I agree with Gary T. It's a good thing if the rod is bendy. You want some flex to make up for the braid not being stretchy. They used to say you should have silicon carbide guides, but I don't hear this so much now; maybe guides are usually hard ceramic now. You don't really hear all that much about fishing with braid in the surf - and it should have some real advantages. One of them is you can downsize your gear a bit. You can use a smaller reel(like what's happening everywhere else in fishing: people moving to lighter gear still very strong). One disadvantage might be the need to have a shock leader - but you are probably used to using one anyway. My knot doesn't always pass through the guides very nicely.