Fujikura is a big name in the golf industry and the good news for today is that the Japanese company recently released its latest shafts: the Fujikura Ventus Black and the Ventus Red respectively. The Ventus shaft series had a good year in 2019, as Fujikura managed to score several wins on the PGA Tour. The Ventus started officially as 1 shaft, but it's now morphing into 3 official profiles with the latest two versions, the Red and the Black. Here are the official details of the latter, and the best news of all is that they're already available at retail stores across North America:
The Fujikura Ventus Black and the Ventus Red are pretty similar to the original Blue version and feature specially designed profiles aimed at boosting ball speed off the fairway woods or the driver, with an emphasis on off-center shots, as well as helping with tightening shot dispersion. However, that's hardly a surprise, since all shafts are meant to do just that, but what makes the Ventus line to stand out from the crowd is the company's proprietary VeloCore technology. VeloCore was developed to improve club head performance on all shots via boosting energy transfer, along with what Fujikura calls an accelerated taper design, that benefits both the player's feel and the loading of the shaft. Here's what Fujkura's director of tour operations Pat McCoy had to say about the company's new release:
“Like with ATMOS Tour Spec, we expanded the line of Ventus to provide players and fitters with three different profile options to really fine tune their performance numbers. As we know one size does not fit all with clothing or golf shafts, so we wanted to offer more than just one profile of Ventus. These days, players are looking to hit ultra-precise spin and launch numbers, sometimes within 100 rpm of their target. Having multiple profiles allows us to accomplish this.”
The new Ventus Red and Black shafts are engineered with direct feedback from Fujikura's staff players as well as Tour players, i.e. golf professionals looking for the ultimate thing in terms of accuracy and stability. Basically, since the Ventus Blue was the “industry standard”, the Ventus line extension is just an improvement of an already great shaft. For example, the Ventus Red will help you with achieving higher launch and more spin compared to the older Ventus Blue, features that come handy (pun intended) in both drivers and woods. The Ventus Black is quite another story, as it bouts a more aggressive stout profile, which is aimed at aggressive golfers with a stiffer profile in the butt section and in the tip. Fujikura chose to color-code their shafts in order to match the launch shafts of other products in their lineup, such as the Atmos line as it follows: the Ventus Red shaft makes for the mid-high launch option with mid-spin for more carry distance, the original Ventus Blue offers a mid-launch with low spin, while the Ventus Black delivers a more penetrating ball flight via a low launch with low spin.
Here’s what Fujikural’s official tech-specs sheath reads:
“Ventus has an entirely new and proprietary multi-material bias core construction that delivers ultimate stability through transition and impact called VeloCore. The multi-material core is comprised of ultra- high modulus Pitch 70 Ton Carbon Fiber and 40 Ton bias layers that are the full length of the shaft for incredible stability. In addition to VeloCore Technology, Ventus is engineered with an ultra-stiff tip section – to reduce twist and lower spin – and an accelerated taper butt section maximizes energy transfer through the swing – enhancing feel and shaft loading. The result is an extremely stable, high-performance shaft designed to empower your driver or fairway wood.”
The updated Ventus line of shafts arrives in a multitude of weights in flexes ranging from 57 grams to 86 grams and R2 up to X flex. And, most importantly, you'll have to pay $350 for each shaft, but what we're dealing with here are MSRP prices.