Equipment

SuperStroke exits putter business, focuses on grips

Published

11 years ago

Nov 27, 2012

At the 2012 PGA Merchandise Show, SuperStroke introduced a full line of putter designs by Bruce Sizemore to compliment the company’s growing selection of putter grips.

SuperStroke added Sizemore in 2010, hoping that his putter and wedge designs could morph the brand from a putter grip company to a full-fledged short game specialty company. But that was before sales of SuperStroke grips grew from 5,000 in 2009 to a projection of 1 million in 2012.

“Right now, our biggest problem is that we can’t make grips fast enough,” said Dean Dingman, president of SuperStroke, which is based in Wixom, Mich.

For that reason, SuperStroke has decided to focus exclusively on the sale of putter grips. The decision means that SuperStroke will part ways with the putter business, as well as Sizemore, effective at the end of the year.

TigerShark, a company led by Dingman and his brother Darrin since 2000, acquired SuperStroke in 2009. Dingman said that the TigerShark product line, which included a full line of golf clubs as well as putters, would also cease production.

“Being a small company, all of our resources, all of our time, all of our energy needs to be put on grips,” Dingman said.

Dingman praised Sizemore’s attention to detail and the process he underwent when designing the company’s lineup of putters in 2012. He called him a putting expert, complimenting not only his knowledge of putters and putting mechanics, but also his rapport with golfers – everyone from high handicappers to tour players. But Dingman and Sizemore had different vision for the putter brand, and 2012 sales missed expectations by 40 percent.

Dingman said the sales goal that was set for SuperStroke putters wasn’t “super ambitious,” but he admitted that the success of SuperStroke putter grips stripped the putter brand of the energy and resources it needed to succeed.

“To build a successful putter brand, you need to have everything that goes with it – a tour presence, marketing, distributors,” Dingman said. “We just didn’t have the manpower.”

Sizemore emphasized that he felt no animosity in the split. He said he was happy with his putters from a design standpoint, saying they were “close to perfect.”

“That’s the cool part,” Sizemore said. “At every end is a beginning. I’ll come up with some good stuff. It will just take some time.”

Sizemore said plans to continue to design putters in his studio located in his hometown of Farmington Hills, Mich. He admitted that SuperStroke’s decision to exit the putter market caught him off guard, but he saw the complications that arose for SuperStroke by partnering with him.

In all likelihood, SuperStroke’s exit from the putter business will make its grips more appealing to OEMs that are interested in installing SuperStroke grips on their own putters.

Click here for more discussion in the Putter Forum.

Click here to read more about Bruce Sizemore, or Click here to read about the new Super Stroke Grips.

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Whats in the Bag

Kevin Streelman WITB 2024 (April)

Published

11 hours ago

Apr 29, 2024

GolfWRX Staff

Kevin Streelman what’s in the bag accurate as of the Zurich Classic.

Driver: Titleist TSR3 (10 degrees, D1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Black 6 X

3-wood: Titleist TSR3 (15 degrees, A1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Blue 8 X

Check out more in-hand photos of Kevin Streelman’s clubs here.

5-wood: Ping G (17.5 degrees)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DI 10 X

Irons: Wilson Staff Model CB (4-9)
Shafts: Project X 6.5

Check out more in-hand photos of Kevin Streelman’s clubs here.

Wedges: Wilson Staff Model (48-08, 54-08), Titleist Vokey Design WedgeWorks (58-L @59)
Shafts: Project X 6.5 (48), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 (54, 58)

Putter: Scotty Cameron TourType SSS TG6

Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet

Ball: Titleist Pro V1x

Check out more in-hand photos of Kevin Streelman’s clubs here.

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Equipment

Choose Your Driver: Which 2012 driver was your favorite?

Published

12 hours ago

Apr 29, 2024

GolfWRX Staff

The year was 2012. Gangnam Style ruled supreme, its infectious beats and ludicrous horse-riding dance moves hypnotizing us with their stupidity. Everyone was talking about the Mayan calendar, convinced that the end of days was near. Superheroes soared on the silver screen, with the Avengers assembling in epic fashion. Katniss Everdeen survived The Hunger Games. And the memes! The memes abounded. Grumpy Cat triumphed. We kept calm and carried on.

