California Golf Technologies

What's new on the West Coast

Golf Equipment Chronicles 2006 (Part 5)

Support the Underdog--an American Tradition

The rains finally came to Northern California in December. The golf courses might as well have been closed from the week before Christmas until after New Year. That set me back a little with on-course testing so I didn’t quite get deep in the weeds with new products for 2006. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, a new crop of designers and dreamers shows up to compliment the grizzled veterans looking for one more hit. 2006 will be a very interesting year.

I’m leading off this month with a subject I’m passionate about that affects the future of the golf industry.

Root for the Underdog

The golf equipment industry in America is in trouble. Very few companies are making money. In the short term, that might seem like a great deal for golfers. But in the long term, profits are essential to fund creativity, innovation and new product development. The economic forces that swept the small hardware stores off of Main Street are now focused on golf equipment. The guys who made their fortunes with Home Depot are in the consolidation game along with Golf Galaxy, Golfsmith, Edwin Watts, Dick’s Sporting Goods and a few regional chains hoping to get acquired. Their goal is to dominate the distribution of golf equipment.

Small retail operators cannot compete against the Big Box stores. “Call, click or come by” are options that little stores can’t match. eBay is hammering the last nails in mom and pop’s coffin. Independent golf shops that survive will focus on clubfitting technology, customization, repairs and above all, developing a professional staff.

Small golf equipment manufacturers are next on the list of threatened species. In a Big Box environment, manufacturers with money dominate the sales floor. They do it with elaborate floor displays and “spiffing” -- paying direct commissions to salespeople to make sure they get more than their fair share of business. Big advertising budgets suck buyers into stores looking for promoted models. Driving demand is a requirement to win sales floor allocations. Liberal financing terms and inventory rotation are additional sales promotion methods that small companies can’t match.

Major manufacturers pay PGA Tour players to create the ultimate marketing story: “what wins on Sunday, sells on Monday.” Small manufacturers can’t afford a single Hooters Tour player.

Big Box retailers have given up on fitting their customers accurately so they offer a scheme that lets a customer bring a disappointing golf club back to swap for a new one. Your purchase price is a virtual license to keep playing new clubs forever. But this system only works for name brand clubs that can be recycled on the used market. There is no room in this sales model for small, independent manufacturers. When you buy something from a small guy, you own it. If you want to recycle, there are few buyers and the prices are low.

If these trends continue, the day will come when the golf industry is whittled down to the largest five or six manufacturers. The small guys will get little help from retailers who are looking for vendor relationships that add up to big sales. In the new world of consolidated distribution channels, small manufacturers will have limited retail distribution. They will attempt direct sales, hoping to create some online “buzz” and praying for a miracle. Few will survive.

If you decide to buy your next golf equipment from a “boutique” supplier at an independent shop, you’re protecting endangered species. If you find a clubfitter who can understand your swing and then build the club that fits, you have a chance to find the “magic club.” Support the underdog and be rewarded with more fun in your game. What’s the matter with that?

Twenty-one Underdogs that Deserve Your Support

New Shafts for 2006

E 21 Scandium shafts. I’m a cynic. I don’t believe that one shaft should perform much differently than another if their weight and flex are similar. Several months ago, the E21 Golf Company started promoting scandium shafts (the 21st element, hence the company’s name). I tried a few scandium shafts in my wedges, thinking that it might be a feel story. That didn’t work out.

E21 is relentless in their marketing effort. In December, I built out a complete set of irons, using my old favorite “dirty bird” heads. The dirty birds are forged cavity backs, light head weights to offset the 110 gram weight of the scandium shafts at 1” over length. My first time out the weather was sloppy but I hit two or three shots that seemed to go unusually far. With the weather break, I let the “birds” rest in my trunk for a couple of weeks. I took them back out for a morning round at the Stanford Golf Course. It was wet and a little windy. The irons were unbelievably, unexplainably, long. I hit a lot of high shots to the back of the greens. Despite the winter season, it was an extraordinary iron-striking day. I started thinking about magic.

