I want you to imagine something. Imagine every golf shot you’ve ever hit in your life. The ones on the range, the ones on the course and even the ones in your backyard. How many swings do you think you have taken?
Now imagine that you had the data from every single one of those swings compiled into one place to dissect and analyze to make your golf game as great as it possibly could be.
When it came to developing the next advancement in our driver technology, the TaylorMade R&D team did exactly that. For over 20 years, we logged more than 11 million shots taken by amateur, collegiate and professionals of all skill levels and swing types.
Amongst all the things we learned, perhaps the most important was how to connect a swing type to the appropriate shaft type. In a traditional fitting, this would be done through analyzing clubhead speed, launch angle and spin rate.
However, the data told us to change that. Instead of fitting for flight, our engineers explored fitting for what’s right for the individual golfer’s swing. The easiest way for a fitter to do this is by assessing the golfer’s clubhead rotation profile.
WHAT IS CLUBHEAD ROTATION?
Clubhead rotation is measured by when and how the player releases the golf club. Do they release early, in the middle or late in the downswing? Additionally, do they have a held, balanced or active release?
In simpler terms, are they low rotation (LR), mid rotation (MR) or high rotation (HR)? As you can see with our TaylorMade athletes below, you can identify clubhead rotation by seeing where the shaft lines up to the lead arm relative to impact (left arm for a right-handed golfer).
HIGH ROTATION
For a high rotator, like Team TaylorMade’s Charley Hull, we will see that lineup happen just before impact or right at impact where the hands are right in the middle of their body. This golfer would require a shaft with a soft tip section.
LOW ROTATION
On the opposite end of that spectrum, for a low rotator like Collin Morikawa, the shaft lines up to the lead arm well after impact with the player’s hands almost outside the lead leg. Because of this, a stiff tip section would match a low rotation golfer.
MID ROTATION
Right in the middle of the bell curve is a player like Rory McIlroy with a more neutral release lining the shaft up with his lead arm just after impact where his hands are over his left leg. Matching a neutral release, a more of a middle of the road tip fits a mid-rotation golfer.
An important thing to note here is that clubhead rotation profiles do not directly correlate with ability. Both Collin Morikawa and a 15 handicapper can be low rotation players.
So, instead of solely relying on the traditional shot metrics to identify a shaft…we are also analyzing the characteristics of the golf swing – regardless of skill – to find the right shaft.
The main reason why we started down this path of the three rotation types was to be able to maximize the groundbreaking performance of the Qi4D driver head with a shaft that’s just as highly engineered. Based on everything we told you above, offering one stock shaft was no longer sufficient, and we wanted to create three different shaft profiles to fit those three different swing types.
Instead of grouping shafts on charts by launch and spin, our team rearranged those charts with a proprietary formula to group them by high, mid and low rotation profiles.
Then, we took those charts over to our friends at Mitsubishi Chemical and in conjunction with their industry leading materials, we created the all-new Reax™ shaft lineup.
WHICH REAX SHAFT IS FOR ME?
Identifying which rotation profile a golfer fits into is the easy part. By simply capturing a face-on swing video and seeing where the shaft lines up to the lead arm, you can easily identify the correct rotation profile.
Plus, with our Launch Monitor Enabled Qi4D driver heads, GC Quad and GC Quad Max launch monitors can provide your fitter with your closure rate to confirm your profile. Generally, low rotation players will land below 2,000 degrees per second, high rotation players will be above 3,000, with mid rotation players landing in the middle.
As you can see below, we attached a color to each swing profile. Red for HR, blue for MR and white for LR. These colors are consistent with aftermarket shafts that share similar characteristics as our Reax™ shafts (i.e. Ventus Red, Blue, Black, etc.).
REAX™ HR
- Swing Profile: Active
- Shaft Profile: Soft Tip Flex
- Player Breakdown: 20%
- Offered in: 60 (X, S, R), 50 (X, S, R, A)
REAX™ LR
- Swing Profile: Hold
- Shaft Profile – Stiff Tip Flex
- Player Breakdown: 20%
- Offered in: 60 (X, S, R)
REAX™ MR
- Swing Profile: Balanced
- Shaft Profile: Mid Tip Flex
- Player Breakdown: 60%
- Offered in: 60 (X, S, R), 50 (X, S, R, A)
As always, we suggest you take all of these learnings to your local TaylorMade fitter to be fit for the best possible driver and shaft combination.
Happy fitting season!
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