces, a highly variable factor that has a great effect on club/ball interaction at impact. 

The Bottom Line

Use a stiff shaft and let ball flight be affected by factors that are more directly controllable, like swing speed, and teeing height. The physical loft of the club face at impact will vary less with a stiff shaft, simplifying the job of consistently delivering the club face to the ball in the best orientation. 

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[i]    Dewhurst, P. The Science of thePerfect Swing Oxford University Press 2015: 41-42

[ii]   Milne, R.D. and Davis, J.P. “The Role of the Shaft in the Golf Swing.” Journal of Biomechanics 25, no. 9 (1992):

        975–983

[iii]  Cross, R. and Bower, R, “Effects of Swing Weight on Swing Speed and Racket Power” Journal of Sports Sciences 24   

       (2006): 7–15.