Scandium shafts have to be good. They cost $69 per shaft wholesale in the Golfworks catalog. Allowing for frequency matching and installation, expect to pay almost $100 per club to re-shaft. If you get those shafts SST PUREd, you’ll be north of $1000 to re-shaft a set. For most Golf Today readers that will be hard to imagine. But they’re in my bag for now and I’m planning to leave them there for a few rounds, at least. Check in next month to see if the honeymoon is still on. We’ll be doing extensive launch monitor testing to confirm subjective opinions with measured results. http://www.e21golf.com/.

Stulz Golf Technologies -- Triangular Shafts. Chronicles know that I’m always fascinated by big time guys that made a fortune in some other industry and then get into the golf business. (The old joke goes if you want to make a small fortune in the golf business, start with a big fortune.) For the last couple of years, we had the Burrows Golf saga to follow. Bruce Burrows put on a show. In the end, he wasted $85 million with nothing to show. Not to say that there’s a parallel, but enter Andreas Stulz an entrepreneur with good genes and an impressive business history. He plans to make his next mark in the golf business.

Stulz’ first golf technology product is an innovative shaft. It’s got a triangular section down near the tip. The graphics are avant-garde. The story is that this shaft is stable and doesn’t need spining. This is a controversial claim, especially for a clubmaker who has become a true believer in SST PUREª. I received one shaft to test. I installed it in a new Nicklaus head that I took out for one “morning at the muni.” No love, it played too stiff for me to handle. Fuji Bob pulled it for a lefty Nike Sasquatch. I’ve got another one coming for testing and we’ll certainly buy a few for Golf Lab customers to test. It is clearly the most radical shaft design to show up in my memory. The company is building an impressive list of PGA Tour players who are testing the shaft. Go to: http://www.stulzgolf.com/.

Matrix Shafts, (formerly Apache). In the shaft business, it’s hard to tell fact from marketing gimmicks. Companies like to take the easy way out. If they claim that they have the best shaft in the world, they make it the most expensive -- confident that buyers will erroneously associate price with quality. It used to be that Fujikura Speeders topped the price list at $300. Then Mitsubishi brought out the Diamana and trumped Fuji with a $350 price. UST ACCRA raised the bid with their SE series shaft (that no one we know could hit) at $425. Enough incremental increases. Matrix went straight to the top with their OZIK shaft, priced at $1000. We haven’t had the heart to spoil a $1000 OZIK by mounting it in a demo driver. But we did chop up a couple of the bargain $400 OZIK models. Fuji Bob went first. After the first day he was thinking about changing his name to Matrix Bob. I mounted two, one in a Nike Sasquatch Tour head and another in a Bobby Jones head. During that same Stanford round with the scandium shafts, I was getting summer distances. It might have been the Wheaties I had for breakfast, it might have been the heads, or it might be that the OZIK delivers. It’s on the list for a date with the Max Out launch monitor.

If your piggy bank is small, Matrix makes great shafts in America for cheap prices. Average players can’t beat their MFS (Master Fitting System) 30+ for irons. On the PGA Tour, you’ll see K.J. Choi leading the pack with his signature orange shafts. For low index players who want to try graphite in irons, the MFS 115 are a good choice. Check out http://www.mccshafts.com.com/.

Aerotech Golf Shafts. I’ve reported how well Aerotech shafts tested on our electronic testing equipment. The Aerotech shafts do very well. If you would like to discuss our methods for testing shafts, and what we know about which shafts do better or worse on any of several tests, you can contact me directly. Leith@calgolftech.com.

Aerotech shafts are manufactured in China with innovative technology. The flagship of the line is the Steel Fiber. It’s a graphite shaft that’s been wound with miles of fine gauge steel fiber. The result is a graphite shaft that is very straight, very consistent and a great performer. A year ago, the flagship of the Aerotech Company was hockey sticks. You can imagine how the strike year of 2004 affected the company. Aerotech management, lead by Chris Hilleary, recently bought out the golf division. Aerotech is unusual among graphite shaft manufacturers. For irons, they offer seventy, eighty and ninety five gram weights in blanks. They also offer constant weight sets for irons and are introducing a progressive weight set for 2006 that will make moment of inertia matching (MOI) much easier. With Aerotech, you get a lot of custom options and some forward thinking designs that are unique in the marketplace. Aerotech shafts are not over priced. At press time the website http://www.aerotechsports.com/ was still active.

