CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE START OF THE Q&A

On April 23, 2014, The GolfWRX members had the chance to chat live with Adams Golf R&D and Marketing teams straight from Adams HQ in North Texas. Adams Golf welcomed a holds barred discussion regarding all things Adams Golf & owning the second shot. Nothing was off limits!

Adams Golf participants:

• SR Director R&D: Justin Honea
• Engineering Manager, Hybrids & Irons: Justin Girard
• Design Engineer, Metalwoods: Alex Berger
• SVP Marketing: Scott Blevins
• Director Global Product Marketing: Michael Fox
• SR Director Marketing: Jeff Wood

Forum Q&A Link

ADAMS GOLF LIVE Q&A RECAP:

GolfWRX Member (hayzooos): Any truth Adams was/is thinking about doing some sort of MOI matching/fitting for their irons? I think this would be a great way to differentiate yourself if you even offered the option.

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): This is a great and interesting point.  MOI in irons often gets under looked when communicated to the consumer.  The volume (cc) of the head and how efficiently the mass is placed inside this volume is what determines the MOI value.  Even though we don’t have a specific fitting system in terms of MOI, our iron lineup ranges from a compact, but very playable forged  iron in our XTD forged set to our new IDEA Hybrid-Iron integrated set.  Each set is targeting a handicap and ability range specific to the playability of the irons which MOI plays a great deal into.  For the New IDEA Hybrid Iron set, where MOI plays a significant role in the playability, we have a patent protected design that we refer to as the “ABC” patent which lets us have three different club types based on volume (and  thus MOI) that allows us to integrated the appropriate amount of MOI into each hybrid and iron to help the golfer through their entire set.

GolfWRX Member (Jimmy Mac): Is Adams’ club design independent of TaylorMade’s. It seems some technologies are crossing back and forth. Is that brought about by a natural evolution of club design or is there a shared design team?

Adams Golf (Fox): The Adams golf marketing, product management and R&D teams are here in North Dallas and are run independently from the TaylorMade group out in Carlsbad.  At Adams Golf our product plan is based on a strategy of meeting consumer needs in the market place and exceeding your expectations.  Basically giving you guys the types of clubs and performance, which you can’t get anywhere else and giving it to you in ways you’ve never seen before with new and innovative technologies.  To do this part of our process it to frequently analyze the market and make predictions on what the other companies are going to do, to determine what type of products we should create and when we should launch.  One of the pieces which has helped since the partnership is some visibility into TaylorMade’s product plan to help us determine when the best time for us to launch products will be.  This visibility is more information for the team here in North Dallas to use in our decision making process; which is always helpful.

GolfWRX Member (cphrey): I will pose my question now since I will be in Mexico getting married during this conversation…

Has joining the Taylormade family changed the way you market, produce products, or release new technology? Will Adams be accelerating their product cycle to be more in line with the TMaG release timelines?

Thanks guys!

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): At Adams Golf our product plan is based on a strategy of meeting consumer needs in the market place and exceeding your expectations.  Basically giving you guys the types of clubs and performance, which you can’t get anywhere else and giving it to you in ways you’ve never seen before with new and innovative technologies.  To do this part of our process it to frequently analyze the market and make predictions on what the other companies are going to do, to determine what type of products we should create and when we should launch.  One of the pieces which has helped since the partnership is some visibility into TaylorMade’s product plan to help us determine when the best time for us to launch products will be.  This visibility is more information for the team here in North Dallas to use in our decision making process; which is always helpful.  The Adams golf marketing, product management and R&D teams are here in North Dallas and are run independently from the TaylorMade group out in Carlsbad.  

There is no “TaylorMade Launch strategy” that they require all of their brands to adhere too.  In fact, at Adams, our product launches have actually decreased since the joining the TMaG family.  Before the partnership, Adams Golf had shorter and more evolutionary product launches across more brands, compared to now where we are trying to establish only a few brands at a time, which are our XTD, Pro, Tight Lies and new idea brands.  Our focus is on only making golf products, which are new, different and needed in the marketplace, which require longer development times.  

Congrats on the marriage!  I get hitched in two weeks, so if you have any tips for the big day, please let me know.

GolfWRX Member (Golfingfanatic): If you were to release a new blade would it also feature the pvd finish of the mb2?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): The finish of the MB2 iron was a RAW gun blue finish and at this time we have no plans but that could change given feedback like this.  That was a great finish and one that I was very excited about when we launched it.

GolfWRX Member (moymoiboy): How interconnecting are Adams club designs and Taylormade designs, for example does Taylomade design for Adam’s clubs completely or is it separate like there is Adam’s design team and Taylormade’s design team? If so do the two teams collaborate together regularly or generally both teams keep to themselves?
Thanks!

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Good question.  The R&D/design teams at Adams Golf and Taylormade are totally separate and actually not a lot changed in this area since the acquisition.  We do collaborate on a regular basis and what this means is we typically go out to Carlsbad at least once a quarter and during that meeting both of us share our upcoming product lines and product positions.

GolfWRX Member (Wall-E): What has the Adams R&D department been working on for the 2015-2016 season?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): If I told you I would have to …….  Just kidding.  We are working on some really cool designs for Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 and I think you all will be very impressed.  Without giving anything away J one thing we are working on is the next generation VST which will have improvements in performance and look which everyone should like!

GolfWRX Member (IheartNY): Why did Adams Golf switch from the triangle weight screw to the 6 pointed weight screw on your new hybrids?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): We felt it made the most sense to standardize the keyway with the rest of the industry instead of keeping a unique design just for Adams.

GolfWRX Member (Jabrch): “Own the Second Shot” is a BRILLIANT marketing idea Scott.  What else can we expect to see as part of this campaign?  Any events associated with the promotion?

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): First, thanks for the compliment! This is actually a corporate movement (not just a campaign) that we’ve created. “Own The Second Shot” is a tagline that we use to communicate our position in the marketplace. Our company’s history, success, and tour support is built around the second shot clubs (fairway woods, hybrids and irons) and we plan to only strengthen that position and lead in those categories into the future. You’ll see more emphasis in our advertising and product development around our Second Shot movement. It’s a great story-telling opportunity for us and you too … we love to hear about golfers favorite second shots – the most important shots in golf. In addition (and maybe most importantly) is that there is a wave of data on the way that actually supports the fact that approach shots (many times second shots) are the biggest difference between tour winnners vs. the field and the biggest difference between good amateurs and higher handicappers. Columbia professor Mark Broadie analyzed over 10 Million shots on the PGA Tour and recently published his findings in the book Every Shot Counts. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. Here’s one of his nuggets: “Among the top 40 PGA Tour pros, approach shots was the most important shot category, accounting for 40% of their scoring advantage.”

GolfWRX Member (Marks23): I have another question besides the two I posted on page 7.  How do you recommend going about properly filling the gap between my 4 iron and 3 metal with one or more pro hybrids?  Thanks for coming online to respond to questions.

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): The DHy or Pro Mini will work great as a direct iron replacement, and has done really well replacing a lot of 3 and 4 irons out on tour and in average players bags. The new Pro Hybrid and Tight Lies work great to fill that 5 wood spot.

GolfWRX Member (Jimmy Mac): Adams has a great selection of hybrids and irons for different styles of players, but only a single driver option, why? Does research show high and low handicappers share the same needs?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): This is a great question!  As a company of our size, it is difficult to launch multiple drivers within the same year.  What we try to focus on with our drivers are technologies that can benefit all golfers!  Most recently, we have developed a manufacturing process that only works well for a small company like us that allows us to claim we have the “hottest face in golf”  It’d be tough to find a golfer that doesn’t want that in their Driver!

GolfWRX Member (MaydayGSXR): I’ve read the the goal of your R&D is to get ahead of the times, and make quality tour level clubs (some of your clubs are on tour long before they ever see retail). Are you guys solely focused on getting your clubs in the bags of tour players, with the hopes that it’s success will trickle down to the public for sales? Or are you starting to look more into fitting a variety of types of players (with your different options and styles in hybrids, driving irons, etc)?

Adams Golf: Our strategy for hybrids is to maintain our position as the #1 hybrid on tour.  To do this we need to have frequent testing with prototypes with the best players in the world to make sure the products work for there games.  We also use tour as a testing ground for new technologies to ensure that we can one day get the products in play on tour.  This strategy and product development plan is only the case for our tour level products and hybrids.  All other products are designed through looking at market need, market opportunity and technology to help normal golfers make the game easier.  Most of the products we create are for the mid-handicap and high handicap golfers, which tour product and development wont work for.

GolfWRX Member (ram01002): First off, I wanted to let you know that the DHy is the best club I have owned in the past 3 years . . . thanks for a great product! Can you talk about the trade off between CG and MOI?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): Happy to hear you are enjoying the DHy design.  Jeff Overton is a huge advocate of our new Pro DHy.  When the first DHy design was released on Tour as a prototype, it created a significant amount of buzz as the club gave a little more forgiveness than a traditional long iron, but for those who are still looking for a compact design that an iron like shape can provide.

As far as how CG and MOI correlate, it can be a little bit of a tradeoff.  As MOI increases the CG tends to move vertically up and further back.  This is why shaping and vertical profile of a golf club design is so important.  There are some ways to improve MOI while minimizing the negative effects of the CG.  With a golfer that could use the benefits of MOI, Adams has two very effective design techniques, upside down technology (all hybrids and Tight lies) and low profile designs (Tight Lies and IDEA).

GolfWRX Member (ThunderBuzzworth): How has your Long Drive section been affected lately with Callaway entering the market? Are you still advancing in LD or is it taking a back seat since joining forces with TMAG?

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): We certainly enjoyed our relationship with the LDA and a few of the players over the past years. However, with our new focus to Own The Second Shot and drive those parts of our business (hybrids, fairway woods, irons) in addition to growing our international business we went a different direction and used our $ and resources to sign world class players like Ernie Els and focus on hybrid counts across the globe – not just in the US.

GolfWRX Member (rtraudt): First off, thank you Adams for making fantastic equipment.  I’ve currently got a Fast 12 LS that cycles in and out of my bag (depending on the course I’m playing and wind conditions) as well as Tight Lies and Super 9031 that are going to be in the bag for a LONG time.  I’m wearing an Adams golf hat as we speak as well!  My question is, being in my 20s, many of my playing partners comment on my Adams gear and clubs and ask me why I’m playing “old man clubs.”  Although I love the gear, I can’t disagree with the perception that Adams gear is played by a predominantly older crowd.  In light of this, is Adams planning to branch out and try and sign some newer, younger stars to help boost their sales and appeal with a younger golfing crowd?  I know far too many golfers my age who don’t even give Adams clubs a shot (huge mistake, IMO), and I can’t help but feel that their decision is made largely in part because of the lack of high-profile, younger stars sponsored by Adams.
Thanks again, keep making great clubs (especially with “real-deal” shafts, which us GolfWRX members all appreciate), and I’ll keep buying!  Those XTD forged irons are calling my name…

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): We hear you regarding the “old mans clubs” comment. Honestly, our first real tour push came on the Champions tour years ago. As we continue to support that tour and our players on it, we are also investing in other tours as well. For instance, our starting line up for this week’s PGA Tour event : Zurich Classi of New Orleans is: Nicolas Thompson, Jeff Overton, Robert Garrigus, Troy Merritt, Josh Teater, Ernie Els, and Lee Williams. We are really proud of this team and will continue to build on the momentum going forward. We also have signed 11 players on the Web.com. I suspect since we still have quite a few Champions tour players including high profile players like Tom Watson, Kenny Perry, and Bernhard Langer (among others) that we will continue to be seen as slightly older, but we feel like we have a good balance right now and couldn’t be happier. 

GolfWRX Member (mikes919): I really like the way that the 24* DHy sets up to my eye, but it’s a little too fade-biased for me. Any suggestions on a different long iron replacement option, or an adjustment?

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley):

We designed the DHy to be a bit more fade biased than the rest of our lineup as it is targeted at that better player…and those guys hate hitting hooks! The new Pro Mini and Pro will be have a bit more draw bias and help you turn the ball over. The IDEA hybrids will have the most help with hitting a draw.

GolfWRX Member (mikes919): Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions! I put this one back on page 1, I’d be very interested in your response:
For Justin Honea- I saw in a previous interview that you said the new XTD driver has the hottest face in golf because you hold such tight manufacturing tolerances. Does Adams use any special manufacturing processes to enable these tight tolerances? Or have you figured out new ways to design around traditional manufacturing methods?

Thanks again Adams!

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): We took what was already established and create new processes and new check points that no one else in the industry uses.  This process costs a lot to setup and adds a lot of cost to each driver but it is well worth the money when we see the smiles at demo days!  The majority of drivers off the production line are never checked for CT which means you could grab one with a 235 CT or one with a 250 CT.  Would you knowingly buy the slower driver on the shelf?!? We have the Hottest Face in Golf and we are very proud of this!  When the idea was pitched to our suppliers there was a lot of resistance because it would require a lot more time on the production line as well as a high reject rate but our Engineer Manager – Metalwoods (Alex Berger) took on the challenge and flew to Asia and created a new production process that we plan to carry forward on the next driver launch.

GolfWRX Member (tbirds16): How do you decide which tour players to pursue to sign to play your clubs?  Thanks.

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): We look at many factors including their playing performance on tour, their ability and track record making cuts and contending, their past history playing our clubs, their personalities and interaction with fans, media & tournament volunteers, and now their social media presence. We focus on players who are friendly, inviting and want to be part of a hard-working and authentic golf club company and in the company of world class players like Tom Watson, Kenny Perry, Bernhard Langer, and Ernie Els.

GolfWRX Member (IheartNY): On Golf Channel’s Big Break Florida:  do all the contestants use all Adams Golf clubs or do they just carry an Adams Golf bag?

Adams Golf (Jeff Wood): Since it is a competition and there is prize money involved the players are allowed to play clubs of their choosing. Many of them play Adams clubs but we cannot require them to do so. They have a chance to work with our fitters and use our clubs if they want.

GolfWRX Member (Mizgoodie): its known I like Adams stuff.   2 questions
1. what points on the xtd driver face are tested?

2. is anything new for the wedges for 2014 and beyond?

thanks for the time and chat.

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Good question.  During the final manufacturing process we only check center CT and we do that 4 times before the driver head proceeds to the cosmetic line.  The reason we don’t check off-center CT at this stage is we did this during the development of the driver head.  We spend countless hours working to define the face geometry (thickness) and during this process we check 9 CT points across the face to ensure we have the correct thickness transitions to deliver maximum speed on center and off-center hits.

2) We are currently working on a wedge for Ernie Els and you can expect to see that this year.  Ernie is such a great short game player we figured who better than the Big Easy to help us design a new wedge…..he provided a lot of great feedback on shape and sole design which you will see in the new wedges.

GolfWRX Member (ORUTRAVIS): I was a big fan of the Hit Fit system and used it a lot when fitting. Is Adams looking to improve, update, or really push the system again?  I know as the head club fitter at our store I was having our guys who didn’t have the fitting expertise to use and it made them look like stars.
I think for the big box stores and pro shops this could essentially help fit more customers into proper hybrids and fairway woods.  I would typically take a guy who may been looking for just one hybrid and be able to show him what set makeup would best suit his game.  You guys know this already but I was disappointed to not see it updated at the arrival of the xtd launch.

I personally changed my own club setup using this system, now I am convinced it works.  As a former touring pro it’s not easy to take out the three and four irons but I have now found myself scoring better from outside 200 yards and that’s exciting.

Sorry for the rant but I believe that if at all possible that system should be pushed again.  Thanks for any information.

Travis

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Thank you for the question and because of your interest we have decided to update this system and re-launch it to our customers.  We also think the system is a great fitting tool and we are excited to hear comments like yours.  Look for more on this topic really soon!

GolfWRX Member (mikes919): For Justin Honea- I saw in a previous interview that you said the new XTD driver has the hottest face in golf because you hold such tight manufacturing tolerances. Does Adams use any special manufacturing processes to enable these tight tolerances? Or have you figured out new ways to design around traditional manufacturing methods?
Any plans to use the XTD irons’ floating face technology on other clubs? It’s a cool concept! I love my CB3’s but the technology behind the XTD’s is tempting.

Thanks Adams and Golfwrx!

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): We took what was already established and create new processes and new check points that no one else in the industry uses.  The majority of drivers off the production line are never checked for CT which means you could grab one with a 235 CT or one with a 250 CT.  Why would you ever knowing buy the one that was 235 CT!?!  We have the Hottest Face in Golf and we are very proud of this!  When the idea was pitched to our suppliers there was a lot of resistance because it would require a lot more time on the production line as well as a high reject rate but our Engineer Manager – Metalwoods (Alex Berger) took on the challenge and flew to Asia and created a new production process that we plan to carry forward on the next driver launch.

GolfWRX Member (dukediv2011): I recently bought the XTD forged irons. Why did y’all decide to use a 4 hybrid in the stock set instead of a 4 iron?

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): Good question! We feel that better players need help too, so why not put the #1 hybrid model on tour in our player’s set? With a majority of PGA Tour players having at least 1 hybrid in the bag it just made sense. Keep in mind that via custom order you can get that 4 iron if you are interested!

GolfWRX Member (JPNC1977): The CMB is a classic and still a favorite.

Any plans to add adjustability features to future hybrid lines?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): Thanks, the CMB was one of our favorites too.  

