Connect with us

Equipment

Oakley as a golf brand? Exactly

Published

on

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.

IMG_2193

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.

IMG_2200

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?

IMG_2155

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.

IMG_2163

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.

Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-1.03.19-PM

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?

Your Reaction?
  • 2
  • LEGIT1
  • WOW0
  • LOL0
  • IDHT0
  • FLOP0
  • OB0
  • SHANK1

11 Comments

11 Comments

  1. Pingback: The Takeaway: A Look at the Golf Industry (November 2014) « Grow the Game Central

  2. stripe

    Oct 16, 2014 at 3:34 pm

    I can get down with the clothes but will always stick with FJ.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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!

  7. J

    Oct 14, 2014 at 12:44 am

    Wonder when Oakley makes a putter…. Bet they do.

  8. 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.

  9. 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.

Leave a Reply

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Whats in the Bag

Chesson Hadley WITB 2024 (March)

Published

on

Driver: Titleist TSR3 (10 degrees, D1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ 70 TX

3-wood: Titleist TSR2+ (14.5 degrees, A1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ 80 TX

Irons: Titleist T200 (3), Titleist 620 CB (4, 5), Titleist 620 MB (6-PW)
Shafts: Graphite Design Tour AD DI 105 X (3), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 (4-PW)

Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM10 (52-12F, 56-14F), WedgeWorks (60-K)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400

Putter: Odyssey White Hot OG 2-Ball
Grip: Odyssey

Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet

Ball: Titleist Pro V1x

Check out more in-hand photos Chesson Hadley’s clubs here.

Your Reaction?
  • 0
  • LEGIT0
  • WOW0
  • LOL1
  • IDHT0
  • FLOP0
  • OB0
  • SHANK0

Continue Reading

Whats in the Bag

Gary Woodland WITB 2024 (March)

Published

on

Driver: Cobra Darkspeed X (8 degrees)
Shaft: Accra TZ5 70 M5

  • The white circle that appears at the top of the face a removable sticker that’s used for launch monitor tracking, and Woodland removes it for competition!

3-wood: Cobra Darkspeed X (14 degrees)
Shaft: Accra TZ5 GW100 Prototype

7-wood: Cobra LTDx LS prototype (20 degrees)
Shaft: Accra TZ5 GW100 Prototype

Irons: Wilson Staff (18 degrees), Cobra King MB (4-PW)
Shafts: KBS Tour C-Taper Limited X

Wedges: Cobra SB (48), Titleist Vokey Design SM10 (52-08F, 56-14F), Cobra King (60)
Shafts: KBS Tour C-Taper Limited X (48 degrees), KBS Tour V-Ten 125

Putter: Scotty Cameron T-5 Proto
Grip: SuperStroke Zenergy Tour 3.0P

Ball: Titleist Pro V1x

Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord

See more in-hand photos of Gary Woodland’s WITB in the forums.

Your Reaction?
  • 3
  • LEGIT1
  • WOW2
  • LOL0
  • IDHT0
  • FLOP0
  • OB0
  • SHANK0

Continue Reading

Equipment

Q&A: Martin Trainer on his Bobby Grace “Greg Chalmers” putter, 6.5-degree driver, and “butter knife” 2-iron

Published

on

As unbiasedly as I can put it, Martin Trainer has one of the coolest club setups in professional golf. (At some point soon, I’ll put together a top-10 list of “coolest club setups on Tour,” but I know that Trainer will be in the top-10)

What a lineup. He plays a 6.5-degree Wilson prototype driver, a 13-degree Wilson prototype 3-wood, a true blade Wilson Staff Model 2-iron, and a Bobby Grace “Greg Chalmers Commemorative” putter!

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by GolfWRX (@golfwrx)

I mean, look at this 2-iron from address…

To quote the great author R.L. Stine: “Goosebumps.”

On Wednesday at the 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open, I caught up with Trainer to learn more about his bag setup.

Here’s what he had to say:

You have the Internet going crazy over your bag setup, and your putter. Where’d you pick the Bobby Grace-Greg Chalmers putter up? How long have you had it?

MT: This was from when Bobby Grace came to my course in California: Cal Club. And for whatever reason, they just started having them in the shop. So then I took my buddy’s, started using it, and made, like, a million putts in a row, which is how every putter story begins, I guess.

And then, I bought a couple of my own, used it for years, got to the Tour with it, won on Tour with it (the 2019 Puerto Rico Open). Then, about a year later, started using another putter, did that for a couple years, but now it’s back in the bag.

When did it come back in the bag?

MT: December of this past year. So a few months ago.

What year would you say was the first time you threw that in the bag, or, like, when you bought it?

MT: God…Probably, 2016, maybe? 2018?

Do you remember how much you paid for it?

MT: I don’t know, actually. Maybe $100-150 bucks or something. I think that’s the only golf club I’ve bought between high school and now. Well, two, since I bought two of them.

The driver is interesting, too. What went into the prototyping process?

MT: That was a version of the current driver, but it was the prototype that they first came out with for Tour guys to try. And for whatever reason, I just never switched out to the new one.

It’s just 6.5 degrees, right?

MT: Yeah. Very low loft, yeah.

What kind of ball speed do you have with that these days?

MT: Like high 170’s.

Yeah, that’ll work. And then a 2-iron blade? We’re seeing fewer and fewer of those out here.

MT: Yeah. The butter knife.

Very cool thing to have in the bag. Have you done any testing with driving irons? 

MT: Yeah, I used to have a thicker one, but it was a little offset, and I never hit it that well. And then finally, I started messing around with the butter knife. And I remember the first time I looked down at it, I was terrified. And then I ended up getting used to it, putting it in play, and it’s been in place since. It’s a pretty good club for me.

How far do you carry that? 

MT: Like 235.

A good little wind club, I’m sure.

MTL Yeah, exactly. I can hit it very low. It’s great.

I love it. You have people shook looking at that. Thanks for the time, man. 

MT: Absolutely.

To see more photos and discussion of Trainer’s bag, click here.

Your Reaction?
  • 26
  • LEGIT4
  • WOW1
  • LOL1
  • IDHT0
  • FLOP0
  • OB1
  • SHANK0

Continue Reading

WITB

Facebook

Trending