ACCRA. One of the emerging themes for 2006 is broad custom options. The ACCRA line was a commercial failure for UST until two Canadians took over marketing. Gawain Robertson and Dave Makarucha formed Premium Golf Management to market the high end UST line to custom clubmakers. The ACCRA line for woods features shafts with weights from fifty to eighty grams, each weight in five flexes. The shafts were all designed to play alike, regardless of the weight. There is no better range of custom fitting options. For 2006 they’re releasing a 40 gram driver shaft. That might be the lightest weight shaft that will ever be manufactured. Check out http://www.accragolf.com/.

Drivers and Fairway Woods

Nakashima and Nakashima Refugees. One of the biggest success stories of 2005 in golf components was Nakashima Golf. The company took advantage of the “Japanese Mystique” with their positioning, based on the lineage of founder, John Nakashima. They brought out a high quality driver with just the right image for the market. It sold well. The creative energy behind the company was fueled by Scott Son. Sales were managed by Patrick Boyd. At the end of 2005, Scott and Patrick left Nakashima to form their own new component company.

That sets up an interesting story for 2006. Whenever founders leave a company there is speculation about who was really responsible for success. Nakashima has a new driver model for 2006 that features a removable hosel assembly that permits a player to swap shafts but keep a favorite head. In the past, all such designs added too much weight to be playable on the course. As far as I know, there is nothing like the new Nakashima design on the market. It should be very popular with players who want to test different shafts with a favorite head. Check out http://www.nakashimagolf.com/.

Meantime, Scott and Patrick have relocated to Atlanta, Georgia and designed their own original line. Their new company is called Versus. They intend to create an image based on the constant tension in competitive golf. The first line is relatively short but tailored to clubmakers who have the skill, knowledge and expertise to optimize shaft and head balance and shape the sole for a player’s home course conditions. Scott and Patrick have the track record and the right experience to be successful. They’re shooting for availability in February. Check out http://www.versusgolf.com/.

Sonartec. In the golf industry, it is axiomatic that a small company needs to find a niche and defend it. Sonartec burst on the American golf scene on the back of sponsorship from Nick Price who played Sonartec fairway woods with success and eventually made a financial investment in the company. Sonartec became THE fairway wood company without lining up a bunch of costly endorsements. PGA Tour pros played Sonartec clubs because they worked the best. Sonartec recognized that they could never satisfy all of their customers’ custom shaft requirements. They were the first to permit custom clubmakers to buy “heads only” to increase customer satisfaction with custom shaft, swingweight and grip options. Following up on their success with fairway woods, their MD utility club is widely used on the PGA Tour. http://www.sonartec.com/.

Advanced Golf Technology. Steve Solo has a short product line. He made his mark with fairway woods that have a carpenter steel face. The material is hard and heavy and I’ve had some of my longest fairway wood shots with AGT fairway woods. They have a classic shape and beautiful finish. If you put Steve’s fairways in your bag you won’t feel inferior to Titleist, Taylor Made or Cleveland players. AGT is working on drivers. The Aurora model, with its scalloped face design received favorable reviews in 2005. You can buy direct from the website or you can get your AGT clubs custom fitted with the shaft of your choice at a select group of clubmakers. http://www.advancedgolftechnology.com/.

Bobby Jones Golf Company. Jesse Ortiz will always be remembered for his run with Orlimar. But before Orlimar, Jesse worked with his father, the legendary Lou Ortiz, shaping classic persimmon drivers and fairway woods. He has brought that experience to bear in his new line of drivers and fairway metals at the Bobby Jones Golf Company. We’ve received a few samples and begun to try them out. From early testing, the drivers and fairway woods appear to be very accurate. This is the result of the face bulge and roll that Jesse modeled after the famous Orlimar persimmon drivers. The company is also treating their women’s line with high priority. If you are looking for something different in your long clubs, Bobby Jones Golf is a great candidate. You can find Bobby Jones products customized at the Max Out Golf Group shops. www.bobbyjonesgolf.net.

KZG. Billing itself as the “Number One Custom Proline” company, KZG made its first strike supplying the maraging faces for the ultra popular Orlimar line and parlayed those winnings into a component company. They did some things right, paying close attention to quality and sticking with Japanese foundries for their forged irons. If you play forged irons and have to buy your own clubs, KZG is the most economical choice. For 2006 the company is releasing an innovative adjustable weight driver. Given that Taylor Made is holding its price point for the Tour Preferred R7 425 at $800, the KZG adjustable weight driver looks like it could be a great choice for players who want the technology without the TM price. Check out http://www.kzgolf.com/.

