Mike
The Torque of the shaft must be designed to resist the toe impact with the golf ball. Despite what most on this forum think or imply the player can not apply enough torque to the shaft during the swing to significantly deflect the shaft in torque Therefore the primary purpose for shaft torque is to maintain a degree of accuracy on off the sweet spot impacts. I assume everyone wants the best accuracy possible, so every one should have the lowest torque possible.
llhack
Bernie, Should I, or do you want to? Oh, what the hell...
Mike,
I sort of agree with a tiny bit of what Lloyd says; it takes a lot to deflect the shaft in torque on the downswing. It can be done and is done all the time. But it takes a fairly loose torque and a fairly aggressive release to deflect it enough so the torque spec is a factor.
I definitely disagree that shaft torque has any consequence during the half millisecond of impact. For this short a duration, almost all the twist-resistance for the clubhead is in the moment of inertia of the clubhead itself. The shaft torque will determine how far the head twists at its maximum, but that occurs long after the ball is gone. It effect on clubhead twist during impact is no more than a percent or so of the total twist observed.
So it's probably worth noting that going to a bigger head with a higher moment of inertia:
(1) Is a much better strategy than shaft torque for preventing twist at impact.
(2) Puts a higher stress on shaft torque to square the clubhead coming into impact.
Hope this helps, DaveT