Adjustability in hybrids is something we currently offer in our XTD ti hybrid, with +/- a 1.5* of loft change with our adjustable sleeve system.  Putting adjustable hosels or other types of adjustability in hybrids is something we are always discussing, but it would require us to raise prices as it costs a lot for adjustable features.  The cost to benefit is the ever continuing battle.  
At Adams Golf we are one of the only if not the only company where you can custom order your hybrids through any Adams retailer to the loft or lie you desire.  So because we offer that service we decided not to do adjustability to all hybrids this year and you aren’t missing out at dialing in your hybrids.  
Adjustable hybrids is a topic we are frequently re-visiting and questions like this show us there is definitely a need for it.

GolfWRX Member (browne11): Is the sldr technology going to trickle into the Adams side of the company at anytime soon. Do you guys believe in the 17-1700 launch that Taylormade is pushing.
Thanks

Denny

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): If you are referring to the sliding weight on the SLDR driver then the answer is “no”.  Golfers already have a driver that has that technology and it’s from the #1 driver in golf, you don’t need a second option.  

If you are referring to TaylorMade’s forward CG technology, that answer is maybe.  CG moving is a large part of golf club design and for some companies the only part of the game.  A forward CG position is something we are looking at for future products if we feel it would be right for that product.  However if we do end up using a forward CG, it will most likely be the 3^rd or 4^th bullet point on the product because like the sliding weight, you guys already have products that focus on a forward CG you don’t need another.  If we use forward CG it will be in compliment to other new technologies we put on products.
There are a number of ways to get distance.  With drivers at Adams we are focusing on our QC4 face technology that gives us the “Hottest Face in Golf” because we are the only company that checks every driver for face speed to make sure that no one ever gets a slow driver, our Cut-thru Velocity slot technology, Progressive face thickness and aerodynamics to get our distance.

GolfWRX Member (Goldenhawk): Adams is definitely the most innovative company in golf.  The CB3 Irons were awesome.  Does Adams plan on releasing CB4 Irons in the future?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): I sent this to all the engineers and they all say thank you.  They would do it themselves, but most of them just got back from their trip to Bandon and they are a little tired.  
We don’t plan on releasing a CB4 iron by name, because we are trying to focus our product line on four brands, and a “CB” line is a difficult line to gain awareness on.  What we are doing is rolling that product into our XTD brand.  The new XTD Tour irons, which Ernie is playing is a very similar shape to the CB3s with, but with our new Cross Cavity Technology and Cut-thru slots.  If you are looking for a CB4 type of iron you will love these when they come out in August.

GolfWRX Member (matchavez): Have you considered doing custom badges or stickers for the backs of your irons? It seems that customisation is all the rage, and I’m wondering if you believe there’s money in it.

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): We love customization and a number of us have our clubs blinged out here.  Unfortunately its proven to not be a profitable business model.  The costs of the extra steps to customizes clubs is significant and typically golfers aren’t willing to spend the money or take the time to get customized clubs.  Even something as simple as stamping clubs we estimated would cost $10 a club wholesale just to alter the process and create a body to do the stamping. Unfortunately the demand does not meet the cost.  We try and focus all of our attention on products that can make big differences in the game and customization is a nice to have and right now not part of our strategy.  Thanks

GolfWRX Member (TNTlefty): from a marketing perspective is Adams targeting a “different” golf consumer than parent company TM?  if so, who?

additionally; what are Adams short and long-term goals in the golf club industry (growth/market share/expansion/etc)?

i also asked earlier in the thread if there are any additional co-branding initiatives on the horizon similar to what was done in 2013 with SWA?

thanks for fielding our questions on WRX (i’m glad to be able to ask a question live) – really cool!

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): very good questions – thank you. Adams is targeting all golfers who seek more enjoyment in their game (thus easy to hit products for ALL levels of players from Tour to beginners). As for goals – as mentioned in some other answers on this session – it’s all about delivering the best Second Shot products on the planet to all golfers. Therefore, gains in hybrids, fairway woods, and irons expected world wide. In regards with more co-branding with Southwest – we have only just begun. Check their twitter feed or you tube channel now – we just launched a video with them and hour before this chat started! Much more to come………

GolfWRX Member (gprubes): With so many different hybird models and options available, what is the biggest factor in releasing a hybrid to the golfing public??

Thanks in advance (if you answer my question) and thanks for taking time to answer question for us GolfWRX’rs!!

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): Since Adams Golf is the leader in hybrid purchase consideration and the #1 hybrid on tour the decision to launch a new hybrid is different than other products.  With other products like players irons, we need to take a close look at the market and see what the golfer needs and what no other company is creating, because we are not the leader in player irons.  However with hybrids, since we are the leader, the biggest factors in launching a hybrid is first, what the golfer needs and less about what the competition is doing.  The second biggest factor in launching a hybrid is what is doing well on tour.  

It is clear with our current line of hybrids that they either fill clear needs in the market or have been a leading model on tour at some point and work for all golfers.  See below for how we position these hybrids.  
New idea hybrid – the easiest to hit hybrid 
Pro hybrid – the #1 model on the PGA, LPGA and Champions tour last week
XTD Ti – Premium Titanium hybrid for golfers looking for the best of the best

GolfWRX Member (Marks23): Do the stock shafts in the pro dhy and pro mini work equally well in the pro hybrid?  How will they differ from the tour red?

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): We matched the stock shafts (Aldila Tour Red, Blue, and Green) with the head they will perform best in. The Green is the lowest launching…this makes it a perfect pair with the Pro Mini to give it a nice penetrating ball flight. The Blue is mid…the DHy is already a lower launching head so we wanted to give it a little help getting the ball in the air. The Red is the highest launching, making it perfect for the Pro hybrid that is the easiest to hit and give players the most help getting the ball in the air. These shafts will all perform well in each head though, just offer slightly different launch characteristics. I personally play a Tour Blue in my Pro hybrid to help keep the ball flight down a bit.

GolfWRX Member (MaydayGSXR): Does either one of you (Adams or TM) feel that you (Adams) should be leading the R&D for hybrids or any other club related to the “2nd shot” since you guys already have already made such an effort to be as effective as possible in that aspect. You’ve already got momentum and proven trust in the hybrid sector, so does Taylormade want to feed off that and allow you to take more of a lead in that department?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Great question but there are a lot of factors in play here.  Short answer is we have to maintain separate identities even in the hybrid sector and it would be hard to share resources and do this.  I do think Taylormade can leverage some of our hybrid technologies moving forward.

GolfWRX Member (jcorna01): Thank you to Adams for taking some time for us.  I bought a set of CB3 irons over the Winter and I am really enjoying them!  Not to mention they are some of the best looking irons out there.  My question:

Although I live in the U.S., I have often heard that the availability of Adams products is extremely limited elsewhere in the world, particularly the U.K.  Does Adams have a marketing strategy going forward to increase brand awareness worldwide?  How do you envision the addition of Ernie Els to your team impacting this effort?

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): One of our biggest factors in signing Ernie was his worldwide appeal.  Prior to our acquisition by Taylor Made we had a distributor model which has limitations on what you can do with the brand. Now, we have subsidiary companies (already set up to sell and market other brands like Adidas and Taylor Made) and so we now have dedicated product, marketing and sales teams to grow the brands utilizing the infastructure already in place.  Since we have moved to this model we have moved to the #1 hybrid model on the European Tour and as an example in other regions have moved to a #1 hybrid position on the Asia and Korea tours. Regarding Ernie’s impact, we have already felt it. For instance, our followers on Twitter are up 746% since his signing and many are following from regions around the world.

GolfWRX Member (milkshan): I am an older (51) golfer and my bag is nearly Adams from top to bottom. With your advertising it seems that you are targeting an older golfer such as myself. Was this an intentional demographic target that will continue, with Taylormade aiming for the young’ens, or will your marketing go wider? You guys make fantastic clubs and I hope that all golfers consider your clubs when looking for a new addition to their bag.

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): Our target market is anyone who seeks more enjoyment in their game. Our products are easy to hit, a lot of fun to play, and work for some of the best players in the world like Watson, Els, Perry, Langer, etc. as well as high handicappers. Thank you by the way for the support!

GolfWRX Member (bosox24): The XTD irons feel EXPLOSIVE and give huge distance.  How does the ballspeed off the face compare with the other “distance” irons on the market in testing?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): I’m glad you are noticing the improved distance.  Historically, Iron design has been one of the least innovative clubs in golf.  Most companies have strengthened their mid to long irons to attempt to show distance gain.  We knew there were other ways to improve the club design.  Until recently, compared to drivers and other hollow golf clubs, face speed (or COR) of an iron has been relatively ignored.  In just one generation of club design at Adams which is a good representation of where irons in the market were at that time, Adams was able to increase the CT (characteristic time) by nearly 100%.  This was collectively done, through improved materials, thin face, cut-thru slot in the sole and cross cavity design.

GolfWRX Member (PingDrv00): What is the story behind the back of the new XTD irons?   They look like a something from the Terminator movie.

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): At Adams, we work hard (industrial designers and engineers) to make sure we work together to insure an eye catching but functional cavity design.  Functionally, the Cross Cavity design serves multiple purposes.
By pulling mass away from the face, you are able push the center of gravity deeper creating an improved gear effect that a traditional iron design struggles with.  A deeper center of gravity, helps keep off center shots more online improving dispersion.
When creating a high CT/COR iron, it is necessary to decrease the face thickness and incorporate a cut-thru slot design.  Unfortunately, the sound at impact changes when you do this.  To counter this effect, we used the cross cavity design to add a rubber “pressure piston” behind the center circular badge.  This rubber piston is compressed against the back of the center of the face where the face deflects the most that we refer to as the oscillation apex.  What the rubber plunger does is reduce the duration of the sound and improve the feel to create a hot but crisp sound at impact.

GolfWRX Member (dukediv2011): Thanks for the response. Any reason why you used the Matrix shaft in the DHy instead of the Tour Green like in your other hybrids?

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): The Aldila Tour series are in our newest hybrids…the Pro DHy, Pro Mini, and Pro. The Matrix was a great performing shaft in the original DHy, but we wanted to offer and easy to use flight system for our newest hybrid line…Red=High Launch, Blue=Mid Launch, Green=Low Launch.

GolfWRX Member (MikeC732): How does Adams choose which stock shafts to use in they’re woods & hybrids?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): This is the perfect time for this question because between this week and last week we will meet with 6 of the top shaft manufacturers to start to determine what shafts will go in the 2015 line of products for Adams Golf.  
The process for choosing a shaft for a product typically goes as follows.  However keep in mind this is a general process overview as there are a number of more meetings, steps and tests I’m skipping over.
·    We provide almost all the shaft manufacturers with our product plan for 2015, which includes the position of each product, the target market for each product, our desired weight ranges and the cost of the product.  
·    A couple months later the shaft guys come back and present the shafts, which they feel will go best for each project.
·    Based on how we feel these shafts will work with the product, Justin will typically then request structure samples of each shaft for his team to test.  
·    After we have all the test results the product, design and development teams will have discussions about the shafts which tested well for the golfer we are targeting with that club.  We will discuss the performance along with the brand strength of the shaft and the overall coolness of the shaft.  
·    Then we will run a few cosmetic samples and show our top choice or top two choices to our leadership team to get the okay.

Adams has always prided itself on using “Real Deal” shafts in our products and that’s not going anywhere.  Shaft selecting is fun because we make it a point to play at least one round with each of the products we are considering for a new product.  Yesterday we got to try the new Project X shafts and tomorrow we are all playing with the new Aldila shafts.

GolfWRX Member (rtraudt): Another quick question.  What is the selection process like for determining stock shafts for a given club?  For example, how did you decide on each of the new ATX Tour shafts for each of the new Pro hybrids?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): We start looking at shaft options about 8 months prior to launch.  We always want the shaft to compliment the head design which is why we meet with shaft supplier on a monthly basis to discuss our product plan, technology and performance expectations.  We always look at “Real Deal” shafts first and the only reason we would not do a real deal shaft would be cost or bend profile.  We think there is a lot of equity in having a real deal shaft in our product and we have received a lot of great feedback by offering real deal shafts in most, if not all of our programs.  The decision to use the Aldila ATX series was a pretty simple one because it matched up perfectly with our hybrid story.  Tour Green = PRO 9031 (lowest launching, lowest spinning), Tour Blue = PRO DHy (mid launching, mid/low spinning), Tour Red = PRO (mid/high launching, mid spin).  The shaft and heads were a perfect match.

GolfWRX Member (JTK37): What gains in ball speed can we expect in the ’14 Pro with VST vs. the previous Pro models (A12 etc) pre VST?

As Adams was the first to move CG closer to the face with VST and spin rates fell while launch angles increased thus adding distance, did lofts of hybrids need to be tweaked to gap better with irons?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): The main difference is cut thru VST in the 2014 PRO hybrid and you can expect up to a 3mph increase in ball speeds when compared to the pro a12 hybrid.
The short answer is yes.  Adams is the leader in hybrid-iron technology so all of our integrated sets (sets design with hybrid) are specifically tuned for loft and length to ensure proper gapping between clubs.  If you are playing a competitors iron set and are trying to add one of our hybrids I would recommend getting fit for the right loft to provide the distance you are looking for.  Most players are looking for a hybrid to go a certain distance to fill a gap between their shortest wood and longest iron.

GolfWRX Member (billdcatt40): As a high handicapper in my late 40’s….how would your hybrids improve my game over my 3 W?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): This is a tricky answer.  I would probably not recommend a hybrid over a 3-wood unless you can’t hit you 3-wood and are looking for a club that is easier to hit.  Hybrids are designed shorter in length for more control, easier to launch the ball in the air and easier to hit from every lie than a fairway wood.  What I would recommend is a hybrid for the gap that is created between your 3-wood and your longest iron.  I would assume there is a large gap here and hybrids are much easier to hit than long irons.

GolfWRX Member (tbowen19): I’ve never played an Adams hybrid…What do you think separates your hybrid from the competition? Pros and Cons

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Good question.  We feel that we are the leader in hybrid technology for a couple of reasons.  1) we are the #1 hybrid on tour and most of the players are not paid to play our hybrids 2) VST technology 3) upside down technology which allows us to get the CG lower than hybrids on the market which allows us to fine tune the launch and spin characteristics better than anyone else 4) we design hybrids for every player type (better player, game improvement, super game improvement).  Most companies have one or two hybrids that are very similar in design and performance but we set ourselves apart with options for every player……lower launching/lower spin (PRO 9031), mid launch/mid spin (PRO Dhy), high launch/mid  spin (PRO), high launch /low spin (XTD), high launch/mid to high spin (new Idea) plus many more. 5) look – we have a decade of hybrid development under our belt and have spent countless hours fine tuning the shapes of our hybrids to fit the eye of the player.  I spend a lot of time with our engineers fine tuning the shape and look of our product because I think this is just as important as everything else.

GolfWRX Member (MJP22): Adam’s golf has never been shy about pushing the aesthetics of the club, espeically the woods/hybrids with slots and aerodynamic ridges on the crown to improve performance. How do you try and balance the performance vs look, if at all? Has there ever been any apprehension on a clubs look even though you beleive in the performance it generates?

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): As engineers, we want to give you guys the best performing golf clubs possible. That being said, there is certainly a balance between that and the aesthetics we place on the crown. There have been some designs that have been great from a performance standpoint but so ugly we wouldn’t even think about releasing them! These prototypes get refined to be a bit more pleasing to the eye and that is the product that you see on the shelves.

GolfWRX Member (joey2aces): It’s been just over 2 years since TM bought Adams.  What  has been the biggest and most noticeable benefit from the M&A?

Forgive my ignorance but are the TM adapter sleeves for the jetspeed or sldr compatible with the Adams xtd?

Thanks for yiur time in this and formthe opportunity to put one of the best hybrids in my bag.

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): The first recognized benefit was the discount on adidas shoes and apparel.  That was awesome!  
One of the notable business benefits from the partnership with TaylorMade and adidas has been the infrastructure they have set up internationally.  Due to the cost of establishing a business in offices around the world, Adams needed to use a distributor model to sell products globally.  A distributor models means we sold product to one guy who then sold our products to all the accounts in the country.  An example is Adams will sell all our products to one company in Canada who then hired his own team to sell all of the brands he owned one of which as Adams.  This is a great way to initially get your brand out globally, but it is a difficult model to grow your brand.  With the partnership with TaylorMade and adidas global we can utilizes the office and infrastructure that they have set up globally to make it affordable for Adams to move away from a distributor model to a subsidiary model where we can have our own sales, product and marketing people in each country to help grow the brand.  With this new focus, inside the first two years we have been able to already take the #1 hybrid position on the European Tour and Asian tour.  We are also quickly approaching the #1 position on the Japan tour.

On the product side one of the biggest benefits to the partnership is that we no longer need to worry about infringing on TaylorMade’s patents.  All companies have a collection of patents which block companies from doing certain things.  Most of these patents are very broad and very detailed and can make making golf clubs difficult at times.  It takes our patent attorney almost two months to clear a design we are creating to ensure we aren’t infringing on anyone’s patents.  While we haven’t really used any of TaylorMade’s technologies directly, it is nice not to have to worry about infringing on their patents during our design process.  I’m sure TaylorMade would say the same thing about our collection of patents and that having one less company to worry about infringing on their patents only makes it easier.

Our newest adjustability sleeve on the XTD line of products is compatible with the Jet Speed and SLDR products.  We did this primary because the bit used in the wrenches for adjustability was almost common for all companies, but in 2013 Adams was one of the only hold outs with our triangle design wrench.  Because golfers couldn’t easily find an Adams wrench to use on our products, especially at retail, golfers weren’t utilizing our adjustability.  The easiest way to change the bit quickly was to use a similar design to TaylorMade’s sleeve.

