True Temper Elevate Tour Shaft Review

By DanSueltz November 1st, 2018

True Temper is complementing its lighter weight steel shaft offerings with a 115 gram steel shaft that offers a mid to mid-high ball flight and mid spin for better stopping action on the green. This shaft also incorporates True Temper's VSS Pro (Vibration Suppression System) for a 56% reduction in vibration versus standard steel shafts. Here is our True Temper Elevate Tour shaft review:

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Static Tests:

The Elevate Tour VSS shafts are taper tip (.355") that come in discrete lengths from 37-41". The shafts are offered in typical True Temper flex designations of R300, S300 and X100, with weight ranges from 112 to 122 grams. Shaft consistency and quality (flex, torque, weight, and balance point) ranked over 91% which is very high for a lightweight steel shaft. Tip consistency is very similar between each flex meaning the ball flight should be very similar regardless of if you are playing R300, S300 or X100. From a flex perspective, these shafts will play slightly soft to flex, so you will need to hard-step the R300 and S300 to get to the flex you are used to in say a Dynamic Gold S300. This is pretty typical of lighter weight steel shafts.

Player Tests:

Our tests always put shafts in our players hands that match their fitting recommendations from our Fitting Wizard or BGF Fitting System. That way our comparisons are valid in terms of launch, spin and dispersion versus other shafts. All tests were done with either a Mizuno JPX-919 Tour or PXG 0311 6 iron.

Launch: True to spec, these are a mid launch shaft. Testing showed about one degree higher launch than a Dynamic Gold 120 and similar launch to an OBAN CT 115 and KBS $ Taper in similar flex.

Spin: Again, spin is only a couple hundred rpms higher than either the OBAN CT 115 or KBS $ Taper. Consistent with what we expected.

Dispersion: Because we test with shafts that are frequency matched and swing weight to the test player, shot dispersion is not dramatically affected. That being said, the Elevate Tour had a 1 yard tighter shot dispersion which is not statistically meaningful in our opinion.

Feel: Now we get to the "soft" side of a fitting...feel. To a person, our testers agreed that the Elevate Tour shafts with the VSS Pro technology felt the best of all of the other steel shafts tested. What this tells us is that if you are a player that may have some tendonitis issues and are considering swapping out to graphite, you should at least test out the Elevate Tour shafts first.

Overall: We think this shaft will be a great alternative to heavy graphite shafts as the shaft launches higher than most in this weight category and has great feel. For those players that struggle getting the ball in the air with today's low lofted irons or hybrids, this will be a good option!