GolfSpy Barbajo

Gamed the ZX5 in my last round before surgery in Nov - like it very much and is an early candidate for bag-dom for 2021. I also liked the ZX7 -not quite as forgiving, but I actually preferred the sound and feel more. Once I can hobble to the heated driving range I'll give both a more thorough testing...along with a little something-something from Wilson. Not sold on the Hogan GS53 MAX yet - played it a couple of times but my game was crap anyway so I can't really make an honest assessment. Prolly played the best with the XXIO X last season...and I promise - PROMISE - this will be the year I settle on one set of clubs and will play them all year. Really.

You mean these? If history is any guide, they will make a formal announcement sometime in January, with a late Jan/early Feb release. From what they've told us so far, they're touting enhanced ball speed due to a newly reformulated core. As always, Srixon is very thorough with information when they have a new release, so the story should be pretty interesting.

Having done the job before this group, I can't tell you what a great job @GolfSpy MPR, @STUDque, @StrokerAce, and @Golfspy_CG2 have done. They've taken this space to places we could never have imagined. Rob is right, this isn't a forever job. And I'm certain the new blood will maintain all of the things we love about this forum as well as bring new, fresh ideas to the table - just as Enrique and Jason did. Onward and upward, and thank you for a job well done.

Was a sophomore at American University and on the broadcast team for our basketball games. Driving back to DC from a game in Gettysburgh, PA when we heard the news about John Lennon. Every year the three of us who were in the car share a call, email and or some memories....

You got it! Anyone with a picture of Alf as an avatar can be my friend forever! Looking like early June, if it happens. We've already put down the deposit but can move our tee times if COVID doesn't cooperate.

Nice to see this topic resurrected. Planning another trip for next June, if the worldwide pandemic cooperates. It'll be my third trip, but will be travelling with my cousin Paul (read about our adventures here) and two first timers, so it'll be a blast. In no particular order, I've played the following: St. Andrews - Old, New, Jubilee and Castle. Loved all of them. The Old Course is the Old Course and the experience is truly magical. Bogied the Road Hole twice and felt like I birdied it. The other courses are interesting in their own way - loved the Castle Course and the magnificent view of the city from the 6th green - and it has some of the coolest par 3's you'll ever play. I found the Jubilee to be the toughest, and the New had some of the most interesting holes in the complex. It's also the course I scored best on, so there's that. Carnoustie - never has an 87 felt like a triumph. Missed three relatively easy putts that could have lowered the score, but what's worse is those three missed putts lost us the match. Dammit! But I did par 17, which felt like an accomplishment. Kingsbarns - whoa. Just whoa. North Berwick - like many others have said, quite possibly the most fun golf course on the planet. Made the turn at 1 over before returning to earth. Pulled a drive on I think the 14th hole literally on to the beach and had to play it back onto the fairway. Felt like Walter Hagen in the Legend of Bagger Vance, except I didn't hit the green. Didn't even hit the fairway. Or get up the hill. Longniddry - hidden gem south of Edinburgh. It's a par 68 and was the very first course I played in Scotland. It's one of those hidden gems and was fun to play. It's not a destination course, but a fun course the locals play. Ladybank - a parkland course and used as an Open Qualifier. Similar to a typical inland course you'd find in the US, but a really nice layout and also fun to play. Scotscraig - another parkland course, touted as the 13th oldest course in the world. Last course we played on our last trip, after an early morning 18 at Kingsbarns. It's a nice course - back nine is more scenic and the holes more interesting, but by then after seven days of nonstop golf, I was toast. By the 15th hole I wanted nothing more than to be done - total burnout. Would like to play it again with a better attitude. Lundin Links - great, great great hidden gem. Old Tom Morris -James Braid design with some of the best views around. You'll have to use every club in the bag and think your way around it. Prestonfield - in the city of Edinburgh, another hidden gem. Parkland course with some great views of the rock formations and hills in Edinburgh. Some very tough par 5's. It starts out rather gently with an easy par 4 and and even easier par 3, then it starts showing its teeth. Love the sign on the clubhouse - "A fair test of golf..." Our June trip (c'mon vaccine!) will include North Berwick, Gullane, Dumbarnie, maybe Renaissance and the St. Andrews experience. Would love to fit in a return to Lundin Links and maybe Scotscraig. I also hear Crail is excellent and worth a whack. And if any of you get to St. Andrews in the coming year or so and need a caddy, make sure to ask for Brett Murray. He's a great caddy and an even better guy. Tell him I say hi.

