Need some help from Hogan club fans.
I have a set of Apex IIs that I’ve given the ABS treatment…flattened the lie angles, loaded up with lead tape. They have the original Vector 4 shaft.
I don’t know the story behind this shaft. It has a really big butt end (almost couldn’t get grips on it) and it produces a REALLY high shot directory. The balance is a little off, too, but I don’t know why. I’ve loaded up other blades with tape and they feel fine.
Anyone have any background on this shaft?
Hi Dukeman,
I’m pretty sure there’s a thread on this subjuct less than 3 weeks ago…In fact TM or someone had a source for grips
The Vector Shaft required what they refered to as a Kenetic grip. It was very thin walled and oversized to fit the big but vector shaft. Hogan did this so that they head weight of the club could be lowered and the manufacture could still keep swing weights in the normal range of say a D-2. It was a lighter overall club. Some Other clubmakers did some of the same thing at the time. Lynx was one.
I like the Vector Shaft. The guys on tour at the time complained that the ball and impact felt too hard because the grip was just too thin between their hands and the steel. Unfortunately Knudson was done playing at the time and he was quoted as “loving the feel of steel”. He liked thin grips on his clubs so he could feel the steel. Hogan liked his grips built up a bit for what I call the “steering wheel” effect. You sense a bigger movement with a bigger steering wheel to turn the wheels the same amount.
Think how much the guys back then would have hated hitting the Vector shaft with the modern plastic golf balls.
Barkow told me how disappointed Hogan was that the Vector shaft didn’t take off. It was a very “Hogan” concept for sure.
I asked a friend of mine who was once a local club pro and Hogan staff member staff member about Vector shafts. He told me Mr. Hogan swore by the Vector shaft. As Mr. Barkow alluded to, my friend told me Mr.Hogan was disappointed it did not take off.
Anyway, the local club pro friend of mine pulled up a YouTube video on his phone about the Vector shaft with Mr. Hogan flexing the shaft. I asked my friend if he had any idea how many sets he sold to his members with those shafts and he told me, “Very few and most of the members who bought them traded them for new irons a season or two later with Apex shafts, because the Vectors felt ‘dead’.” That’s just what I was told after contemplating buying a set of Cameos I recently saw on eBay.