Equipment
Oakley as a golf brand? Exactly
On the surface, it doesn’t make much sense. Why would Oakley — a brand beloved by surfers, snowboarders, skiers, skaters and otherwise “cool” people — want to be a golf brand? Doesn’t it know that golfers are notoriously uncool, and that for every Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy there are 50 Tour players who make Chris Kirk seem exciting?
GolfWRX regulars might have noticed that we’ve been learning a lot about the Southern-California based company lately. When Oakley signed Zach Johnson and Bubba Watson in 2013, we did a Q&A with the company’s sports marketing manager. We followed up with a feature on the impact Bubba Watson has had in shaping Oakley product this spring, and spent this summer reviewing Oakley’s Carbon Pro 2 golf shoes, M2 Frame and Holbrook sunglasses and its latest golf apparel.
What we’ve found is that few companies spend as much time perfecting its products as The Ellipse, which became even more evident when I visited Oakley headquarters.
Oakley HQ, nicknamed the “Design Bunker,” looks like a spaceship that might blast off from its Foothills Ranch, Calif. location. Even though it’s a public facility that includes a retail store and a walk-in warranty department, the winding, tank-equipped driveaway screams “keep out” to poindexters.
The coolness threshold was reinforced in the lobby, where I was instructed to wait for my tour guide in an authentic fighter jet ejector seat. I, in khakis and a polo, wondered if I was about to be propelled through the vaulted ceilings of the main lobby. Was I cool enough to be in this place?
Luckily, it was another case of a journalist making stuff up, and I made my way through the public lobby and into the private Oakley hallways unscathed.
If you’re waiting for a photo tour of HQ, the production facilities and research labs I saw, you’re out of luck, as just about all of the areas were off limits for photography. Oakley protects its prototype products and procedures more tightly than any golf apparel company I’ve ever toured, which is why it makes sense to shift the conversation from what exactly Oakley does to produce its apparel, footwear and accessories to why it does it in the first place.
For that answer, I talked to Nathan Strange, Oakley’s head of global golf marketing. Strange spent a decade working at one of the golf equipment industry’s traditional powerhouses, and is the man responsible for the now famous Bubba Hovercraft video.
The outside-the-box video was perfect for the Oakley brand, Strange said, as it showcased what I kept hearing from every member of the Oakley golf team.
“We’re different,” they kept saying.
I, like you, have seen the barrage of Oakley marketing material that has hit the internet in 2014. It includes the message that Oakley is “Disruptive by Design” and celebrates the company’s 30-year anniversary of releasing innovative products. In the early days, those products included motorcycle hand grips, goggles and performance sunglasses that were a hit with extreme sports athletes.
How do you know that you’ve been sufficiently disruptive since? I won’t play the game of what’s disruptive and what’s not, but I will say this. When your brand is healthy enough to get House of Cards frontman Kevin Spacey to narrate your video, you’re doing better than ok.
But a spokesman like Spacey, or even endorsers such as Bubba Watson and Zach Johnson don’t actually change a brand or a sub brand. They might change its perception, or even offer a new insight, but their affiliation does not by itself make something different.
So what actually makes Oakley different? I kept wondering this, and prodded team members with questions that I hoped would lead me to that answer. It didn’t hit home until I sat with Strange at the end of my visit that I finally figured it out.
At the core of Oakley’s business has always been an obsession with individual athletes, the hard-working, go-it-alone perfectionists who do whatever it takes to reach their goal. That’s when it occurred to me that while golf will never be labeled as an extreme sport, the demands golf places on its players are extreme. Few other sports need its athletes to be as precise and consistent as golfers need to be in the time it takes golfers to play 18 holes, and even fewer sports place those athletes on ever-changing courses and climates that are as variable as the ones golfers face.
Let’s look at Oakley’s marquee product in golf, its sunglasses, which became popular in part thanks to their use by David Duval and Annika Sorenstam in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Sunglasses were nothing new to the sport, but Oakley’s models were comfortable, precise and protective against the damage the sun and debris can do to a golfer’s eyes. It didn’t hurt, either, that people thought they were cool.
Above is Bubba Watson’s outfit script for Sunday at the 2014 PGA Championship, with White Take 3.0 pants and the Markus Polo.
Now, Oakley is making even better sunglasses that are more adaptable and available in more styles. Its expanded into performance-first polos, jackets, accessories and golf pants that look the part on the course, but could just as easily be worn in yoga class. They’re that soft, lightweight, bendable and breathable. Again, nothing new, but they just perform a little better.
So why is Oakley in the golf business? Simply put, its team thinks it can make better apparel and accessories than the big guys. In fact, its team thinks that it already has. For the team of performance-obsessed sports product people, what’s cooler than that?
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Equipment
Why Rory McIlroy will likely use the new TaylorMade BRNR Mini Driver Copper at the RBC Heritage
Although we spotted Rory McIlroy testing the new TaylorMade BRNR Mini Driver Copper last week during practice rounds at the Masters, he ultimately didn’t decide to use the club in competition.
It seems that will change this week at the 2024 RBC Heritage, played at the short-and-tight Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head.
When asked on Wednesday following his morning Pro-Am if he’d be using the new, nostalgic BRNR Copper this week, McIlroy said, “I think so.”
“I like it,” McIlroy told GolfWRX.com on Tuesday regarding the BRNR. “This would be a good week for it.”