GolfWRX Member (wdwfan78): Adams seems to go above an beyond with shaft pairings in their equipment. From the C-Taper as a stock shaft in the XTD forged and the Aldlia Tour Series in the Pro’s, I am curious if shaft choice is a factor in the design of the clubs during the R&D phase or is it something that is factored in after design is complete and you are trying to respond to the market after the fact.

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): The part which starts the development process and is constant through is the target golfer for the product.  If a product is for better players with higher swing speeds you design the product with a plan to put heavier and stiffer shaft in it.  You need to establish this before you create the product to ensure when the product is done you are hitting a desired swing weight.  We do not have a particular shaft in mind when designing a product as we want to keep ourselves open to the best shafts available. However as we stated in a previous question we make the shaft decision pretty early in the development process and are working on this right now for our 2015 line of products.

GolfWRX Member (mikes919): Wow, great! I didn’t expect that anyone would be checking CT 100%. I’m sure you have a solid manufacturing plan in place or you wouldn’t be moving forward, but I’m curious how you handle the reject problem with so much value in each head. Can you rework drivers for CT?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): We have 4 CT checkpoints on the finishing line so actually every driver is checked a minimum of 4 times.  We set our bandwidth slightly wider at the first check point then we start tightening it up until we are within a tight tolerance (7microseconds) at the upper end of the USGA limit.  If the driver is above the limit at any point in time it is rejected (to my bag!) because there is no way to decrease the CT but if it is below the bandwidth for that checkpoint it is kicked out of the line and started over.  Long and short it is better to be on the lower side of the bandwidth starting out then we can dial in the CT as it proceeds to the final 3 checkpoints.

GolfWRX Member (Marks23): Can you comment on the technology and design features in Ernie’s prototype xtd irons?  What differences between them and the retail xtd irons?  Any plans to bring his irons to retail for the more skilled iron player?  How do Ernie’s irons compare to the classic cmb forged?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): Both sets are being used by the best players in the world!  Kenny Perry loves the current XTD iron while Ernie Els is currently rocking the XTD Tour irons.  The differences will be in the shape.  Relative to XTD cross cavity iron, the profile will be more compact with less offset while incorporating the same Cross Cavity design.  Relative to the CMB iron set, the XTD Tour iron is a slightly bigger profile with a little more forgiveness due to its size and cross cavity design.

GolfWRX Member (Brianbigoats): Why were the three different ATX shafts chosen this year for the hybrids and what goes into shaft choice on new products

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): We chose the Aldila ATX shafts in this years line of Pro hybrids first because with our three different Pro hybrids, we wanted to produce three different launch conditions for each product.  The second reason is because the ATX hybrid shafts are the #1 on the PGA tour and had a lot of buzz.  Whats great with the ATX line is you can order the Tour Red, Blue or Green in any of our Pro hybrids in custom at no up-charge to get the right flight and shaft for you.

What goes in to choosing a shaft was answered in a Previous questions and we have listed below:

The process for choosing a shaft for a product typically goes as follows.  However keep in mind this is a general process overview as there are a number of more meetings, steps and tests I’m skipping over.
·    We provide almost all the shaft manufacturers with our product plan for 2015, which includes the position of each product, the target market for each product, our desired weight ranges and the cost of the product.  
·    A couple months later the shaft guys come back and present the shafts, which they feel will go best for each project.
·    Based on how we feel these shafts will work with the product, Justin will typically then request structure samples of each shaft for his team to test.  
·    After we have all the test results the product, design and development teams will have discussions about the shafts which tested well for the golfer we are targeting with that club.  We will discuss the performance along with the brand strength of the shaft and the overall coolness of the shaft.  
Then we will run a few cosmetic samples and show our top choice or top two choices to our leadership team to get the okay.

Adams has always prided itself on using “Real Deal” shafts in our products and that’s not going anywhere.  Shaft selecting is fun because we make it a point to play at least one round with each of the products we are considering for a new product.  Yesterday we got to try the new Project X shafts and tomorrow we are all playing with the new Aldila shafts.

GolfWRX Member (mitchell): With the increases in ball speed evident from velocity slot technology are you seeing players having to make adjustments (such as increased loft) in order to fill specific distance gapping requirements?

Thanks in advance for the time,information, and wonderful opportunity!

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): Through velocity slot technology, the increased distance has created gapping issues.  Adams is countering this effect by incorporating the velocity slot design further down into the golfer’s bag that better connects metal woods and hybrids to the irons.  This still leaves a gapping issue with your wedges, so it is helpful to get fit by your local club fitting professional to make sure your wedges account for the added distance the rest of your bag is seeing via velocity slot technology.

GolfWRX Member (Grim): Thanks Adams Golf for taking the time to do this on GolfWRX, and thank you GolfWRX for getting this going.

Huge Adams fan here and loving what is coming out from you all.

As innovators in the hybrid club market, what is it that separates you all from the plethora of other hybrid choices on the market now from a design stand point (other than the velocity slot technology)?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): There are a lot of hybrid choices in the market today and it can be very confusing to the consumer.  Here are the top 5 points that set us apart from the rest of the industry:  1) we are the #1 hybrid on tour and most of the players are not paid to play our hybrids 2) VST technology 3) upside down technology which allows us to get the CG lower than hybrids on the market which allows us to fine tune the launch and spin characteristics better than anyone else 4) we design hybrids for every player type (better player, game improvement, super game improvement).  Most companies have one or two hybrids that are very similar in design and performance but we set ourselves apart with options for every player……lower launching/lower spin (PRO 9031), mid launch/mid spin (PRO Dhy), high launch/mid  spin (PRO), high launch /low spin (XTD), high launch/mid to high spin (new Idea) plus many more. 5) look – we have a decade of hybrid development under our belt and have spent countless hours fine tuning the shapes of our hybrids to fit the eye of the player.  I spend a lot of time with our engineers fine tuning the shape and look of our product because I think this is just as important as everything else.

GolfWRX Member (Brianbigoats): How does the pro design differ fron the Tour Only LSP last year other than color ?

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): The head shape for the Pro has been modified slightly from the LSP you saw last year, but as you noticed they are very similar. Additionally the LSP had a titanium face and crown. The new Pro is made entirely from stainless steel. While the Ti face and crown made for an incredibly hot ball flight it didn’t offer our tour players the consistency they needed…those guys don’t need a 20* hybrid that goes 300 yards (but we do!). Making it entirely from stainless steel gives us a bit higher spin and more consistent distances. If you still need that hot face you should look at the XTD Ti hybrids!

GolfWRX Member (Kylekoz17): Who is your pickiest tour player to fit?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Man, talk about putting me on the spot!  I won’t name any names here (I know, bummer) but what I can tell you is most of the players I have worked with are super technical on shape (face profile, sole width, leading edge height, offset), ball flight, and grip installation and alignment.  When I travel out to tour I always take the Trackman with me as a support tool because players love to have the instant feedback while working on the range.  Almost always they will tweak the product during the fitting session then take it out on the course for a test drive.

GolfWRX Member (joey2aces): I just bought a G25 hybrid 20*. What would you tell me are  the advantages of switching out to the Adams?
thanks for your time

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): The G25 Hybrid is a great Hybrid.  One of the differentiating factors that we have with the rest of the industry is our Velocity Slot Technology.  The slots in the crown and sole near the face help increase the trampoline effect across the entire face increasing your distance!

GolfWRX Member (j2_a2): Will the slots on the bottom and top of the clubhead become a staple from now on, or do you have something in the works that totally eliminates the slots while still being able to improve the woods/hybrids?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Yes to both questions.  Adams Golf is the leader in velocity slot technology and we own a lot of IP in this area.  VST is here to stay because there is still a lot of untapped potential in this area.  The common mis-conception is most people believe drivers and some other hollow clubs are maxed out to the USGA limit.  This is true at only 1 spot on the face….center face.  How many times in your round do you hit it exactly at center face?  The tolerance here is only a couple of millimeters and then the CT starts to drop so you have to be pretty darn good to hit that spot every time.
While VST technology will remain in our line for as long as I can see into the future we are working on ways to conceal it.  You will see some really cool VST designs in the near future!

GolfWRX Member (RJD): Do you plan to offer any more irons with a raw finish at retail?  The MB2s’ finish was one of the best things I’ve seen in golf equipment the past several years.

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): At this time we have no plans but that could change given feedback like this.  That was a great finish and one that I was very excited about when we launched it.

GolfWRX Member (MaydayGSXR): That makes a lot of sense, as the “general” public of golfers will look at hybrids as iron replacements (easier to launch, more forgiving, etc) so I guess it would be extremely important to ensure the public can get those clubs that will work for them (rather than having to try tour level clubs which may have poor results).

Being WRX, I’m sure you’re aware that a majority of members can/will only hit tour spec items  but for an average golfer such as myself, is there a general direction in your line that I should be heading? Or should the local fitter/salesman easily know what would work best for me. Specifically, I’ve seen someone ask for the best gap club between 4 iron and 3 wood, and they got a good response. I’m in a similar situation and I’m debating a 4 hybrid, 5 wood, or driving hybrid to fit between 3 wood, 3 hybrid, and 5 iron.

If I’m not the most confident long iron hitter, would a driving iron benefit me? Or do you need to be a decent long iron hitter to effectively use a driving iron? Thanks in advance for an opinion, the 14th club slot has been eating at me lately, heh.

Adams Golf: We know you guys love Tour Spec stuff   and that’s part of the reason we seldom don’t launch our successful tour products to retail.  We want to be the hybrid of choice for the best players in the world on tour and everyday golfers.  That’s why we launch these products.

For your own hybrid needs, I would suggest the new Pro hybrid and the new Pro DHy.  The Pro hybrid was designed to be the #1 hybrid on tour that works for everyone.  The Pro Dhy was made for the gap between your hybrid and irons, which is a new need because hybrids have gotten longer (ours) and other hybrids have gotten bigger (everyone else).  The reason I didn’t suggest the Pro Mini is because that is a very small, very specific hybrid that if it was for you, you’d already be all over it.

GolfWRX Member (rbhan12): Adams,

Why did you choose to make the slot so close to the face whereas the parent company TM hasn’t done so? Any distinct advantages?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Great question.  We evaluated just about every combination of slot geometry in our advanced FEA software and what we found is the distance from the face had a lot of impact on how much the face deflected.  I have a notebook full of slot designs that I wish we could share with guys like you but a quick answer is the closer the slot is to the face, more deflection or ball speed will be generated.

GolfWRX Member (Jimmy Mac): Marketing guys! Awesome. I think the Adams logo makeover is brilliant. Well done. Watson, Els, Perry, classic choices for spokespeople.

However, like so many, I find the new irons kinda hard to look at. How much feedback does the Marketing Department have in the club designs? 

Granted form follows function, but it just seems there’s an aesthetic disconnect. The clubs’ visual traits just don’t seem to flow well with your overall branding – both in the lines of the designs and the badging, font choices, etc. I’d love to see whoever designed that logo unleashed on your design department.

Adams Golf (Jeff Wood): Thanks for the question and we appreciate your compliments on the new branding.

Quick answer on marketing’s involvement in the aesthetics of the clubs: We are heavily involved and review concepts early in the process. Since we are still a small team in general “nothing gets past us”  So, as for the XTD Irons, we absolutely love the design and visible technology of these clubs. While they may not be for everyone, we believe they appeal to a wide range of players who want distance and forgiveness and our latest technology. This is a category (game improvement) that we need to strike a nerve within, and we think XTD is and will do that.

We honestly think you’ll appreciate the performance if you try them. The technology is legit. Kenny Perry, Josh Teater, Ernie Els and others are believers on Tour – we think there will be many others that fall in love with these irons.

Thanks for the question

GolfWRX Member (mustng5): Will taylormade shafts adapters for their drivers fit in adams drivers?

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): Yes, everything from R1 and after will fit in the XTD driver.

GolfWRX Member (mtiger10): Justin & Alex,
What role did Ernie Els and other staff pros play in the development of new Tight Lies and the pro hybrid?
Thanks for this great opportunity

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Tour players play an integral part in the design of our product.  We typically launch prototype product on tour to get player feedback and then we will go through a couple design iterations to perfect the look or launch/spin characteristics of the product before we launch it to the market.

GolfWRX Member (painicus): Any thoughts on bringing back the Boxer Technology?  Or was that just a flash in the pan for that small point in time, has your company ever regretted joining a flash in the pan craze like square-tech?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Good question.  I do think we will be revisiting the technology aspect of this without incorporating geometric shapes.  We found that geometric shapes hurt aerodynamics which was a negative tradeoff for stability or forgiveness.  Slower swing speeds for more stability….hard to justify that.  5900 MOI in an aerodynamic shape….hmm! 

GolfWRX Member (billeht): The cut-thru slot on the woods/does look very cool and seems like it can really make the ball bounce off the face, but is there a issue with the head breaking easier? It almost seems like a weakish design, what do you do to combat that?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Your assumption is correct!  Increasing the face deflection or CT definitely comes with an increased risk of face/slot failure.  Adding cut thru slots definitely adds more stress to unwanted areas because of the increased deflection.  We combat this by modifying a couple key items: face thickness and material, slot geometry (size and material thickness) and location.

GolfWRX Member (warfelg21): Your “Own the second shot” campaign is amazing, and you guys helped out a program at our courses of getting clubs into the hands of new golfers.

And my question goes as so:
Adams seems to be on the cutting edge of hybrids:  what comes next?  We got smaller heads, deeper for preference. some for driving.  It seems as though they are so specialized anymore.  So what is next in hybrid innovation?  Higher launching?  Softer landing?  Faster face speed?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): Depending on the player the requests are different: 
High handicap golfers want hybrids, which are easier to hit, mid handicap golfers are looking for distance and the best player in the world are looking for higher launch and workability.  In the next 12 months Adams golf has three new technologies coming that will address each of these golfer needs directly in ways the industry has never seen before.  Unfortunately we can’t tell you exactly what they are now as there would still be time for the ideas to be copied.  However when they come out you’ll know what we’re talking about.

GolfWRX Member (zacjokier): What do you have that other golf companies don’t?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): Below is a list of some of our favorite things that differentiate us from the competition.  In no particular order:
·    Cut-thru velocity slots for more speed on and off-center hits
·    Crown slots for easier launch
·    #1 hybrid on tour 
·    A focus on “owning the second shot”.  
·    10 guys in R&D that play over 120 rounds of golf a year and live the game (I don’t know this for sure, but I would be surprised)
·    Ernie Els
·    Cross Cavity Technology
·    #1 hybrid iron sets sold
·    Tight Lies with its easy to hit tri-sole design
·    A brand focused on easy to hit product only with new idea
·    Wrap around slots
·    A group of dedicated and passionate golfers who design product to be nothing short of the best in the industry

GolfWRX Member (azam14): I have a 19* Super S and i want a heavier shaft, should i just upgrade the shaft or get like a pro or dhy with a heavier shaft.

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): If you love the head (which, of course, I am sure you do) you could definitely swap it out for a heavier shaft. The DHy might be a good option for a long iron replacement (21* or 24*). If you are just getting the itch for a new club the Pro would be great to replace the Super S…should give you a bit more workability and you will be playing the #1 hybrid on tour!

GolfWRX Member (Bunker2Bunker): Some see Adams as one of two golf companies in one company (TMAG) with the other being TaylorMade. Are there any plans to have one company focus on a market segment or a particular club(s)?

Example of clubs would be TaylorMade woods and irons, Adams hybrids and wedges. Or example of market segment: TaylorMade catering to advanced players and mid-handicaps, Adams focusing on super-game improvement and beginners?

(Of course these examples can be swapped.)

Adams Golf: No plans to position the two companies as suggested above. As mentioned in some other posts, we (Adams) are extremely focused on delivering the worlds best second shot products (hybrids, fairway woods, irons) to all players seeking more enjoyment in their game.

GolfWRX Member (hankmoody): Guys-thanks for doing this.  I’m returning to the game and you kind of blossomed in the period I was gone.  I’ve just learned a lot in reading the responses, and during this I just went to the website and checked your products.  There is a demo day at my club coming up and I am now looking forward to that.

Lot of attention here on the hybrids.  Can you comment a bit on the fairways, and the categories?  (I’m looking to get and stay in the mid 80s, and  would love a club that does >200 with confidence).

Thanks guys!

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): Definitely go to the demo day, you will have a lot of fun and get to hit some great clubs. In addition to our awesome hybrids we also make some great fairway woods. For a mid 80s shooter looking for confidence I think the Tight Lies will be a perfect club for you. It is easy to hit, gets up in the air, and goes far! What could be better than that?

GolfWRX Member (rtraudt): Thanks for the reply.  I love the feel and performance of the Tour Blue in my Tight Lies Tour and can’t wait to demo the new lineup of Pro hybrids (especially the DHy) and their ATX shafts.

Another question in regards to stock shafts (but only if you are allowed to release this or even have confirmation yet):  what shaft will be offered in the soon to be released XTD Tour irons that Els games, and will there also be an option for the RIP Tour graphite iron shafts like the XTD Forged provide?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Your welcome and thanks for the great feedback.  We love hearing all the positive feedback.  Without giving it away the XTD Tour iron will have the same shaft as what Ernie is gaming (opps, just gave it away) and the graphite option will be the Program Q 95 (blue color) aftermarket shaft.