SMT Golf. Owner Mike Tait was the first to recognize that the Long Drive Industry needed a different kind of product -- one that didn’t break. He designed a line of high quality, bulletproof driver heads and offered a Lifetime Guarantee. He rode that wave to the top of the Long Drive industry, gathering a slew of championships. SMT’s 455 DB was ahead of its time and sure to be a classic. Mike is an engaging personality, a former golf pro and very successful businessman. The line is available for review at http://www.smt.com/.

Alpha Golf. In the “niche” category, Alpha Golf is a company that has sponsored the most LDA competitors the last few years. Alpha heads have won 6 championships since 2003. Eric Jones, the 2004 Remax Senior Long Drive World Champion is on the Alpha Staff. Kent Sports owner Jim Yeh is a PhD and engineer so you get technical quality with Alpha drivers. Have a look at http://www.alphagolfclubs.com/.

Geek Golf. The Enfant terrible of the component golf business is Steve Almo. He’s an industry veteran who made his name as the creative force behind Bang Golf. A falling out with his partner at Bang gave Steve the motivation to start his own company. His new creation is “Geek Golf’ which I have to admit, offers a lot of amusing word play. Have a look at the Geek dictionary on www.geekgolf.net. Bang designs have always been on the radical side and it’s a good bet that Geek Golf will continue the tradition.

Steve’s first products are high performance drivers, aimed at avid golfers as well as Long Drivers Association competitors and the custom business. His names are always unconventional and he doesn’t disappoint this time. “Dot Com This” and “Fail Safe.” There’s an argument that a guy who has made a few mistakes but lives to ride again can succeed in a big way.

Irons and Wedges

Miura. It’s rare when a company is recognized as the best in the world. For forged irons, the little Japanese company, Miura has earned that recognition. In the past, Miura did contract work for the Big Guys. Some of Miura’s most acclaimed work was the RAC MB which they did for Taylor Made. That model still brings high prices on eBay years after Taylor Made shifted production to China. In 2005, Miura established direct distribution in North America. From the beginning, Miura’s strategy was to hook up with a network of the top clubmakers. That strategy worked and Miura irons are available custom fitted in most regions of the United States. They’ve been talking about a couple of new models for 2006. If you have the game to play forged blades, a set of Miuras will be your last set for a long time. http://www.miuragolf.com/.

Scratch Golf Company. Scratch Golf is one of my favorites. They made their name with custom wedges, with forgings from one of the best foundries in Japan. You can get any setup, any grind, and any finish that you want. Top it off with your initials stamped into the head. Scratch has been around for a few years with modest sales numbers. But their customers, including me, are very satisfied. Scratch is an example of the pure custom business model. I plan to add their irons to my collection soon. Ari Techner is the visionary behind the company. Be amazed with the custom options you’ll find on http://www.scratchgolf.com/.

Eidolon Wedges. It’s always interesting to know where a designer’s back trail wandered. Terry Koehler worked at some of the best golf companies before selling out of the corporate golf world to pursue his vision for upstart Eidolon Golf Company. Their business model was futuristic. They built a wedge with a unique sole grind, milled face and grooves and sold it direct from their website with a money back guarantee. Later, they added a custom program to supply their heads to clubmakers. We received a few examples and shafted them with our favorite custom wedge shafts, Rifle Spinners, Project X 5.5 eight iron and True Temper Dynamic Gold eight iron shafts -- scarce options. If you’re planning to experiment with your scoring clubs, find a clubmaker who will let you take out a set of wedges to test on your own course for a weekend. Make sure you try some shafts that you never imagined trying. You might find yourself closer to the hole. More information at: http://www.eidolongolf.com/.

