Thinking your golf shaft is a perfectly round, symmetrical tube? Think again. The vast majority of shafts, both steel and graphite, have a hidden imbalance - a stiffer side called a spine - that can quietly sabotage your consistency. Taking the time to properly spine align a golf shaft is a high-level club building secret that can noticeably tighten your shot dispersion and make your clubs feel more predictable. This guide will walk you through exactly what shaft spine is, why it matters, and how you can perform this pro-level tune-up yourself.
Imagine how a sheet of paper is made. It gets rolled and pressed, and there's always a seam. Graphite and steel afts are made in a similar way, creating a tube that isn't perfectly uniform all the way around. One side of the shaft will be slightly thicker, stiffer, and less prone to bending. This is the spine. At 90 degrees to the spine is the Neutral Bending Plane (NBP), which is the softest and most flexible axis of the shaft.
You can't see it with the naked eye, but this structural imbalance is there. Think of it like a garden hose that always wants to coil in a certain direction. If you install a shaft into a clubhead without accounting for this spine, its orientation is completely random. When you swing - especially at high speeds - the shaft will naturally bend and droop. If the spine is in an odd position (say, 1 o'clock or 7 o'clock), it will want to bend along its preferred axis, causing the shaft to twist and the clubface to rotate unpredictably during the fraction of a second you're heading toward impact. This leads to inconsistent results, even when you make the same swing.
When you "spine align" a shaft, you are simply finding this stiff plane and orienting it intentionally within the clubhead to ensure the shaft bends in a consistent and repeatable manner on every single swing. The goal isn't to eliminate shaft droop or kick - it's to make it happen the same way, every time.
When you start to explore this topic, you’ll hear two terms: spine finding and FLO. They are related but slightly different techniques used to achieve the same result - a more stable shaft.
For the rest of this guide, we'll focus on a process that combines both to give you the most accurate and repeatable results. We’ll find the spine first, then confirm and fine-tune it with FLO.
Professional club builders have fancy, expensive machines for this, but you can build a very effective setup for home use. Here’s what you need:
Alright, let's get our hands dirty. It might seem intimidating, but the process is very straightforward once you do it a few times. We'll start with finding the spine and then move to validating with FLO.
First, place your shaft across the two bearings of your spine finder tool. With one hand on each side of the bearings, apply downward pressure into the center of the shaft - enough to make it bend slightly.
Now, slowly rotate the shaft with your fingers. As you rotate it, you will feel a point where the shaft seems to "jump" or "pop" into a stable position. This happens because the shaft has rolled onto its stiffest axis, the spine. When the spine is directly on top (or directly on the bottom), it resists that bending pressure the most.
Rock it back and forth a bit to feel for this stable high point. It’s pretty distinct once you feel it. Once you're confident you've found it, take your marker and draw a line along the very top of the shaft - this is your primary spine. The softest plane, or Neutral Bending Plane (NBP), is exactly 90 degrees from this line on either side.
This is where we confirm our findings dynamically. Finding the spine gives us the general location, but FLO shows us exactly how the shaft wants to behave at speed. No guesswork.
Securely clamp the butt end of the shaft in a vise on your workbench. Make sure it's horizontal and has room to oscillate. Attach a tip weight or the actual clubhead to the tip of a shaft and then clamp your small laser pointer to the very tip as well, aiming it at a blank wall a few feet away.
Orient the shaft so the spine mark you made in Step 1 is pointing directly up at the ceiling (12 o'clock).
Now for the fun part. Gently pull the tip of the shaft down a few inches and release it. Watch the laser dot on the wall. Does it "twang" up and down in a perfectly straight vertical line? Or does it trace a circle, an oval, or an ellipsis?
If it traces a circle or oval, the shaft is not in its stable orientation. Loosen the vise clamp slightly, rotate the shaft just a couple of degrees, re-tighten it, and "twang" it again. Repeat this process, making small rotational adjustments, until you find the exact position where the laser dot on the wall moves in a perfect, clean, straight vertical line. It will go from a wobbly oval to a precise line when you hit the right spot.
Once you’ve found that perfectly stable orientation, use your marker to draw a new line right on the top (12 o'clock) and bottom (6 o'clock) of the shaft. This is your true Neutral Bending Plane (NBP) or your FLO plane. You've officially "FLO'd" the shaft.
You’ve found the stable bending plane. Now, how do you install it in the clubhead? This is where different theories exist, but the most widely accepted and effective method is to align the shaft so it flexes consistently toward and away from the target line.
This means you install the shaft so that the FLO plane you just identified (your 12 and 6 o'clock marks) are oriented vertically when the club is in the address position.
When you get ready to epoxy the shaft into the head, simply align your FLO lines to be at 12 and 6 o’clock relative to the face being perfectly square. Now you have a spined, FLO’d, and performance-optimized golf club.
Spine aligning your shafts is a step beyond standard-issue equipment, helping ensure what's in your hands performs as consistently as possible. By identifying the shaft’s inherent stiff side and orienting it properly, you remove a random variable from your swing, allowing the club to bend predictably and deliver the face to impact with more reliability.
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