GRAPHITE VS. STEEL IRON SHAFTS! Does It Matter For Average Swing Speed Golfers?

Join Luke the Weekend Tour Pro as he tests the difference between graphite and steel iron shafts for average golfers to see if it really does impact your golf swing!

Luke starts the video by having a conversation about graphite shafts with James Blatch, one of the expert custom fitters at Portsmouth Golf Centre. Here we discuss the rise of graphite shafts, which golfer may benefit from them, the pros and any potential costs and pricing.

Next up we put the performance difference to the test by baselining Luke’s swing with a steel shaft, before comparing that to a relevant graphite option.

Here Luke will show you all the key TrackMan data as well as talking you through feel and working with James to understand the impact on ball flight and dispersion.

Afterwards James leads us through a deep dive of all the TrackMan data including a really interesting conversation on consistency before the boys offer some conclusions on who might want to consider graphite shafts.

VIDEO CONTENTS:
0:00 – Introduction
0:29 – Discussing Everything Graphite Shafts
2:42 – Baselining with a Steel Shaft
4:26 – Testing with a Graphite Shaft
7:48 – Graphite vs. Steel TrackMan Data
10:48 – Feel vs Performance

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** A BIG THANK YOU 🙏 **
I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to James and all the team Portsmouth Golf Centre for their incredible support and for allowing me to film this collaboration video with them. If you’re in the area, be sure to check out their Toptracer Driving Range, well-stocked golf shop, fittings, lessons, and the fantastic 18-hole golf course attached.
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So, over the last couple of years, we’ve really seen the growth of graphite iron shafts, both on the PJ Tour and from regular golfers on all golf courses around the world. But unfortunately, I’ve never ever had the opportunity to test graphite iron shafts on this channel, either off camera or on camera. So, what we’re going to do today is with the help of James, one of the Callaway ambassadors and custom fitters here at Ports of Golf Center, is conduct a little test to see what the pros and cons are of graphite iron shafts and if there’s any performance differences for me as an average swing speed, mid- handicap golfer. Let’s get stuck in. So James, just before we start hitting the shots, this sort of growth of graphite iron shafts, why is it that we’re seeing that and what are maybe some of the pros of going to a graphite shaft and maybe what are the trade-offs that you might be giving up versus steel? Yeah, I think uh graphite shafts have improved massively since they first sort of graphite came about. Um there’s a lot of different versions of graphite now. Um rather than your sort of standard regular, there’s heavier, there’s lighter. um which could help generally with someone’s ball flight, someone who generally struggles to get the ball in the air to the top of its peak of its flight, you can generally um get some more kick points to get you a little bit higher. And what about any trade-offs? Is there anything like if a golfer does decide to go to a graphite shaft, is there anything they need to be wary of if they’re looking at that or buying off the rack, for example? Uh I think is the same as trying out steel shafts really. There’s a there’s a dispersion problem if obviously if it doesn’t suit. um they they could be quite light and uh how someone swings it can really determine how what shaft you go for. And is that why like I think we always I’m always on the channel recommending custom fitting with people like yourself. But in a custom fitting, is there anything that you would see when you’re sort of baselining some data with a customer at the beginning? Is there anything that would make you think I might want to have an experiment with some graphite here or is it maybe customerled as well or is it a bit of both? Yeah, it’s customer led uh as well as led by us. I think just seeing how they they sort of perform with the steel shaft. Um it’s always a starting point still generally um generally someone who who’s a little bit slower swing speeds generally you might start with graphite but um yeah it’s just a trial and error really. And are we seeing final question are we seeing any sort of big differences in price point. So as a consumer is one of them typically a little bit more expensive and cheaper or is it quite similar? Yeah again that’s evolved over time. Some companies now charge extra for graphite some don’t. So there’s an advantage uh the companies who don’t charge an upcharge for graphite. Um, so it doesn’t sort of pigeon hole people into a certain shaft steel shaft because of the price. Um, it gives them a broadest look at what more shafts they can try and ultimately getting the right shaft and the right head combo for you which is better for the brand because you then have without sort of committing to steel shaft cuz it’s cheaper. Yeah, absolutely. Brilliant. That’s really, really useful. Hope that’s some really useful info for you guys as well. So, what we’re going to do now is we’re going to build a club. We’ll start off with steel. I’ll hit a few shots. We’ll get some data baseline and then we’ll build that graphite shaft. And as the custom fitter, James can guide us through it and talk us through the data points and what he’s seeing different in my hands. So James, we’re going to start with the steel shaft then. So we’ve just built um an Apex AI200, which would be the players distance iron I would probably game in the Callaway, put the dynamic gold R300 in it. I think if people have watched the video before this that I did with Lee a