Ventus Shafts Get Straight to the Point
When asked their respective thoughts on why Fujikura’s Ventus shaft line is currently, according to Darrell Survey, the No. 1 played driver and fairway wood shaft across five tours, a PGA of America teaching pro, a veteran club repairman and fitter, and a top golf club company executive were practically in lockstep with their responses.
“Tour players use Ventus because the shaft is extremely stable and hits the ball so straight,” says Peter Barrow, a long-hitting PGA of America professional who teaches golf at Altadena Golf Course just north of Los Angeles.
Over the past two seasons, the list of players who have played a Ventus shaft in their drivers and/or fairway woods include the reigning Masters and British Open champions, Scottie Scheffler and Cameron Smith, along with marquee players Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Viktor Hovland and Sergio Garcia. LPGA standouts Lexi Thompson and Nelly Korda also are on the list.
Barrow believes much of the appeal is feel, that “in the past, low torque graphite driver shafts also hit the ball very straight, but they felt boardy and unresponsive when striking the ball." The Ventus shafts, Barrow says, are easier to swing and "offer a lot of feedback, which gives the player a lot of confidence to swing freely and control the ball.”
The difference maker is the shaft's VeloCore construction, which is comprised of a strong 70-ton and a softer 40-ton pitch graphite component wrapped in one piece around a mandrel that constructs the shaft.
"This basically one-piece construction allows for a smooth and stable transfer of energy throughout the shaft, uninterrupted by the ‘speed bumps’ found in some other shafts constructed from multiple flags of carbon fiber pieced together," says John Hovis, Fujikura’s tour and product development manager. "This stability, in turn, increases the driver head’s MOI [Moment of Inertia], meaning its capacity to resist twisting on off-center hits."
Central to the design of Ventus shafts is the company’s proprietary enso data acquisition system. A 3-D, high-speed, motion-capturing system, enso uses multiple sensors attached to select parts of a clubhead and shaft to record and report on the varying amounts of twisting and torquing that takes place in the shaft’s butt, midsection and tip ends prior to and through a swing's impact.
Such data, combined with the construction aspect, ultimately makes Ventus a shaft that aids in a club being easier to hit on the sweet spot, thus allowing a golfer to hit the ball straight or work it in whatever manner he or she may choose.
Through construction and testing, Ventus shafts emerged as a color-coded collection — the black, the blue and the red. While all the shafts feature a sophisticated modulation of varying degrees of stiffnesses — in the butt, mid- and tip-sections — each line also comes in a range of overall weights — from 58 to 106 grams per shaft — and flexibility profiles (regular, stiff, extra stiff and tour extra stiff).
The Ventus black shaft stands as the line’s lowest-launching, lowest-spinning model, with the blue representing a more mid-launching and mid-spinning shaft. Formulated to accommodate some less powerful swingers, Ventus' red offers the highest launch and spin rates. Recently, Fujikura introduced a TR version of the Ventus shafts and each launches the ball at a slightly lower angle and spins the ball a little less than their non-TR counterparts.
Kouros Kou owns and operates Kouros Logic Golf in Rowland Heights, California. For over 25 years he has built, repaired and fitted clubs for players of all skill levels.
“It’s Ventus’ VeloCore construction that accounts for how straight these shafts hit the ball,” he says. “With so many different differently configured shafts Ventus makes, it's easy for a fitter like me to find the best shaft for any golfer’s swing.”
It’s not only club workers who appreciate such shaft-fitting simplicity.
Todd Beach, senior vice president of research design and engineering at TaylorMade, says that “because the Ventus shafts worked well in our previous Sim-model drivers and fairway woods, it was a simple decision for many of the tour players to try their same Ventus shaft in our new Stealth driver and fairway woods."
Adds Hovis: “Today’s tour pros hit the ball far enough already, so what we’re seeing in some of the best players in the world is a new interest in hitting their drives with a little more spin for control than we have in years past.” While these players start their drives on straight lines, many like to see the ball drop a little to the left or right as it prepares to hit the fairway.
Clearly, Fujikura’s Ventus shafts are helping them do this exactly.