Callaway Golf Acquires Toulon Design

By: Tony Covey

Callaway Golf has acquired start-up putter company Toulon Design.

When the alert came through I checked my calendar. April 1st was months ago.

This isn’t a headline we wrote.

This really happened.

Specific terms were not disclosed, but on paper, it’s an odd deal. Smart acquisitions are usually about intellectual property. Dubious ones often boil down to market share. As an 11-month-old infant of a company, Toulon Design doesn’t have much in the way of either.

This one appears to be more about the intangibles.

And by intangibles, I mean Sean Toulon.

Toulon, who will slide into the role of SVP for Callaway Golf and General Manager of the Odyssey Brand, previously served as Executive Vice President for TaylorMade-adidas Golf before starting his own company.

Alongside the other former TaylorMade guy (Callaway’s Harry Arnett), and others, Toulon played a major role in the explosive growth that made TaylorMade the dominant force in the golf equipment industry. Now he’s joining the company whose emergence has hastened the former’s demise.

Short version – very few know and understand the golf equipment business like Sean Toulon. He's a huge get.

By bringing in not just a proven putter guy, but a proven golf equipment guy, Callaway must certainly see an opportunity to strengthen its position in the putter category, where it is in a perpetual back and forth with Scotty Cameron for the #1 spot in consumer sales. It’s a classic step on the gas pedal move by an industry leader looking to add separation.

For Toulon, the alliance has the potential to provide the resources to grow the emerging putter business that bears his name and employs his two sons.

On paper, it’s a win-win.

Can it Work?

The two brands, one roof model hasn’t worked particularly well within the golf industry of late, but that probably won’t stop Callaway from trying. This latest go ‘round could manifest itself as something along the lines of Toulon Design by Odyssey.

Odyssey does what it does while occupying the space it always has, leaving the premium milled and custom space to the Toulon brand.

There’s enough separation there where, with the right execution, it could actually work.

Could. We’ll have to see how this plays out.

Twisting the Knife

While the acquisition looks to be straight-up good business, it also sends not-so-subtle two-word message to Callaway’s #1 rival, TaylorMade.

I suspect the move is being felt with the force of a gut punch inside the walls of TaylorMade.

It’s the kind of poetic vengeance that’s inevitable with the rise and fall of companies and the expiration of non-compete clauses. That doesn’t make it any less brutal.

A few weeks ago I checked in with Sean Toulon to see how things were going. He offered little of anything concrete, saying only that cool stuff was in the works.

I guess this qualifies.

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4 Tips to Find Your Thoughtful Spot and Get Inspired

by Jeff Elkins

Ever sit and stare at the page, unsure what to write? It happens to me at least once a week. You sit down to write and draw a complete blank.

Panic sets in. You worry, “Will I ever think of anything worth writing again?” Your mind screams, “Has the well run dry? Is the journey over? Woe is me; the world is coming to an end!”

When this happens, I take a deep breath and go to my Thoughtful Spot.

First, Find Your Thoughtful Spot

This is a trick I learned from Winnie the Pooh. His Thoughtful Spot was a log under a tree marked by a sign that read, “Pooh’s thotful spot.” It was the place where Pooh did his best thinking. It was where he got his inspiration when his well ran dry.

Many famous creatives have utilized Thoughtful Spots. For example, as a teen, I visited the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. I stopped and pondered each of his paintings, but I didn’t get them. To my immature eye, it all looked sloppy and vague. “Why is this guy so famous?” I thought to myself.

Then, I found a glass case that opened my eyes. In the display was Van Gogh’s small brown practice notebook. It was filled with amazing sketches of hands and faces and body parts. They were sharp, detailed, and precise.

Van Gogh’s Thoughtful Spot

The plaque explained that Van Gogh would go daily and sit by a fountain in the middle of town, his Thoughtful Spot, to sketch people as they walked by.

