Tour Players X100's

[ThatGuy27]

Seems like x100's are obviously the most played shaft on Tour. Are the pros playing them "off the rack", like zero mods, or are they all tipping, soft/hard stepping them? Or are these shafts so good that it doesnt matter the swing or ball speed, it just works for everyone?

[petep52]

I think a lot are “tour issue” so maybe they come from a tighter tolerance sorted lot. 
 

is it really the most common iron shaft on tour?  I hit one once in my entire life. I think I made okay contact and the ball went nowhere. 

[rsballer10]

1 minute ago, ThatGuy27 said:

Seems like x100's are obviously the most played shaft on Tour. Are the pros playing them "off the rack", like zero mods, or are they all tipping, soft/hard stepping them? Or are these shafts so good that it doesnt matter the swing or ball speed, it just works for everyone?

All the mods mentioned have an almost negligible effect on how the shaft performs. Dynamic gold shafts are essentially the same basic shaft that's been made since 1940. Sometime around 1980, they introduced the "gold" offering which was weight sorted as we now are used to today. They introduced the "tour issue" line a while back - which is also - the EXACT same shaft, only weight sorted to even tighter tolerances. It's all the same shaft.

[rsballer10]

Just now, petep52 said:

is it really the most common iron shaft on tour?

yes by a huge margin

[DTorres]

Mainly due to product age, a lot of tour players grew up playing that shaft. No reason to change what you have made consistent over the past decades of play, specially without any real revelation in steel shafts performance or tech.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 25 by DTorres

[Pnwpingi210]

7 minutes ago, DTorres said:

Mainly due to product age, a lot of tour players grew up playing that shaft. No reason to change what you have made consistent over the past decades of play, specially without any real revelation in steel shafts performance or tech.

 

 

 

 

Yup.  Lots of the newer generation playing other stuff

[DTorres]

1 minute ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

Yup.  Lots of the newer generation playing other stuff

Indeed. In 5-10 years I could see it much more leveled out, a lot of the newer generation have been playing Kim Bralys shafts or its an international player rocking a nippon.

[Nard_S]

It amazes me how correctly DG was engineered all those years ago.

[Pnwpingi210]

10 minutes ago, Nard_S said:

It amazes me how correctly DG was engineered all those years ago.

It’s partly design, but mostly just talented players that learned how to use it.

[iNeedMoreGolf]

I seem yo notice the best feeling shots i ever hit was with kbs shafts followed by true temper then nippon. But kbs is definetly the ones that best feel on strike stick out the most.

[rsballer10]

20 minutes ago, Nard_S said:

It amazes me how correctly DG was engineered all those years ago.

So much of what a steel shaft can do is built into the constraints of the tip size, butt OD, and material. Because of this, it's hard to get someone that needs a 130g shaft to switch to something else. The couple hundred rpm they could get from a shaft change could be accomplished with bending the club a degree in either direction. So if someone is used to the DG feel, it's just so hard to get them to switch when there's a much simpler change to make.

[QuigleyDU]

I have never understood who so many tour pros play DG shafts. I have never been a fan. 

[Nard_S]

33 minutes ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

It’s partly design, but mostly just talented players that learned how to use it.

I don't agree, tried & played many shafts over the decades and circled back, fully settled on DG S400. They nailed it.

[Pnwpingi210]

Just now, Nard_S said:

I don't agree, tried & played many shafts over the decades and circled back, fully settled on DG S400. They nailed it.

Yes - key note is decades.  Dg was the most easily accessible option for decades.  Those who played it for decades built their swings around it.  If you swung something and it had a certain feel for decades, then trying something new is likely going to feel off and not as good as the the thing you built your swing off of for decades.

 

🙂

[Nard_S]

1 minute ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

Yes - key note is decades.  Dg was the most easily accessible option for decades.  Those who played it for decades built their swings around it.  If you swung something and it had a certain feel for decades, then trying something new is likely going to feel off and not as good as the the thing you built your swing off of for decades.

 

🙂

The guys on tour have had multiple options for decades and yet?

[Mp14forlife]

X100 felt better to me than an s300. I've always thought DG has been boardy and heavy but x100 felt much better than an s300. Precision rifles were always light years ahead feel wise playing in the 90s, so I never entertained any dg's/x100. But what I've learned about a lot of golfers and a lot of really really good golfers as well, it's that some are so "feel deaf." Meaning, they really can't tell or don't care, it is what it is. If the ball goes where they want it to, they play it and the x100 is a no nonsense consistent shaft. 

Edited June 25 by Mp14forlife

[Drivingrangehero]

Whether you like it or not (I played them for over 20 years) they have stood the test of time, plus many graphite shafts are modeled of the DG profile. 
 

 

[Pnwpingi210]

1 minute ago, Nard_S said:

The guys on tour have had multiple options for decades and yet?

first I was responding to your decades anecdote about you.

 

but since you mentions tour let’s talk about

Most of the players on the tour today are age 25-40.  Most of them started playing golf probably 15 - 30 years ago.  Dg was still the most easily accessible option and stock option for most clubs.  Yes rifle was around, and project x and KBS were pretty early in their availability.   There was some garbage graphite and nippon might have just started to become Available, but nobody learning the game was getting fit into that.  

In summary the majority of tour players today likely didnt have access to anything other than dg, rifle(gone), project x (probably second most common on tour) or kbs tour.  They built there golf swing on those component and aren’t going to switch cause they don’t need to.