Felt pretty much like a Velvet 360...

That was the toughest part for me - getting the pattern right. My first attempt, as you saw in the pix, was WAY over-tightened and twisted to distortion. It is relatively simple to loosen the grip and start over. The hand-twisting of the grip itself takes some practice - at least it did for me. And you can do it as many times as you need to. Also, if you do all the steps in reverse, it's very easy to remove the grip completely and put it on another club, if you wanted to do that for whatever reason. This is Golf Pride's first attempt, so I'm sure we'll see further refinement and more options in the future. I doubt the method would support an ALIGN grip, but one never knows that they come up with. As for who it's for, that's an interesting question. I'd say anyone who wants to regrip their own clubs. I can see on and off course pro shops utilizing these, as well. An on course shop could regrip an entire set in maybe a half an hour and have them ready to play right away, while off-course shops could do a while-you-wait re-gripping. All possible, but we'll have to see. I'm guessing the golf industry looked at Golf Pride's very first slip-on rubber grip in 1953 with a few raised eyebrows as well - after all, there's nothing wrong with leather wraps, amiright??? - so it'll be interesting to see where this idea goes. If nothing else, it is innovative and very different.

I think "their marketing is awful" has been repeated often enough in this thread - and I agree their marketing is sloppy at times. The Baller Box idea, I think, was basically sound but very badly executed, and they had a mixup - that was rectified right away, over the initial pricing of both the Staff Model and Staff Model Raw balls. They did have one of the very best young social media people in Corey Holloway, but he left for a plumb gig at FootJoy earlier this year. That's not sloppy, but maybe more of a financial reality. So, in the spirit of real info vs. platitudes, what in your opinion are examples of awful marketing? And what specifically would you do to improve it? I ask out of genuine curiosity, and there are some parameters here. You can't just say "it sucks and they need to do better" or "they need to spend more money." Wilson spends a fixed percentage of its annual sales on marketing, the same fixed percentage as Callaway, Titleist and pretty much every other company in golf - it's just that, say, 3% of maybe $130 million is a much, much smaller number than 3% of $1.3 billion. If you were in charge of Wilson Golf marketing, what's your specific 5-point plan, and what's the ultimate goal? Where will you be in Year 1, Year 5 and Year 10? This could be an interesting exercise...commence to thinking GolfSpies - let's see what you got.

Yep, and it takes years to establish it, fewer years to lose it and the more years to change it.

Hey - let's not worry about the thread wondering. Good conversation is good conversation. I'm not sure the vague notion of "better marketing" is going to change much, simply because marketing isn't done in a vacuum - the other guys are doing it non-stop, 24-7 with a buttload more money. When someone with deeper pockets grabs an attribute and a market image, it can take years to change it, and even then only if the market leaders screw up somehow. I would think if Wilson hits 3% in irons share, sells a few more wedges, metal woods, putters and balls in 2021 - while still being profitable - they'd be more than thrilled with it. Said said, 3% might be a bridge too far considering the others guys are selling stuff too. Tortoise - LOVE IT! I would bet most of @Golfspy_CG2's money that Wilson would not sell appreciably more Staff Model balls if they priced them at $39 or even $35. I'd venture to guess they'd probably sell less. I felt the same way about the Cortex - yeah, people laughed at the $499 price tag (and some of the retailers questioned the decision), but drop it to $399 and I firmly believe people would have said hey, for another $100 plus I can get a TaylorMade or a Callaway. I really believe they probably would have sold fewer of them and not made as much money on the ones they did sell which, after all, is the whole point of the exercise.

