Cool Clubs For Those Who Need Shaft Data

The technology march continues on, with Cool Clubs stepping up the game with a testing system designed to measure all manufacturers' shafts with data points that allow complete apples-to-apples comparisons.  The Cool Clubs S3 (standing for "Shaft Simulation System") will measure and analyze multiple parameters of a golf shaft on a single machine. In roughly two and a half minutes, it will analyze a shaft's straightness, consistency, deflection and stiffness profiles, frequency, and torque.

The S3 been a concept in Cool Clubs founder Mark Timms' mind for quite some time, but it became reality with the help of the company's new Research & Development Manager Simon Grondin.


The machine is fast, repeatable and accurate, eliminating the human-induced error present in several of the industry's current shaft profiling techniques. What makes the S3 even more unique is that it tests shafts in a manner that simulates how they will be loaded during a golf swing.  Over 100,000 points of data are used to profile each shaft.

The data that's currently being collected from the S3 machine at the company's Scottsdale headquarters will be used to help club fitters around the world understand shafts and do a better job fitting as well as to educate the golfing population on shafts and how important the right shaft is.

"Our aim is to continue to improve and develop technologies for fitting and building, so that players everywhere can PLAY BETTER GOLF" says Timms. New York metro golfers can access the technology through NY Golf Centers in Manhattan.

Just in case you need to check some shaft data yourself, much of the data from the S3 machine will be available to all golfers through the Apple App Store in the near future  Both an informative free version and a more detailed upgraded version will be available by the PGA show in January 2015. An extremely advanced web based version for golf industry professionals only should also to follow shortly after that.

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf