Do LPGA Players Use Stiff Or Regular Shafts? Don’t Just Flex Focus (2024)

Looking at the shafts the top women pros play many amateurs often focus on the flex of shafts LPGA players use.

So as we continued our deep dive into what clubs LPGA Players are using we decided to turn our Golfing Focus on this occasion to whether LPGA players use stiff or regular shafts?

Nearly three times as many of the top 100 LPGA pros use stiff than regular shafts across all club types according to the data available. A small minority of this elite group choose to play extra stiff (X-Stiff) shafts including Charley Hull and Lexi Thomson in some clubs.

But Yuka Saso’s use of a “Tour extra stiff” (TX) shaft in her Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond 9º driver means she is only LPGA pro in the top 100 to play a TX flex shaft in any club.

That however only tells us part of the story because what flex of shaft pro golfers pick often varies per club type.

So lets take a complete look at all the flex shafts LPGA players use across all club types as well to draw attention to a key point that is frequently missed by amateurs when it comes to looking at golf shafts.

And that is weight is far more important than flex!

What Flex Shafts Do LPGA Players Use? Top 100 Breakdown

When tackling the topic of what flex shafts LPGA Players use it is firstly important to recognise that this question needs to be broken down by club type.

The swingspeed (or club speed) for example any golfer hits the ball with is clearly very different with a driver than a sand wedge. And while that is not the only contributing factor when it comes to shaft flex choice it is the easiest one to understand why shaft flexes can therefore change through the bag.

That is no different when it comes to the best women golfers in the world.

According to Trackman the LPGA Tour average club speed with driver is 96mph but with pitching wedge that speed drops to 72mph and with that drop a change of flex of shaft is often required by players although as we have already noted this is not the only deciding factor.

Our in-depth study also has to acknowledge that data is not available for all of the LPGA pros we analyse but based on that to hand Golfing Focus found the following when it came the flex shaft choices made by the best women pros in the world across different club types.

Despite the data gaps we can see from these stats it still allows us to make some clear conclusions.

Firstly, most of the LPGA Tour pros use stiff flex shafts across all clubs types.

39 of the 50 pros for which this stat was available choose a stiff flex driver including Nelly Korda and Lydia Ko while the majority again – 32 out of the fifty LPGA pros we found iron shaft flex details on – choose stiff shafts in their irons including Charley Hull.

Of the 76 fairway woods Golfing Focus researched being used by the top 100 LPGA Tour players 57 (75%) of these were found to have a stiff flex shaft while 46 of the 69 hybrids (2/3) had a stiff shaft.

What is also obvious from the numbers however is that a few of the top women pros do not use stiff shafts in their clubs.

Eight of the top 100 LPGA players for example use a softer ‘regular’ flex driver shaft including Atthaya Thitikul and Leona Maguire.

A little over 20% of the fairway woods, and 30% of the hybrids, for which we found shaft flex information on are also regular or regular+ with pros including Minjee Lee and Danielle Kang using a regular flex shaft in these clubs.

When it comes to iron shafts by comparison Golfing Focus uncovered 14 out of 49 LPGA pros choosing to play a regular flex with Rose Zhang and Lexi Thompson being included in this number.

We also noted however a select few of the top 100 preferring a stronger flex shafts in their clubs which is more in the line with the shaft flex choices made by their male colleagues on the PGA Tour and Champions Tour.

As already noted Charley Hull, Angel Yin and Lexi Thompson use an extra stiff (X) driver shaft with Yuka Saso choosing a tour extra stiff (TX) driver shaft. 

Yin and Saso also continue to be part of the very small minority opting for X-stiff shafts in their fairway woods and hybrids while Bianca Pagdanganan was the only member of the top 100 on the LPGA Tour whom we uncovered to be using extra stiff flex shafts in her irons and wedges.

And what about the great Nelly Korda?

Although Lydia Ko has dominated the later season headlines with her Olympic and Women’s British Open wins Korda remains the player of 2024 as her incredible earlier season run saw her join the great Annika Sorenstam and Nancy Lopez as the only LPGA Tour players to win five consecutive LPGA events.

A complete list of the shaft flexes used by Korda is shown in the table below.

NELLY KORDA CLUB	SHAFT FLEX	SHAFT
TaylorMade Qi10 Max Driver	Stiff	Mitsubishi Diamana GT 60 S
TaylorMade Stealth 2 3-wood	Stiff	Fujikura Ventsu Red 7 S
TaylorMade Stealth 2 5-wood	Stiff	Fujikura Ventsu Black 7 S
PING G425 5-Hybrid	Stiff	Fujikura Ventus Blue HB 7 S
TaylorMade P-770 (5-iron)	Stiff	True Temper Aerotech SteelFiber i80 S
TaylorMade P7MC Irons (6-PW)	Stiff	True Temper Aerotech SteelFiber i80 S
TaylorMade MG4 Wedges (50º,54º)	Stiff	True Temper Aerotech SteelFiber i95cw S
Titleist Vokey Design Wedgeworks (60º)	Stiff	True Temper Aerotech SteelFiber i95cw S

What is The Most Used Shaft on The LPGA Tour? It Varies Through the Bag

The flex of a golf shaft is obviously only one aspect of its make up.

And for the top pros especially there are a number of other key elements which affect their decision on what they decide in the end to play.

Shaft length, torque, bend profile, weight and material for example are all aspects of a shaft which impact how it will perform for individual players.

When it comes to the elite of the women game that translates into a large variety in the shafts being used across the best LPGA Tour pros.

Despite this, and again acknowledging the patchiness of data available on the top 100 LPGA Tour players, Golfing Focus found the following shafts to the best most used across all the varying club types.

CLUB	MOST USED SHAFT(S) USED BY TOP 100 LPGA PROS
Driver	Fujikura Ventus Red 5 S shaft
2-wood (13º)	Mitsubishi Diamana TB 60 S shaft
3-wood (15º)	Fukikura Ventus TR Blue 6 S shaft Mitsubishi Diamana PD 60 S shaft
5-wood (18º)	Fujikura Ventus Blue 6 S shaft Fujikura Ventus Red 6 R shaft Mitsubishi Tensei 1K Pro White 70 S shaft Mitsubishi Tensei AV Blue 65 S shaft
7-wood (21º)	Fujikura Ventus Blue 6 R shaft Graphite Design Tour AD DI shaft PING Alta CB 65 Slate S
9-wood (24º)	Mitsubishi Diamana GT 60 S shaft
2 Hybrid (17º)	Fujikura Ventus Blue 8 X shaft
3 Hybrid (20º)	Graphite Design Tour AD DI 8 S shaft PING Alta CB Black 70 S shaft
4 Hybrid (22º)	Graphite Design Tour AD HY 65 S shaft
5 Hybrid (26º)	Fujikura Ventus Blue HB 7 S shaft KBS KBS Tour Graphite Hybrid Prototype 65 S shaft
6 Hybrid (30º)	PING Alta CB 70 R shaft
Utility iron	No dominant shaft model
Irons	Nippon N.S.Pro 950 GH S shaft
Gap (50º), Sand (54º), Lob wedge (58º)	Nippon N.S.Pro 950 GH S shaft

Any talk of shafts in golf though typically starts with the driver.

And when the question is asked about what is the most used shaft on the LPGA Tour it is normal for that to be the focus of the question.

Golfing Focus takes a detailed look at the most popular driver on the LPGA Tour, including make, model, loft and weight in another one of our posts.

But when it comes to driver shafts specifically Fujikura shafts are the most popular among the top 100 LPGA Tour pros with 24% playing them including Lilia Vu and Brooke Henderson.

The Ventus Red 5 S is the most used individual shaft picked by Rose Zhang among others while six pros put either a Ventus Blue, Red or Ventus TR Blue shaft in their driver.

