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
"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