The Heading says it. What exactly is Torque, how does it relate to golf, and why should you know about it?

Torque is the measure of the force that can cause an object to rotate about an axis. Yep. This is a bad dream, and you are back in your HS Physics class. Haha. This is the first in a two-part series on Torque.

If you read that and think about it in terms of the golf swing, it brings up some interesting thoughts. The body rotates around an axis (the spine). The arms rotate with the body, but then also rotate independently of the body as they work to “release” the club head. OK. Cool. Why is that important? As the body increases its torque through the golf swing up to the hitting area, it increases the amount of speed produced by the body. Hmmm… So, as the body coils itself up on the backswing it creates tension between the various parts. As this tension changes – increasing or decreasing – the amount of stored power increases or decreases accordingly. This is measured as a value of torque. Want to hit it further? Increase the torque in your swing.

Continuing, the head of the golf shaft rotates around the axis of the shaft. Don’t believe me. Grab a ladies driver and the stiffest X Flex driver you can find. Put one hand on the grip and hold the head. Twist the club. Feel the difference. This is torque.

So how does this relate to club fitting? Aside from the obvious in the previous paragraph, I also mentioned to hit it further you need to increase the torque in your swing. Every player creates a different amount of torque in the arms or in the body, and they release that torque in different places. Some players generate plenty on their own and don’t need any additional help, while others don’t generate anywhere near enough and need all the help they can get. Think of the fast swing speeds with fast rotation, and plenty of hard release found in a Tour Player vs. a slow swing speed in a body that lacks the flexibility to turn and coil.

SHAFTS can help a player do what they can’t do on their own or prevent them from over doing it. A golf shaft is engineered to rotate correctly in accordance with a player’s swing. The faster a player’s swing, TYPICALLY, the less additional torque a player needs in the shafts of his golf clubs. Conversely, the slower a player swings, having torque augmented by the shaft can be a huge advantage. A HUGE advantage.

Knowing this is great, but what can you do with it? This is about club fitting. What does that mean for me as a fitter? The player either has torque in their swing or not, right? Yes, but not so fast.

A brief history lesson. 15-20 years ago, as the golf shaft industry was diversifying and shaft companies were popping up all over the place, shaft choices were everywhere. What to pick?? The choices were overwhelming. These companies started doing something called “Player Profiling.” What they did was look at every player type and they learned about how a player does what he does in his golf swing, and how can we build a shaft that will really help this player. What they did was to create a line of shafts that had different values throughout the shaft for each player type. X Flex might be a higher bend point, with a stiffer tip and a stiffer section in the handle, and less torque (because the player generates that on his own). A ladies flex, by contrast will be almost the polar opposite – softer in the tip and in the hands, lower bend point, and higher torque. Each shaft is trying to compliment what the player does well and adding or subtracting what he/she needs help with. Notice how there is no mention of weight here? That is a separate spec and is in addition to this. As we fast forward to today, we look at a lineup of shafts from one company, and we find there is not ONE line of shafts, but 4, 5 or more all trying to work on a different segment of players. If you look at Mitsubishi as an example, they have Diamana, Tensei, Vanquish, MMT, Kai’Li, and C6. EACH one of these families is designed to do something different and will appeal to a different player subset. Shaft Player profiling has truly become Player specialization.

Keep in mind that Torque is generally a thing in graphite shafts – not in iron shafts. Steel is too rigid, the shafts are too short, and too heavy to have torque mean much. Wood and hybrid shafts though. It’s worth looking it.

So far, so good? Your job as a fitter it to match the correct torque value in a shaft with the golf swing you have in front of you. Remember, ball flight doesn’t lie. If your player draws with an iron, and fades with a driver, that is a tell-tale sign that one of those shafts is not right. Pro tip: While the player is warming up, observe the ball flights with his own clubs. If you are fitting him for a driver, look at the iron shots too. Fitting for a set of irons, look at the driver shots.

If the shot has too much hook, it could be a shaft with too high of a torque value. Why? Because the shaft is allowing the head to rotate too much. Fade? Torque could be too low. Remember player profiling? Torque values go up or down depending on what the shaft company sees as the average or typical for a player in this particular shaft flex. Does that mean that you have to stay in this shaft flex?? Absolutely not!! If you can understand that the shaft is trying to help this player do X, but he already does that well on his own (or needs more help), you could explore different flex options within the same family. If you like everything else about it, try a stiffer or softer flex and see what happens. Keep in mind that other things will change, not just the torque value, so you have to re-evaluate everything. However, this could be a great way to go.

Personally, I do this. I play stiff flex in everything and X flex in my driver. I need a little less torque in the driver shaft – it has virtually eliminated the right side of the golf course for me, and it’s harder to hook it. For me to curve it with this torque value shaft, I feel like I have to REALLY do it in my golf swing. It can work for sure if you take the time to look at it.

So, on torque… A spec that measures rotation. The job of the torque value in a shaft is to make it match what the player does on their own. THIS is the shafts job. The club head hits the ball, the shaft rotates the head around it’s axis to match with the player does on his own. Essentially, it returns the head to where it was at address. Period. BOTH are important. The club head can make a much bigger difference in distance because it strikes the ball. The shaft can have a minimal effect on improving upon what the head does – usually, it will only make the shot worse. Yep. You can only add minimal distance with a shaft – and that is generally through lighter weight. You can really lose with a poor shaft choice as a lot of other values will be affected. Hope this makes sense to you. It’s worth learning.

Next week we’ll dig deeper into Torque. We’ll take a deeper dive into fitting and what to look for while you fit.

Happy Fitting!!!

Jim Yeager, PGA