Crazy Target Tour Steel Shafts Initial Impressions

There has been a lot of excitement since Crazy announced the release of their newly designed Target Tour steel shafts. People wondered what a company like Crazy, who specializes in high modulus carbon shafts, would create when it comes to steel. As I had noted a few weeks ago when I posted about the introduction of the new shafts, Crazy is using a proprietary technique derived from ancient Japanese sword making to control the hardness and shape of each Target Tour steel shaft.  By controlling the hardness via high frequency heat, Crazy actually stops short of completely hardening the shaft. Like a Japanese Katana/sword, it gives the shaft the proper flexibility yet firmness for optimal feel and performance.  Crazy has designed the Target Tours to have the consistency of steel but the playability and feel of carbon. This tedious process involves much more work for each individual shaft but at the same time gives each shaft much more attention to detail, thus more consistent performance.

While I was at Crazy a couple of weeks ago I finally had a chance to check out the shafts and test them first hand. First to clarify a few things. There are two models of iron shafts 120 and 105 and two models of wedge shafts 120 and 110. The iron shafts are stepped while the wedge shafts are not. The iron shafts are also constant weight models meaning they keep a similar weight and feel across the set. They are all taper tip and each model is available in two finishes, a standard steel finish (silver chrome) and a darker tinted finish (dark chrome). The Dark Chrome finish is NOT black but more like a tinted smoke finish. It was very hard to capture the different shaft finishes under any light and I tell you now I tried as hard as I could, indoors and outdoors and with lights and without. So those expecting black shafts, the dark chrome is nothing like that and even in the pictures here they look darker than they actually are in real life.

Crazy sales described the Target Tour 120 as heaver and stiffer iron shaft made for the faster and harder swinger who still wants a stable shaft that provides maximum feel and distance in the form of a strong kick and penetrating launch.  I could not properly test the Tour 120’s as they were too heavy and stiff for me so I’ll leave that up to Chris when he gets his demo set. I did however try the Target Tour Lite 105 in Regular flex and the Target Tour Wedge 110. The Tour Lite 105 cut and installed weighs under 100g which compares favorably to the Crazy Black CB-02 graphite iron shaft. In fact hitting the two side by side, the Target Tour Lite 110 steel shaft has feel almost as good as its much more expensive graphite counterpart.  The 110 is made for the player who wants lighter weight steel that provides a slightly higher launch and trajectory but with plenty of feel and in my short testing it sure seems to fit those characteristics.  Years ago when lightweight steel began hitting the market, shafts like Nippon’s NS Pro 950GH were a revelation for those wanting easier to load steel shafts that gave easy launches. The Crazy Target Tour Lite takes that to the next level with superb feel and launch.

The Target Tour Wedge 110 was quite firm and even though Crazy marks all the wedge models as Wedge flex, Crazy says they are pretty much a stiff flex. Crazy explained to me the wedge shafts are designed to provide consistent feel and spin performance.  The mid kicking wedge shafts are meant to create a heavier spin ball by using a stronger mid trajectory ball. The strong trajectory also allows for better direction and stability around the greens. I’ll be shafting up a couple of wedges with the Wedge 110 for testing on the course later this month for a real review.

The new Crazy Target Tour shafts certainly look very good and sound very good. They also cost more than pretty much any other steel shaft. This however has not stopped people from ordering them. Crazy’s first batch of the dark chrome shafts have been long sold out and there are only a few of the standard silver finish shafts left. Are they worth the price tag they have? That is yet to be determined but their design and initial feel and performance (at least of the Lite 105) look to be very promising. Because stock is so low right now we have not listed them in the pro shop yet. If you are interested in a set of some wedge shafts please contact us directly for a quote.