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I recently bought an R7 Draw to replace my old clone driver that I cracked a few weeks back. Man I love this thing, I hit a draw or dead straight with it, I never go right unless the wind takes me that way. Here is the only problem I have with it, the trajectory is way too high. I wanted the trajectory to be a little high that is why I got a 10.5* loft, but this thing is crazy high. My old driver was a R7 Clone with a ProLaunch 65S in it and I hit a nice high trajectory with lots of carry and lots of roll. After hitting the R7 Draw on the launch monitor they suggested a stock regular flex shaft. My ball is going way up and just when it brakes its apex at about 250 yards, the ball just falls out of the sky and I get zero roll maybe about a 5 yard bounce is more like it. I was thinking about either a ProLaunch, a NV, or Maybe a NVS, I am open to anything though. I will be going to put the club in the shop this afternoon, any suggestions.

I would do this myself, but I do not have a shaft puller and plus I am very serious about my driver (it my old one in the 300y range) and don't want to take a chance on screwing it up.

It sounds like you are creating an excessive amount of spin. I believe the #1 reason for spin is the swing plane and angle of attack, the #2 thing that affects spin is the club head, the degree 9.5, 10.5 etc lower loft less spin and the CG, where a real low cg help create spin vs a head like the Nike tour, 905s which are designed to reduce spin, and the #3 affector (new word I just made up) is the shaft. In changing the shaft, and I am assuming that on the launch monitor you were somewhere between 12 and 16 degrees and a really smooth swing since your distance could easily equate to some stiff shafts? I would take a look at the Pro Launch RED or a low torque shaft like the V2. And finally try a low spin ball, on the high end the ProV1x or the more affordable Bridgestone e6, Just my 2 bits.

Good stuff from Cypma.
The Pro Launch Blue shaft is made to elevate the ball flight because it has a low kickpoint. Even though you liked this shaft in your old driver, it will only add to your problem.
In looking at shafts I'd be inclined to agree with Cypma about the Pro Launch Red, but I'd add to that the Aldila NV65. Both are high flexpoint shafts that should bring the ball down some.
One shaft that wasn't mentioned that I've teested is the Grafalloy "Blue". It's a mid kickpoint shaft, but it knocked my drives down considerably.
Please keep us posted. I'd love to hear the progress you make.

Thanks guys, I did not think about the ProLaunch Red, Good Call. I will talk to the guy that will be doing the work and see what he thinks about the two. I am alternating balls, I have been using the E6 and Love it, but I have also been flirting with the HX Hot and feel really good about the distance I was getting with it before the driver change.
Do you think that my change from a Stiff Flex shaft to a Regular flex could also be the culprit in this.

First of thanks Pepto for the nice compliment. :) In regards to regular vs stiff, with all the different flex points and playing characteristics it is really hard to say that a regular, or stiff is the difference. For example, I play stiff in V2 (98mph swing speed, with a mildly aggressive move at the top, while in the Red I would probably try the Regular. Every manufacturer has their own designation for flex, with no real industry standard. If you look at golfsmith and their RSS (recomended swing speed) they actually do their own testing to come up with their numbers, instead of just accepting the oem's published information, which I think helps make a better educated choice.

Examples of flex variations:
I had problems with my Ping G5. While it has a square face, I was hooking it terribly and hitting it extremely high. It had a Pro Launch 65S in it. I sent it back to Ping to be evaluated and it came back to me as okay. Being a club builder for the past 12 years, that wasn't good enough for me so I pulled the shaft and had the frequency checked. The readings were beyond
x-stiff at 276.
I called Grafalloy to give them the info. They sent me a new shaft. I requested a regular this time and good thing I did. I had it frequenced and it was in the upper range of stiff.
Cypma was correct when he said each manufacturer has their own ratings for their shaft flexes and this is a great example. I've found that the best way to check a shafts flex is on a Digiflex with the shaft clamped so that you're just measuring the length of the shaft that you're using. If you are going to butt-cut the shaft only, mark the shaft and clamp it with the excess of the butt end to the outside of the clamp.
One other thing needs to be noted. It is best to check it with the head on the end of the shaft instead of the weight supplied with the Digiflex machine. Though the weight is handy and close to what you need the overall mass of the head will cause the shaft to flex a bit differently.
Last but not least, the best way I've found to secure the head without taping or glueing it in place is with fishing line. Simply cut off about 6" of fishing line, lay it across the hosel hole and then press the shaft down into the hosel. This will supply enough interference to hold the head in place while the frequency is checked.
By the way, the difference in cycles on my regular shaft from Grafalloy was 260 with the weight on the end and 252 with the head on the end.
The Pro Launch Red Regular looks real good on paper, but judging from everything I've received from Grafalloy I wonder what it will frequency out at?
My next shaft to check out is the Graphite Design YS-6 Type II.

Me and the local shops club guy talked today. He helped me decide to try the NVS 65R. I still want to have a fairly high ball flight so we will try one and see. I get my driver back Friday, I will let you guys know if it helped any.