I looked back at his paintings around the room with new appreciation. He had the ability to paint like Rembrandt, but that was not the art that poured from his soul.

Each day he sat in his Thoughtful Spot watching people, sketched hands, and dreamed. Then he returned to his studio and chose to fill the canvas with extravagant beauty.

Where Is Your Thoughtful Spot?

My Thoughtful Spot is my front porch. I love going there to think and imagine. It’s ripe with inspiration, especially at night.

I live in a lower-middle class neighborhood in the middle of the inner city, so there is always something happening outside after dark. The drug dealers down the street chat loudly as they walk to the corner gas station to make their sales, challenging me to invent scenarios for them. People coming home from work unload at the bus stop and trudge down the sidewalk, inviting me to ponder what they have been up to all day. A drunk man stumbles from the bar two doors down and searches for his keys in the parking lot, begging me to tell the tale of where they were lost.

As all this goes on, I sit with my Moleskine and pen in hand, jotting down ideas.

I believe all writers need a Thoughtful Spot, just like Pooh and Van Gogh. We all need a place where we ponder and soak in the world around us.

“

All writers need a Thoughtful Spot to sit, ponder, and soak in the world around us. Where’s yours?

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4 Tips to Find Your Thoughtful Spot

If you haven’t found one, here are four suggestions for creating a great Thoughtful Spot.

1. Take the right tools. Do you write best on a laptop or a legal pad? Go into battle armed.

2. Look for a spot where you will be left alone. You need time and space where you can watch, but people won’t interrupt the conversation in your head.

3. Find a place that sparks your imagination. Your Thoughtful Spot should always be ripe and ready for harvest.

4. When you arrive, turn off your phone. It is a guarantee that electronic devil will ring right as inspiration begins to unload. Stop it before it can strike.

Your Thoughtful Spot Abounds in Inspiration

If you’re experiencing writer’s block, don’t despair! Instead, like Winnie the Pooh and Vincent Van Gogh, find your Thoughtful Spot and be inspired.

Where is your Thoughtful Spot? Let me know in the comments.

PRACTICE

Head to your Thoughtful Spot and spend fifteen minutes soaking in the world. Take notes on what you see. Then come back and share the story you harvested with us in the comments. Don’t forget to leave feedback for your fellow writers!

The post 4 Tips to Find Your Thoughtful Spot and Get Inspired appeared first on The Write Practice.

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First Look: Mizuno JPX 900 Driver

By: Tony Covey

When it comes to perception of technology, Mizuno believes golfers talk about their irons, but only whisper about their woods.

Indoor voices and whatnot.

With the JPX 900, Mizuno hopes to have golfers screaming like kids inside a damn Chuck E. Cheese.

My words…

To that end, Mizuno had a fairly straightforward objective when it comes to its new JPX 900 driver. The company wanted to improve on the JPX 850 in every respect. More ball speed, more forgiveness, and greater adjustability.

Sounds simple enough.

The Most Adjustable Driver in Golf?

When we talk about the JPX 900 there’s an almost natural tendency to compare to TaylorMade’s M1. That driver is the current benchmark for adjustability – and we’d argue performance too. Sufficed to say, it came up in our conversations with Mizuno.

At the foundation of the JPX 900’s adjustability is (2) 8 gram weights. Quick math…that’s 16 grams of movable weight. It’s not the most in golf, but it’s a solid number.

Those weights can be distributed a number of different ways. You can put both in the center (the default), both on the perimeter, or mix and match. Whatever it takes to optimize your ball flight, and if that takes freeing the golfer from the channeled constraints of other weight systems, Mizuno is happy to do it.

While the weight system isn’t radically different from its predecessor, it does move weight over a bit broader of an area, which gives Mizuno the ability to fit a wider range of golfers.

