Is Shaft Puring A Waste Of Money?

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I've had a bunch a driver and fairway metal graphite shafts "pured" in my clubs as well as my wife's clubs this year. Her clubs , which have much softer and lighter shafts, were greatly "improved" per their data sheets. I had another 6 clubs reshafted with UST V2 Pro-Force stiff shafts weighing from ~66g to ~82g. Each had some modest improvement from their standard installation position, but nothing like the softer shafts. All of the work was done at one of two PGA Superstores.

On Monday I dropped off a new driver and asked for a 1" extension on the Grafaloy pro-launch S-65 blue shaft and asked them to pure it. I picked it up tonight and the thing was still the same length. I didn't notice this until I soled it after I got home. I immediately knew I'd "gotten the shaft":mad:. Anyway, the puring data sheet showed no deviation at all with the standard shaft position. I commented that I'd never seen any shaft anywere close to this perfect. The guy muttered something about having problems with their puring machine. I'm pretty sure I just got ripped off. I'm not going to pull the shaft again unless I'm going to put a new one in and that would be expensive. I'm very frustrated with the PGA Superstore right now...

Does anyone have opinions on this or puring shafts in general? Does this process translate to a tighter distribution of hits on the clubface? I wonder if I've just been lighting money on fire.

Thanks in advance for your opinions.
 
My thoughts go like this:

1. On this particular case of your driver shaft, I think they just didn't pure it and were covering up after the fact. Basically there's a 1/360 chance that a shaft installed without puring will be in exactly the same place it would be if you pured it. I don't like those odds.

2. I've recently played with sets that were pured and not pured. I think it does make a difference, but it's a small difference and I don't think it would be noticed by most folks with double digit handicaps. I'm lucky; my dad builds or blueprints all my clubs for free, and given this situation, I'll have every club I hit pured from now on.
 
I agree completely with your first point. These guys did not do the extension and the guy muttered something about having an issue with their puring tool. I really feel like these guys did a poor job and worse than that may be dishonest. I'm not sure what the right thing to do is, but I will start with their management tomorrow.

I'm trying to weigh the small improvement you site vs. my cost of $25 a shaft for the entire process. I certainly won't be having the PGA Superstore do any puring for me in the future regardless. Thanks!
 

pureswing

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I still have a shaft spine board I bought form a golf shop in Palm Beach in 1995.

I was Ken Ellsworth’s caddie at the Senior PGA Championship and he and some of the other tour pros were having their shafts done at this golf shop.

I ask the pro there what it was and bought one. Now this is way before the puring machine and this shop had been doing it for ten years.

I am sure that this has been around for many years. I do remember the pro setting the soft side of the shaft to the ball and I think puring has the hard side of the shaft on top.

Putting the soft side to the ball seems to give better club head feel. I set the shaft in the pure swing trainer this way.
 

pureswing

New member
what's the difference between puring and spining?

It is the same thing. The puring machine has a print out. The spine board I have will do the same job but does not have a print out. Most club fitters will spine for $5 a shaft. I am sure puring is much more.
 
It is the same thing. The puring machine has a print out. The spine board I have will do the same job but does not have a print out. Most club fitters will spine for $5 a shaft. I am sure puring is much more.

PGA SS charges $25 to pull the shaft, pure it, and put it back. If done correctly, I believe this to be a fair price.

How does the spine board work? My understanding of puring is that the puring tool determines the shaft orientation where oscillations perpendicular to the plane are minimized. By installing the shaft with this orientation, one's hitting pattern should theoretically tighen up. Of course, if one's hitting pattern has significant variation relative to the typical improvement puring acheives, this technique won't buy you much. Also, higher quality shafts are less likely to have uniformity issues that could cause a significant widening of your hitting pattern.

I visited a different PGA SS this morning and discussed all this with their equipment repair manager. By the way, I forgot to mention the visible 3/4" gouge the other store made when removing the grip for the extension they never did... He too believed the puring job to be bogus and is going to make this right by installing a brand new pured shaft cut to the proper length. I'm grateful for his gesture. He also promissed to discuss this with the other store. Thus, I am still one of their best customers.
 

pureswing

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How does the spine board work?

The spine machine puts a load on the shaft at the tip and about 4-5 inches down the grip end. You rotate the shaft and a gauge shows the variation in the shaft. The lowest reading is the soft side and the highest reading is the hard side. Also when there is a load on the shaft as you spin it wants to move and settle on the soft side. I then mark the shaft and put the soft side it to the ball.
 
FLO.....

The same thing has been done by custom clubmakers before Pureing came along. There were various ways: spinefinders, frequency of shaft through 360 degree rotation (only 180 is necessary), or simply twanging until you get a Flat Line Oscillation (FLO). I've done all three and now just simply do FLO. I'm not sure if it really helps but it's pretty easy to do so what the heck. It's my understanding many of the shaft manufacturers now do the same thing so you can just install with label facing up and you're good to go.
 
Can't find the post but Brian wrote something about this a while back...............at the time he thought it was worth every penny.
 

pureswing

New member
The same thing has been done by custom clubmakers before Pureing came along. There were various ways: spinefinders, frequency of shaft through 360 degree rotation (only 180 is necessary), or simply twanging until you get a Flat Line Oscillation (FLO). I've done all three and now just simply do FLO. I'm not sure if it really helps but it's pretty easy to do so what the heck. It's my understanding many of the shaft manufacturers now do the same thing so you can just install with label facing up and you're good to go.

You are right there are a few ways to do it and there are more shaft manufactures doing it and then putting the logo on top of the shaft.

Just give them a call and they will let you know if they do it or not.
 
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