I've played all my serious pool using an old school maple shaft.
For those that have tried the low deflection shafts as well as non-low deflection shafts:
- What do you see as the pros and cons?
- How did it affect your level of play?
- Also, what do most of the professionals use these days?
Thanks in advance for sharing,
Matt
pros are your capacity to be more accurate is increased, there really is no arguing this. if you have to account for 1.5 inches of deflection over the length of the table with a normal shaft, whereas it's .5 inches on the same shot with an ld shaft, well, you'll be more accurate with the LD shaft.
con is you have to get used to it. and for me an even bigger con was i couldn't do slight masse shots as well with the LD shaft simply because the cue ball didnt jump or squirt out as much
i think almost 2/3 of pros us LD shafts (and rising). there are so many bunk arguments about this out there. "they use them because they get paid to use them etc" pros use what they play best with, believe me on that one. knowing that, and knowing 2/3 of pros use LD shafts, AND considering there is a lag time when the player has to get used to the shaft and feel comfortable with it, it should become clear that LD shafts are more accurate. the argument being the only reason more pros arent using LD shafts is that they are used to the deflection in older shafts and dont want to have to make a drastic change in their game. i think in 30 years almost all players will use LD shafts as they will have been brought up with them.