Also well worth mentioning, the JPX 850 was an extremely low forward CG design. That’s still mostly true of the JPX 900, however Mizuno raised the CG a bit while also bumping it a bit farther back. In addition to boosting MOI a bit, that should also make the JPX 900 a bit easier for higher lofted, lower swing speed players to get the ball airborne. As we found during 2015 Most Wanted driver testing, that could be an issue for some.

VFA Technology

Continuing the theme of ultimate adjustability, Mizuno has added VFA (Visual Face Angle) technology to the JPX 900 design. Functionally it works like the ASP (Adjustable Sole Plate) technology found on TaylorMade’s R1.

The 3 position sliding mechanism allows the golfer to set the face angle open, neutral, or closed. Like ASP, VFA is a ground-based technology that doesn’t have any actual impact on anything until the driver is soled. If you ground your driver at address the technology will likely be more impactful than it will for those who don’t.

Whether it’s in the store or on the course, all of us ground the driver at one time or another, but this is most definitely one of those your actual mileage may vary technologies.

Worth mentioning that there is weight cost associated with the VFA. It adds 3 grams to the driver, and has a small impact (less than 1mm) on CG location.

New Cortech Face

As with nearly every new driver, Mizuno has an updated face technology story to tell. Refreshingly, perhaps, the company acknowledges they’ve lagged a bit behind when it comes to preserving ball speed, but that’s changed with the JPX 900.

In addition to being lighter (the new face saves 5g over the previous model), the area of that face that Mizuno calls the sweet zone has been substantially expanded. Mizuno claims that it maintains a COR above .80 for a greater area of the face than TaylorMade’s M1. In tour player testing, Mizuno says it has yet to lose a ball speed battle to any competitor.

It Sounds Like A Mizuno

Sound and feel are hallmarks of the Mizuno brand, so it should not come as any real surprise that the company has gone to great lengths to tune the acoustics of the JPX 900.

The new driver features a version of Mizuno’s Harmonic Impact Technology (HIT) that specifically involves the use of rib structures to achieve what Mizuno describes as a solid, powerful sound. That includes a focused effort to ensure consistent sound regardless of where the weights are positioned. That certainly isn’t the case with all adjustable drivers.

Still One Head

As was the case with the previous model, Mizuno has again elected to encompass all lofts in a single head. The JPX 900 has a nominal (stamped) loft of 9.5 degrees and features an adapter that allows loft to be tweaked by 2° in either direction, and lie angle to be adjusted by 1.5°.

For those of you struggling to count fingers, that’s an effective range of 7.5° to 11.5°.

No BS Shafts

Mizuno doesn’t want there to be any confusion about its stock shaft this year. It’s a 100%, made in Japan, Real Deal, no corners cut, same as the aftermarket Fujikura Speeder Evolution II.

To cover a breadth of weight and flex needs, golfers can choose between the 661X, 569S, 569R, and even the 474R2. The latter otherwise being available in Japan only.

Pricing and Availability

The Mizuno JPX 900 Driver will retail for $499.99 and will be available beginning 9/16/2016.

The men’s driver is available in blue only in both right and left handed models. A ladies model with a nominal loft of 12° is also available. It features a grey/scuba blue colorway. The stock shaft Fujikura SIX 50L.

Testing Underway

The Mizuno JPX 900 Driver is currently in testing at MyGolfSpy HQ. We'll post a full report as soon as testing has been completed.

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First Look: Mizuno JPX 900 Fairway Woods and Hybrids

By: John Barba

Just how seriously do you take your Fairway Wood?

Is it primarily an off-the-tee option for scary narrow holes or do you, you know, actually hit it off the fairway?

Mizuno has been busy today, announcing its new JPX 900 line of drivers, hybrids and fairway woods to go along with its already announced JPX 900 series of irons. It’s always a given that Mizuno’s irons are serious clubs for serious players regardless of handicap. With the new metalwood lineup, it’s pretty clear Mizuno wants to be a serious player in that game, as well.

And the JPX 900 is one serious fairway wood.

