I've been meaning to post this review on the Mitsubishi Fubuki Tour shaft for a while now, but just hadn't gotten around to it.  A few months ago, Mitsubishi was nice enough to provide a Fubuki 73 Stiff flex shaft for me to test.  I was extremely excited to give this thing a ride as lots of big name players including Phil Mickelson.  The S flex Fubuki Tour features 3.3 degrees of torque and is a mid/high launch shaft which should be about perfect for my swing specs.  They don't recommend tipping this shaft for drivers, so I left it stock for testing.  I installed the Fubuki into a Titleist 909D2 driver head and away we went.

The first thing I noticed after installing the shaft was that it felt very "flexy", and that it seemed to have a lot of flex for a high end stiff shaft.  Previously, I was using a Grafalloy Pro Launch Blue stiff shaft, and that felt much stiffer in my initial swings.  I took it to the range and immediately knew that it was not nearly stiff enough for my swing.  I'm right on the borderline of needing a X flex or a very stif, S flex.  I hit about a dozen balls and they all were big cut slices.  I got to thinking that maybe I was just swinging lousy, but after about a bucket of balls it was pretty clear that the Fubuki was far to soft for my swing.  The odd thing was that the shaft felt very good.  I could feel that it was trying to react at impact, but it just couldn't quite unload the torque fast enough to square up the clubhead, and the face was always left slightly open.  Unfortunately there wasn't much on my end that could be done to fix this.  I was losing more than 15 yards compared to the Grafalloy shaft and everything was a fade.  I tried to purposely snap hook the thing, but it wouldn't do it.  Launch was very high, but once again, I'm sure this is partially due to the flex. 

It dawned on me that I never checked the spine of the Fubuki prior to installing it and that maybe I just had installed it in the softest possible configuration.  So I pulled the shaft, did a spine alignment, tipped it 1/2 inch, and re-installed.  Hoping this would do the trick. 

I took it back to the range and while it felt slightly stiffer than before, it was still not getting the job done.  I really wanted to like this shaft, so I came up with one last ditch effort to prove that it was me and not the shaft.  I installed it in my old Nike Sumo to see if that would make any difference.  Unfortunately, it was the same story.  This shaft just had too much flex.  The Mitsubishi site says that the S flex is recommended up to 105 mph swing speeds, but I'm thinking that 100 mph might be the max to get the full benefit from this shaft. 

In retrospect, I had high hopes for the shaft. First off, it just plain looks cool with it's white and grey design and ninja stars.  But seriously,  I would really like the opportunity to try out the X stiff shaft just to see exactly how well the Fubuki can perform.  Mitsubishi makes very high quality shafts, and the fact that I didn't have luck with this particular one is in no way a reflection on their gear.  I'm confident that an X flex would have been the solution in this case. 

So my conclusion for this review is that the Mitsubishi Fubuki is a very good shaft.  Even in the wrong stiffness, I could feel the difference in how the shaft reacts throughout the swing.  If you're on the borderline of stiff and x stiff, be sure to go with the x stiff as this shaft plays much softer than comparable stiff shafts. 

Thanks again to Mitsubishi for providing the shaft, and feel free to send over an X flex any time.  I'll try it out and update this review with any new insight. 

FUBUKI 63G X5CT STIFF FLEX SHAFT MITSUBISHI RAYON    US $80.00

FUBUKI 63G X5CT X STIFF FLEX SHAFT MITSUBISHI RAYON    US $80.00

TAYLORMADE R9 TP 105 DRIVER MITSUBISHI FUBUKI STIFF    US $76.00

Mitsubishi FUBUKI ALPHA Shaft Choose Weight Flex    US $380.00

TaylorMade R9 TP Mitsubishi Fubuki 73 Shaft Stiff    US $124.95

MITSUBISHI RAYON FUBUKI 73 x5ct Flex S 46 New SHAFT    US $189.99