 

we see plenty of the the younger (less than 25yrs old) playing things  like modus, c taper, and project x, tour v….. cause they had access to it while they where developing their games.

 

 

[jdizzy12]

2 minutes ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

we see plenty of the the younger (less than 25yrs old) playing things  like modus, c taper, and project x, tour v….. cause they had access to it while they where developing their games.

Speaking from this age bracket, I have multiple friends playing D1 golf and have played competitively through college and considered walking on. You absolutely see more guys testing different shafts, but when I started playing seriously 8 years ago, I picked up my first player's oriented set off of the used rack (S55's with X100's), most everything had DG shafts. You may see the odd KBS or Nippon or PX, but almost all of my friends still play DG for this reason just because it was what available at the time we started. Yes, some have started to transition away because of custom fitting, but I'd say 70% of my friends who play high level am golf and college golf are in DG's of some kind. Will be interesting to see where this stat ends up in 10 years or so though when the current junior golfers get to college and beyond.

[Pnwpingi210]

3 minutes ago, jdizzy12 said:

Speaking from this age bracket, I have multiple friends playing D1 golf and have played competitively through college and considered walking on. You absolutely see more guys testing different shafts, but when I started playing seriously 8 years ago, I picked up my first player's oriented set off of the used rack (S55's with X100's), most everything had DG shafts. You may see the odd KBS or Nippon or PX, but almost all of my friends still play DG for this reason just because it was what available at the time we started. Yes, some have started to transition away because of custom fitting, but I'd say 70% of my friends who play high level am golf and college golf are in DG's of some kind. Will be interesting to see where this stat ends up in 10 years or so though when the current junior golfers get to college and beyond.

Bingo!

 

the shaft is just a timing device, so if your learned and built your swing on that of course it’s going perform well for you.

[jdizzy12]

1 minute ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

Bingo!

 

the shaft is just a timing device, so if your learned and built your swing on that of course it’s going perform well for you.

It's a feel thing.

I am a feel player, I am reluctant to change when something works and most of my friends align with this ideal because we don't have the money (yet) to change and test constantly. (unless it's putters, let's not talk about that)

Some of my friends who have the tour truck access or money to do so will keep testing because they want something better. That's the group I see the iron shaft changes most from. 
 

[Nard_S]

17 minutes ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

first I was responding to your decades anecdote about you.

 

but since you mentions tour let’s talk about

Most of the players on the tour today are age 25-40.  Most of them started playing golf probably 15 - 30 years ago.  Dg was still the most easily accessible option and stock option for most clubs.  Yes rifle was around, and project x and KBS were pretty early in their availability.   There was some garbage graphite and nippon might have just started to become Available, but nobody learning the game was getting fit into that.  

In summary the majority of tour players today likely didnt have access to anything other than dg, rifle(gone), project x (probably second most common on tour) or kbs tour.  They built there golf swing on those component and aren’t going to switch cause they don’t need to.

 

we see plenty of the the younger (less than 25yrs old) playing things  like modus, c taper, and project x, tour v….. cause they had access to it while they where developing their games.

 

 

There's been plenty of time & options available for someone to knockoff DG. There's a lot of good options out there but no one has done it and at the end of day they are all derivatives of the original DG design. They nailed near ideal flex slope, it's the standard everyone works off of and they did it with slide rulers & pencil. Arguable TT is not leader in end quality, can say a Nippon does that better, so buy SP Blue which is a knockoff of DG or Modus and be happy.

 

I played Brunswick's for 15 years, can say this, they are longer, have a flatter trajectory but they don't run on rails the way DG does. PX has way too much spin for my tastes. DG is standard because they lack bias. It's rather neutral and can be geared to variety of swing types and types of shots. In ten years, really doubt landscape of shaft choices will look much different. If anything, shaft choices will decrease, there's a buffet of profiles available right now and they cater to all niches that are in the  long term fleeting and unsustainable. 

[Pnwpingi210]

1 minute ago, Nard_S said:

There's been plenty of time & options available for someone to knockoff DG. There's a lot of good options out there but no one has done it and at the end of day they are all derivatives of the original DG design. They nailed near ideal flex slope, it's the standard everyone works off of and they did it with slide rulers & pencil. Arguable TT is not leader in end quality, can say a Nippon does that better, so buy SP Blue which is a knockoff of DG or Modus and be happy.

 

I played Brunswick's for 15 years, can say this, they are longer, have a flatter trajectory but they don't run on rails the way DG does. PX has way too much spin for my tastes. DG is standard because they lack bias. It's rather neutral and can be geared to variety of swing types and types of shots. In ten years, really doubt landscape of shaft choices will look much different. If anything, shaft choices will decrease, there's a buffet of profiles available right now and they cater to all niches that are in the  long term fleeting and unsustainable. 

Cool.  Thats, like,  your opinion man.  You like dg and nothing wrong with that.

 

[Pepperturbo]

7 hours ago, ThatGuy27 said:

Seems like x100's are obviously the most played shaft on Tour. Are the pros playing them "off the rack", like zero mods, or are they all tipping, soft/hard stepping them? Or are these shafts so good that it doesnt matter the swing or ball speed, it just works for everyone?

From what I have been told by someone who built for Titleist and tour guys, no.  His sorting for shafts was rather astonishing, not what we get from any after market builder, unless you're willing to cough up the bucks.  He'd build two or three sets exact to the pros spec.

[mizuno player]

For many, many years DG was The stock shaft. Especially off the rack. They had the market locked up. So, that's what people played. I played X100 for over 30 years.