In much the same way that automotive enthusiasts love classic cars, we at GolfWRX love taking a backward glance at some of the iconic designs of years past. Heck, we love taking iconic designs to the tee box in the present!

In that spirit, GolfWRX has been running a series inspired by arguably the greatest fighting game franchise of all time: Mortal Kombat. It’s not “choose your fighter” but rather “choose your driver.”

Check out some of the standout combatants of 2012 below.

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Nike VRS

Often harshly critiqued during its years releasing golf equipment (right, Phil Mickelson?), Nike’s tenure in the club-and-ball business gets a gloss of nostalgic varnish, with many of its iron and putter designs continuing to attract admirers. Among the company’s driver offerings, the 2012 VRS — or VR_S, if you will — drew high marks for its shaping and toned-down appearance. The multi-thickness, NexCOR face was no joke either.

Check out our coverage from 2012 here.

Callaway RAZR Fit

Callaway’s first foray into moveable weight technology (married with its OptiFit hosel) did not disappoint. With a carbon fiber crown, aerodynamic attention to detail, and variable and hyperbolic face technologies, this club foreshadowed the tech-loaded, “story in every surface” Callaway drivers of the present, AI-informed design age.

Check out our coverage from 2012 here.

Cleveland Classic 310

Truly a design that came out of left field. Cleveland said, “Give me a persimmon driver, but make it titanium…in 460cc.” Our 2012 reviewer, JokerUsn wrote, “I don’t need to elaborate on all the aesthetics of this club. You’ve seen tons of pics. You’ve all probably seen a bunch in the store and held them up close and gotten drool on them. From a playing perspective, the color is not distracting. It’s dark enough to stay unobtrusive in bright sunlight…Even my playing partners, who aren’t into clubs at all…commented on it saying it looks cool.” Long live!

Check out our coverage from 2012 here.

Titleist 910

While there’s no disputing Titleist’s “Titleist Speed” era of drivers perform better than its 2010s offerings, sentimentality abounds, and there was something classically Titleist about these clubs, right down to the alignment aid, and the look is somewhere between 983 times and the present TS age. Representing a resurgence after a disappointing stretch of offerings (907, 909), The 910D2 was a fairly broadly appealing driver with its classic look at address and classic Titleist face shape.

Check out our coverage from 2012 here.

TaylorMade RocketBallz

The white crown. The name. You either loved ‘em or you hated ‘em. TaylorMade’s 2012 offering from its RocketBallz Period boasted speed-enhancing aerodynamics and an Inverted Cone Technology in the club’s titanium face. Technology aside, it’s impossible to overstate what a departure from the norm a white-headed driver was in the world of golf equipment.

Check out our coverage from 2012 here.

Ping i20

Long a quietly assertive player in the driver space, Ping’s i20 was more broadly appealing than the G20, despite being a lower-launch, lower-spin club. Ping drivers didn’t always have looks that golfer’s considered traditional or classic, but the i20 driver bucked that trend. Combining the classic look with Ping’s engineering created a driver that better players really gravitated toward. The i20 offered players lower launch and lower spin for more penetrating ball flight while the rear 20g tungsten weights kept the head stable. Sound and feel were great also, being one of the more muted driver sounds Ping had created up to that time.

Check out our coverage from 2012 here.

GolfWRXers, let us know in the comments who “your fighter” is and why!

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Equipment

Coolest thing for sale in the GolfWRX Classifieds (4/29/24): Krank Formula Fire driver with AutoFlex SF505 shaft

Published

16 hours ago

Apr 29, 2024

Gianni Magliocco

At GolfWRX, we are a community of like-minded individuals that all experience and express our enjoyment of the game in many ways.

It’s that sense of community that drives day-to-day interactions in the forums on topics that range from best driver to what marker you use to mark your ball. It even allows us to share another thing we all love – buying and selling equipment.

Currently, in our GolfWRX buy/sell/trade (BST) forum, there is a listing for a Krank Formula fire driver with AutoFlex SF505 shaft.

From the seller: (@well01): “Krank formula fire 10.5 degree with AUtoflex SF505. $560 shipped.”

To check out the full listing in our BST forum, head through the link: Krank Formula Fire driver with AutoFlex SF505 shaft

This is the most impressive current listing from the GolfWRX BST, and if you are curious about the rules to participate in the BST Forum you can check them out here: GolfWRX BST Rules