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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Whats in the Bag
WITB Time Machine: Rory McIlroy’s winning WITB, 2014 PGA Championship
It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since Rory McIlroy outlasted Phil Mickelson at the 2014 PGA Championship. It’s even harder to believe McIlroy hasn’t hoisted a major trophy since his 2014 victory at Valhalla.
After a slow start to his final round, McIlroy tallied an eagle and two birdies on the back nine and his fourth major championship. Take a look at the clubs he played a decade ago in Kentucky.
Driver: Nike VR_S Covert 2.0 Tour (8.5 degrees) Buy here.
Shaft: Mitsubishi Kuro Kage XTS 70X
3-wood: Nike VR_S Covert 2.0 Tour (15 degrees) Buy here.
Shaft: Fujikura Rombax Pro 95 X
5-wood: Nike VR_S Covert 2.0 Tour (19 degrees) Buy here.
Shaft: Fujikura Rombax Pro 95 X
Irons: Nike VR Pro Blade (4-9) Buy here.
Shaft: Project X 7.0
Wedges: Nike VR Forged (46, 52, 56, 60 degrees) Buy here.
Shafts: Project X 6.5
Putter: Nike Method 006 Buy here.
Grips: Golf Pride MCC
Ball: Nike RZN Black
Check out more in-hand photos of Rory McIlroy’s clubs from 2014 here.
WITB Time Machine is presented by 2nd Swing Golf. 2nd Swing has more than 100,000 new and pre-swung golf clubs available in six store locations and online. Check them out here.
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Whats in the Bag
Tiger Woods WITB 2024 (May)
- Tiger Woods WITB accurate as of the PGA Championship. In-hand photos from 2024 Genesis Open. Check out more photos of Tiger at Valhalla here.
Driver: TaylorMade Qi10 LS (10.5 degrees @9.75)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD VF 6 X
3-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 Tour (15 degrees @13.5)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD VF 7 X
5-wood: TaylorMade M3 (19 degrees @18.25)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ Limited 80 TX
- Check out more in-hand photos of Tiger Woods’ WITB in the forums.
- Check out more photos of Tiger at Valhalla here.
Irons: 2023 TaylorMade P770 (3), TaylorMade P7TW (4-PW)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100
Wedges: TaylorMade MG4 Raw (56-12TW, 60-TW11)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400
- Check out more in-hand photos of Tiger Woods’ WITB in the forums.
- Check out more photos of Tiger at Valhalla here.
Putter: Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS prototype
Grip: Ping PP58 Blackout
Ball: Bridgestone Tour B X (2024)
Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord 58R
- Check out more in-hand photos of Tiger Woods’ WITB in the forums.
- Check out more photos of Tiger at Valhalla here.
More Tiger Woods WITBs
- Tiger Woods WITB 2024 (February)
- Tiger Woods WITB 2023 (November)
- Tiger Woods WITB 2023 (February)
- Tiger Woods WITB 2022 (December) (new in-hand photos)
- Tiger Woods WITB 2022 (July)
- Tiger Woods WITB at the 2022 PGA Championship (with a new 2-iron!)
- Tiger Woods WITB: 2022 Masters
- Tiger Woods WITB 2021 PNC Championship (new in-hand photos)
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Equipment
Titleist launches Pro V1, Pro V1x and Pro V1x Left Dash balls with enhanced alignment
Titleist has today introduced Pro V1, Pro V1x, and Pro V1x Left Dash golf balls featuring enhanced alignment.
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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.