GoPro HD video cam mounted to my cranium, I do a walk through of the Titleist booth at the 2011 PGA show. During this virtual tour I happen to run into Tom Abbott from the Golf Channel, who is doing a piece on a Scotty Cameron putter. Fun stuff.
I met with Titleist this weekend and had a talk with my buddy Michael who is the Director of Golf Ball Product Management. Wow, quite a title to have when you are at Titleist.
Michael and I talked about the new and big changes for 2011 in both the ProV1 and ProV1x series. Both golf balls feature different dimple patterns with the ProV1 being reduced from 392 dimples to 352. The “X” was reduced from 332 to 328 dimples. There’s more about these new balls, so just enjoy the video interview below.
Davis has modeled his swing after mine... yeah, right.
Wow. For so many years I’ve equated Titleist and Davis Love III. But the news today is that DLIII has moved to Bridgestone. That switch will take some getting used to.
“Freddie (Fred Couples) and I go way back, we’ve played a lot of golf together and I consider him one of my best friends on TOUR. He’s been telling me for years about how great Bridgestone is, so I finally decided to look into them for myself and I liked what I found. I learned that they have industry-leading products and really creative marketing, two things that really peaked my interest. With the B330-S, I’m getting more distance out of my driver and long irons and I feel very ready to compete in 2011.”
So Davis and Freddy have talked about it. But I’m betting that Davis has been reading my reviews of the B330-RX series golf balls and that influenced him the most… 🙂
This week DLIII makes his 2011 debut at the Sony Open. He’ll be putting the B330-S in play for the first time. He’ll also be using a new Bridgestone tour bag, hat, glove as well as some Bridgestone prototype irons (3-PW). The release doesn’t mention driver, woods/hybrids, putter or wedges other than PW. I imagine those will switch over eventually when DLIII has had time to fine tune them.
I’m not up to speed on the status of a law suit between Cobra and TaylorMade, but the word today is that this deal is now done. Camilo Villegas is officially a TaylorMade tour staff player.
I’m freaking out a bit I’ll admit. But reading the latest article on Bloomberg really made this possible scenario hit home.
Fortune Brands has enlisted Morgan Stanley to run an auction of their golf division. There’s a possibility that when Fortune Brands sells off, a.k.a. breaks up its golf division (which includes Titleist, FootJoy and Pinnacle), that someone such as Nike, Adidas or some other entity with about $1.5 billion bucks to spend could buy it and absorb it into their brand. You can be damn sure that if Adidas or Nike bought it, they’d can the Titleist name in a heartbeat.
That scenario would be a shame. The golf world without the Titleist brand is tough to imagine. But I guess business is business.
HOGWire – Golf Industry News