The Spin Cycle

Spin is as important to fairway wood performance as it is to driver performance. A low spinning fairway wood in the hands of a high swing speed player can be a dangerous weapon. A low swing speed player, however, is going to have serious issues with lift and carry.

Mizuno is adding a slightly modified Fast Track Technology – a 15-gram sliding tungsten weight in the sole – to the JPX 900 fairway woods. While the driver features two sliding 8 gram tungsten weights, the fairway woods have a single sliding weight to allow a player to dial in more or less spin. Unlike the lighter weights in the JPX 900 driver, the fairway wood weight is not removable. But by sliding it back and forth you can move the sweet spot by a full millimeter and adjust the club’s center of gravity of 2.3 millimeters, which is significant.

“Our testing shows moving the weight can cause a spin rate variance of about 450 RPM on average,” says Chris Voshall, club engineer at Mizuno. “For some players it’ll be more, for some it’s less, but it’s a large variance. It helps make this fairway wood fit for a wide range of players.”

Adjusting the Fast Track is pretty simple, just loosen the screw and slide the weight where you want it. For more MOI, move the weight back – the further back the weight is the higher sweet spot will be, and a high sweet spot means high spin. The more you move the weight forward, the lower the sweet spot and the more forward the CG will be and, therefore, the lower the spin.

Head Size, Waffles & Shock Waves

The JPX 900 certainly isn’t a game improvement fairway wood. While the 3 wood’s head size is a fairly compact 167cc, it’s a bit larger than the M1 or even Callaway’s XR 16 Pro.

To keep the center of gravity as low as possible, Mizuno is giving the JPX 900 a Waffle Crown. The underside of the crown actually looks like a waffle, with thickness varying from .55 to .35 millimeters. The weight saved there is redistributed lower in the clubhead.

The JPX 900 also features Mizuno’s distinctive Shock Wave Sole. It’s designed to allow the face to flex more at impact and maintain a higher COR, especially on low impact, to promote faster ball speeds, but in the case of the JPX 900 it’s also designed to keep spin down. The 900’s Shock Wave is very different from the Shock Wave Sole in Mizuno’s ultra-forgiving JPX EZ fairway wood.

The JPX EZ’s Shock Wave Sole is ultra thin and light, allowing Mizuno to move as much weight as possible toward the rear of the club for higher launch and more MOI. In the JPX 900, the Shock Wave Sole is much thicker, providing more mass toward the front of the club to lower spin.

Quick Switch Adjustability

Mizuno has redesigned its Quick Switch adapter for the JPX 900 line. The 850 series adapters were labeled with specific lofts, but the new 900 adapters for the fairways woods (and hybrids) are simply labeled STD and then +/- . The JPX 900’s are adjustable 2⁰ up or down, meaning the 15-degree 3 wood can be adjusted anywhere from 13⁰ up to 17⁰. The lie is also adjustable, but if you set it to the upright position, loft is adjustable only 1⁰ up or down.

The new adapters are backwards compatible to the JPX 850 and EZ models, but the new ones are left and right hand specific and are clearly labeled as such.

As with the JPX 900 driver, the stock shaft for the fairway wood is the real deal, made in Japan Fujikura Speeder Evolution II. In fact, it’s the same shaft that’s used in the driver, just cut down to fairway wood length.

Specs, Pricing, and Availability

The JPX 900 will be offered in 3, 5 and 7 woods (15, 18 and 21 degrees, respectively) for righties and in the 3 and 5 for lefties. Golf Pride’s M31 grip is standard.

The JPX 900 fairway will be $299.99 when it hits stores September 16^th.

JPX 900 Hybrids

When it comes to hybrids, there’s your mini-fairway wood type (Callaway’s recent Steelhead XR release, for example), and there’s the Tour-inspired long iron replacement type for better players (Callaway Apex, Hogan VKTR, TaylorMade M1, for example).

