- Aug 20, 2005
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I was reading through one of my Golfsmith Clubmaker magazines last night and came upon an article that discussed the modern graphite shaft materials. Towards the end of the article, it mentioned that there is a growing shortage of the carbon pre-preg material available for the shaft companies as other industries, Aerospace industry being the largest one, are using the material in greater volumes. While carbon fiber has been used in aircraft production for some time, it has been limited to smaller components such as control surfaces and small portions of aircraft fuselages. The new Boeing product, the B-787 Dreamliner, is going to be the first commercial airliner with a primarily carbon fiber fuselage which is going to dramatically increase the demand for the pre-preg material. According to the article, one B-787 fuselage is going to require as much of the carbon fiber material as it takes to produce 400,000 golf shafts. Boeing's current estimate on prodcution numbers is 10 aircraft a month which is the equivilent of 4,000,000 million golf shafts per month.
While we are not going to run out of the carbon fiber material, the price is going to increase as the aerospace industry typically pays a significantly higher price for their material and the shaft companies are most likely going to have to pay higher prices in order to maintain access to the diminished supply. According to the article, some shaft prices have already started to increase and while Golfsmith has yet to pass the increase on to the consumer so far, they will have to increase prices on those shafts starting next year.
The moral of the story: If you are looking to buy a new graphite shaft, it best be done before the price increase.
While we are not going to run out of the carbon fiber material, the price is going to increase as the aerospace industry typically pays a significantly higher price for their material and the shaft companies are most likely going to have to pay higher prices in order to maintain access to the diminished supply. According to the article, some shaft prices have already started to increase and while Golfsmith has yet to pass the increase on to the consumer so far, they will have to increase prices on those shafts starting next year.
The moral of the story: If you are looking to buy a new graphite shaft, it best be done before the price increase.