Since its 1999 introduction on the PGA TOUR, the SST PURE patented shaft-alignment process has been a topic of discussion in the golf industry. With nearly a million shafts SST PURE-aligned in the past five years, Strategic Shaft Technologies LC, is launching a project, which will use data from SSTs shaft analysis printout database as well as information from a newly acquired Iron Byron golf swing robot, to alert consumers to which shafts actually perform best during the golf swing. As importantly, it will show which shafts do not perform well based upon their set up from the manufacturers, which in the opinion of SST researchers is due to inconsistencies in the manufacturing process.
“Since we began aligning shafts five years ago, people have continually asked which manufacturers produce the best shafts and whose shafts perform the worst,” says Dick Weiss, founder of the SST PURE shaft-alignment process. “I never felt like we should be the “cop on the beat” and announce which shafts perform better or worse than others. Although SST PURE alignment has been proven to make any shaft perform to the best of its manufactured ability, at this point we have overwhelming evidence that some shafts are nearly unhittable in certain randomly installed positions. If the club you buy has that shaft in those positions, it is going to be very, very difficult to hit consistently, regardless of your level of skill.”
Strategic Shaft Technologies now contends that golfers especially those who dont have access to SST PURE through Golfsmith, Henry-Griffitts, UST and SST's network of custom clubmakers have a right to know which shafts are most likely to perform inconsistently.
“Its unbelievable to me that there can be so much difference in performance from seemingly identical shafts based strictly upon the alignment method, if any, used to assemble them,” Weiss says. “SST's shaft analysis printout that accompanies every PUREd shaft confirms it has been aligned in the one spot that will make it perform optimally…club-to-club within a set and set-to-set within a brand.”
SSTs database contains empirical data collected on the structural tolerances and performance factors of graphite and steel shafts produced by shaft manufacturers around the world. The research is the first-of-its-kind in the world to not only hit test a comprehensive selection of golf shafts, but also includes analysis on the before-and-after performance benefits of the SST PURE shaft-alignment process.
“Time and time again on Tour, well see players testing five or six different clubs that are allegedly exactly the same,” says Brian Adair, SST Director of Operations. “They like one or two, and they will reject the rest. But if theyre exactly the same, why dont they perform the same? In situations like that, we have found that if we PURE the clubs, they will all perform identically.”
To facilitate the complex testing, SST has purchased an Iron Bryon golf swing robot. Originally developed for the U.S. Golf Association to test golf balls in 1975 and still used today by many of the industrys finest golf research facilities, the Iron Byron is a mechanical, golf swing robot named after the great Byron Nelson, whose legendary swing was revered as the epitome of consistency. The Iron Byron can be adjusted to consistently repeat the exact same swing thousands of times to compare specific properties of clubs and balls. In fact, the Iron Byrons swing is so consistent that the USGA once said that it had to replace the center line of the test fairway every two years because of the turf damage caused by golf balls landing in the same spot over and over again.
Weiss explains that no shaft is perfectly round, straight or stiff throughout its length. Despite modern manufacturing techniques, every golf shaft remains as unique as a fingerprint and cannot be fully analyzed until after the shaft has been manufactured. The leading shaft-alignment on the professional tours, the SST PURE process analyzes each shafts structural irregularities and identifies the shafts most optimum orientation – called the Principal Planar Oscillation Plane (PPOP) – in which the shaft is the most stable when striking the ball. Using patented state-of-the-art computer analysis and sensitive data sensors, SST PURE pinpoints and correctly aligns the PPOP to the clubhead to optimize shaft stability and performance – ensuring the uniform matching of clubs within a set and allowing each club to perform to the best of its manufactured ability. By assembling the club with the shaft in its PURE orientation, off-line bending and twisting of the shaft are minimized and impact repeatability on the center of the clubface by the golfer improves up to 51 percent.