But what about something that’s kinda, sorta, maybe somewhere in the middle? That seems to be where Mizuno is aiming with its new JPX 900 hybrid, and it’s a bit of a departure from how Mizuno has looked at hybrids in the past.

A Better Player’s Hybrid? 

Mizuno’s hybrids have traditionally leaned more towards the mini-fairway wood end of the spectrum – Mizuno admits they’ve been a tad stubborn about that – with an emphasis on high MOI and distance. That requires a deeper front-to-back look and a longer heel-to-toe look. Forgiving, but spinnier than the better player may be looking for.

The head of the JPX 900 is noticeably more compact the previous Mizuno hybrids, but it’s still a tad larger when compared to the Apex, M1 and others. It’s a tweener, but definitely aimed at the better player with a low and shallow center of gravity to reduce spin when compared to Mizuno’s previous better player hybrid, the JPX 850.

The JPX 900 features Mizuno’s Shock Wave Sole technology, which is designed to improve COR (essentially face flex at impact), particularly low on the face. If you compare the Shock Wave Sole on the 900 to previous models, you’ll find the waves noticeably less aggressive compared to both the JPX EZ and JPX 850. Mizuno says the 900’s waves are smaller but the sole is thicker, designed to move more mass low and forward for less spin but still allowing you to get the ball up in the air. The waves on the EZ (and, to a lesser extent, on the 850), while covering more of the sole, have much less mass and are designed to get the ball up in the air easier, but with much more spin.

Flatter, Shorter

The smaller head isn’t the only change Mizuno has made to appeal to better players. Mizuno has also equipped the new 900 with a slightly shorter shaft and a flatter lie angle (it’s loft & lie adjustable – a first for Mizuno hybrids) than its previous offerings.

“We’ve seen that the world of hybrids has gotten so upright,” says Mizuno Golf Club Engineer Chris Voshall. “We wanted to address that, especially for the better player who struggles with left pulls or hooks with hybrids. We wanted to make sure this was shorter in shaft length and flatter, with the ability to adjust from there.”

The JPX 900’s standard lie is a full degree flatter than those of the non-adjustable JPX 850 and JPX EZ. What’s more, the JPX 900 can be adjusted 1 degree flatter or 2 degrees more upright.

Shaftwise, the 16⁰ 2 hybrid and the 19⁰ 3 hybrid are ½” and ¼” shorter, respectively, compared to the 850 and EZ. The 4 hybrid is the same length while the 5 hybrid is actually ¼” longer. Mizuno says better players are more likely to carry the lower lofted hybrids in their bags, while higher handicappers are more likely to carry the 4 and 5. The shorter shaft length, combined with what Mizuno calls Face Progression Technology is intended to make the 2 or 3 hybrid more versatile for the better player.

“With Face Progression on the 2, the face is settled further back, meaning a more penetrating ball flight. The stronger player who usually carries the 2 or 3 hybrid wants to be able to do stuff with his hybrid. You’re able to hit knockdowns and throw it up in the air if you need to.” – Chris Voshall

Mizuno compared the JPX 900 to the TaylorMade M1 (which has shafts ¼” longer across the line) and found the 900 provided roughly 1 MPH more ball speed and a few hundred RPM more spin. That higher spin, according to Mizuno, produced a steeper landing angle.

Pricing, Specifications, and Availability

The stock shaft for the JPX 900 hybrids is the real deal Fujikura Pro Hybrid. Mizuno says they wanted the best performing hybrid shaft they could find, but it’s a nice coincidence that the Fuji’s blue/black graphics match the blue/black clubhead perfectly.

The JPX 900 is available in 16, 19, 22 and 25-degree lofts for righties, and 19 and 22-degree lofts for lefties. Each loft is adjustable 2 degrees up or down. The stock grip is the Golf Pride M31.

List price for the JPX 900 is $249.99. They’ll be in stores September 16^th.

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Do you have sore or swollen knees? Then do these 3 exercises

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