GolfWRX Member (ORUTRAVIS): How much golf do you guys get to play and who is the best of the guys in your office?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): The amount of golf played at Adams seems to be directly connected to the amount of children you have.  The group of single 20 year old guys we have in the office averaged over 130 rounds last year and just got back from 7 rounds in Bandon in the last 4 days.  Our leader was 177 rounds last year.  The 30 & 40 year old married guys still manage to get there golf in, but it is much more limited.  I played 50 rounds last year, but am getting married in two weeks so I am on the decline.

In the end we work in the golf business because we love playing golf and we make time for it.  One of the benefits of being in Texas versus Carlsbad is we don’t have to fight the other companies for tee times, so getting out isn’t a problem.

The best player in the office is up for heavy debate as we haven’t had our Company Championship yet this year.  Ask again towards the end of the year, but its going to be a battle.

GolfWRX Member (marshallbarnes): Thanks for taking the time, it means a lot to all of us on WRX. Now, will the irons that Ernie plays ever be released to the public?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): Hell yeah!  Wouldn’t you launch them?  They will ship sometime in late August.  Once we saw the first set everyone in the office including myself needed a set.  That plus the fact that Ernie was leading the PGA tour in proximity to the hole from 150-175 yards as soon as he put them in play, made it a no brainer.  We just got the first samples today as Ernie’s were a one off prototype.  They will start at $699 and come stock with iomic grips and KPS Tour shafts.

GolfWRX Member (opus_mh): Your lineup is pretty great from top to bottom and if I had to play an all in 14 club deal I would look to you guys.  My question is about your wedges.  Do you plan to offer a more traditional wedge design to the retail market with your tour staffers influence? My main concern with previous generations was the weight.  Some of the heads I play tested were very light, and that seems counter productive in the grand scheme of things.

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): We are currently working closely with Ernie Els on some new wedge designs, look forward to seeing these in the near future. Ernie has some very specific feelings on wedges and we are working to design a wedge that fits his game as well the rest of the market. Stay posted, these are going to be some great wedges!

GolfWRX Member (Golfingfanatic): Are there plans to add any more high end graphite shafts to your line-up?

Adams Golf: Every program we consider the best graphite shafts available.  Being a smaller company, one way for us to differentiate us from others is to integrate highly visible and performing shafts from the leading shaft manufacturers.  It costs more on our end, but we feel it is worth it!

GolfWRX Member (geauxWRX): I recently picked up a super ls fw after breaking my original xtd (both bottom weights fell off) and  noticed a swoosh or whistling sound from the top slot  while swinging the new fw. Have you heard of others with this feedback?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): You should check your tempo on your back swing!  Just kidding !!  Honestly this is the first time outside of our R&D group that I have heard this.  This is great feedback and we have addressed this issue on all new designs.

GolfWRX Member (Yellow Jacket): There are a number of way to fill the gap between 3 wood and 3 iron these days, from 5 woods to 2 hybrids to driving irons. Do you find PGA Tour playing gravitating toward one particular choice?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Most of the time PGA Tour players gravitate towards hybrids because of launch and spin characteristics (on average hybrids launch higher and spin less than fairway woods).  Truthfully it depends on the weather and the course whether tour players use regular hybrids or driving hybrids.

GolfWRX Member (Jaobrien): Why should I give up my trusty Tight Lies fairway for a new club?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): The new Tightlies is much easier to hit because of a lower CG and our new cut thru velocity slot technology increases the forgiveness across the face (higher CT on off center shots) which means your shots fly farther and straighter on slight miss-hits.

GolfWRX Member (bu11dog): At what point during the design process do you begin considering what the stock shaft option(s) will be?  Is that something that you go in with at the start or do you find shafts that compliment what you’re trying to accomplish with the design of the head?

I’m also curious to know the process behind into determining whether you’ll offer a “made for” shaft vs the “real deal” shaft.  Is that simply a price point thing or is there more to it than that?

How willing are shaft companies to work with you on being a part of the stock shaft option?

Thanks for an opportunity to be a part of the discussion!

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): We start looking at shaft options about 8 months prior to launch.  We always want the shaft to compliment the head design which is why we meet with shaft supplier on a monthly basis to discuss our product plan, technology and performance expectations.  We always look at “Real Deal” shafts first and the only reason we would not do a real deal shaft would be cost or bend profile.  We think there is a lot of equity in having a real deal shaft in our product and we have received a lot of great feedback by offering real deal shafts in most, if not all of our programs.  There are only a couple of shaft companies that work only in the custom or aftermarket world but the majority of the shaft suppliers want to work with us.

GolfWRX Member (AspiringScratch): Thanks for taking the time to talk to us GolfWRX’ers about your brand. I will be playing xtd irons this season, and have been playing the original pro hybrid since released. To say I am an adams fan is an understatement.

Now for my question: is there any plans for adams to come out with an innovative custom fitting program?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): The XTD irons are sweet, make sure you let everyone one how good they are once you get them.  

Custom fitting is an important part to our business and we make sure that every products, including fixed hosel clubs can be adjusted for loft and lie angles.  We also make sure all of our products come with an array of shaft options at no-upcharge.  

However we made the decision a couple years ago that it woudln’t pull engineers off of creating awesome products to focus on a unique custom fitting solution, from what we’ve seen isn’t utilized by everyone that has them.  

We definitely have ideas for custom fitting solutions and you will eventually see something, but our focus now is on creating great products that you can custom fit to your desired spec utilizing any number of great fitting systems Adams retailers have.

GolfWRX Member (gmangolf): The last Adams hybrid I used extensively was an Idea Pro Gold Boxer.  I loved this club, but unfortunately I found it incredibly easy to hook like crazy.  Anything available that might help minimize the big miss?  Obviously a bad swing is a bad swing, but I found that one too easy to get away from me.

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): Our DHy and Pro Mini are designed with a bit more fade bias than some of our other hybrids (Pro Gold Boxer included), so you might want to give one of those a try. Those were designed with the tour player in mind who generally do not need any help turning the ball over.

GolfWRX Member (rchera3): How have the tour players adjusted to the new pro hybrid series? Have many of them switched to the new hybrids from their older trusty Adams hybrids and benefited from the new technology? Thanks for taking the time with us Adams Golf!

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): That’s a big YES.  The new Pro hybrid (not the series, just the Pro) was the #1 hybrid model at the PGA’s RBC Heritage, the Champions Tour Gwinnett Championship and the LPGA’s LOTTE Championship this last week.  The Pro hybrid series was a perfect mix of hybrids for our tour reps to fit the players with and we are having more players switch to the new gear that we have had in a very long time.  The idea to launch the three hybrids as a series came from one of our tour reps last year and we went with it.

GolfWRX Member (Brianbigoats): Any new Wedges in the pipe line?

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): We already touched on this, but as a short answer, YES! We are working closely with Ernie Els to design some awesome wedges.

GolfWRX Member (dkaar): Do you folks collaborate with the Taylormade team on design, price points, etc. or is Adams totally separate from Taylormade in every aspect?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): The Adams Golf marketing, product management and R&D teams are here in North Dallas and are run independently from the TaylorMade group out in Carlsbad.  At Adams golf our product plan is based on a strategy of meeting consumer needs in the market place and exceeding your expectations.  Basically giving you guys the types of clubs and performance, which you can’t get anywhere else and giving it to you in ways you’ve never seen before with new and innovative technologies.  To do this part of our process it to frequently analyze the market and make predictions on what the other companies are going to do, to determine what type of products we should create and when we should launch.  One of the pieces which has helped since the partnership is some visibility into TaylorMade’s product plan to help us determine when the best time for us to launch products will be.  This visibility is more information for the team here in North Dallas to use in our decision making process; which is always helpful.  

We check in with each other once in a while to make sure we aren’t coincidently making the same thing, but we are both driven by our corporate strategies, which dictate our product development.  We help each other out where needed, but for the most part as stated above the product and marketing teams are separate.

GolfWRX Member (Matchavez): Another one…

How much influence over design does sound get? Do you guys care a little or a lot?

(and if you need anyone in the IT department, message me!)

Adams Golf: Sound is a very important to us at Adams!  As we continue to break through in technology, sound is always a feature in the design that needs an extra look for the technology to be possible.  The XTD cross cavity iron is a perfect example of this.  When creating a high CT/COR iron, it is necessary to decrease the face thickness and incorporate a cut-thru slot design.  Unfortunately, the sound at impact changes when you do this.  To counter this effect, we used the cross cavity design to add a rubber “pressure piston” behind the center circular badge.  This rubber piston is compressed against the back of the center of the face where the face deflects the most that we refer to as the oscillation apex.  What the rubber plunger does is reduce the duration of the sound and improve the feel to create a hot but crisp sound at impact.

GolfWRX Member (fishstix94): Thanks for the opportunity! Does adams have any plans in the future of releasing blades for those who prefer the traditional look and feel (possibly forged) of blades?
Fish

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): If you like a blades you can’t get much more traditional sizing than the XTD forged irons, which are out right now and are a steal at $1,099 with two DHs, C-Taper shafts and iomic grips.  

If you are asking if we are going to make a muscle back iron, Justin H. and I are trying to sell making one to the rest of the team, but unfortunately the only people that play muscle back irons are typically getting them for free because there on tour or there getting them at a discount because they work in golf somewhere.  It costs tens of thousands of dollars to make tooling for a forged iron and if you are going to sell less that 1000 sets at full price its not always worth it.  With that being said we are still going to push hard to make one and your request will help fuel our case.  Thanks

GolfWRX Member (Golfingfanatic): Will there be a replacement for the mb2s this year?

Adams Golf (Fox): Justin H. and I are trying to sell making an MB3 to the rest of the team, but unfortunately the only people that play muscle back irons are typically getting them for free because there on tour or there getting them at a discount because they work in golf somewhere.  It costs tens of thousands of dollars to make tooling for a forged iron and if you are going to sell less that 1000 sets at full price its not always worth it.  With that being said we are still going to push hard to make one and your request will help fuel our case.  Thanks

GolfWRX Member (jas904): Question regarding my 14 year old daughter, 6 handicap, 85 MPH driver clubhead speed.  She is struggling hitting her 5 and 6 irons high with regular steel shafts.  How do you think the XTD irons will perform in regards to trajectory?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard):  Wow, you have a very talented daughter!  One of the great things about the mid irons in the XTD iron set is that we did not strengthen the mid irons.  Though the XTD iron set is a distance iron set, relative to other sets in this category, our 6-Iron loft only measures 28deg.  The extra loft should produce more launch and spin to possibly help achieve a higher ball flight.  The increased ball speed will help too

GolfWRX Member (birdiebuster72): I purchased the Idea CMB irons last summer with the KBS c-taper shafts, First off let me say they were the best irons I have hit in the last 16 years! Does adams plan on making a second version of those irons this year with the KBS C-tapers in them?

Thanks! Love Adams products!

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Thanks for the great feedback.  The CMB irons are one of my favorites as well!  Actually the new XTD Forged irons are the next generation of the CMB irons with added technology in the same chassis or body.  We added a full floating face with slot to a forging which is an industry first and allowed us to achieve 230+ CT on a forged iron.  We spent a lot a time working on the feel and sound of this iron because adding slots and increasing the speed of the face usually have a negative impact on sound.  I think we landed it a really good spot on both sound and feel.  And yes they have the KBS C-Taper shafts in them as well!

GolfWRX Member (pizan619): In regards to the new XTD irons, which in my opinion have a new and refreshing look to them, what exactly went into the design of the club head (thought process behind the design in regards to playability, forgiveness, length, feel)?

And finally, coud you please provide some insight into the KBS C-Taper 90 shaft you are offering in the club as not much information is known about this shaft?  I think a lot of people would like to know why this shaft was chosen for the XTD model (since it is not a retail shaft from KBS) and what it offers to players!

Thank You Adams Golf
From a prospective and hopeful Adams XTD iron owner!

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): At Adams, we work hard (industrial designers and engineers) to make sure we work together to insure an eye catching but functional cavity design.  Functionally, the Cross Cavity design serves multiple purposes.
By pulling mass away from the face, you are able push the center of gravity deeper creating an improved gear effect that a traditional iron design struggles with.  A deeper center of gravity, helps keep off center shots more online improving dispersion.
When creating a high CT/COR iron, it is necessary to decrease the face thickness and incorporate a cut-thru slot design.  Unfortunately, the sound at impact changes when you do this.  To counter this effect, we used the cross cavity design to add a rubber “pressure piston” behind the center circular badge.  This rubber piston is compressed against the back of the center of the face where the face deflects the most that we refer to as the oscillation apex.  What the rubber plunger does is reduce the duration of the sound and improve the feel to create a hot but crisp sound at impact.

Like most distance irons, the head is designed with a parallel hosel bore, so the KBS C-Taper 90 shaft is the parallel tip version of the C-Taper lite.  It’s very similar in design, but because it’s a parallel tip design it will be a little lighter than its counterpart, C-Taper Lite.

GolfWRX Member (LorenRobertsFan): What are the performance differences between your steel-faced hybrids and the Ti faced hybrids?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): In golf club design, with titanium we typically see a higher COR result compared to the steel counterpart creating a hotter face.  Titanium’s strength to weight ratio is nearly 15% better than steel which allows us to remove mass off the face creating more discretionary mass for the engineers to use and further improve the center of gravity location of the club head.

GolfWRX Member (juice93): I would like to know which current Adams irons are most like the cb1 and cb2 irons from the past. I am looking for something similar to either one of these to shaft up with a set of TT xp105 shafts. Thanks in advance

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): The CB brand was a fun program for us at Adams, it had a great cult following that was fun to watch.  At this time, we do not have a plan to release an Iron set under the “cb” brand.  If you are a fan of cb1, XTD forged is a great candidate with improved performance and if you are a fan of CB2 stay tuned for Ernie El’s XTD Tour 

GolfWRX Member (ckay): I remember the days of Hank Haney’s infomercials of the original Tight Lies and thinking “Oh boy, another gimmick!” until my dad and I tried one, and he made the purchase for himself as I was probably 13 years old at the time.  Inverted club design and all, was moreso a hybrid than a fairway wood so talk about innovation!  Now when I think hybrid, I think Adams and Adams only.

We have seen the Tight Lies, and the introduction of more compact hybrids to driving irons(again).  We are already seeing equipment come full circle with smaller drivers breaking the 300cc mark the other way.  Where do you see the next innovations being made in the golf world?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Golf is an interesting market and so much is based on timing or introduction of new technologies.  We will continue to chase CT or COR for another decade because there is still a lot of runway there for us.  We have only scratched the surface here and distance is very important to how we play golf.  I think the golf ball will continue to evolve and when that happens we have to react at the club level to make sure the performance is there.  We are exploring different manufacturing techniques which will allow us to hit new performance characteristics that we cannot achieve today given the limitations of investment casting.

GolfWRX Member (brent): Any plans for a CMB type game improvement iron? Those are some of the greatest players irons ever made IMO. Maybe something with CMB looks and feel or does the XTD line take care of that aspect?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Thanks for the great feedback.  The CMB irons are one of my favorites as well!  Actually the new XTD Forged irons are the next generation of the CMB irons with added technology in the same chassis or body.  We added a full floating face with slot to a forging which is an industry first and allowed us to achieve 230+ CT on a forged iron.  We spent a lot a time working on the feel and sound of this iron because adding slots and increasing the speed of the face usually have a negative impact on sound.  I think we landed it a really good spot on both sound and feel.

GolfWRX Member (MaydayGSXR): Good deal, love when these companies hold these Q&A sessions.. hope to be here for it, but in the meantime;

I see your Pro Hybrid line has both slots in the sole and crown, and you’ve stated it helps to more readily “catapult” the ball off the face (as is given with slot technology). Does this make the entire face hotter in a sense, top and bottom? With clubs that have slots in the bottom, the manufacturers generally state that it helps with mishits low on the face, so does the velocity slot help with “mishits” high on the face as well as low? Because I am known to find both spots on the face with my hybrid, lol. Thanks in advance!

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): You and me both, I too need forgiveness across the face!  In traditional club head design, the sole and crown are very rigid bodies that create large amounts of stress around the perimeter of the face.  Even with a thin crown, the shape of the crown creates the rigidity, the more rigid the perimeter of the face is the less spring like effect the face will have decreasing the distance we both need on off center hits low and high on the face!

GolfWRX Member (jongalt55): Thanks for doing this.  Two questions:

1)  Does Adams see itself as one of Taylormade’s competitors or do Adams and Taylormade attempt to be synergistic in their product offerings?
2)  We’ve seen certain Taylormade offerings show up in Adams product (the loft sleeve being the most recent example).  It is my understanding that Taylormade has tried to take as much of a hands-off approach with Adams as possible.  Do the two companies still share R&D and tech advancements?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): 1)    Part of the reason TaylorMade wanted to partner with Adams is because they felt Adams targeted a different group of golfers than they did.  In addition, as great and as big as TaylorMade golf gets, for some reason or another some people just wont play their clubs.  Adams golf is a much more approachable brand that has a strong business in hybrid iron sets and is very innovative in all other categories.  The goal is for Adams to target the players TaylorMade isn’t and then in the categories we make similar products we go after the golfers who just aren’t going to buy TaylorMade.  This is what we would do if we were one company of not.  
So in short we do compete in some categories, but TaylorMade is focused on being the #1 driver on tour and Adams is focused on Owning the second shot.  Any products that cross over between the two brands, as a strategy at Adams we make sure that we are meeting consumer needs that TaylorMade isn’t, so golfers can have multiple options from the two companies.  As I stated before if we make the same products as TaylorMade and just put Adams on them, we aren’t offering anything different to the consumer and we won’t sell too many

2)   The product and R&D team for Adams Golf is all here in North Dallas and runs independently.  For the most part besides the hosel sleeve we haven’t used any TaylorMade technologies.  We used the hosel sleeve mostly because we wanted to change the bit on our wrench to the standard one everyone was using and it was an easy change.   We don’t really share technology, but on the product side one of the biggest benefits to the partnership is that we no longer need to worry about infringing on TaylorMade’s patents.  All companies have a collection of patents which block companies from doing certain things.  Most of these patents are very broad and very detailed and can make making golf clubs difficult at times.  It takes our patent attorney almost two months to clear a design we are creating to ensure we aren’t infringing on anyone’s patents.  While we haven’t really used any of TaylorMade’s technologies directly, it is nice not to have to worry about infringing on their patents during our design process.  I’m sure TaylorMade would say the same thing about our collection of patents and that having one less company to worry about infringing on their patents only makes it easier.