couple of weeks ago, what we’ve actually found out is I might actually need a slightly heavier, stiffer shaft because we want to try and offer a good comparison between the steel and the graphite today. We thought this would just be a sensible starting point for baseline just to start off what you’re gaming at the moment. Really really comparable to what I’m gaming. And what you’re going to see like Lee is that my typical tendency is to be a little bit shallow into the ball, a little bit heavy, a little bit thin. Um that’s kind of what I’m constantly fighting. The mat always makes me look a better golfer than I am because of the fact it gives me that forgiveness. Okay, two in a row. Yeah, we’ll take that. I would say the miss James is tendency to be a little bit of a Yeah, bit of a right miss. Right miss for you. Yeah. Hitting this well today. Yeah. Lovely. Maybe I just need a set of Apex AI 200s, mate. Good test so far. Yeah, little bit clean, skinny on my part. Yeah, still flew pretty well though. Yeah, it’s the beauty of a player’s distance. I always find, James, I just get away with that slightly thinner strike. Yeah, I’m probably conf. And still you’re still getting the ball speed as well. Even off a low strike there, you still got pretty good ball speed. Yeah, that’s pretty good for me. That’s the one where I’ve left the face a little bit slappy and open. Yeah. Little bit more of a neutral ball flight, though. And you can see actually the the actual grouping’s not too bad even uh even with a couple of miss strokes on there as well. Right, James. So, we’ve just changed over to a graphite shaft. Talk to me about why you’ve picked this version of the graphite shaft. It’s one of the offerings in the uh AI200. Uh it’s the Record Dart uh 80 uh in a stiff flex this one. So uh it’s it’s the probably the closest weight in this shaft we can get to a steel shaft. Um there is other offerings which are a little bit heavier potentially. Um but this is where we’re stuck. Cool. And you’ve gone for the stiff flex bit like Lee and what we learned from the other video. I think there’s probably just a bit of a benefit to Yeah, I’ve got of the advantage of knowing a little bit more that what happened in the previous video, but we’re sort of uh where you sort of headed in that one. We’re uh we sort of head down that route and see what’s sort of occurring with the the spin numbers and the distance and the swing speed. Just caught my usual a little bit heavy and a little bit turned over. Yeah. Like it doesn’t feel whippy, which is what I was expecting it to be, mate. Like because of that, obviously it’s lighter. You might generate a bit more speed. You might it might come off the the face a bit faster, but it’s about controlling it. Um, if I end up hitting this all hookie right because it’s a bit too cuz you get a little shallow and underneath it. The sort of flip to the right for a left-handed golfer is is maybe going to be a little bit more uh enhanced with this one. Yeah. And then I try and maybe manipulate that and block it a little bit down the left hand side. You could be a little bit of me, mate. Yeah. Two-way miss isn’t ideal. No. First couple though, I’ve got to get used to it, right? I can’t judge it after two shots when I’ve had graphite in my sorry steel in my hands all of my life. Definitely need more shots. Yeah, little bit better. Just the face a touch open. Sounded a good strike. Yeah, little bit better. Better all round better strike again. A bit pulley. Yeah, it’s interesting, isn’t it? Soon as I probably add a little bit of speed or try or feel like I’m adding a bit of speed, I’m getting that right miss, aren’t I, with it at the moment? Yeah, like you say, uh, ball speed jumped up massively on that one because of the pull. Little thin. I think like whether obviously this is probably not going to be the right graphite shaft for me, but there is something in how they feel. Yeah. If you could get something that’s closer to what I need in terms of weight and flex. As soon as I strike it, it just wants to go right, doesn’t it? Yeah. As soon as I strike it. Yeah. And you’re absolutely right. It just wants to turn that club face over a little bit. Sort of again, like you say, you’re turning your your seven iron into a six or a five there based on ball speed. Um getting the getting the distance out there, but dispersion is very sort of left and right now. Yeah, that’s better. Yeah, a little bit clean, but bit better. That’s That one’s more in the window of where we were with the steel shaft. Yeah. Ah, just heavy. Everything wants to go right though, doesn’t it? That’s best one, I think. Definitely the best one. It’s the one where I’ve just tried to really get through it. But it’s going to be interesting. I don’t think it’s going to be any again. Similar sort of club heading speed, ball speed up again. Yeah. Right, mate. Should we have a little look at this data then and talk the guys through it and see what we’re seeing in my hands and how it compares? Done hitting shots. I think the first thing that I can really noticed for me, and again, I think I think we’ve spoken about the fact that if I was to explore graphite shafts more, I would need to go heavier whilst maintaining that stiff, but the first thing that stood out for me was this dispersion circle where with the steel front to back, left to right, pretty good. What we’ve actually got with the um with the graphite is that short left one and that long right one. And as a custom fitter, I’m sure that’s not what you want your golfer to be walking out with. No, definitely. We’re we’re looking for something uh more where the white circle is there and the white dots of the steel shaft. Um dispersion wise, front to back, they were still pretty similar in