I had noticed a lot of tour players still play steel shafts in their fairway woods. I purchased a Titleist 980F 15* off Ebay today with a DG S300 shaft. Waiting for delivery (impatiently.)
In the meantime, is anyone else out there with their ears on that is playing steel in their fairway woods? If so, have you found them to be more accurate or easier to swing than graphite? The torque spec for a DG S300 is 1.7 so my thought is it should be pretty accurate, and at 130 grams should add a good amount of swing weight. Have you hit both steel and graphite fairway woods? Your thoughts and imput are always appreciated.

Although I have new Adams driver and woods I sometimes use my older american golf steel shafted driver and 3 & 5 woods. I enjoy these clubs which are much smaller than their adams counterparts, shorter shafts and actually easier to swing, especially off the deck (no tee). Being new to the game this summer I am probally not ready for the adams yet and continue to use the older clubs at the range. I would be using them only but got a great deal on the adams during a promotion at a non-golf sports shop. Funny thing, both sets of clubs have the exact loft.
Fred

The only club I have ever used with a graphite shaft has been my Titleist 975D driver. I have steel shafts in all my irons and my fairway woods.

I am about to buy a set of Callaway X-14 irons with steel shafts and Big Bertha 3 and 5 wood with steel shafts. Going to go with a 380cc GBB II driver with a graphite shaft simply because it is hard to find a stock driver with a steel shaft.

When I was looking for graphite shafts to build a set of irons, I was not real happy with the torque ratings for them. I checked with TrueTemper to see what the torque rating was for steel shafts. The answer I got was it varies from 1.8-2.2, depending on the flex of the shaft. Most of the graphite shafts are more like 3.5-5.0, not good. As Mr. Divots pointed out, lower torque should help with the accuracy of any club. But the swing weight will not change much, because the length of steel fairway woods are usually 1/2" shorter, and that makes the swing weight about the same as the graphite version. If you go with the same length shaft, you will in deed add a few swing weight points. If you like high swing weights, you might want to try a hybrid club, the club head of a hygrid is about 20%-30% heavier, and that makes the swing weight a lot higher.

Don,
I've seen some graphite shafts that are in the low 2's for torque rating now. I don't understand your explanation for shaft weight/swing weight. An uncut Dynamic Gold wood shaft at 45" is 130 grams. My current graphite wood shafts uncut at 46" are 84 grams. 1/2" shorter or not, that is a large difference, which should make for a heavier swingweight. I do play a Taylor Made rescue mid 19* in lieu of a five wood at this time, stiff steel shaft. It has a 101 gram shaft and D3 swing weight (which feels great.) It is really accurate for me. I hit it as long as my old 4 wood.
One thing the manufacturers do is adjust head weights to attain a certain swing weight, as evidenced when I looked up my Rescue Mid's specs. So I guess we would need to know the head weight to determine if the heavier shaft would really add any swing weight. Oh well, the added torsional stability of steel should rein in some errant fairway shots (I hope!) :eek:

A 65 gram graphite shafted driver at 45.5 inches will have a swing weight that is the same as a 130 gram steel shafted driver at 45.0 inches. That's why graphite shafted clubs are built 1/2" longer. I know it sounds like it should be more than that, but it's not. The swing weight is measured from a point that I believe is 14 inches from the grip end of the club. Even if the shaft is twice as heavy, the balance point of the shaft isn't that much different. The total weight of the club will be a lot different, but not the swing weight. Because the shaft is balanced pretty much in the center, it doesn't have a big effect on the balance point of the club. I don't know if this helps you understand it all or if it just makes it that much more confusing. When I first started building clubs, I figured that if the shaft was lighter, the weight of the club head would have a bigger effect on the swing weight, making a graphite shaft club have a higher swing weight compared to a steel shaft club. But it's the opposite. One more reason why golf is so hard to figure out. Things don't make sense. Swing easier to hit the ball farther? Go figure.

I was at a local golf store yesterday buying some iron head covers and asked if they had any steel shaft drivers in stock. They didn't have one name brand driver. After a little searching the guy found some Oryx drivers with steel shafts so I hit a few balls on their simulator as a test. I noticed that my ball flight was pretty good with the driver and the ball speed was about the same as what I have gotten with graphite shaft drivers,about 135-142. The cost was only $39.95 so I got one with a regular flex shaft to try on the driving range next week. I have another driver of the same size(260CC) head with a stiff flex graphite shaft that I can use to compare the new one against. I'll see for myself if I lose any distance or not, and whether the ball lands in the fairway more often with the steel shaft. If the ball speed was about the same, I don't see where I should be losing any distance. How many of you have actually tested you swing speed with both steel and graphite shafts? Do you KNOW FOR A FACT WHAT THE DIFFERENCE IS FOR YOU? I have heard all the storys about how you are supposed to be able to swing a lighter shafted driver faster because of the weight, But I haven't tested it. When you first think about it, it just makes sense, the lighter the weight the easier it would be to swing it fast. If you are trying to swing it fast, which you are not supposed to be trying to do in the first place. You are supposed to be trying to make a nice relaxed swing, and let gravity do most of the work. And as we all should know, gravity works the same way on a light shaft as it does on the heavy one. I have read that Tiger can add 10-20 MPH to his ball speed with a graphite shaft, but he also swings like he's trying to kill the ball. I have to wonder about Ennie Els. With his swing that is so effortless, I wonder if he gets the same increase in ball speed? If you have ever read the advertisements for light weight graphite shafts, it always stated that there is a possiblity for increased swing speeds, it never comes with a promise of more swing speed, just the protential for it. Not the same thing in the real world. I'm going to do my own test and find out what works for me. Later, Don.

Don,
Iron head covers??!! I hope you don't put them on your forged clubs, as there is nothing worse you can actually do to them. They hold in moisture and can actually cause "browning," also known as rusting, to occur. I read that on the Mizuno web site. Ya gotta let 'em bang together a little anyways! Kinda like getting the uniform dirty when playing baseball!! Plus, if they stay pristine forever, you won't have an excuse to buy new ones...
I am interested to see the results of your driver test. Granted I have never heard of the type of driver you purchased. I like your line of thinking, though. Seems the amount of swing speed gained couldn't be that much more with graphite. The shorter steel shaft along with ultra low torque values seem like they would be more accurate. After all, the ball rolls a lot more in the short grass! I guess the ultimate test would be hitting the same driver head with a graphite and then a steel shaft.

If I lived in Minnesota, that might be a factor. But here in Colorado, we don't have a lot of moisture in the air, so nothing rusts very much. Once the chrome is worn off a forged iron, I can understand how it might rust some. But I did get one set of head covers just for my new forged iron to keep them from getting banged up in transit. Forged clubs are softer, so they will tend to dent more. If you can't use head covers, how are you supposed to protect them? Thanks for the info from Mizuno's site, I will only use the head covers when in transit, not for storage in the house. We just got 5 inches of snow last night, so I will have to wait a few days to test out the new steel shaft driver. I'll let you know how it goes when the snow melts.

That's why I bought my MP-33's used off Ebay, so I wouldn't have to go through the agony of my forged irons getting all dented up. They came pre-dented, and I didn't even have to pay extra for that!
It's just a trade off with the forged clubs, they feel great but look like crap after about a half a season. I paid less than half of what they are new for "slightly used" and then had my clubfitter bend them to my lie and loft specs. Couldn't have been cheaper. Let 'em bang! Shiny clubs are for poseurs!