At what point will a bent golf club shaft affect your swing?

Question

I have some clubs where the shaft is bent about 1/4 up the shaft from the head, 9, 3, 4, and 6 irons. This was caused by a suitcase placed on top of the golf bag in a car trunk. These are steel, regular flex.

If you were to roll the clubs on a flat table, you'd see a bigger gap between the shaft and table based on the curve of the bend in the shaft. A straight shaft would be the same gap for a full rotation.

The biggest gap difference is about 1 millimeter, measured by placing playing cards into the gap between the table and the shaft, with the bend facing down and the bend facing up. I can visually see the shaft is bent without the cards, but it takes close inspection to see.

I'm a fairly new player learning how to swing and was wondering if this should matter that much.

1. Are bent shafts inevitable?

2. Is there some degree of bend allowed in a shaft to where it's still considered 'straight'?

3. Is this going to affect my learning or will it only matter for scratch golfer?

Answer 1

my friend a 7 handicapper has a bent 4 iron and complains that it makes him fade the ball and hard to control

Answer 2

If you want the clubs to perform the way you want them to, you'll need to pony up and get them re-shafted.

Get measured and check your loft and lie angles while you're at it. It'll make a huge difference in your accuracy and consistency.

Answer 3

Hi,

A bent shaft will obviously affect your swing/game. You need good tools to achieve good results.

Also - try spining your shafts - by aligning your shafts you will see a marked difference in the length of your shots. Golf club manufacturers do not align the shafts - so you should:-

I managed to buy a good spinefinder at this website:-

http://www.golfersmate.net/golf_shaft_sp...

Hope this tip helps !

Answer 4

Get clubs custom built to your swing.... Don't adjust your swing to the clubs.... Especially ones that are bent!

And I do believe in spine alignment, but not w/ steel.  Steel is already a very consistant material..... It's graphite that tends to be alot more susceptable to inconsistencies.  I've seen some graphite shafts go all over the place when placed on a frequency analyzer.  I truly believe it makes a huge difference.

Good Luck & Hit 'em straight!!!

Answer 5

Xerox,

The answer above me is spam, don't listen to that nonsense about spine aligning your clubs, that's snake-oil.

He is correct about one thing though, bent clubs will not produce consistent results. I think they would be safe to play with since the bending is very slight, however I know speaking for me, I would always wonder if that push to the right was because my club was bent or because the swing was bad.

The bending of the shaft will effect the ball flight because of changes to the loft, lie, and face angle....a golf club is actually a precision instrument, if everything is good....the results can be really good. If some thing are bad, say the loft and lie.....then you could make a great swing and end up with a less than great result.

To answer your three questions:

1) Steel shafts should never be bent.

2) There is some degree of flex that is associated with the weight of the club head. Never having seen your clubs I'm assuming that the bend you're referring to is something outside of that because you're talking about specific clubs in the set.

3) It could effect your learning.

My recommendation would be to have the bent clubs reshafted and have them all inspected by a professional clubfitter or PGA certified repair shop (all Golf Galaxy's have repair shops, and so do many d**k's Sporting Goods) This shouldn't cost you much money...possibly $15 to 20 bucks a club max.

Good Luck!

Answer 6

1. NO! Shafts will only bend if you abuse the clubs, which you obviously did.

2. Not at all. Your clubs are useless until you replace the shafts.

3. You cannot develop a good swing with broken clubs. Period. You might as well be trying to learn golf with a baseball bat.

Answer 7

In most instances I would say that you would need to either reshaft the clubs or try to straightened the shafts.  That said, years ago I had a driver that I had a tendency to duck hook on a fairly frequent basis.  I did that one too many times and being 14 years old I threw the club and it hit a palmetto tree and the shaft was bent.  I never replaced the shaft or had it straightened but for some unexplained reason I hit it really well after that episode.