TPT Red Range is latest from high-end shaft maker's automated process

The new TPT Red Range shaft is the next graphite shaft from a company that thinks it’s found the best way—in its eyes, the only way, and admittedly not an inexpensive way—to make a graphite shaft.

TPT, a Swiss manufacturer of carbon composite applications that range from Formula 1 cars to six-figure wristwatches, has built a niche in the high-end shaft business by touting its automated process for making a golf shaft reduces inconsistency during the swing.

TPT’s assessment of shaft performance is that its method of manufacturing, which winds a thin strip of its thin-ply carbon composite material around the shaft from the butt end to the tip, makes the shaft more stable and reduces any flutter or wobble when the shaft is stressed during the swing. The thin-ply carbon fiber material is formed by stacking layers together to create more strength and then is cut into the strips that through the automated winding process are designed to create seamless, “spine”-less shafts. Its new Red Range uses the latest formulation of the carbon fiber pre-preg material and improved resin that the company says is twice the strength of that used in its prior Blue Range shafts.

“If you do it by hand, I think it’s impossible to do 10,000 shafts that are the same thing,” said Gerard Gautier, TPT’s co-founder and chief technical officer. “You have to use automation because it allows you to test materials. It allows you to change only one component because you know all the rest is going to be done the same way. We believe this is the way to go to have a consistent, homogeneous and repeatable shaft.”

While the Red Range continues TPT’s high-end approach at $500 a shaft, it also takes the company’s consistency promise a step farther by offering an “automatic improvement guarantee” that allows the purchaser to return the shaft for a refund or exchange at his fitter if after 30 days he is not seeing the improvement in distance and accuracy that was shown during his fitting.

The TPT Red Range offers 12 options, six weight ranges with a high and low flight option for each weight. The shafts range in weight from 52 to 85 grams. The shafts are available through select fitters nationwide.