COMING SOON
OVVIO SHAFTS
Introducing OVVIO Wood Shafts
OVVIO is the first lineup of wood shafts developed with GEARS analytics to deliver research-grade performance.
Created with our advanced filament winding process, OVVIO shafts are 100% seamless and will be available in a variety of fine-tuned profiles that align with the most common swing types we’ve identified on GEARS.
Research Grade Performance
We've been measuring the best-performing shafts on GEARS for more than a decade, and most importantly, we’ve been studying how these shafts perform for golfers with different swing types.
What we’ve learned is counter to just about everything you’ll ever read about golf shafts: how you swing the club is far more important than how fast you swing the club.
Shafts Don’t Care About Swing Speed
When it comes to shaft fitting, the most important factor is not how fast a golfer swings; it’s when a golfer applies speed. Our three initial profiles were developed based on the three most common golf swing types we’ve identified on GEARS.
The three swing types are related to a “moment of truth” we’ve identified in shaft fitting: the time in the downswing when grip speed decreases and the club head speed increases.
The Importance Of Hitting The Sweet Spot
Because GEARS measures grip speed and head speed throughout the entire golf swing, we can pinpoint the moment in the downswing when the two speeds most radically diverge.
To help golfers visualize this moment of truth, we like the term “Scissoring Effect,” which is used in other fields to describe when two or more elements or forces diverge in opposite directions and create a visual “scissor-like” effect.
When exactly the Scissoring Effect occurs in a golfer’s downswing determines the shaft profile golfers should use to maximize their performance.OVVIO Profiles
OVVIO Green
For golfers with a Scissoring Effect that occurs early in the downswing
Our stiffest shaft profile
Draw biased
Advanced Filament-Wound, 100% Seamless Construction
OVVIO Red
For golfers with a Scissoring Effect that occurs late in the downswing.
Our softest bend profile
More fade biased
Advanced Filament-Wound, 100% Seamless Construction
OVVIO Blue
- For golfers with a Scissoring Effect that occurs neither late nor early in the downswing.
- Our moderate bend profile
- Fade biased
- Advanced Filament-Wound, 100% Seamless Construction
Please keep in mind that the timing of the Scissoring Effect is neither good nor bad, as all three swing types are common on the PGA Tour and have been used to win major championships.
Yes, Shafts Are Draw Biased Or Fade Biased
What you’re about to hear is probably the opposite of what you’ve been hearing your entire golfing life. Assuming two balls are struck in the center of the club face, stiffer shafts are more “draw biased” and softer shafts are more “fade biased.”
Again, neither is good or bad. Softer shafts want to bend, droop, and deflect more than stiffer shafts. And when a shaft is bending, drooping, and deflecting more, the lie angle is going to be flatter and the face is going to be more opened at impact.
Stiffer shafts are exactly the opposite; they bend, droop, and deflect less. That means the lie angle is going to be more upright and the face is going to be more closed at impact.
The Importance Of Hitting The Sweet Spot
Golfers might be asking themselves why they would want a shaft that bends, droops, and deflects more or less. Again, it comes down to the way you swing the club.
Both softer shafts and stiffer shafts are going to help certain golfers make contact on the center of the face more often, which is the most important part of shaft fitting. If you’re not hitting shots off the center of the face, you’re not going to optimize your ball flight.
How Shafts Help Golfers Get Longer And Straighter
Any premium shaft that promises longer distance or a tighter dispersion is doing it based on the expectation that golfers are going to be contacting the sweet spot more often.
Yes, it is true that softer shafts can help golfers create more speed, and we are accounting for that with our network of GEARS Fitters. However, the most important aspect of a shaft fitting is to help golfers hit the center of the face more often.
At GEARS, we do that by identifying the way a golfer swings the club and matching a shaft profile to their swing. The data shows us that this is the most reliable and consistent way to improve performance.
Why Shaft Feel Isn’t Real
We’ve been testing OVVIO profiles for more than a year with golfers of all abilities – from tour players to weekend warriors – and what we’ve seen again and again is that how a shaft feels to a golfer is more related to the way a golfer swings the club than the actual stiffness of the shaft.
For example, we gave our stiffest shaft, OVVIO Green, to an LPGA major champion with an early Scissoring Effect. She told us that the shaft didn’t feel stiff even though it is in fact quite stiff.
We did testing with a PGA Tour player who swings 25 mph faster but has a late Scissoring Effect and he told us OVVIO Green felt “off the charts” stiff.
The Need For Change Is Obvious
We chose the name OVVIO, which means “obvious” in Italian, for our first shaft line up because it was obvious to us that the industry needed to change. It’s no one’s fault. The industry simply needs better measurement tools.
The reason why swing-speed based fitting has become the de facto method in fitting is that it’s easy to measure. It’s not easy for a fitter to determine exactly how you swing the club. They need a system like GEARS because it measures things that launch monitors simply cannot.
If there’s one thing to know about our new lineup of shafts, OVVIO, it’s that we don’t care about how fast you swing the club. We only care about how you swing the club, because that’s what GEARS shows us matters when it comes to performance.