Perceptions are funny things - again, check out Wal Mart's website and you'll see more Callaway boxed sets than Wilson sets. I'm a firm believer in if something sounds fishy, it needs to be poked with a stick and challenged. I used to think - back when I was young and naïve - that all Wilson needed to do was come up with that one "must-have" club, and that would change their fortunes. That notion wound up being a bunch of nonsense - not because Wilson couldn't come up with that "must-have" club, it's that even if they did, most folks would believe that only Callaway or TaylorMade would be capable of coming up with a must-have club. And why would we believe only TaylorMade or Callaway could come up with a must-have club? Because Callaway or TaylorMade would tell us it's a must-have club and that only they could come up with it. And enough of us would believe it. It's Big Boy marketing, and it works. Think about it - and it's late, I'm on pain meds and I'm rolling - why do we believe Cobra or PING or Callaway are the most innovative OEMs out there? Two reasons - first, they're pretty damned innovative, and second - they spend a lot of money telling us they're the most innovative OEMs out there. It reminds me of my second favorite poem: He who has a thing to sell And goes and whispers in a well Is not as apt to get the dollars As he who climbs a tree and hollers. The whole Driver vs. Driver thing was to show Wilson had its own innovation story to tell. You can debate over how effective it was, but industry surveys show more people were talking about Wilson as a premium OEM after the show than before. Think of it as simply moving the ball down the field as best you can. And not for nothing, Wilson also has an A.I. R&D setup every bit as sophisticated as Callaway's, and it showed in the performance of the D7 Forged irons. One thing I've learned while reading all of our Most Wanted reports over the last five years, is that small companies can make great performing products and big companies can make also-rans. But those also rans will invariably sell more because of marketing. In some cases, marketing can make us think those products are better than they really are, but more often than not marketing makes us feel safe in those choices. After all, if you were an average consumer (and by definition MGS readers are well above average in terms of knowledge and savvy), what would give you more buyer's remorse: a set of category #1 selling Mavrik irons or a set of Wilson Staff D7 irons? I'll save you the trouble of looking it up - D7 outperformed Mavrik in Most Wanted. But sales-wise, it ain't close. My wife tells me it's time to go to bed.

I'd be willing to bet the percentage of people on this or any forum gaming Wilson gear is about the same as the company's overall market share in the industry - a little less than 3% in irons, "other" in drivers and putters and low in balls. I'm not sure that's an indictment of Wilson rather than a reflection of the industry reality. And a business reality is market shares don't shift much in the short term, especially if the market leaders stay consistent. I'm not sure that's an indictment of Wilson products, or the company, for that matter. The golf world is filled with really good products that have very small market shares - sometimes by circumstance, sometimes by design. After all, Guerin Rife and David Edel make DANDY putters, but their overall market share is dwarfed by Odyssey, PING, TaylorMade and Titleist. Hell, I'd venture to guess Cleveland sells more putters than EVNROLL and Edel put together. As far as performance goes, it's important to know what we're talking about and to deal in facts rather than platitudes. The Wilson D7 Forged takes MGS's Most Wanted Players Distance Irons for 2020 - arguably the category with the most innovative tech. They're selling for $899 a set. Cobra KING Forged Tec - a top performer but 3rd overall - $1,099 a set. Modern math tells us that's a difference of $200. Wilson Infinite "L" Putter - first runner up in 2020 Most Wanted Mallet putters, also named Best Value -- $99.99. Odyssey Triple Track won, and costs $249.99. Wilson D7 driver - in 2020 Most Wanted Overall, finished 9th in carry distance, 10th in total distance and 4th in shot area. For Mid Swing Speeds it finished 2nd overall and was named best value at $299. What beat it out? the Cobra SpeedZone Xtreme - originally priced at $449 but is now being discounted because Cobra has 1 year cycles on its drivers, while Wilson has 2 year cycles. Oh yeah, the D7 is at the end of its two year run, and is currently discounted to $249. We can go back further and see excellent results for the D300, D200 and even the D100 drivers - all excellent performers and priced below the market leaders. But yeah, innovate and charge a little less. Look, Challenger brands are in a tough spot. In drivers they're fighting for a seat at a table where there are more butts than there are chairs for them. The Big 5 sell 9 out of every 10 drivers sold. That means everyone else is fighting for what's left. None of them - and I mean none of them - think they're going to challenge Callaway or TaylorMade. They just want reasonable growth. Look at it this way - say Wilson sells 10,000 drivers a year (I'm making the number up, I have no idea what they sell). If they suddenly sell 11,000 - that's 10% growth. I don't care who you are, you take it and try to sell 12,100 the next year. The point is - growth is hard, and its important for that growth to be profitable or else what's the point? I get it - preconceptions are hard to let go of, and generalizations are easy. And being a challenger brand is hard - size limits what you can really do and the Big 5 don't make it any easier. They have the money and power to dominate retail space. And I know it's popular to blast The Big 5 for their marketing, the bottom line is they spend big bucks on marketing because a: they can, and b: it works.

