Johnny Wunder had a chat with Fujikura’s Marshall Thompson, the company’s Fitting and Tour Representative, about the popularity of the new Ventus, thanks to its dispersion-tightening VeloCore technology.

The shaft, which debuted at the 2018 Safeway Open, has found its way into the bags of a number of players. Patrick Reed put the Ventus 6X in his driver at the WGC-Mexico Championship, and most recently, Jimmy Walker, Lucas Glover, and Morgan Hoffman all put the Ventus in their drivers for the Honda Classic. According to Fujikura, there are nine Ventus shafts in play in the tournament, the most of the season.

Below the embed is a portion of Wunder and Thompson’s conversation, and we’ve included time stamps for the rest of the talk as well.

JW: How’s the Ventus shaft doing on Tour?

MT: It’s a part that was missing from our lineup. We Enso-verified it with all the cameras, and it just tested really, really well. It minimized the clubface…twisting through impact, and we noticed that guys were hitting it more centered on the face. Vertical and horizontal impact locations significantly improved. If you’re hitting it center face, you’re getting a little more ball speed. It’s a very straight-flying shaft. There’s not a lot of movement either right or left in it, because I think guys are hitting it more centered. When you start hitting it toe side or heel side…that gear effect comes into play…

Like Atmos, when it started out, guys weren’t familiar with the part. By [the] Honda [Classic], we had like 30 in play. This year, it was kind of the same thing…we’ve had like 15 guys put it in the bag…and it’s growing…

Guys are finally figuring out which driver head–you know, there’s a lot of free agents out there…and they’re testing all the different OEMs. Once they finally settle on a head, they’re trying different shafts…

2:40: Enso testing…

4:15: The primacy of ball speed in shafts has started to give way to a stability focus…

7:00: Shafts allowing players to find speed in different ways

8:30: Key Ventus technologies…

MT: T1000g was a product that we used in the past for some of the Speeder Evolution projects…this is three times stiffer than that…and it’s how we laid that material on that mandrel that is the unique story. It’s VeloCore technology. It’s velocity at its core…you have fibers that run down the length of the shaft at zero degrees, and you have fibers that run at a 45-degree angle, and those are called bias sheets and bias layers…the ones that run down the length of the shaft, those effect bending stiffness, and the ones that run at a 45-degree angle, those effect twisting stiffness. So, what we did was we have a multi-material bias core that’s made up of that pitch 70 ton material…which is three times stronger than your standard mod, mixed in with an HR 40, and those run on the bias sheet…so that’s how we were able to minimize the head from twisting at impact…from those multi-materials layered up…

We made the tip section incredibly stable. We also have an accelerated taper rate, and that’s where a lot of players are getting that incredibly smooth feel from, and they’re able to load that product, but they’re getting that…stability down low from that tip section.

…We only had seven parts when we showed up to the Safeway, and we got two of them in play immediately. By the time we started the season, we had more parts available, and you’re getting more guys who are willing to test…this is the first time I’ve had Tour pros call me and go, “What is this shaft? I’ve seen it everywhere, and I’m dying to hit it.”

11:10: Available weights in the Ventus…

11:30: What player most benefits from the Ventus?

12:50: The Ventus buzz…