GolfWRX Member (burniemac): What has been the biggest change in R & D since the merger with Taylormade and how has it benefited Adams overall? Thanks for taking the time to answer all the questions that you can.

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Really good question and a lot of you out there are probably wondering the same thing.  Truthfully with any acquisition there is always a lot of anxiety because of the unknown that exists in your future.  When Taylormade bought us, Mark King made it very clear that Adams was going to stay Adams and keep our identity as well as our location in Plano, Texas.  To be honest the merger has been great in every aspect and now we leverage some of the key technologies that Taylormade has to include Inverted Cone Technology and  their Loft-Sleeve adjustable hosel technology.  The same can be said on the other side as Taylormade can now leverage Adams key technologies.  The end result is better golf equipment from both manufacturers!

GolfWRX Member (azam14): How do you go about choosing the stock shaft in any club, but mainly in your hybrids since that’s what your known for?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): We chose the Aldila ATX shafts in this years line of Pro hybrids first because with our three different Pro hybrids, we wanted to produce three different launch conditions for each product.  The second reason is because the ATX hybrid shafts are the #1 on the PGA tour and had a lot of buzz.  Whats great with the ATX line is you can order the Tour Red, Blue or Green in any of our Pro hybrids in custom at no up-charge to get the right flight and shaft for you.

This is the perfect time for this question because between this week and last week we will meet with 6 of the top shaft manufacturers to start to determine what shafts will go in the 2015 line of products for Adams Golf.  
The process for choosing a shaft for a product typically goes as follows.  However keep in mind this is a general process overview as there are a number of more meetings, steps and tests I’m skipping over.
·    We provide almost all the shaft manufacturers with our product plan for 2015, which includes the position of each product, the target market for each product, our desired weight ranges and the cost of the product.  
·    A couple months later the shaft guys come back and present the shafts, which they feel will go best for each project.
·    Based on how we feel these shafts will work with the product, Justin will typically then request structure samples of each shaft for his team to test.  
·    After we have all the test results the product, design and development teams will have discussions about the shafts which tested well for the golfer we are targeting with that club.  We will discuss the performance along with the brand strength of the shaft and the overall coolness of the shaft.  
·    Then we will run a few cosmetic samples and show our top choice or top two choices to our leadership team to get the okay.

Adams has always prided itself on using “Real Deal” shafts in our products and that’s not going anywhere.  Shaft selecting is fun because we make it a point to play at least one round with each of the products we are considering for a new product.  Yesterday we got to try the new Project X shafts and tomorrow we are all playing with the new Aldila shafts

GolfWRX Member (DRGJR72): When do you expect the XTD Tour version of the irons to be available for purchase?

Can you elaborate on the differences between this version and the current available XTD iron?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): This set slotted to launch mid to late September.

Both sets are being used by the best players in the world!  Kenny Perry loves the current XTD iron while Ernie Els is currently rocking the XTD Tour irons.  The differences will be in the shape.  Relative to XTD cross cavity iron, the profile will be more compact with less offset while incorporating the same Cross Cavity design.

GolfWRX Member (jwm1): Will the bulge and roll in the new hybrids reduce my ability to toe-hook hybrids off the planet? I am hoping they will act like fwy woods which I tend to find more forgiving.

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): Actually, all of our hybrids have bulge and roll on them (and have for a while)! As far as the hooking problem, that is a problem that many people experience with many of the hybrids that are out on the market today. They are designed with extreme draw bias so people don’t ‘slice them off the planet’. Our hybrids are designed to be pretty neutral but specifically the Pro DHy and Pro Mini have a bit more fade bias to them so you shouldn’t have as much problem with the hooks.

GolfWRX Member (Paul Booij): Also, could you send equipment to Mark Crossfield to review on his YouTube channel. Love his video reviews.

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): You’re in luck because in addition to my product duties I am also in change of PR.  We have a media list of over 500 domestic outlets, including a number of which are exclusively on YouTube.  Mark has never reached out to request product, but if he is interested in reviewing our products and he has some nice reach we would be happy to send him clubs.  Thanks

GolfWRX Member (happygolfer): Do you have a Kingdom or an Oven?  Any plans on having a performance lab personalized type fitting?

I’d be more likely to be interested in the XTD’s if Barney Adams was hitting them in a commercial.  I just don’t identify with Kenny Perry giggling after hitting a 200 yard 6 iron. How is Barney doing? I always loved him in the Adams commercials.

Are you trying to target older demographics since you use Kenny Perry?

Are/were there any participants on the Big Break that have an all Adams bag? (other than the season winner when they are offered an endorsement deal)

Thanks.

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): We have a launch lab (indoor) where players can get fit by our certified fitters. We also have a range near the office where product testing is done.
Kenny is a great representative for our company and we love having him in our commercials. We think he appeals to a wide range of ages and skill levels in the game. Golf is supposed to be fun and we love Kenny’s laugh (and he still hit’s it really long!).
Barney is doing very well. He splits his time between Dallas and Palm Springs and spends most of his time playing golf or going on exotic fishing excursions.  He still finds time to share his ideas for golf clubs development too.
Yes, there are some Big Break participants who play an all-Adams bag, but a majority of them, like most aspiring young players without equipment deals, play very mixed bags of equipment. They tend to play the clubs that help them fulfill their dreams.

GolfWRX Member (someon3): My question is for either Scott Blevins or Jeff Wood:
“Can you please give me a good reason to spend $250 on a new Adams xtd hybrid that will help me sell it to the girlfriend?” Thanks!

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): We can help here. Just tell her, “when you came along I didn’t want to settle for less and found the absolute best woman to make me a better man … same with the XTD hybrid – it’s the best of the best and will make me a better golfer.” Then buy her some nice jewelry on your way to the golf shop.

GolfWRX Member (Paul Booij): Thanks Adams for the conversation with us golfers. I had a chance to swing the new XTD forged irons and just loved them. How can you improve at all on such awesomeness?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): That is the first thing I think about when I get out of bed every morning.  We look at ourselves as leaders in innovation which means we take more risks (on the product acceptance side) than some larger companies.  We have an underdog mentality here at Adams Golf and this means we are not afraid to be different if there is a reason to do so.  We like pushing the envelope on product design and performance and you will see more of that in the near future.

GolfWRX Member (Hairpie): I still play the original idea pro as I’ve yet to find anything like better.  Its ease of use and consistency have prevented me from switching since its inception.  Its getting a bit long in the tooth so I’m starting to seriously consider a replacement.  Could you convince me why the new hybrids would be a suitable replacement with respect to possible distance gains as well as versatility from a variety of lies?  Also which would be more comparable to the original, the Pro or the Pro DHY?

Adams Golf (Justin honea): The Idea Pro is a great hybrid and one of the best hybrids of all time.  What you are saying is very similar to what I have heard over the past 5 years from tour players and amateur golfers alike.  Up until 2 years ago the Idea Pro hybrid was still the #1 model on tour.  The reason so many were in play was it just plain worked and players don’t like to change unless they see an improvement.  My goal over the past 3 years was to eliminate the Idea Pro hybrid on tour and replace it with new hybrid designs.  We accomplished this 2 years ago with the a12 Pro then the Super Pro (tour only) and recently with the PRO hybrid family.  Just as recent as last week the new PRO hybrid was our #1 hybrid model on the PGA, Champions and LPGA tours.  I would say the new PRO hybrid is the most comparable to the original Idea Pro hybrid.

GolfWRX Member (Mustng5): To hear that my shafts for my SLDR will work with your head is very exciting. I am very impressed with the tolerances for CT control on the XTD driver but what are your tolerances for loft on your drivers? If I buy a 9 degree am I really getting an 11?

Adams Golf (Justin honea): Appreciate your comments here.  Typical loft tolerances are +/-1* on drivers and this is the standard industry average.  We are looking into ways to reduce this tolerance without impacting cost.

GolfWRX Member (dtowngolf): I am a better player looking for the most forgiveness but still with a higher launch and a less left bais? the pro launches the highest out of the three correct?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): You are correct!  Hybrids have a tendency to be left bias.  The bias in the Pro hybrid is neutral and should work very well for you.  With the upside down Technology, it is also the highest launching hybrid in the Pro hybrid family!

GolfWRX Member (boogaloo_Jones): When Taylormade bought Adams, how were product lines adjusted so that cannibalism of product sales between both companies were prevented?  Do the Adams line and Taylormade products share similar technology?

Finally, with the popularity of the “distance iron”, what type of current or upcoming technology will allow golfers to gain a bit more distance while maintaining control and forgiveness of their shots?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox):  If you go back a few answers you can see the response to the TaylorMade partnership.  I don’t want to copy it again otherwise your distance iron question may get lost.  

The big distance technologies in irons are cut-thru slots and thin faces.  Both of these help to provide ball speeds like we’ve never seen before.  In one year we have gained almost 10 yards over our previous Super S iron without adjusting loft at all.  The Cross Cavity design on the XTD irons is what controls these monsters.  They move the CG off the face to help create more corrective spin on off-center hits.  I played with Justin Girard, the designer of these clubs yesterday and he hit a 6 iron 210 uphill right over the green on a Par 3.  You knew as soon as he hit it, that that thing was never coming down.   We haven’t played together in about 6 months and we both kept saying how much better the other one had gotten, until we both realized it was the new XTD irons. Now that’s technology.   Than

GolfWRX Member (gophers79): Thank you for taking the time to talk with us!

I just this winter got a set of CMBs and LOVE them so far!  I grew up playing blades, and part of what drew me to the CMBs was the more “classic” look of the clubs, along with the fact that they flat-out perform.  It seems like the more current offerings in both irons and woods / drivers place a premium on “technology you can see” with things like the cross-cavity, crown-slot and sole slot.  Is Adams planning on some product lines that would target a player like me that likes the technology “under the hood” instead of out in the open?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): This is certainly a fine line we walk at Adams, but for us to differentiate ourselves in the industry, we can’t spare hiding our technology.  We are always coming up and considering ways to improve the look without hurting performance.  Are you sure that technology “under the hood” is really there?

GolfWRX Member (yumbrownies): For the marketing folks: What was the reasoning behind the drastic change to the Adams Golf typeface? Was there a particular feel or message you hoped to convey to consumers by moving to a hand script style?

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): We wanted to refresh our brand and add a new, consistent look since we really had two different logos and typefaces being used at the time (our tour hats with the arching Adams and our red triangle with the italicized typeface).
With a renewed commitment to being a fun, friendly and inviting golf company, we wanted a way to communicate that with a logo/typeface. After looking at 100+ concepts and taking into consideration a variety of factors (ie. Tour and TV exposure, fit on clubs, colors, apparel, etc) we decided on the new script Adams and the standalone A seen on our tour hats.
The response on tour has been phenomenal. We hope you like it as well.

GolfWRX Member (radiman): Lol, I just got off twitter and immediately had to come here.  Love the video.  Which kind of leads to my question, why not a more understated look?  Is the point to have the technology easily recognizable?

Also, I am a huge fan of the Adams equipment from 2+ years ago (before the slot made its way to the crown)  Any chance of getting similar performance from a more traditional looking hybrid/FW/Driver in the future?  All I want is a new 9015D that is more forgiving than the original!

One last question, why the departure from the LDA competitions?  Was it a contractual thing?  Or did Adams just decide to pursue a different demographic?

Thanks!

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): We all love an understated look as it reminds of the blades that fathers of the game used to play and we feel that if we use an understated iron we are playing the game like they did.   The reason we struggle to go understated is there is not a lot of real-estate to hide technology and if you really want to improve a golf club you need technology.  The part for us we will never falter on is at address.  As long as it looks good at address, who cares whats making it go in the back.  
Also, the issue with an understated look is when you look at a sea of irons on the wall understated doesn’t stick out.  If you want an understated look, then you have Mizuno, but for us to stick out we need to create a club that when you look at it you say “I don’t know if I like that yet, but I really need to try it.”  When we created the CB3 or the Super S, which were very understated we couldn’t get anyone to try them.  Trial is not an issue with the new XTD irons and once you try those you are locked in. 

The 9015D was a great driver, but its nothing compared to the new XTD driver.  We used a lot of our knowledge on aerodynamics and spin on the 9015D on the XTD Driver.  

Answer: We had a great relationship with the LDA (Long Drivers Assoc.) and our driver development benefitted from LDA player testing. Striving to grow our leadership in the Second Shot club categories made us take a look at investments like the LDA and we decided our focus and energy will be better used in other areas.

GolfWRX Member (MaydayGSXR): The DHy’s are marketed as having low launching, penetrating flights. As a driving iron, I can see the 18° or even possibly the 21° as being viable for the job, but what about the 24° and 27°? Are the higher lofted clubs to be used more as iron replacements than driving irons?

Also, the face bulge design for improved dispersion and forgiveness is very intriguing to to me because it sounds like I could hit them confidently, but the DHy’s are also described as extremely workable (which can scare me off sometimes as a mid-high handicap player). Is the face bulge technology and benefits independent of the workability factor (i.e., you can shape shots if you want to like most any other club, but the face bulge will really help with shot dispersion regardless of how you are shaping the shot)?

I also just read one of your replies stating the DHy and Pro Mini are more fade biased, does that mean the Pro is draw biased? Or is it just more neutral?

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): We didn’t design the DHy to be just another driving iron. We saw what was wrong with a lot of the driving irons on the market…very hard to hit, really low launching, and low CT. The clubs were great to hit stingers off the tee with but they weren’t going to go very high or very far. By making the DHy a bit more ‘hybridesque’ (don’t think that is a word but it is now) we were able to give it high CT and make it higher launching…resulting in long, high, and beautiful shots. But it is definitely workable which is why it has caught on so well on the tour. The bulge and roll actually helps more with the forgiveness that it does workability…bulge and roll definitely goes more to help with shot dispersion on mishits versus working the ball right to left. As a mid-capper do not be afraid of the DHy…it is your friend!

GolfWRX Member (bvmagic): How has the merger with Taylormade affected your marketing strategy for Adams golf?  First word that pops in my mind when you mention Adams is hybrids.  First word if you mention Taylormade is drivers.  I personally never considered purchasing an Adams club that is not a hybrid.

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): You will notice our marketing focus is on the Second Shot categories (fairway woods, hybrids and irons) while still supporting other club categories to an extent. We have history and leadership in these categories and, to the surprise of many, we don’t share marketing/advertising budgets with Taylormade, so we have to operate more efficiently with our marketing efforts. Your “first word” exercise is actually very close to the latest market research from the golf industry when asked the first things that come to mind about Adams: “hybrids” “Tight Lies” and “fairway woods” … and that’s what we want.

GolfWRX Member (Quebec Club Ho): Thank you Adams golf for answering our questions!

1. Can you compare the 2014 pro hybrid’s launch characteristics, forgiveness on off centre hits, and ball speed compared to the super LS? I’m looking for an increase in launch angle with the same forgiveness and ball speed of the LS

2. How does the pro hybrid’s Aldila atx red shaft compare to the Matrix altus? Once again I’m looking for a higher launch.

Thanks you again for doing this!

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): The goal of the Super LS hybrid was to maximize distance gains in every way possible.  We did this through materials, velocity slot technology, length and loft.  What we learned from that was that this hybrid was going too far and was starting to replace FWs in the tour player’s bags.  Tour players would either replace their FWs with the Super LS Hybrid or pass on it because of the distance increase.  With the XTD Ti Hybrid, we decided to dial it back with more tour specific lofts and lengths but keep the multi-material (Ti/Steel) and Velocity Slot technology.  For the average golfer, with the shorter lengths and slightly higher lofts, the consistency improved significantly creating more consistent distances with an increase in launch.
2. We used the Matrix Altus Hybrid shaft in the Pro a12 Hybrid and compared to the Aldila Tour Red Hybrid shaft is a little less stiff in the butt and tip.

GolfWRX Member (ThunderBuzzworth): How much has joining with Taylormade affected your designs? which technologies have you coveted and which technologies have you decided not to utilize? Is there anything new in the works that may be a threat to kick some of your current beloved clubs by many out of the bag?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): We get this question a lot and the simple answer is if anything it has motivated us here at Adams Golf to design even better equipment than before.  We operate totally separate from Taylormade and sure we share ideas and product plans but what is our idea stays our idea and vice versa.  The ultimate goal for Taylormade was to buy Adams so that they could dominate a larger section of the golf market.  We both have our niches and combined we are huge player in the golf space.  On the technology side there has been and will be some sharing for the good of both brands.  We are part of the same family so nothing is really hidden but we do look hard from all angles to make sure there is not too much overlap on technology.  We need to maintain an identity for each brand and the worst thing we can do is start making the same product with the same technology.

