Tour Equipment - the real story

[Rockford35]

If anyone had any questions about the differences between OEM and Tour equipment, particularily from Taylor Made, perhaps a read through this is worthwhile.

"Tour Vs Tp" copied from a portion of GolfWRX Audio Chat Transcripts
Dr. Benoit Vincent is Taylormade's Chief Technical Officer

Sean Toulan: Okay, I know there’s a lot of – believe me; we’re on the boards, all of the boards, every day. That means me, and Dr. Vincent, and everybody here in this room. So, let me just say this – that I am so appreciative of the service that these boards have given all of us in the game of golf, and I mean that very, very sincerely. Because for somebody like me, and the guys here in this room, for us to really get an accurate feel of the vibe of what’s going on in the marketplace is incredibly valuable. So, we definitely are on the boards to listen, we’re not on the boards to influence, we’re not on the boards to plant propaganda, we’re just there to listen to what real golfers are talking about with equipment, we’re the same way.

The TP thing, I can tell you the TP concept was born because we listen to people like you guys on boards. And that was a very controversial thing, inside the company a few years ago when we launched the R510TP. There were all kinds of things about, gosh, should we talk about the club that Sergio plays isn’t exactly like the club that might be for sale in the public.

To me, I’ve seen Sergio’s club, and I’m a pretty nice golfer, I can’t play Sergio Garcia’s driver, I hit it low, right, and about 180. I’m not going to play with that, but it isn’t so much Sergio’s driver, it’s the specs of Sergio’s driver. So, what we use the tour for is to develop new products, and to develop new technologies, and to validate these new technologies. If we can get Sergio Garcia, Retief Goosen, and Darren Clarke, to give us the two thumbs up, there’s a good chance the average golfer is going to like the idea.

So, when we developed TP, TP is tour equipment. Is it the same metal – yes. Is it the same tooling – in most cases yes, and I’ll explain that in a second. Is it made from the same group of foundries and vendors – absolutely yes. So, I know there’s a lot of misinformation out there, when I said it’s the exact same tooling, in some case it is, and in some case it isn’t. What I mean by that is the products that we bring out under TP are the products that are most used on the PGA Tour.

For instance, where that would vary is sometimes we do additional TP parts that may not come to the marketplace. When we did the original 510 TP driver, that one went into play and was incredibly successful. But we have players out there, Darren Clarke being one, that would have a hard time leaving a golf club to the right. Way more people hit it to the right and don’t like right and would rather have it left than people know Darren Clarke happens to be one of them. So we did another tool of the R510 TP that had a more heel-ward center of gravity, so for a player like a Darren Clarke, he could have that golf club go more to the left for him. That one we never brought to the marketplace, but we did have some on tour.

So, we definitely will continue to prototype, and we’ve always done prototyping on the tour, some of those clubs come to market and some of them don’t. We did an R7 Quad HT, we did a 425 HT, the R7 Quad HT came to market and the R7 425 HT has not come to market. So, we use it, probably no different than Ferrari would use Formula 1 racing, you know, at the very highest level, we get constant feedback, some of that is directly applicable to the marketplace, and some is not so much.


Q: Interesting. Just wrapping up the R7, just so for my own edification and the board’s edification, taking all the R7’s, the Tour, the TP, and the retail model, there is no difference between any of the three models, correct?


Sean Toulan: Correct...Let me clarify one thing. We have two models, an R7 and an R7 TP, but they’re completely different spec packages, right? One has a lot of offset, and the lofts are a little stronger, and the blades are bigger, and then we have another one called R7 TP, and then we actually have a third one called R7 Draw, so there isn’t a tour version of any of those clubs, they’re all the same. Of those three R7 Draw, R7 TP, and R7; the R7 TP and R7 are both on Tour.



Dr. Benoit Vincent: Let me answer that question, not from the marketing side, but from the production side, as I’m also in charge of making every single of those. I can guarantee that the head that are used by our tour department to assemble golf clubs for the tour players are the exact same heads that are used in the production line to assemble the R7 TP iron. They are the exact same. When they run out of inventory in the tour department, they just pick some in the shelf of the commercial department.