Tom Wishon Golf Technology. No one has supported the custom clubmaker niche more than Tom Wishon. For over twenty years he has moved around the industry working for all of the major distributors at one time or another. He has been responsible for hundreds of clubhead designs. After leaving Golfsmith, he was offered the post of chief designer at Titleist. He turned that down, preferring instead to move to Durango, Colorado and open his own company designing custom components. In 2005, he authored a book aimed at consumers that revealed many of the shortcomings of the golf industry and promoted custom clubfitting and clubmaking. The Search for the Perfect Golf Clubs is a must read for anyone interested in making the right choices in golf equipment. The Wishon Golf website is top notch for technical information. Check out the large selection of game improvement irons. http://www.wishongolf.com/.

Putters and Putter Technology

Heavy Putter. We have sold our fair share of Heavy Putters at the Golf Lab. The interesting thing about the buyers is that they have been predominately mid to high handicap players. Players stop me at the Palo Alto Muni, point to their bags and say “I love this thing.” I questioned Steve Boccieri, the founder of the Heavy Putter Company, about that unusual outcome since most companies court low handicap players and sell their souls to Tour Players.

The Heavy Putter is one of those extremely rare golf products that helps amateurs improve without paying the price in practice time. Tour players practice their putting hours a day and have the mental power to make a great stroke. Not so with most amateurs. The Heavy Putter smooths out an erratic stroke. Amateurs don’t have to focus on the mechanics and boring repetition.

It you’ve been put off by the heavy price, there is relief on the horizon. Heavy Putter is producing an infomercial that you will see on the Golf Channel all spring and summer. They’ve hammered their suppliers to improve manufacturing techniques and bring down prices. The plan is for a decked out Heavy Putter to cost $199 in 2006, down from the current $279.

If you’re the kind of player who never uses a product that’s not on Tour, Heavy Putter will be there as well. Troy Matteson rode the Heavy Putter to the top of the Nationwide Tour money list in 2005, improving from number 110 to number 8 in putting statistics. He won his first tournament and his tour card. http://www.heavyputter.com/.

Goolie Putters. Mark Morgulis named his company after himself. He learned his chops at Taylor Made where was responsible for the early Rossa putter line. When he founded Goolie Golf, it was with the idea that he could make a putter that would “resist the twist” -- foreshadowing the current trend to increase moment of inertia. The Goolie putters have been popular with Golf Lab regulars, staying in the bag well beyond the normal honeymoon period for putter switchers. Goolie is a great custom fitting story. You can get the exact lie angle you want on center shafted models, unique in the industry. If you want a fabulous combination, match your Goolie up with a custom shaft. http://www.gooliegolf.com/.

Balance-Certified. One of the outstanding technical thinkers in the custom golf business is Jeff Lindner. A true rocket scientist (former NASA engineer) he started working on improving the feel of putters with an adjustable back weighting system. I became acquainted with the company four years ago in the back aisles of the PGA Show where they were demonstrating how adjusting weight under the grip of a putter could move vibrations up and down the shaft to improve feel. From there, they moved on to developing a system to add counter weights to irons and woods. They proved they could increase ball speed with the judicious addition of weight under the grip. The Balance-Certified system gained a cult following, despite the price of $40 per club.

Balance-Certified made news late in 2005 with a new invention. Lindner was back in the limelight, this time with a new putter shaft that he created to filter vibrations that a player feels through the shaft. Lindner reasoned that if a player could feel contact with more sensitivity, he would be able to train himself to strike the ball on the center of the putter face. He licensed the technology to UST for manufacturing. At the end of 2005 the unique idea was gaining support with early adopters. Installed price: somewhere around $100. Visit http://www.balance-certified.com/.

Coming up in March. We’re going to be giving the Golf Lab launch monitors a great workout in the next few weeks. Will we be able to confirm the results from on-course testing of the E-21 Scandium and the MCC OZIK shafts? Can we prove that the carpenter steel face material in AGT fairway woods outperforms standard steel used by other companies? The golf industry is plagued by marketing claims that are unsubstantiated, but ultimately can be proven, or not.

Look for my report from the PGA Show in Orlando, coming up the last week in January. Golf Today will be the first print publication with an in-depth story from the show floor. In the meantime, reread this article, check out some websites and find something that you want to buy from an American underdog.

Leith Anderson is a partner in the Golf Lab in Palo Alto. He will answer all questions related to clubmaking and clubfitting personally. Contact Leith Anderson by email: Leith@calgolftech.com. Cell phone 650-743-2816.