Fujikura Axiom brings driver technology to graphite iron shafts

As Golfweek’s resident equipment writer, I get a sneak peek at the new clubs before they are made available to the public. After going through technical presentations and discussions, I often have a chance to hit new irons and go through a custom fitting to see how they feel and perform first-hand. While the technologies that go into irons evolve and improve every year, one thing has remained the same for several years, my iron shafts. I’m tall (6-foot-4), but my specs are not especially unusual: Steel shafts that are 125 grams in weight, 0.5″ longer than standard, with a standard lie angle. This spring, however, I went down to 105 grams to get more clubhead speed and found it helpful, but that’s the only chance I have made in five years.

While I have hit some shots with graphite irons, I have never been fitted for them and, frankly, have been perfectly happy with my steel shafts. Fujikura, however, made some Axiom graphite iron shafts available for me to try for this article and the results were very interesting.

Using a Full Swing launch monitor to collect data and track my shots, I warmed up and then hit a series of 8-iron shots. You can see the results below.

David Dusek Fujikura Axiom 8-iron dispersion chart. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

According to my Arccos data, my typical 8-iron goes 151 yards, and when I use it to hit approach shots, I hit the green 42 percent of the time. With the Axiom shafts in my irons, my shots ranged from 143 to 151 yards, with an average of 150, so my distance stayed the same. However, as you can see from the chart above, my dispersion was fairly tight, even though I hit at least two shots toward the toe of my 8-iron.

David Dusek 5-iron shots with Fujikura Axiom shaft. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

I changed holes and hit a series of 5-iron shots, and as you can see in the chart, the dispersion pattern was fairly tight once again. According to Arccoss, my average 5-iron total distance is 200 yards and miss right 50 percent of the time. So, I wasn’t surprised to see a few balls drift that way in the left-to-right wind, but once again, the overall dispersion pattern was tight. A toe miss fell short (185 yards) and more right, while a pulled shot rocketed slightly left and 197 yards in the air.

At 105 grams, I did not notice anything different in the way my irons felt during the swing and the Fujikura Axiom graphite iron shafts did not provide me with more distance. However, while well-struck shots felt as good as ever, slight mis-hits toward the toe definitely felt more solid than mis-hot shots with my old steel shafts, and the ball flew further than I expected on those shots. My dispersion pattern was tighter, so the Axiom shafts could help to decrease the severity of my misses, which would be extremely helpful on the golf course. As the cliche goes, golf is all about managing your misses.

Everyone wants more distance, myself included, but if reducing the punishment for poor strikes is important to you, the Fujikura Axiom graphite iron shafts could be an interesting option to discuss with your custom fitter.