If a company can manufacture automotive springs, it can probably make a pretty decent golf shaft.
That’s exactly the case for Nippon Shafts, whose parent company NHK Springs is a large automotive springs manufacturing company.
Mark Pekarek, North American distributor for Nippon, gives NHK credit for the construction methods and materials that give Nippon shafts their smooth feel and make them efficient at transferring energy.
Nippon’s latest iron shaft, the N.S. Pro Modus 3 Tour 130, is stiff in the butt and mid sections, but it has a softer tip section.
“What that creates is a little bit of a higher, easy launch but then a lower, Tour-type spin to get the ball to go through the air in a more penetrating fashion,” Pekarek said.
This is the opposite construction of the company’s N.S. Pro Modus 3 Tour 120 shaft that debuted in 2012, which is about 10 grams lighter than the Tour 130. Usually, lighter weight shafts are designed to hit the ball higher than their heavier weight counterparts, but the Tour 120 has a stiff tip with softer mid and butt sections — a construction that actually results in a lower flight.
Like all of the company’s shafts, the Tour 130 is created from a specially picked base metal. It then undergoes an NHK-learned heat treatment process that the company says helps with distance control.
The Tour 130 is currently used by Sergio Garcia. It comes in three flexes: the R (121 grams), S (124 grams) and X (129 grams) and sells for about $37 each.
The Tour 120 comes in four flexes: R (111 grams), S (114), X (120) and TX (126) and sells for the same price.
Check out the video interview about the Tour 130 with GolfWRX’s Zak Kozuchowski and Pekarek to learn more about the shaft.
