Matteo Manassero - Won the Barclays last week - thanks to the a change in the driver shaft

A bit slow on the results. But today's post isn't to talk about his win, but what he did to allow him to win.

http://www.titleist.com.sg/teamtitleist/sea/b/blog/archive/2012/11/14/an-inside-look-at-matteo-manassero-s-winning-titleist-913d2-driver-fitting.aspx

"The team went right to work starting with a quick look at Matteo’s original 9.5º gamer and then a brief chat to talk about the flight characteristics that he was looking to achieve.

The initial assessment was that Matteo’s gamer was very accurate and he was hitting a lot of fairways but the spin was a little high. While he was hitting his driver solid and seeing good performance, the team agreed that he wasn’t getting the max out of the current configuration.

From there, it was time to send some Pro V1x golf balls flying on the range.

“Matteo asked me to bring over something I thought would help produce a stronger, lower spinning flight. I went straight in with 913D2 8.5º with a Graphite Design DI6 X with the SureFit Tour hosel setting in B•1,” explained Dimmock.

A few swings later, it was clear that this combination was looking like a winner. Bringing down the loft helped drop the spin off the driver and the shaft change helped to maintain a good strong launch."

He basically switch to the Graphite Design Tour AD DI-6 which is low spin and high launch. But to compensate for the high launch, the driver loft was reduced to 8.5 degrees(which also reduced spin). But something mentioned later was that it was tip trimmed 1.5" which is quite alot but still within specs for the Tour AD shafts(For Graphite design, one must always leave a minimum of 0.5" of the parallel tip section of the shaft above the hosel.). For UST Mamiya shafts they don't recommend trimming, because trimming changes the specs completely so UST shafts comes in many many formats.

The specs for the shaft was initially, 3.3 torque and 66.5g, but after trimming, no idea what the specs are, unless you test it. So if you don't have access to the Tour Van, I don't recommend trimming. Most likely the tip trimming lowered the kick point, bringing the trajectory down, made the shaft tip stiffer and the torque less, making it feel more one piece and more stable. The other option is playng the DI-8 for similar specs, but then it would be too heavy 80+ grams, too much for the mere mortal.

The other shafts Matteo played before this would be UST AVIXCore,Adila Gamer and Project X.

So the change in Shaft gave him an extra 30 yards. 300 yards average, up from 270 yards. This would be in Asia where the air is more humid and the ground softer. So my point for the post is play the proper shaft, because the Driver head is already optimised, maximum size 460cc and maximum COR 0.830. 

Will talk about how to select shafts and Fitters later. (Sadly no really good fitters and limited options even with the fitters here in SG).