Mitsubishi driver shafts are the next most popular with 17% of the top 100 using them including Nelly Korda who as we have already seen picks the Diamana GT 60 S model.

Graphite Design shafts are the third most common driver shafts and are used by 11% of the top 100.

Turning next to the iron shafts used on the LPGA Tour we again look at that topic in more as part of our in-depth look at the most popular irons on the LPGA Tour.

But in summary Nippon, True Temper and KBS iron shafts dominate the brands of iron shafts chosen by the top LPGA Tour players with close to 90% of the 66 pros for which data is available choosing one of those three shaft brands.

Overall Nippon’s N.S. Pro 950 GH S shaft is the most used iron shaft on the LPGA Tour with Georgia Hall and Danielle Kang among the five pros using it.

What is also certainly noteworthy when it comes to the shafts used by the top women pros is their increased willingness, by comparison to their male colleagues on the PGA and Champions Tour, to use graphite iron shafts.

Our research uncovered 35 out of the top 100 pros using graphite iron shafts compared to the 57 play steel iron shafts.

We look in detail at the topic of graphite vs. iron shafts among the pro ranks in another article but when it comes to the LPGA Tour specifically True Temper’s Aerotech SteelFiber shafts are the most used graphite iron shafts among the top 100 with 12 pros choosing them including Nelly Korda and Minjee Lee. 

Shaft Weight is More Important to LPGA Players Than Shaft Flex.

Discussions on golf shafts, and especially ones looking at shaft flex specifically, frequently lead to a focus on the less important aspect of the shaft choice made by pros and amateurs alike.

Whether you are one of the top players on the LPGA Tour or a regular amateur player club experts are all agreed – shaft weight is more important than shaft flex when it comes to golf shots.

“Golfers can just about get away with playing the wrong shaft flex, but getting the wrong weight can absolutely kill your game”

Jason MacNiven, club fitting expert

In an interview with Plugged In Golf a representative for Nippon shafts said “If a golfer can’t feel a shaft that’s properly weighted, the other factors (flex, torque, bend profile) are moot.”

The USGA and R&A also don’t regulate the ‘flex’ of shafts to say that a ‘regular’ shaft can only be called that if it falls within a certain technical requirement.

That is why choosing a club based only on what shaft flex an LPGA Tour pro uses is not a good idea. It is a point to note and can help but the weight of the club is more important to all golfers including the best women pros on the LPGA Tour!

[Editor’s note – If you want to find out more about whether your own golf clubs are potentially too heavy check out our detailed look at this topic here.]

Before You Go …

Interested to find out how the shaft flex choices of the best LPGA Tour pros directly compare with the top male pros on the PGA Tour and Champions Tour?

Check our next articles to find out what the best players on the men’s circuits are choosing with their faster swing speeds.

Spotlight On The Most Popular Shaft On the PGA Tour

Flexible Friends: Uncovering The Shafts Champions Tour Players Use

[Note – Just so you know, and we are upfront as an affiliate program participant, Golfing Focus, at no cost to you, earns from qualifying purchases made through links on this page.]

Other great articles related to this topic:

• Do Pros Use Regular or Stiff Shafts? The Complete Guide
• Do Pros Use Graphite or Steel Shafts? It Depends Which Club
• The Complete Guide To The Most Popular Clubs On LPGA Tour
• Driving Success – The Most Popular Driver On LPGA Tour
• Do LPGA Players Use Hybrids? They Have Many in Hand
• Perfecting The Approach: The Most Popular Irons On LPGA Tour
• Do LPGA Players Use Graphite shafts? Break It Down By Club Type
• Rolling To Victory: The Most Used Putter On The LPGA Tour
• What Golf Balls Do LPGA Players Use? They’re Not Very Lady Like!
• What Clubs Do PGA Pros Use?
• In the Bag: Unpacking the Clubs Champions Tour Players Use