Current methods of shaft fitting are only partially successful at matching players with optimal equipment. This could be due to player adaptation. Twenty-four players hit drives into a net with clubs of different shaft flexes. This was repeated with vibration applied. Club kinematics were stable across flex conditions with no vibration, and it is probable that players varied the application of torques during the downswing to compensate for changes in club mechanics. With vibration, for eleven players, club head speed and grip speed at impact increased with flex. This suggests these players could not apply desired torques, perhaps due to noise in proprioceptive feedback caused by vibration.
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