Introducing Sanki Planarian Golf Shafts | A year ago while in Himeji I met a young aspiring JPGA tour player who’s dream was to make it to the big show the USPGA Tour, speaking little english and knowing I’m a gear maniac he was very excited to show me something I haven’t ever seen, this kid was right when he pulled his bag out of the car (Bridgestone Sponsored) and under a BS head cover was a Kamui Pro driver attached to the most beautiful shaft I’ve ever seen, enter Sanki Planarian.
At the time I couldn’t pronounce this brand it was just so different a name that I’ve never heard anything like it in golf, a couple months went by and then I received a letter from Sanki themselves saying that this young pro highly suggested partnering with TSG for a product of this level of intense custom options and price. Of course I always treat new brands with skepticism our concern is focused around quality and performance and not just another new product to offer, what we needed most was to test these shafts and understand the process better. Ready to see and read more? Follow the Jump…
So let me start by saying Sanki is actually a division of a 300 year old company called MIKI founded back in the Edo Era 1674-1868 and they have their hands in many industries from fibers to plastics and metals to all sorts of other things. So bottom line is Sanki is part of a much bigger organization.
So what is their angle and how do they plan to enter such a saturated carbon shaft market today? they started by producing shaft designs that utilize some common materials found in other top brands shafts, but also implemented non golf industry technologies carried over from their parent company that they wish to keep a secret. President Arai Haruo-san and I had a recent conversation about what makes these shafts better than everything else on the market today and while many of his answers were shrouded in secrecy for what he describes as their “secret” advantage I was able to discover the Sanki shafts are made of both 80T and 50T in different layers for the best performance characteristics from both materials.
One of the coolest parts about Sanki is the custom finish options, we are used to custom finishes on irons and wedges or sometimes customers have an auto shop paint their driver head but this takes it to an entirely new level perhaps there are too many options which leads to confusion for the consumer and many of these you really have to see in person to appreciate or dislike. By far everyone who has seen these in person falls head over heels for the Bamboo series which TSG is expanding into new colors and graphics but there is also Monochromatic paint colors, Gradient colors, Marble look finish and many other custom options that can be pretty overwhelming.
TSG is ordering all colors in multiple finishes to narrow down the selection to a handful of custom themes that we know our customers will like, this should take a lot of confusion out of the selection process. Stay tuned for photos of the final finishes.
The models of shafts are separated into weight categories 40/50/60/70g there are 2-3 types of shafts in each weight and to put it simply each weight offers something for the power hitter/softer swinger/all-around. The weights are the same between the models what changes is the torque, kick point and shaft design. TSG can help you choose the proper shaft for your swing with a series of questions.
During our testing we had multiple Kamui Pro heads all shafted to the same specs to test performance and we were surprised how well it did against the only other shaft brand in it’s price segment, Seven Dreamers and It’s very hard to compare because 7D produces shafts made for the player in this case me but also our two 7D test heads both Jbeam are very different from the Kamui but bottom line is they can both edge each other out depending on the build and players swing.
These are seriously beautiful shafts and there is the option to create something totally unique to the customer sort of a one off theme but before we go there we need to get the shafts into our members hands to see just how great they perform. Below just a few of the many options available:
And the above image barely scratches the surface of what’s possible, again even custom requests will be considered so you can see how the options can get overwhelming and that’s why TSG is producing some really sexy shaft templates for our members to choose from if they don’t want to bother making the difficult decision. If interested please email [email protected] we are still trying to setup a way to offer these in a more simple manner but we have been selling Sanki shafts for a few months now to select customers and are able to custome order them now if needed.
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Awesome very informative :