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According to Adrian Rietveld, the Senior Manager of Tour at TaylorMade, the BRNR Mini Driver can help McIlroy position himself properly off the tee at the tight layout.
Here’s what Rietveld told GolfWRX.com on Wednesday:
“For someone like Rory, who’s that long at the top end of the bag, and then you put him on a course like Harbour Town, it’s tough off the tee. It’s tight into the greens, and you have to put yourself in position off the tee to have a shot into the green. It kind of reminds me of Valderrama in Spain, where you can be in the fairway and have no shot into the green.
“I’m caddying for Tommy [Fleetwood] this week, so I was walking the course last night and looking at a few things. There’s just such a small margin for error. You can be standing in the fairway at 300 yards and have a shot, but at 320 you don’t. So if you don’t hit a perfect shot, you could be stuck behind a tree. And then if you’re back at 280, it might be a really tough shot into the small greens.
“So for Rory [with the BRNR], it’s a nice course-specific golf club for him. He’s got both shots with it; he can move it right-to-left or left-to-right. And the main thing about this club has been the accuracy and the dispersion with it. I mean, it’s been amazing for Tommy.
“This was the first event Tommy used a BRNR last year, and I remember talking to him about it, and he said he couldn’t wait to play it at Augusta next year. And he just never took it out of the bag because he’s so comfortable with it, and hitting it off the deck.
“So you look at Rory, and you want to have the tools working to your advantage out here, and the driver could hand-cuff him a bit with all of the shots you’d have to manufacture.”
So, although McIlroy might not be making a permanent switch into the new TaylorMade BRNR Mini Driver Copper, he’s likely to switch into it this week.
His version is lofted at 13.5 degrees, and equipped with a Fujikura Ventus Black 7X shaft.
See more photos of Rory testing the BRNR Mini here
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Equipment
Spotted: TaylorMade P-UDI driving iron
It seems like the RBC Heritage is full of new gear to be spotted, and you can add TaylorMade’s P-UDI utility irons to that list.
We spotted a 17-degree P-UDI 2-iron in Nick Dunlap’s bag yesterday, and now have some photos of both the 3- and 4-irons. Nick has his P-UDI 2-iron setup with a Project X HZRDUS Black 4th Gen 105g TX shaft.
From what we can tell, this new P-UDI utility iron looks to have some of the usual TaylorMade technology as we can see the Speed Slot on the sole of the club for additional face flexibility. A toe screw is usually used to close off the hollow body design that will probably be filled with a version of TaylorMade’s Speed Foam that is present in the current iron lineup. This hollow body, foam-filled design should offer additional ball speed, soft feel, and sound, as well as an optimized CG for ball flight.
“Forged” is etched into the hosel, so we can assume that either the face, body, or both are forged for a soft and responsive feel. The club looks good from behind and at address, where we can see just a little offset and a topline that I would consider medium thickness. We don’t have the full details on what is under the hood or how many loft options will be available yet.
TaylorMade P-UDI 3-iron – 20°
TaylorMade P-UDI 4-iron – 22°
- Check out the rest of our photos from the 2024 RBC Heritage
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Whats in the Bag
Collin Morikawa WITB 2024 (April)
- Collin Morikawa what’s in the bag accurate as of the RBC Heritage. More photos from the event here.
Driver: TaylorMade Qi10 LS (9 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ Limited 60 TX (45 inches)
3-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 (13.5 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ Limited 80 TX
5-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 (18 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ Limited 80 TX
Irons: TaylorMade P770 (4), P7MC (5-6), P730 (7-PW)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue Mid 115 X100 (4-6), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 (7-PW)
Wedges: TaylorMade MG4 (50-SB09, 56-LB08), TaylorMade MG4 TW (60-TW11)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400
Putter: TaylorMade TP Soto
Grip: SuperStroke Zenergy Tour 2.0
Grips: Golf Pride Z-Grip Cord
Ball: TaylorMade TP5x
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Pingback: The Takeaway: A Look at the Golf Industry (November 2014) « Grow the Game Central
stripe
Oct 16, 2014 at 3:34 pm
I can get down with the clothes but will always stick with FJ.
Gregg
Oct 15, 2014 at 10:49 am
At the high school golf level I see a lot of Under Armour clothing and very little Oakley stuff.
Craig
Oct 15, 2014 at 9:55 am
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Oakley lost it’s cool factor a long time ago. And Bubba has never been cool.
hjsdl
Oct 14, 2014 at 11:57 am
Oakley makes very good products and had Rory not signed with Nike, Oakley might have been one of the top selling clothing brands in golf by now.
Corny
Oct 14, 2014 at 2:43 am
I hate that O symbol, it gets in the way of everything, it looks so out of place and corny. It’s corny baby, yeah, corny!
Jeremy
Oct 14, 2014 at 3:40 pm
Zach Johnson needs a bigger belt buckle.
J
Oct 14, 2014 at 12:44 am
Wonder when Oakley makes a putter…. Bet they do.
RumtumTim
Oct 13, 2014 at 10:16 pm
Oakley hasn’t been “cool” since the LeMond days.
Ponjo
Oct 14, 2014 at 5:25 pm
That’s like saying Nike has not been cool since Tiger did what he did.
Mike Belkin
Oct 13, 2014 at 9:06 pm
I do view Oakley as a disruptive brand especially in the golf space, but am surprised at how little we see Oakley product on our NCCGA college golfers. Part of that may be that NCCGA college teams are somewhat geographically East-coast centric, however.