terms of uh line. Uh there weren’t too many left or right. It was just uh shorter or longer. Um but you can obviously see there’s a trend there to be short left or or long right. Um, if we look at the averages, um, they’re all very similar, but you’ve got some, uh, graphic ones where you turn it over, carry 10 yards more cuz you’re sort of delofting it a little bit. And then you’ve obviously got some which are a little bit high left shorter, which uh, brings your average again sort of back to where the white one is. But I think, yeah, front front to back, front to back, sorry. And the sort of consistency of the white one in the steel shaft look better for your swing. And I think, guys, this is James has made a really really interesting point here. And I really just want to make sure we just pause and sort of hammer that home is I’m trying more recently in my videos to not just talk about averages with clubs, but to talk about consistency, standard deviations. And I think this is one of the best examples that I’ve seen of it so far, which is when me and James look at these averages here. 0.1 mph difference in club head speed, 0.3 mph difference in ball speed, 0.8 yards difference in carry distance, spin rates within four 16 revs of each other. You would look at that and go, they’re performing exactly the same. But it’s only when you go and look at those standard deviations that you actually see in my hands in this test, the steel was so much more consistent for me, wasn’t it, James? We can see like the front to back of the yardage is 1.9 yards versus 6.5 because of what you’ve just explained to us. The ball speed was only a mile an hour different from fastest to slowest versus 3.6 in in the graphite. Now, again, this isn’t me sort of saying at the end of this video, don’t go and test graphite shafts because as James and I were saying, if your swing speed’s lower than mine, there’s definitely going to be an advantage. or if we were to have the option today to talk about heavier graphite shafts that were in the fitting kit for me today, we probably would have seen some better results. But I think what we’re trying to show here is when you’re in your custom fittings, don’t just look at the averages. Look at that standard deviation and the pattern as well as that dispersion as well, James. Right. Yeah. And there’s is obviously a difference in we talking about heavier as well, which is a a more stable um option, but potentially there’s there’s different profiles of shaft in terms of where where the tips stiff, etc., which might be the similar sort of weight but it just perform a little bit different. Yeah, definitely. If you were um fitting me today, James, and I was like come in as a customer customer and said, “Really want to test graphite shafts. I’ve seen some of the guys doing it.” I think based on this, you’d be steering me back to steel. Yes. Yeah. I think I think I think steel is where you’re at, but there’s no harm in trying these things at the end of the day. We uh it’s best to go through all the options and then sort of make your own mind up um and and see the point of difference. The one thing I would say just a final point which is I hope it came across while I was hitting the shots. The feel of the graphite did there was something about the feel of it that I really enjoyed of club and ball together whether it was just that setup or whatever. And I definitely think and I maybe read this I don’t know if it’s it’s a sort of a subjective thing rather than objective but there is something about the feel that’s really nice and it would make me understand why you see some of PJ tour players moving to graphite if they like that sort of feel of it as well. There’s something in that. I don’t know James if you’ve seen that yourself. Yeah, it’s a very fuel-based uh product really in terms of graphite. It feels great, but again, you’ve got to go back to the performance of the product, I think, is the is the be all and end all of it. Um what feels good for a couple of shots might not be the consistency of all the shots. Um you hit one really good one there, you said it felt great, but one out of six or seven is uh is sort of more proof in the pudding that steel’s more playable for you. Brilliant. Well, hopefully for you guys, really interesting test for me to do. If I’m honest with you, this video was more for my benefit cuz I wanted to have a play around with graphite shafts. And I definitely think in the future, if there was access to something a bit heavy, I’d like to have another go at it just based on that feel. But yeah, I think one thing I’ve learned from the two videos we filmed today, the one with Lee on stiff versus regular and what we’ve just done here is definitely steel for me is the right way to go, James, definitely need to go maybe a little bit heavier, a little bit stiffer in my next set of iron shelf, but there’s lots of great options in the market and I think this also just drills home the real importance of a custom fit, mate. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for watching, guys. If you’ve got some value out of the video and you’d like to return the favor, it’s really simple. All you need to do is hit that thumbs up button. That lets YouTube know that golfers just like you may be interested in watching this video. If you’re not yet subscribed to the channel, there’s a button coming up on screen for you right now. You can press to it and you’ll get notified of all my videos as they land on YouTube every single week. Equally, there’s a couple of other videos popping up on screen for you right now. You can press that button, watch one of them straight away. Thank you so much for watching, James. Thank you so much for your time as well. Have a great day, people. Goodbye.