GolfWRX Member (birdiebuster72): Can you explain in further Adams partnership with Southwest Airlines? I see the PGA Players sporting those cool staff bags everywhere!

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): Thanks for the question and I’m glad you are seeing the bags! On a tour level, our partnership with Southwest allows our Adams Staffers to fly free and take advantage of all the Southwest amenities like no bag fees, change fees, etc. It also exposes our tour players to a new audience of consumers – they are featured in airport events, Southwest commercials, viral video’s, In Flight magazines, etc. Finally, It also gives our company a great opportunity to reach a larger audience and tie our brand more closely to the #8 Most Admired company in the world. For Southwest, it allows them to break into the golf market in a big way – quickly and efficiently. We are extremely proud of this partnership and today we took it to another level with the following video:

Check it out!
GolfWRX Member (Lexicographer): How much does sound play a role in the design of your club heads?  And if it does, do you aim for different sounds for different product categories?  For example, louder for GI clubs, more muted for players clubs, etc.

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Up until 5-6 years ago sound was more of an afterthought for a lot of the industry.  Large, geometric shape drivers were designed for stability or MOI and with the shape came a really bad sound.  That was really the breaking point for the golf industry and sound became one of the priorities in club design.  We currently conduct modal analysis in 3D CAD during the design stage and we have a current threshold for frequency that we design to depending on the size or volume of the product.  There are many structural things we can do to fine tune the sound of the golf club.  Typically we design to the same number regardless of player type because most players (better player or super game improvement) connect sound to feel and we have established a frequency band that seems to be accepted by all players.

GolfWRX Member (OUZO Power): Does the back of the XTD iron play any role in the performance Of the club or are the just for aesthetics? Does it affect ball flight, forgiveness or centre of gravity?

Thanks.

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): At Adams, we work hard (industrial designers and engineers) to make sure we work together to insure an eye catching but functional cavity design.  Functionally, the Cross Cavity design serves multiple purposes.
By pulling mass away from the face, you are able push the center of gravity deeper creating an improved gear effect that a traditional iron design struggles with.  A deeper center of gravity, helps keep off center shots more online improving dispersion.
When creating a high CT/COR iron, it is necessary to decrease the face thickness and incorporate a cut-thru slot design.  Unfortunately, the sound at impact changes when you do this.  To counter this effect, we used the cross cavity design to add a rubber “pressure piston” behind the center circular badge.  This rubber piston is compressed against the back of the center of the face where the face deflects the most that we refer to as the oscillation apex.  What the rubber plunger does is reduce the duration of the sound and improve the feel to create a hot but crisp sound at impact.

GolfWRX Member (gmangolf): Do you assess penalty strokes at your company championship to anyone playing Titleist or Callaway clubs, or just post pictures of them around the office to make them feel ashamed?  

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): No penalty is assessed, as playing with inferior equipment is a penalty in itself.

GolfWRX Member (TPG1971): I own an Original Tight Lies Tour fairway wood, and I used it for many years. I am currently in the market for a new Hybrid. The original Tight Lies fairway wood seemed to be a miracle worker back then. What would the benefit be to trying one of your hybrids vs. the standard hybrid that is currently offered by other manufacturers? The second part of my question would be, Are the new Hybrids as easy to launch as that old fairway wood used to be? I realize they are different beasts, but any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks!!

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): We designed the new Tight Lies to be as close as possible to the original. We just wanted to modernize the shape a bit and give it a bit more appealing look from address. But it still has the same face height, and with the slots it is also hot! The new Tight Lies is going to be ridiculously easy to get up in the air and out of trouble…it is definitely another miracle worker! Obviously we think our hybrids are better than our competitors…we have so many designs that there is surely one to fit your game. I think that is one of the things we do better than everyone else.

GolfWRX Member (Johnny T): What were some of the deciding factors/driving forces behind reintroducing the Tight Lies fairways?

What design features make the Tight Lies so easy to launch?  It doesn’t appear too different from any other fairway (minus the flat center portion of the sole), yet it launches so much easier.

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): We originally had no plans to re-launch Tight Lies, but the market “asked for it”.  Meaning there was a large need in the market place the no one was meeting.  In the search for extra yards the market had shifted to deep face, 43 ½”, low spin, large fairway woods which are basically off the tee clubs.  The clubs don’t have enough spin to get up in the air and it made the fairway wood the hardest to hit club in the bag again.  The new Tight Lies is the easiest to hit fairway ever created and now is paired with the most advanced slot ever created.   The new “velocity slot” created almost driver like speeds and allows us to create a fairway wood that again is easy to hit from everywhere. 

When the original Tight Lies first came out in 1996 it was the only easy to hit, low profile tri-sole golf club in a market of big/deep driver like fairway woods.  Tight Lies started a new wave in fairway woods, where all companies moved to low profile shapes.  20 years later the market has come almost full circle.    More than ever before golfers are in need of a fairway wood that most importantly is easy to hit.  If we launched Tight Lies 2 years ago it wouldn’t have worked.  But when you look at the market is now a club like that was in need by golfers.

GolfWRX Member (Micrys2): Just wondering who the target audience is for your various hybrids.  Seems as though they differ. For instance, I love your DHY and pro hybrids but can’t getaway straight answer regarding whether they are designed to be serviceable from the rough or just a a tee and fairway iron replacement.

Thanks and appreciate Adams products very much.

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): The Pro DHys is awesome club from everywhere and a personal favorite of everyone at Adams and on the PGA tour.  It was meant to replace your 3, 4 or 5 irons, not to be a 2 iron to hit off the tee.  You should be able to easily hit it from everywhere even better than your irons.  

Pro hybrid – #1 hybrid model at the Heritage that everyone can play
Pro Mini – a leading hybrid on tour made specifically for fast swing speed players and golfer who like smaller hybrids
Pro Dhy – see above, but this is for everyone.  Its not easier to hit that a 3 hybrid, but its way easier to hit than a 4 iron
Idea – the easiest to hit hybrid we make
XTD Ti hybrid – the best of the best titanium hybrid

GolfWRX Member (pre0024): Thanks to Adams and Wrx for doing this.

We’re all WITB nerds around here.  So, to the panel what hybrids are in your bag?

Adams Golf: 

Michael Fox

XTD Driver – 9.0 / new UST Elements Chrome 64T / 45 ½ ” 
Tight lies – 16* retail head / Diamana D+ 70 / 42” 
Pro hybrid – 18* / Aldila Tour blue 85 
Pro Dhy – 21* & 24* / Matrix White Ti
XTD Irons – 6-PW / KBS Tour S+ / +1/2 / 1.5* upright 
Adams Proto wedges – 50*, 54*, 58* / TT S300
Yes Donna – SuperStoke 1.0 Slim
*Grips: Golf Pride Z-cords +3 wraps LH / +5 wraps RH

Justin Honea

9* XTD Driver with Hand Crafted Project X 7.0
14* Tightlies with stock Bassara S-flex (great shaft IMO)
21* DHY with stock Aldila Blue X-flex
3-LW XTD Forged with PXi 6.5
YES Tour Callie

And yes that is more than 14 clubs!!

Matt Neeley

10.5* XTD Ti w/ Aldila RIP Phenom 70x
18* XTD Ti Hybrid w/ VTS Black 85HX
21* DHy w/ Recoil 110 F4
24* DHy w/ Recoil 110 F4
5-LW XTD Forged w Recoil 125 F4
Donna 2

GolfWRX Member (RookieBlue7): My question is as follows:

Is Adams as a brand going away from more traditional forged designs, and moving toward a more GI focus? I’m intrigued by the new XTD’s, but the more traditional forgings are some of my favorite’s ever. Huge Adams devotee and would love to see traditional forgings continued.

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): I would check out the XTD forging.  The shape is the same as the CMB, which we all know and love.  It is a traditional forging, but with technology.  We don’t think anyone has ever put this much tech into a club this small before.  We will always make clubs for the best players in the world, but we will do it in ways that fill needs in the market, which no one else is meeting.  In the case of the XTD forging, no one was making a true blade shape than went far.

GolfWRX Member (Hou_Hater): I’m noticing the slot in these XTD irons – similar to the Taylormade Speedblades. Why would a player choose Adams’ XTDs over the Speedblades when the technology looks and performs strikingly similar to one another?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): The XTD irons have a cross cavity design, which moves the CG back off the face to create more corrective spin on off-center hits.  The XTD irons also have a new sounds control system called a pressure piston.  This allows for a great sound on such a thin faces iron.  Try them both and see which one you like better.  You should always demo your irons.

GolfWRX Member (DblEgl): Any hints as to what equipment surprises we might expect in the near future ?

Adams has always produced 1st class clubs !

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): If I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise!!  I believe the product line for Fall 2014 to Spring 2015 is our strongest product to date!  I know I am a tease but you will have to wait and see.

GolfWRX Member (gr8blueheronbird): Does Adams Golf sell the most hybrids of any of the manufacturers?

Adams Golf (Fox): Our hybrid strategy is to be the #1 hybrid company on tour.  We have that #1 hybrid position on the top 9 tours in the world, which is basically all of them.  We are selling more hybrids than we have ever before and hope to take the #1 sales position soon.

GolfWRX Member (LeftyBam): Thank you Adams for taking the time to jump into golfwrx to talk to some of us.

My questions is with innovations in technology where do you see you product lines going in the near future? Primarily you irons and wedges.

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): We are going to focus more attention on the Game Improvement Iron category as we have always done well in the Better Player arena and have dominated the Super Game Improvement category.  You just saw a glimpse into our future with the XTD Cross Cavity design and that technology is here to stay and you will see more creative designs to enhance the performance in the near future.  On the wedge front we are looking at creative ways to become a bigger player but the wedge business is a hard one since it is dominated by two large competitors and it is a relatively small piece of the golf market with limited growth potential.  You will see a new wedge soon that will carry a new name/logo along with a cool new story.

GolfWRX Member (wldchld22): How much thought goes into picking the stock shafts?

The drivers have always been great and the irons with their graphite are very very nice.

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Thanks for the nice comments here.  We spend a lot of time on our shaft offerings and it is good to hear positive feedback from guys like you.  We always want the shaft to compliment the head design which is why we meet with shaft supplier on a monthly basis to discuss our product plan, technology and performance expectations.  To me the shaft is just as important as the design of the club head which is why we typically try and use real deal aftermarket shafts in our products.

GolfWRX Member (ImBurningStarIV): Can you guys, give an update on any new YES offerings. The Callie-Fc is still my favorite putter, would love to see a new forged putter line.

Adams Golf: Yes! is forging ahead with it’s new offerings this season. The True Alignment series is a combination of technologies that will help your game. The major feature is the True Alignment BUMP on the sole. It allows the face to remain square if the hands are forward or back of vertical.

As for FORGED putters all I can say is that we are always working on new designs and it COULD HAPPEN. Stay tuned and remember that the C-Grooves rolls true helping the pall stay on line.

GolfWRX Member (IheartNY): The black paiint finish on the Pro Hybrids and DHY are outstanding.  Can you please go over the painting processes.  Also, if we wanted to match out steel irons with a DIY black finish, which black paint OTC products would you recommend us using?  i.e. Berchwood Casey Perma Blue, etc…

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): Thank you for the comment on the finish…we think it is awesome too! As far as painting your own irons, I don’t have a great answer for you. When I used to refinish my putters and wedges I actually did use the Birchwood Perma Blue…it gave a great finish but it is only going to work on products that don’t have any plating (raw wedges and putters). I don’t think it will work too well on our steel irons and would not reccommend it…but I won’t stop you!

GolfWRX Member (BogeysorBust): Forged/cast–cast/forged; does it really make a difference for us ‘average’ golfers?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Short answer is better players can tell a difference between the two.  BUT, that does not mean forged is better than cast or vice versa.  The true answer lies in the material……most forgings are made from a very soft carbon steel which does feel different than a harder stainless steel but that does not mean that you cannot cast something from a softer carbon steel and get a feel very similar. Most companies do not cast product from a soft carbon steel because availability of raw material is less and the yeild/cost is higher.  The material forgings are made from never really change so you can predict that feel/sound whereas cast clubs can differ in material from product to product and might yield a different feel/sound.  So to answer your question I don’t think it makes a difference to the average golfer unless you love the feel of forgings and want to maintain that consistent feel.

GolfWRX Member (Teekman): Thanks Adams Golf for talking to us golf club junkies from GolfWRX and I want to say you guys make the best hybrids on the market.

I only have two questions:

1. Will you guys be releasing the irons Ernie Els is currently gaming?

2. Are you developing any clubs in the harder to hit category  … blades?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): Hell yeah!  Wouldn’t you launch them?  They will ship sometime in late August.  Once we saw the first set everyone in the office including myself needed a set.  That plus the fact that Ernie was leading the PGA tour in proximity to the hole from 150-175 yards as soon as he put them in play, made it a no brainer.  We just got the first samples today as Ernie’s were a one off prototype.  They will start at $699 and come stock with iomic grips and KPS Tour shafts.

2.Try the XTD forged irons, they are a true players club. 

GolfWRX Member (SwingBlues): I firmly believe Adams started these “low spin” driver head trend with the evolution of their driver heads culmulating in the 9064….Fast 12 LS and then Super LS heads. Now these “low spin” heads are all the rage.

Tease us with the next driver trend from Adams….?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): Thanks for noticing.  We are working on a driver, which will work for all golfers of all swing speeds.  I can’t say too much more, but it’s going to be awesome.

GolfWRX Member (chadly643): How do Adams hybrid clubs compare with all the new driving irons that are gaining in popularity?

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): We call our club the Pro Dhy, which stands for “Driving Hybrid”.  The reason ours is a hybrids and every else is an iron is because we were the only ones who thought about putting bulge and roll on our club- help with corrective spin.  Ina addition long irons are difficult to hit and hybrids iron.  Calling a club that was as easy to hit as our Dhy seem wrong to call it an iron.

GolfWRX Member (MaydayGSXR): Thanks! Score one point for the DHy then over a 4 hybrid for filling my gap. As a follow up question though, what would you say should be the biggest factor in deciding a loft for the DHy? 18° sounds like the obvious choice for a “driving” iron, how do the other lofts come into play?

Also, after watching your response video to some of the member’s comments on the XTD irons, and seeing the picture of you guys huddled up with your laptops answering our questions now… how much fun are you guys having reading and sharing (and probably laughing) at some of our questions now? 

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): Right, 18* would be the ideal choice for a driving iron. That is for the guy that just isn’t comfortable with any of the more traditional hybrids we offer and wants something they can hit bullets with off the tee. The other lofts come in to play more as direct iron replacements…21*=3i, 24*=4i, and 27*=5i.

GolfWRX Member (txaggieman): Where do u see the Yes! putters going in the future?  I have a Black Callie and love it….was not a fan of the white one.
And bring back the MB2 Blue finish!
Thx

Adams Golf: YES! is constantly developing new putter designs and applying new technologies to enhance the line.
There is a new set of putters out there now called the True Alignment Series check it out if you can and look at the new BUMP on the sole that allows the player to keep the face square at address whether the hands are forward of vertical at address.

Did anyone catch the second place at the Masters? Pretty cool and again shows how significant the technology is.

Roll em pure!!

GolfWRX Member (Puppetmaster): In light of the ugly comments from many of us here and your Youtube video, when designing the cross cavity irons, did anyone at all see a Matrix/Transformers resemblance? Any inside jokes you can share?

More seriously, Adams has led the way in hybrids for years, anything special you guys do to test the designs in terms of turf interaction, feel/sound, aerodynamics, etc?

Thanks for the Q&A.

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): If only we had the budget to create a true “Matrix/Transformer” feature in the cavity in our irons.  There might not be a need to create a Driver with the hottest face in golf, jk!

Turf interaction is an interesting topic that was a big discussion in 2013 through sole camber radius.  Many in the industry were designing overly cambered clubs to give the appearance it is playable from all lies.  Based on our prototype testing, creating a curved sole, raises the center of gravity creating a low launching high spinning product not to mention possibly missing the face on low off center hits.  With our upside down technology we can counter both those problems by lowering the center of gravity and still playable on off center hits with still plenty of camber radius to spare!

Feel and Sound have been an interesting topic since we have been adding cut-thru velocity slot technology (USGA requirement), we have had to keep a close eye on how the sound is affected.  We have theoretical and physical testing capabilities to objectively determine if the sound is in the acceptable zone.

For Hybrids, aerodynamics is less of a concern for us.  Frontal area is a major player in aerodynamics, but because a Hybrid has a significantly lower frontal area than a driver, aerodynamics is not a area we focus on with Hybrids.

GolfWRX Member (PingDrv00): Are the newer hybrid really that much of an improvement over the Adams Pro Gold?  I have yet to find a hybrid with the consistency and play ability that they offered.  Also, is two degrees differential in loft really enough to justify an additional hybrid?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): The new PRO hybrid is wayyyy better than the Pro Gold. Just for reference the CT of the Pro Gold is sub 190 and the CT of the PRO is above 230.  That alone should give you more distance on center and mis-hit shots.  The new PRO hybrid has a lower and slightly further back center of gravity which will get the ball up in the air much easier than the Pro Gold.  Yes, two degrees between hybrids is definitely enough to tell a difference especially if you are a faster swing speed player (driver speed north of 95mph).  I personally carry a 21* DHy and a 21* 3-iron because they gap perfectly for me.