Did you happen to notice what your launch angle was with that shaft? I'd be interested in know the angle and your spin rate. One thing I will tell you is this. If you ball flight "APEX" is at 250 yards, I DON'T FEEL TOO SORRY FOR YOU. Must be hard to have to deal with. I which my ball would go 250 yards, much less have an apex at 250. What was your carry distance with that shaft? Over 300 I would think. Must be tough. What surprises me is that they recommended a R flex shaft when you apex is at 250 yards. Your swing speed has to be over 110 to get that yardage, so a R flex is not the normal flex to be recommended. Did they tell you what your ball speed was? Or you swing speed? My swing speed is just at 100 on average, and I don't come close to having a 250 yard carry, much less having the apex at 250 yards. For what it's worth, my launch angle is at 15 degrees with a back spin around 2500. Let us know what you end up with with that new shaft.

Anyone tried that Calloway display with the interchangeable shafts?

The problem is that at my apex, my ball just dies and dang near looks like a sand wedge shot on its down arc. Second problem is, the local Edwin Watts and the store I bought my driver from both are without launch monitors that were working at the time. I think my swing speed is well over 100mph, but both places watched me swing the club and both recommended a regular shaft. Everything I have is Stiff Flex so I am giving it a shot, I can always go back to stiff if I need to.

i'm no expert (just pretend) but at 100mph ss for me is the cut off point to go to stiff. the Aldila nv 65 or 75 stiff and the pro launch red stiff would be good shafts for you. my ss is 106 and most of my drivers have the aldila nv 75.

grathan; Yes, I've demo hit drivers twice now with the demo cart with the inter-changable shafts. It works great. You pick a head, I picked the FT3, you pick a loft, I went with a 10.5, and you pick a shaft. Then they assemble the club, you hit some balls on a launch monitor, and get some readings. After that, they can change loft or flex or kick point, to work on improving your launch conditions to get the most out of your swing. It's hard to beat this system. Once you find the best combination for you, they can have a club built for you useing that shaft and head. I'd recommend this way of testing drivers to anyone interested in getting the best driver for their game. It really works quite well.

Pepto, you're giving out wrong information...or maybe I should say obsolete information..

Buttclamped frequency readings does NOT indicate overall shaft thickness.

To say a 276 cpm reading with a shaft butt clamped is always an X-stiff is erroneous...

We have to remember that all shafts now are created to play differently due to things like applying and re-arranging the density of the materail at various points in the shaft...

For example, you may have a shaft that has a soft tip, but when frequencied your way, with a stiff butt, it will register high, while the soft tip will create a shaft with completely different charactoristics and feel.

A Perfect example is the Evolutions from Accuflex which the entire world knows plays much stouter than designated flex...these are butt SOFT but from there to the mid point is extremely stiff...and then the tip is even stiffer, creating a shaft that is almost two flexes stiffer than anticipated (that is IF there was an industry standard of flex.

The only way to determine how a shaft will play, feel and perform 9aside from actually hitting it) is by shaft profiling, and measuring the CPMs at designated beam lengths.

Look at the chart below.

I've compared five different shafts.

You'll see all but one display dramatic flex differences around the 21" beam length, confirming that these are mid bend point shafts..."sorta".

Bend points CANNOT be determined when you check for overall CPMs butt clamped....makes sense?

But lets go back to addressing stiffness...

One shaft, the EVO is what they considered a Regular flex because it butt frequencied out at 238 cpms....but you look at the chart and you see that in reality, it's the stiffest of all the other shafts...not even close!

Look at the new UST LD-1 (one of my favorites)...it butt reads at 277! A Whopping 277! but when you waggle it at address it feels like putty....and as you can see on the chart, where it comes out as about the SOFTEST overall feeling shaft.



This may be a bad analogy, but lets give it a try...

Tires come in different sizes, thicnesses and intended purposes.

While 20lb air pressure in a bicycle may seem like a lot...in a car tire it's severealy underflated....so there cannot be a standard of whats too much or too little air pressure when there's too many variables attached.

Hope this makes sense and we all NEVER attach flexes to overall CPM readings.

Thanks for clearing this up. That makes complete sense and also makes it pretty obvious that it's even more difficult to fit a shaft to an individual. So basically what you are saying is that the Digiflex machine is only able to measure the butt stiffness of a shaft?

I totally relate to your surprise

What I was saying is by taking only one measurement with the butt clamped, like this:


...it gives you a vague reading with the majority of feedback based at the butt.

When this finally came to light for me (and forced me to go to school) was measuring a shaft that had almost all it's flex in the butt...the cpms came out around 245cpm raw.

Then I trimmed off two inches to fit my needed length and the flex point went up to 265cpm!

Nope! Not at all!

Actually you have a great tool to work with...as long as the reader can register up to 999cpm's (which I believe it does) you can use this machine.

The only difference is aside from taking readings at butt length alone, you need to slide the shaft down the clamp and take measure ments again at: 41", 36", 31", 26", 21", 16" & 11".

The raw numbers will be enlightening...then when you compare it to others, you'll get an idea how it performs against other shafts (as I showed in my earlier post).

There's a few other things to address if you want to do shaft profiling...and I don't wanna bore anyone here with them...if you are interested in doing this, let me know.

Also, thank you VERY MUCH for not being upset with me for adding to your information previously given...if you need anything, please let me know...here or email.

adios!