Honma Beres IS-02 2-Star iron set with Graphite Design Tour AD shafts

Fujikura, Graphite Design, Mitsubishi and Nippon Shaft: The Engine Room

A club is a head, a grip and a shaft, and the shaft is where Japan’s industrial strengths show most clearly. Carbon fibre, graded and layered with great precision, is a Japanese speciality, and four names account for much of what is fitted to clubs around the world: Fujikura, Graphite Design, Mitsubishi and Nippon Shaft. This chapter of The Atlas of Japanese Golf sets out who they are, what each is known for, and how to read the markings on one.

Fujikura: from rubber to Ventus

Fujikura began, in the words of a 2023 profile, as a rubber company well over a century ago. It has made golf shafts in Japan since the 1970s and set up Fujikura Golf in the United States in 1995. Its history, as the maker’s partner profiles tell it, is a list of models, each built on a new material:

  • 1998. The Speeder 757 debuts, and Fujikura rises quickly to the top rank of driver, wood and hybrid shafts, as the maker tells it.
  • 2009. A three-dimensional motion-capture system begins to be used in shaft development. The Motore Speeder follows in the same year.
  • 2012 and 2014. The Blur introduces TeXtreme Spread Tow carbon fabric, and the Speeder Evo Blue uses Toray T1100G prepreg.
  • 2019. The Ventus is launched with a VeloCore technology. Fujikura says it is the most played driver and wood shaft on the PGA Tour, and names Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods among its users.

The profiles are partner content, and the tour-usage claims come from the maker, so they are best taken as claims. What is not in dispute is Fujikura’s scale: about 2,500 staff, and a research base in Carlsbad, California.

Mitsubishi Chemical: Diamana and Tensei

Mitsubishi’s parent set up a carbon-fibre division in 1974 and began making carbon golf shafts in 1979, for decades supplying domestic Japanese clubmakers. In 2004 Mitsubishi Rayon Composites opened in Carlsbad to develop its own branded products. Its first solo win, a shaft not co-branded with a club maker, came in July 2004 at the European Open, and it was the first win for the Diamana. By May 2021 the company reported that Diamana models had more than 270 wins and the Tensei 80, that a Diamana DF had been played in the 500th win on a major professional tour, and that Mitsubishi had the most winning driver shafts on the PGA Tour in sixteen of the previous seventeen years. It acquired the American shaft maker Aldila in 2013.

  • Diamana. The long-running tour shaft family; the Diamana X (2012) used pitch fibre and the Ali’Islei (2008) used metal wire, which led to a TiNi Wire prepreg.
  • Tensei. The second family, with 80 wins by May 2021.
  • MMT. Iron shafts, introduced in 2019.

Graphite Design: the Tour AD

Graphite Design is a Japanese shaft maker, with a Japanese parent listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, best known for the Tour AD range. The Tour AD-DI is the line it is famous for. In 2013 a trade report counted Graphite Design shafts as a factor in fourteen PGA Tour wins, without attributing the count, among them Adam Scott’s Masters victory, won with a Titleist driver fitted with a Tour AD DI-8. In 2012 the company consolidated its American operations and gave exclusive US distribution to Pro’s Choice.

Hideki Matsuyama’s Masters win in 2021 came with a Tour AD-DI 8TX in the Srixon driver and a Tour AD-TP 9TX in the 3-wood, as recorded in the chapter on Bridgestone, Srixon and Cleveland.

Nippon Shaft: N.S. Pro and Modus3

Nippon Shaft is based in Yokohama and is a privately held subsidiary of NHK Spring. It is the steel specialist of the four.

  • N.S. Pro 950GH. Described by The Golf Wire as the industry’s first credible steel shaft below 100 grams. It came before the Modus3, and it is the shaft fitted to the Honma Twin Marks set in our archive.
  • Modus3. On the professional tours from 2010, in 130, 120, 115 and 105 gram versions. By 2020 it had more than 200 professional wins worldwide, including the 2016 Open Championship and the 2017 Masters. A 2,000-set limited run of the Tour 115 Black marked its tenth anniversary in November 2020.

Cult names and the replaced shaft

A 2009 magazine feature described the ATTAS shaft of Mamiya Op and its sister company UST as a hit on the European and American tours, and reported that Tiger Woods, Ernie Els and Sergio Garcia had Japanese-made shafts in the bag. It also listed Quadra and Roddio as boutique brands better known in Japan than elsewhere. Shafts are also the part of a club most often replaced, so the shaft in a set is not always the one it left the factory with.

Reading a shaft

  • Maker, family, weight, flex. A marking such as Tour AD-DI 8TX identifies the maker (Graphite Design), the family (the DI), and a weight and flex code. Check each maker’s own table for the meaning of the numbers.
  • Original or replaced. Compare the shaft with the head: a club made in one year with a shaft from a later range has probably been rebuilt. That is not a fault, but it should be in the description.
  • Condition. Look near the hosel and the grip end for hairline cracks, and check that the band and decals are intact.

Read next: JDM Golf Clubs and the Rule Book: What Non-conforming Means and Why the World Buys Japanese Golf Clubs.

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Index terms: japanese golf shafts · fujikura ventus speeder · mitsubishi diamana tensei · graphite design tour ad di · nippon shaft n.s. pro 950 · modus3 · japanese carbon fibre golf shafts · how to read a golf shaft · attas mamiya op

References

Dates and figures in this chapter were checked against these pages. Where accounts differ, the text says so.

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