GolfWRX Member (fishstix94): What kind of distance should we expect from the dhy? I hit my 3 hybrid about 230-240, and I am interested in getting a 18 degree dhy.
Thanks a lot guys! 

Fish

Adams Golf: As we have mentioned the DHy is more of a direct iron replacement than some of the other hybrids. So you should anticipate it being a bit longer than the iron it is replacing (and much easier to hit).

GolfWRX Member (peterra671): How does the slot in your XTD Forged irons vary from TM’s slot if at all, and what performance characteristics could we expect with slotted irons versus non-slotted irons?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): The XTD forged iron set is a 2pc forged construction that allows us to create a velocity slot with an unsupported cavity.  This creates a large measurable increase in CT over a traditional forged iron.  Taylormade achieves a similar effect in their slots as well!

GolfWRX Member (jsams222): Do the Adams engineers start from scratch when designing a new iron series, or do you possibly pull designs from very successful past iron series like Ping Eye 2 series?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): As engineers we always strive to improve a product, it is important to take what was learned from previous designs (Adams and competitor) and build off of it.  We will always challenge ourselves to find a new way to design an iron (a never ending process that we love!), but the most effective way to improve an iron is to start with where you finished and find ways to improve it.  It’s fun to look back over the years to see how we got to today’s XTD cross cavity iron!

GolfWRX Member (Stinger82): Huge adams fan here… What are the chances we see an updated version of the legendary 9015d? Still my favorite driver of all time! I’ve had seven of them now and there is still nothing that can touch the distance I get with it! Also will you guys be releasing any new blades in the near future? Thanks!

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Very good chance.  I have been around Adams for 8 years and the 9015D is a legend.  The XTD driver is the closest driver in terms of performance and we are currently working on a new design so don’t be shocked if you see some similarities to the 9015D next spring.

GolfWRX Member (homeport99): My question is about shaft flex. I’m interested in the Pro hybrids but have never played any Adams clubs before. Should I go about it the same way I would determine flex for any other club in my bag – or is there an optimal way to determine the proper Pro hybrid flex for my game?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): We try really hard to make sure our shaft offerings are to spec with the industry.  What that means is we have “boxes” for each flex that we prefer the shafts to fall into and this align with the rest of your clubs in the set.  Typically with graphite the stiffer you go the lower you will launch it but with tighter dispersion.  There is a happy medium but your set flex is a great starting point.

GolfWRX Member (scjr): Can you expand on the “pressure piston” you’ve mechanically inserted into your new XTD irons and is there any chance that it could loosen over time?

Thanks Adams!

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): The “pressure piston” is a critical part of the design and maybe one of the most important design features of the iron.  Once you add a cut thru slot and thin face to an iron you negatively impact the acoustics and frequency at impact.  The pressure piston was designed so that it allows the face to deflect but dampen all the unwanted vibrations out at impact delivering a nice, solid feel.  The pressure piston was designed with a mechanical locking feature so that it cannot accidentally come out of the club.  Great question

GolfWRX Member (gocanucksfan123): Kudos to Adams for listening to us hacks ask some questions!

Why is Taylormade’s marketing scheme so much more aggressive than Adams’?

Thanks again!

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): Not quite sure what you mean by “aggressive”. If you’re talking about Taylormade’s amount of advertising in print, TV, online, etc compared to Adams – it comes down to substantial differences in budget sizes. While we are part of the same company now, we still operate on our own P&L and do not share budgets. If you’re talking about them having an “aggressive tone” in their marketing versus ours – that’s accurate. We speak in a friendly, easy to understand and inviting tone … they tend to speak more technical, high performance and Tour-domination tone.

GolfWRX Member (bellken): Is the pursuit of hotter faces on golf clubs hurting the average golfer? The distance dispersion from not so good shots to great shots can be as much as a 2 club difference.

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): I would say the opposite is true.  The pursuit of hotter faces means the center is hotter (up to the USGA limit) but also means off-center is hotter as well.  Our testing would show that average golfers benefit more from this technology because our VST design actually increases the CT more on off center shots than center.  To put it simple there is more room to increase off-center CT then center because we are quickly approaching the CT limit on center impacts.

GolfWRX Member (Slinger45): With Adams being one of the trend setters with Velocity Slot technology are you guys working on any new technological innovations down the line that might have the same impact as slot technology?

Thanks

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Absolutely.  We have some really cool stuff coming the spring of 2015 that will be revolutionary for both slot design and club design.  Let just say that we are working on multiple ways to increase CT and also have a cleaner looking crown so that it appeals to more golfers.  I would love to hear your feedback on this topic.

GolfWRX Member (hawleywood): I currently bag a combo set of CMB and MB2(satin) and I couldn’t be happier. Is the development team responsible for these irons still intact since your acquisition by TM/Adidas? The current line of irons seems focused toward the game improvement category; will you be abandoning the player category going forward? I fear that Adams is destined to become nothing more than rebranded Taylor Made side project that focuses on Hybrids. Please tell me I’m wrong!

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Yes our team is still intact and has not changed.  Your observation is correct and we are focusing more on the game improvement category because that is the largest iron category and historically it is a category we were not a player in.  Now to answer your question, no we will not abandon the player section and will continue to offer some really cool irons in this area.  I have been around here for 8 years and have played a key role in the development of all the better player irons so this will continue to be a focus moving forward.  You have nothing to worry about as Adams Golf will continue to have a heart beat and one that will continue to get stronger and stronger as time goes.  We have a great team here that is passionate about the game and that has gotten us to where we are at today in a market that continues to contract.  We have a great outlook on 2014 and an even better outlook on 2015!

GolfWRX Member (bpark1210): How has the merger from TMag affected the R&D of Adams Golf? I felt the clubs in the latter years of Adams were top notch and pushing the envelopes of golf engineering but Adams fell off the map after the TM buyout. With the recent intro of the XTD line for 2014 I feel Adams Golf is getting back on track to where it once was. Can we expect a new direction free of TMag influence moving forward?

I picked up an XTD Ti 3W this year and noticed the adapter is a TM sleeve is this going to be the trend moving forward of integrating technologies between the two brands?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): With any acquisition distractions exist and can sometimes take focus away from the job at hand.  Those distractions are long gone and we are looking forward to a bright future as part of the Taylormade brand.  I am sorry to hear that you have had doubts but I am really glad to hear that the current XTD line has rejuvenated your belief in our brand.  You can expect great things moving forward and yes they are not influenced by TMaG.  We share ideas, plans and strategies which is something you have to do to make sure your marketing strategies align but our product development teams operate independently and will continue to do so.

2. Great question.  We will definitely share technologies that make sense and this is one of them that made perfect sense to me.  If we can leverage Taylormade in any way that benefits our customers then we should definitely do that.  The shaft sleeve will be one area we try and sync up on each year.

GolfWRX Member (bpark1210): One more follow up question to the engineers, what is your background and how does someone get into engineering golf clubs. I’ve recently decided to get back into school and am contemplating a degree in mechanical or industrial engineering.

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): To be honest we have engineers from almost every discipline with Mechanical being the most prominent.  I have a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University and worked in aerospace/defense two years out of school then moved to the golf industry.  The golf industry is a small industry and hard to get into but it looks like you are on the right track and to me your passion and ability to play/understand the game is just as important.  Best of luck to you and keep in touch.

GolfWRX Member (opus_mh): I have a dhy proto with a tour blue 105 in 24* I hit it exactly 3 times before grabbing my 4 iron and litteraly throwing it on the ground.  Thank you for the continued innovation and making the game easier, even and especially for better players!

Adams Golf (Michael Fox): I’ll one up you.  I made my first Ace with my Super S 5 iron a month before the Proto DHy came out last year.  I immediately put the 21* in the bag and then pulled my lucky 5 iron for a 24* DHy.
Thanks

GolfWRX Member (tanner97): Since merging with TM your products have become even better than before, what technology do you think will progress over the coming years and begin to show you in your newer products?

Keep up the good work; hit all 3 clubs today and they felt AMAZING at least 15 yards further than the competition

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Appreciate the great comments.  If anything the merger between TMaG and Adams has brought some healthy competition with it.  We both operate on our own P&L and are competing for the same space in the marketplace.  It has been a fun start to a long and great relationship.  We will continue with our core technologies (Aerodynamics, VST, hybrid-iron sets, upside down) and keep pushing the envelope to make better product that is easier to hit for all golfers.  Our goal is to own the second shot!!

GolfWRX Member (TNTlefty): Two great companies (Adams Golf and Southwest Airlines) created a unique partnership for the 2013 season where the Tour Staff carried co-branded bags as part of the “easy million” campaign. How successful was this campaign in increasing sales of the SUPER family of clubs for Adams and are you actively pursuing any “non-traditional” partnerships for future marketing campaigns?

I’d also be interested in the “most interesting” equipment request from a tour staff pro…

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): Thanks for the compliments of our partnership with Southwest Airlines. We are thrilled with this partnership and kicked off the second year with them this month. It’s a unique partnership in the golf industry benefitting both companies in different ways. Being one of the world’s most admired companies for over a decade, Southwest has actually been very helpful as we’ve established new corporate values, initiatives, positioning and strategies for our company. We want to be the Southwest Airlines within the golf space. Look for exciting stuff to happen with this partnership over the next few days/weeks/months!
The “Easy Million” campaign was very successful in regards to our main goal of having golfers trial and demo the clubs, and in turn, purchasing. Over 20,000 trials happened very quickly and we surpassed the 1,000,000 yard mark in distance earlier than expected!

2. This one is easy! We had a tour player that requested we measure the shaft + tape in 7 different areas prior to putting on the grip. Once the grip was on (if the shaft + tape diameter met specifications in all 7 areas) we had to measure 4 additional areas in order to get the green light!

GolfWRX Member (MaydayGSXR): Ah, thanks again for clearing it up! So as far as iron replacements go, I’m assuming the turf interaction is pretty good for shots that aren’t tee’d up? I see the lengths are pretty much congruent with iron lengths, so I’d venture to guess they work fairly well as an iron replacement all over the course (and not just the tee box).

Oops, Q&A is over. Thank you very much for the interaction on here! Kudos to you guys! Got a ton of good information out and now I’m itching to go out and hit some DHy’s.. Thanks for taking the time to do this, I hope it was fun for you guys to read some of our comments/questions, lol.

Adams Golf (Matt Neeley): The DHy can definitely be hit from anywhere. The sole is a bit wider than most player’s irons, so it is going to be easier to hit from any number of lies. I will hit my DHy from just about anywhere…it is definitely not just an ‘off-the-tee’ club.

GolfWRX Member (russian7): I am a huge fan of adams, and in light of innovation I believe they have made some of the best new products on the market! Will TM continue to allow Adams engineers to use their current vision of new products, or will the TM engineers be taking over R&D? Also will Adams be marketed with TM products with similar life cycles, and will Adams have a tour department for special products and design?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): The short answer is yes, Adams engineers will be driving our designs and Taylormade engineers will be driving their designs.  There are no plans to merge the two R&D teams and to be honest that is one place that a synergy would not benefit either brand.  We need to maintain our own identity and having our own team is the best way to do that.  Adams and TM will be marketed separate as we both have our own Marketing Working budget to support each brand.  The tour department is one area we are leveraging Taylormade on.  We will continue to have a small tour department at Adams in Plano, Texas but a lot of the logistical operation for Adams tour builds has shifted to the Carlsbad facility.  We will continue to have Adams specific tour reps on all major tours and we still have our own trailer on the PGA Tour and that will not change.

GolfWRX Member (tuffy): Bring back the mb2’s in raw finish and we will forgive you for the xtd irons.

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): We are going to hold you to that!  Give the XTD irons a test run.  Even if they aren’t for you, I think you’ll understand why a lot of people are going to snatch them up!

GolfWRX Member (Kylekoz17): Who is your pickiest tour player to fit?

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): All tour pros tend to be very picky about their equipment – they have good reason to be. While we don’t really have official rankings of picky players, the quick answer would be Bernhard Langer. The man is a model of consistency and success and very few changes are needed in his game. So, working on any equipment changes with Bernhard can be challenging and very seldom because he has very few areas of weakness.

GolfWRX Member (jg1166): Seeing I’m in a different time zone I will ask my question now. On the marketing side will Adams market their full range in Australia sometime soon. I ask because I am an Adams fan but have had to source most of my current bag from the USA. The launch lab driver which I use was never release here and the rest of my bag was either released 6-9 months after the states or in limited range. I know there is a market here as lots of my golfing friends love the look and feel of my clubs but it is just to hard for them to source them.

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): Yes. We do have some demand building in Australia – especially given our relationship with Badds. Over the last 12 months we have increased the range (for example Tight Lies, Pro Hybrids, and XTD irons are all available).

GolfWRX Member (ZAP): How do you decide which clubs to offer to us lefties?

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): Since I am a lefty, I ask for all of it! However, since us lefties are outnumbered pretty handily by the righties, some of the products are limited to RH only. This usually affects us lefties only in peripheral products – not core products.

GolfWRX Member (Yepyukon): Can you comment about the drop of LPGA players with Adams Golf?  I would think that the extra distance and forgiveness of Adams golf clubs would be something that would strive on the LPGA, much as it has on the Champions Tour.

Thank you for taking the time to be here and answer our questions.  Great video about us WRXers too!

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): As you have probably read a couple of times on this chat – Adams is on it’s own in regards to profit/loss. Therefore, since we don’t have an endless supply of $ to go around, we have to be very strategic about where those $ go. Without getting into tour stragety speciafically, I can say that if ANY tour strategy is proposed that builds on our domestic and/or international growth goals we seriously consider it.

GolfWRX Member (Yepyukon): Follow up question:  How much longer is Adams contracted to endorse Big Break and do you plan to renew the contract once it is up?

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): We can’t disclose contractual terms involving Big Break or the Golf Channel. However, we have been the equipment sponsor of the Big Break since it began and have been very happy with the results and the connection to this very popular series.

GolfWRX Member (poppman2142): What are going to be the advantages of the new XTD tour irons coming out this summer over the XTD forged?  I have the XTD forged irons with RIP shafts and love them, so I need to be convinced that the XTD tour irons will be an upgrade.  Keep up the good work!

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): This is a tough one!  XTD forged is a great product, one of a kind.  The great feature of XTD Tour is that we worked closely with Ernie to come up with this profile and design.  It’s the perfect product for those who are looking for a profile smaller than the XTD cross cavity, but a little larger with a little more forgiveness that the XTD Forged.

GolfWRX Member (BennySupreme): Having played Adams since 2006, I will say these irons (2014 XTDs) are out there in the styling category, compared to the original XTD irons.  Why such a futuristic and goody look?  Please don’t tell me Taylor Made is trying to run off the Adams faithful.  Please go back to the plain MB style with a couple different finish options for the players and OS models for the non players.

Where are the days of Adams making quality items for cheaper prices then the competitors for the same category level?  Lets not start making junk to keep up with the jones and charge high prices for them.

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): Not to worry!  XTD Cross Cavity has a functional purpose too!  At Adams, performance and technology is our #1 focus.  You can’t argue with performance!
At Adams, we work hard (industrial designers and engineers) to make sure we work together to insure an eye catching but functional cavity design.  Functionally, the Cross Cavity design serves multiple purposes.
By pulling mass away from the face, you are able push the center of gravity deeper creating an improved gear effect that a traditional iron design struggles with.  A deeper center of gravity, helps keep off center shots more online improving dispersion.
When creating a high CT/COR iron, it is necessary to decrease the face thickness and incorporate a cut-thru slot design.  Unfortunately, the sound at impact changes when you do this.  To counter this effect, we used the cross cavity design to add a rubber “pressure piston” behind the center circular badge.  This rubber piston is compressed between the cross cavity and the back of the center of the face where the face deflects the most that we refer to as the oscillation apex.  What the rubber plunger does is reduce the duration of the sound and improve the feel to create a hot but crisp sound at impact.
Sound is so important to club design, without the Cross Cavity design, the performance of the XTD iron wouldn’t exist!

GolfWRX Member (Staff_Blades): Was the Flux Capacitor the inspiration for the design?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): Flux Capacitor?  Would you believe I have a friend that turned a Delorean into an exact replica of the back to the future car!?!  (True Story)

GolfWRX Member (Fudgegolf): As a company do you even think your ready to go global? Experience so far with some of your newer products suggests you don’t have the global infrastructure, to support these lofty ambitions. Speaking in reference to markets outside of the USA.

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): We have already gone global! We have subsidiaries servicing the following regions and countries:

Canada
Japan
Korea
UK
Europe
South Africa
Australia
Latin America

With a plan to have subsidiary setup in China by 2015.

GolfWRX Member (MJisGOAT): What you need to worry about is getting exposure from the marquee players (Watson, Els, Bads, etc.) Talk is just talk until it’s seen in the bags of the signature players.

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): We couldn’t agree more! Our tour reps have done a great job fitting all of our players into Adams gear (especially the three you mention). We certainly felt a bump in activity with the exposure gained when Ernie made it to the final four of match play!

GolfWRX Member (Zach Heusser): I’ve struggled for years to find a hybrid I really like.  Mainly because most are to upright for me and I hook them. Are you able to order custom lie angles for the Idea Pro?
Thanks Zach

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): The new Adams Pro Hybrid is bendable up to 2deg through our custom fitting department!