And it’s the same thing for the Superquad TP; it’s the exact same product. Now, to Sean’s point, they’re going to equip them with an X shaft, and they’re going to bend them one or two degrees here or there, that’s for sure, but that’s a classical fitting aspect and that’s what we offer in custom, through our custom service. So you can get, if you really need an X shaft, very heavy, then you can get it because in stock we wouldn’t put that shaft in.

*Thanks to Shawnee from GD for this valuable info.

R35

[Jules150]

i believe that they are pretty much they same thing... i never got why people thought tour equiment was completly different. If they did that they would need to use a completly different process with different machines (probably) and that would cost way too much just to satisfy a handful of players.

[Slingblade61]

Sshhhhh.......don't tell the guy's that run BSG.

Besides, I thought this was established quite awhile ago.

[JEFF4i]

Well...duh.

[Rockford35]

Originally Posted by Slingblade61

Sshhhhh.......don't tell the guy's that run BSG.

Besides, I thought this was established quite awhile ago.

I won't.

I was pretty sure this was the case, but good to see someone with some creds say it.

I play a Tour HiBore, but that's because it's a totally different head than the retail. But the Tp versions and Tour versions of everything like TM, Cally, ect, are the same shit. Can you imagine the costs that would go into making molds for everyone? Holy shit.

R35

[FKA19]

yeah i always knew this.
i believe that some irons go through better forging though.

[ezra76]

Yeah, I thought so. They do all kinds of customization but they are the same. The R5TP that belonged to Sheehan was a flatter lie angle, heavier head and most likely hand picked to a supertight tolerance for his perfect loft and face angle. I was perplexed, my 10.5* R5TP seemed open and the 8.5* seemed dead square, definitley not as right prone as the 10.5*. So then I get the 200steel tour that was also his. Same thing... flatter lie and it was actually a little shut, not square. Makes sense. He must want a similar setup to what is mentioned above about Clarke.

Bottom line... a true "tour club" is built for someone elses specs down to millimeters. Great if you have the same specs but chances are, if you did, they'd be paying you to play total custom fit clubs as well.

Good info Rock.

[Rockford35]

This quote from above is getting some serious discussion in the golf world.

This is gonna cheese Todd off to no end if it keeps up and comes to fruition in a release.

I can't wait.

R35

[LyleG]

Originally Posted by Rockford35

This quote from above is getting some serious discussion in the golf world.

This is gonna cheese Todd off to no end if it keeps up and comes to fruition in a release.

I can't wait.

R35

Like I said on the other forum. Todd will be flipping tour issue cheese burgers soon. The BSG ship has sailed.

[Rockford35]

Until the lemmings hear first hand from the guys at TM, they won't. There are hundreds of them eating out of T'd hands. That ship is still sailing until there is a definitive announcement made, preferrably on the TM website, before those complete idiots understand the real world.

BGS is an enigma.

R35

[MCDavis]

Rock, thought you might find this interesting. Since I don't know all the personalities at various sites (and don't even have the addresses to some like BSG), I don't know who this guy is, but you probably do.

http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=75181

[Rockford35]

I don't know Ben personally, but i've seen him around.

The link to the audio that followed was where that post from above came directly from.



If anyone's interested, I have some Tour Issue ferrules that will add 15 yards to your drive first time out. $75 each.

R35

[MCDavis]

Wasn't sure if his initials were linked to the BSG site...I'm fairly new to the golf forum world.

[Rockford35]

Originally Posted by MCDavis

Wasn't sure if his initials were linked to the BSG site...I'm fairly new to the golf forum world.

Not that I'm aware. However, not all the dolts on BSG buy into the religion on TM Tour as the almighty.

R35

[LyleG]

You need to understand why this has some people in such an uproar.

These guys are selling bags worth of TM "tour" only gear for prices hitting as high as $20,000.

They also offer a custom fitting program where all the gear is included for the tidy sum of $22,000 US.

Any takers, I will only charge you $10,000 and you can your have your pick of anything in my garage. I'll even cook you dinner and let you pet my dog.