I tend to agree with you @russtopherb - damned if you do, damned if you don't. The boxed set-Wal Mart stuff is utter nonsense and an eminently lazy take. Yeah, when PepsiCo owned Wilson they did Pepsi things, which is package stuff and sell it. Those boxed sets back in the day were low margin, low cost items that helped with cash flow, but Wilson has moved away from most of that. And hit up Wal Mart's website and you'll find more packaged sets from Callaway than you will from Wilson. To say they're a boxed set company is to simply choose your own reality. Now, the perception is still there, and that's a problem. The question is, how do you address it? I know, the Cortex was overpriced, yada yada yada -- but Wilson did have a discount strategy in place when they launched it, and Wilson itself sold out of them. You can score a pretty good deal on one now out there, but you can also score a pretty good deal on pretty much anyone's two year old driver, can't you? And again, if you still think Driver vs. Driver was about the driver, you really missed the point. Look, I'm no marketing expert, but if you want to be relevant - and when it comes to irons, Wilson most definitely IS relevant - what do you think is the best way to become relevant? If you believe your equipment is premium, then charge a premium. The idea that something is as good as a ProV1 from a mainstream OEM, but costs considerably less is something that just doesn't compute for most consumers. If it did, Srixon would be #1 right now. And to think you have to somehow earn the right to charge premium prices? The FG Tour balls of years past were very, very good balls - Wilson's strategy has focused on the DUO end of the business because they sell a lot there. You can quibble with the strategy, and that's fair - but if you believe your product is premium, then that's what you should charge. You can do it with small ticket items like balls. It gets trickier on the big ticket items unless there's a limited edition strategy to go along with it. The other end is to really understand market share and how to impact it. Look, Wilson knows where it stands in the overall ball market share game, and the only needle is has to move is its own. Let's say they have a 1% market share in the ball business - if they doubled their business, they'd only be at 2% and anyone in manufacturing and sales knows that doubling your business isn't as easy as saying hey, let's sell more stuff. And it sure as hell isn't as easy as saying "let's cut the price and make it up in volume." It doesn't work that way. From what I know of Wilson, they have a pretty good - and most likely very conservative - projection of what they're going to sell of the Staff Model and Staff Model R balls - and they know the venture will be profitable. And they probably plan on selling a few more next year -- slow and steady.

It may or may not matter, but the correct price for these is $44.99/dozen. I'm not one to think the only way to sell these in quantity would be to cut the price. If that were, in fact, the case, then Srixon at $39,.99/dozen should be far and away the number one selling ball in golf. It's a really good ball and a lot less expensive than the ProV1. I don't think Wilson would sell much more at a lower price - and for as much as we golfers squawk about price, the fact the ProV is the top selling ball by a lot tells me 8 bucks a dozen isn't a deal killer if that's the ball you want. Again, I've tried these - I'd have no problem playing them. Just make sure you hit the ball washer every couple of holes.

Not for nothing, here are some pix of the ball after my last round. Didn't wash it, obviously. This is after the last 3 holes. Sent from my iPhone using MyGolfSpy

Played this ball for my last few rounds before hanging it up for the season. I've had a spin-o-rama driver swing late in the season and not for nothing, I did find more fairways while gaming these. How much of that is me and how much is the ball is open for debate, but I do like the ball. It spins like a Bas***d on the green. And it sure as heck does pick up dirt during normal play. After two holes is was pretty messed up - much like a matte finish ball would be - but it cleans up in the ball washer way better than a matte finish ball does. I'll give Wilson credit - they're trying something different and as Tony mentioned, when you're a challenger brand trying to carve out incremental sales increases, different is good. Wilson, IMO, doesn't get quite enough credit for what you might call "outside the box" thinking. Power holes are a perfect example - I can remember when they were first introduced the blog comments were brutal, but they've been refined and improved and ultimately led to the D7 Forged winning this year's Most Wanted Players Distance Iron. And say what you will about Driver vs. Driver, it did the job Wilson wanted it to do - it was a two-season branding exercise that got more people talking about Wilson Staff. Personally, I'm anxious to try the new Staff Model CB's and am especially anxious to see how they follow-up the D7 irons and metal woods.

Very cool @Tpoole22 - nice report on what sounds like a fun experience. Was hoping to arrange a fitting with Honma's mobile fitter here in New England this summer, but we never could get on the same page. Maybe we'll have to take a trip down to Reunion, COVID permitting. Thanks for sharing!

