By Chris Tschida
PGA TOUR PARTNERS Magazine
March/April 2003

Have you ever wondered about that club in your bag that makes your cringe every time you reach for it? It's doesn't feel good and you don't hit it as well as the others.

There may be a reason for it. It could be the way the shaft is positioned in teh clubhead.

Shafts are like fingerprints -- no two are alike. And due to the manufacturing process, shafts contain structural irregularities that can affect a club's performance.

Most shafts made today are not perfectly round or straight and have varying thickness through their length. They have an area that is stronger than others in the shaft. How that area is aligned to the clubhead affects the way the shaft bends and twists during the swing and how the club hits the ball.

"Irregularities are not built into shafts on purpose," explained Dick Weiss, founder of Strategic Shaft Technologies, the six-year-old company that owns the patent rights on the shaft PUREing process. "All shafts have idiosyncracies that can cause adverse affects during the golf swing."

To neutralize these adverse affects, the PURE shaft process was created. Using proprietary computer software and ultrasensitive data-collecting sensors, the SST PURE process analyzes a shaft to locate its best orientation for optimum performance and impact repeatability (PURE stands for Plane of Uniform REpeatability).

The shaft is then assembled into a clubhead in the PUREd position with the most stable area of the shaft in the target direction (nine o'clock when looking at a right-handed club from address).

In this position the club is able to bend uniformly and consistently.The process can be performed on any shaft, steel or graphite, and works with all the clubs in the bag -- from driver to putter.

Weiss sais PUREing provides more uniformity and consistency between clubs within a set and between sets within a brand. Other benefits include increased distance, accuracy and softer feel. Weiss also claims PUREing makes it harder to hook or slice the ball, even if your tendency is to hook or slice.

"The average player will experience more benefits than a TOUR player," said Weiss, who played golf for the University of Miami. "They'll hit is longer and straighter."

"The TOUR player is looking to make his bad shots better. They don't need distance, they want accuracy," added Weiss, who is a member of the Professional Clubmakers Society and Clubmakers Association. "We get players who'll only test clubs if the shafts are PUREd because then they can make a judgment based solely on the clubhead."

Over 150 TOUR players have had their clubs PUREd by Weiss. And the company gets clubs sent in from players on every tour, and from around the world.

Weiss has been taking his show on the road since April 2000. The SST PURE tour van travels to events on the PGA TOUR, and is the only equipment van approved by the TOUR that is not sponsored by a manufacturer, and is the only one that works on every manufacturer's equipment. The 24-foot trailer is fully equipped with four PUREing stations and a complete club assembly area.

The cost to have an existing club PUREd by SST or one of its 23 licensees around the country is about $45. The process takes about 30 minutes per club.

Shaft makers UST and Royal Precision seel pre-PUREd shafts that are available to consumers. You can also buy pre-PUREd shafts from catalog retailer Golfsmith for an additional charge of $9.95 per club.