Torque has to do with shaft twisting (like when you use both hands to wring out a wet rag). A lower torque number means less shaft twist.

What Barry said. But don't let that confuse you on how stiff or limber a shaft is, it is not the same.

Barry is correct, how that correlates to shaft performance basically means higher torque number can help the higher handicap player by increasing the gear effect on a miss. Better ballstrikers tend to prefer a more stable shaft that is less inclined to have a high gear effect. High torque shaft on a toe hit will "twist" and the shot will start right and hook back towards center, a low torque shaft hit on the toe will start right and stay right. A lot of better players like a little extra squish just in case and 3.0 to 3.2 is fairly common on driverseven among tour players, low torque would generally be 2.2 to 2.7. High torque shafts can get in the 4.5 to 5.5 range. Most people equate torque to the feel of stability or rigidity on mishits.