Some articles are more fun to write than others, and some companies are more fun to write about than others. This article was fun to write and the company - Penfold Golf - is definitely fun to write about. Reader's Digest Version: Penfold Golf is releasing a special edition 2-glove set to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Seve's first Masters victory back in 1980. The set features two specially designed Penfold GX gloves co-designed by Penfold and by Seve's three kids - Miguel, Carmen and Javier. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of these gloves will go to support the Seve Ballesteros Foundation, which supports brain cancer research as well as junior golf opportunities for kids in Spain. Here's a link to today's blog post: https://mygolfspy.com/the-penfold-seve-glove-set-a-masters-special/ The gloves themselves are pretty nice - cabretta leather with pretty distinctive styling, and they come nicely packages, for what that's worth. The package themselves combines two of my favorite things - charitable contributions and retro-nostalgia. It's $55 US for the two-pack, but it's for a worthy cause and the gloves themselves are pretty cool. I do like what Penfold is doing. It's just a couple of guys trying to resurrect a legendary British brand, and I think they're doing it the right way. I particularly like that whenever I talk with co-owner Gavin Perrett, he's not trying to say this is the best out there or our ball/glove/whatever is the best on the market. He's very matter of fact and says "these are pretty good, and we hope people will enjoy using them." I kinda like that. Here's a link to the Penfold USA website - you can find the Seve gloves in the SHOP section: https://www.penfoldgolfusa.com/shop What say you all?

Wow! Thank you everyone - very much appreciate the kindness. Thankfully, it was a pretty minor procedure, although I learned a long time ago it's always minor surgery when it's on someone else!) - a scope to repair a torn meniscus that's been bothering me for about a year and got progressively worse this summer. I asked the doc to stitch in another 15 yards - he said he'd see what he could do. Best part of the experience - they had an Alexa in the operating room and the nurse asked what I wanted to listen to before going under. I asked for some vintage Kinks, so just before they started the drip I was rocking with the nurses singing "You Really Got Me." Been on the couch enjoying the Masters all weekend, but PT starts tomorrow!

Taking a mental health day today - hoping to find my inner Seve at Breakfast Hill Golf Course in Greenland, NH. Love late fall sunshine

We have a winner!!! I will tell you the ball is a really interesting idea that I'm not sure anyone's tried before. The new new woods and irons to replace the D7 look strong. Spoken with many fitters who swear the D7 may have been the most underrated driver over the past two years. We shall see, we shall see....

Heh heh - can you guys keep a secret?

Posted this on Twitter this morning (click here to view) - copied here for discussion purposes: Some interesting stuff to unpack from the @CallawayGolf - @Topgolf "merger." Callaway already owned 14% of TopGolf, and is gaining control by issuing 90 million shares of common stock to Topgolf shareholders.... According to Callaway's press release, that's worth $1.986 BILLION. Callaway is also assuming TopGolf's debt, worth another $555 million, making the whole shebang worth about $2.5 BILLION. TopGolf has 63 locations worldwide with more in the works, and served over 23 million guests in 2019. Over 50% identified themselves as "non-golfers." Merger also includes Toptracer ball tracing tech used on TV and is currently in use at over 7,500 driving range bays. Toptracer revenue has grown 233% in last 3 years. Have you played World Golf Tour online? That's part of the deal, too. 28 million members as of last year, and another revenue stream. Callaway predicts a diversified business mix: 46% revenue from Topgolf, 30% from golf equipment, 24% from softgoods. Callaway reported $1.7 Billion in sales in 2019 - projecting to grow to $3.2 Billion by 2022, with anticipated growth of 10% per year after that. Despite a down Q2, Callaway placed itself in a strong cash position, with over $630 million in cash and available credit. Just goes to show that in a pandemic, cash is king. Lost in the merger hubbub - Callaway is projecting a record Q3 result - an estimated $476 million in sales (up 12% YOY), with an EBITDAS of $87 million - up 53% YOY. e-commerce growth has fueled much of that growth, including a 108% increase in soft goods sales. TopGolf-Callaway possibilities are wide-ranging. It's likely you'll be able to demo, get fit for and buy Callaway gear at any TopGolf, along with Travis Mathew, Ogio and Jack Wolfskin clothing and accessories. Retail without the middle man can be very profitable. Bottom line - Callaway is no longer primarily a golf equipment company. The company has effectively "equipment-proofed" its business, and is now a multi-billion dollar active lifestyle company with a focus on golf. Sure seems as though from a business standpoint - Callaway is playing 3D chess, Acushnet is playing regular chess, the rest of the Big 5 is playing checkers while the remainder of the industry - even though they make great equipment - is playing Candyland.