GolfWRX Member (Golrish17): I have a set of CB3’s as backups for the last couple seasons (why is it SO hard to find a CB3 3 iron???), and they have regularly crept into the starter bag over that time. Not only are they performers, but some of the best looking irons now or then. Obviously, many here (myself included, and obviously noticed by you guys at Adams based on the hilarious video that’s been making it’s rounds here- well played, guys!) don’t find the XTD’s attractive at all. At what point in the design process does the balance between aesthetics and performance come into play? I realize that it is a slippery slope… make a gorgeous iron that doesn’t perform well and you get the same ridicule as if you made the ugliest iron known to man that hits the ball high, straight, and far every time for everyone. Are concessions made in regards to looks versus performance, or is design based solely on performance?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): Keep looking!  The CB3 3-Iron does exist!
At Adams technology and performance is always a primary focus, but we understand that the look of an iron has been nearly the same for a long period of time (cavity back, undercut… yawn..) and as a result creates a level of comfort for many golfers.  If we carried that position to a different industry, could you imagine how depressing life would be if cars on the road today still looked like Henry Ford’s original model T?  If the XTD iron didn’t have a disruptive feel, we probably wouldn’t have your attention today!

GolfWRX Member (robengel): Hi and thanks for taking the time. What hybrid would you suggest for someone who has hesitated switching from a 3 iron to a hybrid. I fight an occasional hook and don’t like the offset of many hybrids and don’t want something too bulky.

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): Adams is the perfect fit for you!  Over the years we have listened to the professionals on tour and they don’t like offset in their hybrids for the same reason!

GolfWRX Member (eaglestan66): My question is as follows: I have tried 3 hybrids and they all have draw-bias tendencies. I am looking to replace a 3-iron with a hybrid that does not hook. I play to a 3 Index. I hit the ball relatively straight or sometimes small draws. I think the hybids I’ve tried are all a bit too upright. Does Adams have something that is lilely a flatter lie angle or adjustable?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): Absolutely!  Within the Adams Pro family, we have a range of hybrids to test.  I would start with the Pro and the Pro Mini Hybrids to start.  Through Adams custom department you can get those hybrid adjusted up to 2deg.  In the XTD family, the XTD hybrid is loft adjustable, but also lie adjustable too!  To help you with the details, I suggest talking to your local club fitting professional or calling our customer service!

GolfWRX Member (shakey): With regards to the tour staff of both Adams and TM, how lenient are the contracts for guys to crossover?  Do you try to keep Adams guys mostly Adams clubs and TM the same, or are the clubs fair game so to speak?

Thx for taking the time to answer our questions!

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): Player contracts are all different. Some players are contractually obligated to play X amount of Adams clubs and X amount of Taylormade clubs or are open to play another company’s clubs. In general, we have many players who play our Second Shot clubs only and many players who have a full bag of our clubs.

GolfWRX Member (teeituphigh): As a international GolfWRX member: I would like to know how Adams is performing worldwide? What are your strengths and weaknesses in the market outside North America?

Thanks!

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): While probably the most challenging, we believe the International business is our largest opportunity for growth.  Our international business was up 36% in 2013 and is tracking to similar growth for 2014.  We achieved the #1 hybrid position on the European and Asian Tour’s in 2013, and we are tracking towards similar results on the Korean and Japan men’s PGA tours in 2014.

Our strengths are similar to those in our US business: our world class products, hybrid leadership on Tour (for the first time Internationally), and our employees.  We have acquired top talent to lead our business growth in key markets around the world.  These strengths will enable us to overcome the brand awareness challenges we currently face in markets outside of North America. Players like Tom Watson and Ernie Els who have world wide appeal also elevate the brand in countries where Adams is a “new”. Thanks!

GolfWRX Member (BENNYSUPREME): Does Adams offer rebates to military like some other manufactures do?

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): We don’t have a rebate program at this time but have supported many military and charity programs throughout our history. We definitely look for opportunities to support different organizations and causes.

GolfWRX Member (suprnva): Of all the players you have on all the tours, who is the craziest when it comes to their equipment and changing or trying new things?  Basically, who’s the biggest Adams club ho?

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): We love the guys and gals who like to try new things; even if it’s just to test them out for a few weeks. Since we don’t have Ryan Moore on our staff any longer, we don’t have a true tinkerer like some of you on GolfWRX. Kenny Perry to an extent will give new clubs a try quite often, as will Robert Garrigus and we’ve found Ernie Els likes to mix it up some already.

GolfWRX Member (tembolo1284): Why don’t we see more adams drivers out on tour? They are such great drivers!

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): Drivers are generally “locked” up in contracts. We agree – they are great drivers but given our focus on “second shot” products with our tour players – they get more awareness and trial.

GolfWRX Member (Dscvrr St Louis): When was the last time you saw an Adams driver advertised?  Seen one in the bag of an Adams staffer.  NO visibility at all in the mainstream.  Maybe on Champions Tour, but only on Golf Channel.  Wrx knows that Adams has made very solid players caliber irons for years, but you again see no advertising at all.  When the A12 Pro and CB2 were out at my GG, I sold the heck out of them and to a person, they were amazed they were hitting an Adams iron.  I couldn’t keep CB2’s in stock at all.  They kept their head buried in the hybrid/iron set mentality…which they excelled at very well and still do.

Adams Golf (Scott Blevins): 1. We only advertise on Golf Channel, not network TV. 2. We have focused our advertising around the products driving our business (fairway woods, hybrids, irons). 3. Some of our tour contracts are based on second shot products in part because the player may have an opportunity for a “driver only” deal from another company.

GolfWRX Member (jph4387): Where do you see the club market moving?  In other words, COR is maxed out and adjustability is the big item right now, what is the next major area of improvement?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): I wouldn’t necessarily say that COR is maxed out but is getting closer and closer to the limit.  It is true that center face CT’s are at the limit on drivers but the rest of the face still has room to improve.  The day we hit max CT across 50% of the face will be the day we kick back and have a cold one.  We have many other technology platforms in our play book but the next one on the list will be changing how we manufacture products and will merge two of our core technologies….more to come!

GolfWRX Member (stage1350): When are you going to make some more Damascus putters?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): It was a really cool idea but hard to execute.  We spent well over $500 to make each putter which is probably not a great business plan.  This was my baby back in the day so you never know……it may come back one day!

GolfWRX Member (_Hawk3y3_): Adams,

First off, as a lefty, thank you for continuing to offer all of your products in left-handed when other companies have made the decision not to do so.  I prefer to support the companies who keep us lefties in mind.

On to my question: While many other companies (including parent company TaylorMade) have moved towards a progressively longer shaft length in their drivers, Adams has kept the stock length on their “players” driver at 45″, including this year’s XTD.  What has factored into your decision to buck this trend in the market?

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, and keep up the good work!

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Basically everyone else in the market was chasing distance without regard for consistency or input from the consumer.  Golfers did not ask for longer shafts in their drivers or fairways but in the search for distance some OEM’s decided to lengthen clubs to win this game.  We decided to keep our driver standard length (still tour average at 45”) and add every bit of technology to the head itself to win the distance game.  This is why our driver has 3 slots and also why we check the CT 4 times on all drivers to maintain the hottest face in golf.

GolfWRX Member (ProV1Basher): With Adams joining Taylormade. What has been the biggest benefit to club making?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Sharing of key technologies has been the biggest advantage on the R&D side.

GolfWRX Member (GripRight): What do the titanium ti upgrades provide?  distance?  thanks!

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Titanium offers a couple of advantages…..speed = distance and weight = lower center of gravity.

GolfWRX Member (Matt01984): How much involvement do staff players have with product development? Some companies seem to go in for it in a big way and others not so much.

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Tour players play an integral part in the design of our product.  We typically launch prototype product on tour to get player feedback and then we will go through a couple design iterations to perfect the look or launch/spin characteristics of the product before we launch it to the market.

GolfWRX Member (gophers79): Another one: I have Titleist 910h hybrids and I like them a lot.  I’ve found it hard to hit a hybrid that is “boxy” shaped as opposed to more of a “mini fairway wood” shape.  Adams clearly is doing well in the hybrid market, but all of the Adams hybrids I’ve seen are that compact, boxy shape.  Is there anything out there in the Adams line either now or coming up for someone who likes a little rounder, longer clubhead to look down on?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): Through our player testing, we have found that with our upside down technology it will increase the launch while the spin can be controlled by the size of the footprint front to back.  Our testing shows the opposite is true when you get closer to a FW shape where the launch angle decreases and the spin increases.  If you are willing, I would give our Pro Hybrid a shot and if that doesn’t work try our Super S and LS lines.  They have a more “mini fairway wood” shape that might fit your eye better.

GolfWRX Member (gmangolf): I want to know what the most compelling reasons are for me to upgrade my Adams Super Hybrid.  Love the look of the new Pro hybrids, but just curious if they would say there are tangible/noticeable benefits to upgrading.

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): Glad you like the Super family of Hybrids.  My answer would depend on whether you are referring to the Super S or LS hybrids.  What I can say is that the Pro Hybrid was the most used on Tour as a prototype in the back half of 2013.  If the Pros are switching, it might not be a bad reason to give it try!

GolfWRX Member (TheMerryTex): What was the inspiration behind the design of the XTD irons?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): The Cross Cavity design has a long historical timeline as a prototype!  A version of the cross cavity design was prototyped back in 2009 -2010.  Engineers were trying to alter the cg properties of a better player/tour inspired iron profile without affecting the look at address.  We found this design could pull the cg further off the face improving the forgiveness and keeping off center shots more online.  XTD was the perfect program to add it to with the added distance we needed a way to keep that extra distance more on line towards its intended target along with a way to improve the sound of the iron at impact!

GolfWRX Member (ThunderBuzzworth): it seems like everybody I know has a tendency to hit screaming quack hooks with hybrids for some reason. The shots that are straighter always shoot up on them.  Is there a head design that you make that helps combat the hybrid hooks? Also which of the heads will be the lowest spin?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): The Adams Pro family of hybrids is a great example!  One of the reasons for our success on tour has been our patented upside down technology that you will see on the Adams Pro and Pro mini hybrids.  That shape and the longer blade length has helped tour players minimize that miss.  If you are looking for the lowest spinning of the family, I would suggest the Pro Mini Hybrid!

GolfWRX Member (mikes919): I demoed a Pro Mini 20* recently and noticed that the stock Aldila Tour Green shaft reads “ATX85H-2.8-S” on the side. The listed torque for the S-flex Tour Green on Aldila’s website is 2.9. Were these tour greens specially made for the new adams hybrids? If so, why?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Great question.  The Tour Green ATX shaft is the same shaft Aldila sells in the aftermarket and promotes on tour.  I am not sure why the torque on the shaft is different than what is listed on Aldila’s website.

GolfWRX Member (king6): Could you please explaine something about tollerances ( loft,lie) of adams hybrids?
Is there a specific focus in your manufacturing?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Actually yes this is a focus for us and will become a higher priority as we move forward.  I hope to take what we did with the XTD driver (CT) and move that across to loft and lie.

GolfWRX Member (golfdoctor111): Can you please share a story re: the fitting process of the ” big easy”?

What were some of the challenges that you encountered ?

Thank you

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Absolutely.  This was one of my favorite fittings on tour.  Ernie is such a great player and equally such a great person.  We went down to Jupiter a couple months back and worked with Ernie at his home club on new product to see if the product and brand were right for the Big Easy.  I walked away from that fitting blown away with positive feedback from Ernie and his team.  The process was rather easy believe it or not.  The first thing we did was send him product weeks in advance to try so he had a taste for our product and could provide us some great feedback during our fitting on what we should change.  We talked through each product from driver to putter and came out of the fitting with a clear direction to move forward.
Ernie tested many products:
XTD Drivers
Tightlies Tour Fwy
Tightlies Fwy
XTD Ti Fwy
PRO Hybrid
PRO 9031 Hybrid
PRO Dhy Hybrid
XTD Forged Irons (more on this below)
Puglielli wedges
YES! Sandy Mid
YES! Callie Mid
The biggest opportunity/challenge was the irons.  Ernie loved the XTD Forged but did not want to play a forged blade and he preferred a boxier toe, square face profile and progressive offset.  We talked Ernie through our new XTD Cross Cavity design (yet to be released at this time) and he was really pumped to hear about the tech story and asked for a set designed to his liking.  This is how the XTD Tour iron was conceived!  Fast forward a couple months (XTD Irons are in and ready to be built) and about a dozen calls later from Ernie’s camp eagerly asking about the status of the irons, we took a trip out to the Northern Trust Open to see what Ernie thought.  I had the Trackman in tow and ready to get to work as soon as Ernie walked on the range because in my mind there are always things to tweak the first time a player hits a new set of clubs especially given this was his first US event on our staff.  To my amazement Ernie did not want to hit on the Trackman and had nothing but fantastic things to say about the irons.  This is a testament to the product and the R&D team at Adams Golf.

GolfWRX Member (stevehj): It seems to me that the bulk of innovation in golf clubs is all focused on increasing the distance a golfer can hit a driver, hybrid or iron.  Is there any thought on how to make a club more accurate?  If so, what are some of the concepts that could be explored in this regard?

Second, Adams is the most innovation risk taking golf club manufacturer in the business, are there any thoughts of bringing your ground breaking expertise to the putter market?

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): Honestly distance sells because you can measure that after one shot on a launch monitor but you are right that accuracy is just as important but just not as sexy from a marketing perspective.  We have explored many ideas on how to create a visible technology to improve accuracy and our latest release of the XTD Cross Cavity irons is one example on how we plan to move forward in this area.  You will see more very soon!  Thanks for the feedback!

2. Quick answer is Yes.  We believe we have the best putter technologies in the market:  YES! C-Groove technology = pure roll quicker which means your putt will roll true to the line and/or break (when was the last time you read only the last 7’ of the 10’ putt….never….you typically read the break from start to finish but to make that putt you need to get the ball rolling ASAP) and True Alignment technology = better alignment for everyone which means the putter sits square no matter where you hold your hands.  Just try it for yourself at any retail store and post your feedback.  Walk in and sit down 10 of the same competitor putter models and let me know how many of them sit square….probably only 30-40% because it all depends on the sole draft /loft (manufacturing tolerances) and/or shaft installation on double bend putters.

GolfWRX Member (duck hook): First of all your hybrids are outstanding! Do you view your hybrids as iron replacements or more like fairway wood?

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): Great question!  Two years ago, we jumped into the rat race of getting the most distance we possibly could out of our Hybrids.  When it came to distance, we nailed it, and it could easily be seen through our Easy Million campaign.  With the increased lengths of the Hybrids, we had to increase the volume of the hybrid too.  Along with the rest of the industry, the hybrids started to look more and more like a FW.  Despite what the industry was doing at the time, we decided to change directions and go back to what hybrids were truly meant for, iron replacements.  With our latest XTD and Pro Family of Hybrid offerings, you’ll notice the loft and length are more in the typical tour accepted ranges.  Rather than adjusting length, loft and volume of the club head, we are letting our multi-material and velocity slot technology do the talking!

GolfWRX Member (JCool): How does the new Adams Pro hybrid compare in performance aspects to the Adams XTD hybrid?
Is the Adams Pro geared more towards high swing speed players?

I currently use both 20* and 23* hybrids, which help considerably.
Was thinking of adding the 26* hybrid as well.
Wondering which would fit me better as a weekend player.  My score is around 90, as is my driver swing speed (90 mph).
Since the 26* would replace a five iron, would like one that doesn’t balloon at that higher loft but is still easy to get into the air.

Adams Golf (Justin Girard): The material properties are what separate these two hybrids.  If you are looking for good distance with a little more spin I would try the Pro Hybrid.  If you looking for the best of the best when it comes to distance, XTD Ti Hybrid is your club of choice.

Typically, a hybrid will have a lower center of gravity which will allow for a higher launch.  Depending on what hybrid you choose, you can control the spin that way.  In general, larger the profile (front to back) the more spin you’ll likely see.

GolfWRX Member (sieve35): I am having trouble finding info on the c-taper 90 in the xtds and the atx red in the pro hybrid, are these new shafts adams got before everyone else or an “adams exclusive” (made for)? Really hope it’s the first option!

Any specs or info or similar profile for the atx red, dvs???

Adams Golf (Justin Honea): The C-Taper 90 shafts are almost identical to the C-Taper Lite shafts out there.  The only difference is the C-Taper Lite are taper tip and C-Taper 90 are parallel.  KBS will be offering the 90 version really soon.  The Aldila Tour Red shaft was co-engineered by Adams and Aldila and will be launched in the aftermarket by Aldila.  We asked them to add a 3^rd shaft profile to the family because that is what we needed for the PRO hybrid family.  Our goal was to match the shaft to the performance of the head.

GolfWRX Member (wdwfan78): Do you feel that social media and outreach is more beneficial to Adams and its sales then traditional advertising? It seems that more and more resources by all OEM’s is being invested into non-traditional means of communication to players.

Adams Golf (Jeff Wood): Social media is obviously an important piece of the marketing mix for our company. It can really cross over into our traditional marketing & advertising too (i.e. a couple of years ago our in-store product signage include actual reviews from our website and we also used player reviews in our TV commercials and our #ElsToAdams campaign earlier this year).

Today we mostly use Twitter and Facebook to interact and respond. It really is awesome to have the different touchpoints today with golfers that we didn’t have a few years ago. Even here at GolfWRX and sites like it, we feel it’s very vital to monitor the conversation and jump in like we’re doing. The more transparent we can be and responsive the better it is for all of us. We have a great story to tell and social media gives us an avenue to do that. We also want to hear your stories too … that’s the beauty of #OwnTheSecondShot … no better stories in golf than that incredible second shot that set you up for birdie.

Thanks for the question