Scroll Here

I bumped into Mr. Masaki Ito purely by accident. We were both at a booth at the annual PGA show in Orlando a couple of years ago. We were both looking at the latest in stepless steel shafts from TrueTemper (the shaft that is used by countless tour pros).

Mr. Ito looked at the shaft, took from his pocket a flashlight with a tiny flexible glass fiber tube extension, poked it down into the shaft and looked at the wall of the shaft from the inside. He then looked at me and said, "This is an excellent shaft."

That was it until I ran into him later when he was getting a sandwich. I got my sandwich and asked him if I could join him (they put out huge round tables at the convention center). Always wanting to learn - back at the booth, he seemed to know his shafts - I asked him if he was in the shaft business.

"I have a very small specialty shaft company," was his reply.

But he didn't give the impression he want to talk about it.

Of course I asked, "What is the name of your company?"

"Kinjura," he replied.

I had to ask him what kind of shafts his company made.

"We make three shafts, one in nanofilament graphite, two in steel. The steel shafts are one for irons, one slightly different for wedges only"

Then I put my big fat foot right in my big fat mouth. "That's not many lines for a shaft company." I didn't mean anything offensive, it's just that most shaft companies have a couple dozen different models of shafts.

Mr. Ito looked straight at me. "There can be only one best. If that is what you want to make, how can there be any more. We make one best nanofilament graphite shaft for woods, we make one best shaft for irons and we make one best shaft for wedges."

We ordered about forty steel shafts from him - just for our testing. We frequency checked each one. That means we checked the flex characteristics. We checked bend profile on each one. We even took a micrometer to each one to check diameter consistency. Each one was dead on! Dan, my partner, and I have never seen shafts with any more consistency than Kinjura shafts.

Plus, Dan and I think they have far and away the sharpest looking labels we have ever seen!

They are a costly shaft. But as Mr. Ito said, "There can be only one best."

We use Kinjura steel shafts. If you wish, you can learn more about them at www.Kinjura.com