RE: spine
Very good explaination Paul. Quite detailed without being too technical.
Oh, static spine is measured with a 29" shaft, suspended on two contact points 28" apart and pushing down (or hanging) a 1.97 lbs weight in the middle. Don't know where the 1.97 lbs came from, but that's what it's always been. Never did a check of the history of who came up with it, being as I don't have a spine tester anyway--too expensive and unnecessary at my age (yeh, what does age have to do with it?).
I'll bet the 1.97 lbs correlates to some number in grams. Probably originated in Europe about 10,000 years ago.