Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today we play golf.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Let me show you how we do it in the pros.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Yeah . Welcome to Behind the Golf Brand podcast.
I never missed with the SevenIron , a conversation with some
of the most interestinginnovators and entrepreneurs
behind the biggest names ingolf. My
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Friends were the golf clubs. I lived on the golf
course, I lived on the drivingrange
Speaker 3 (00:19):
From Pro Talk . You should learn something from
each and every single round.
You play to fun from on and offthe green.
Speaker 5 (00:25):
Why would you play golf if you don't play it for
money?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Just let me put the ball in a hole. This is Behind
the Golf Brand podcast withPaul Libert tore .
Speaker 6 (00:34):
What's up guys?
Welcome to the fourth season ofBehind the Golf Brand podcast.
Today I have my good friendChris Vhel from Mno . I'm super
excited to having him on theshow. He's literally the nicest
person I've met in golf andthat's the truth. And we're
gonna talk all about mood,what's going on Mno , his
storied career and kind ofwhat's going on. It's welcome
to the show.
Speaker 7 (00:54):
I appreciate it , Paul . This'll be a fun time.
I'm looking forward to chatting
Speaker 6 (00:58):
Like BS Me for last, last half hour, so I was like ,
Speaker 7 (01:01):
Be the show . I hope I have more to say. Right.
Speaker 6 (01:03):
And that's it. And cut. I should like messed up
your last name.
Speaker 7 (01:07):
.
Speaker 6 (01:08):
So where you be the first, where are you located
at? So
Speaker 7 (01:11):
I am, Mizuno's office is in Norcross, Georgia,
which is, I'd say from like theheart of downtown Atlanta. It's
like 30 minutes north. Um, I, Igrew up in that area. I grew up
in northern Atlanta, kind ofleft for a couple years to go
to school and then have beenback for a number. So yeah,
we're one of the few golfcompanies that is not over on
the West Coast, but we like itover here. It's kind of
Speaker 6 (01:31):
Cool that you guys are in Atlanta. Like you
wouldn't think that, you know,it's like how p you know, PS in
Arizona it's like everyone'seither, well , everyone's in
California feels like, youknow.
Speaker 7 (01:39):
Right. What's an interesting thing? 'cause it's
like, it was for the longesttime it was Mno Rikon and
Bridgestone, like the threeJapanese companies were all in
Atlanta, which seems a littlebit odd, is like just that much
farther from Japan. But forsome reason, like all the
Japanese companies kind oflocated here, I know Stron has
since moved its headquarters.
Good
Speaker 6 (01:59):
Taxes probably or something. You probably got
some kind of
Speaker 7 (02:00):
Deal. I think that's exactly what it is. The
weather's not as not as niceas, as San Diego or Carlsbad
or, or Phoenix or anything. Butwe don't mind it here. And
land's a little bit moreaffordable for me, so I'll
Speaker 6 (02:11):
Take it. Yeah, seriously. Could you imagine, I
have a buddy of mine who's liketrying to get a job at a
another company, like a tailormade and Mm-Hmm .
. Like , he, he's like, yeah, Igotta move to Carlsbad. I'm
like, I'm a fat dude. I'm like,you can't afford good luck that
salary. Like right.
Speaker 7 (02:25):
,
Speaker 6 (02:26):
You know ? I know.
He , he's like, tell me gonnapay. I'm like , there's no way
you can live there . Thatsalary. Like you might get a
nice one bedroom apartment likea hundred miles away. Right .
Speaker 7 (02:34):
You know, it's amazing. Like, I get it. If
you're born there and that'swhat you're used to, like,
that's what prices are. I, Iget it. Why you'd stay there a
hundred percent. But to move toCalifornia is like a scary
proposition, especially fromthe south. Like, everything
here is so cheap.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
Really? Oh , Arizona kind of turning into like
California light, you know,like in the last I believe
that, I mean, you know, it'slike they can buy a mega
mansion here, sell their outthere , buy a pretty nice house
here, you know. But are youlike a professional golfer or
like, how'd you get into golf?
Speaker 7 (03:05):
No, so I mean, my intro to golf was my dad , uh,
he was a golfer. He played incollege. He played at what's
now VCU , uh, up in Virginia.
So he grew up in that area. Mywhole family's from the, the
Southern Virginia area. And um, it's kind of funny because
I've got two older sisters andyounger sister. I'm the only
son of three of four kids. Andit's like, as soon as the sun
(03:28):
came, my dad's like, great. Igot a golfer now. So it was
like we were dialed in forgolf. Yes . So from the get go
. So that was really myintroduction. And it's cool
'cause my dad was always a kindof a golf gearhead. I remember
so distinctly, like as, as akid, our basement was full of
dad's golf clubs. Like he had aton of clubs. And then our
Saturday morning ritual as wewould go get hot cakes at
(03:51):
McDonald's and then go over tothe golf warehouse and like
look at clubs, like that waskind of what we did. That's ,
that was our thing . So , sothat was really my introduction
to golf and it's just been apassion of mine ever since I
started when I was like 10 .
Well , I
Speaker 6 (04:05):
Bet your dad loved it when you got the job at Mno
Speaker 7 (04:07):
. Oh my
gosh. And my , he really did.
It was one of those things . Sohe was a guy who, he worked in
the, in the check printingindustry for the longest. Like
literally from outta collegeuntil he retired. And it was
always, I mean, he was great.
He was very successful in theindustry, but it was never like
a passion. A passion , it wasnever a fun thing. Yeah. So the
second I told him it was like,when I graduated from college,
(04:29):
I was looking at differentplaces. I had a job offer over
here, but I was waiting to hearfrom the club company and I was
like, whoa, whoa, whoa . I'mnot taking this yet. I want to
hear this. And he was a littlebit like, oh, well, you know,
you got a job here, you shoulddo that. And then the second,
like, Mizzou , what
Speaker 6 (04:45):
Was the job? What was the job? I'm trying to
Speaker 7 (04:46):
Remember exactly what it was. Oh man.
Speaker 6 (04:50):
Something like boring. You're like,
Speaker 7 (04:52):
It would've it would've been a boring job. It
would've, it would not havebeen one that I like, it
would've probably
Speaker 6 (04:56):
Paid Well ,
Speaker 7 (04:57):
Talking about, I promise you that.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
Yeah . Now like , oh, my son works at Dairy Queen
or whatever. I don't reallyknow,
Speaker 7 (05:04):
I , I do have a very, a kind of a funny story .
Like along those lines of like,when you graduate or like when
you're first in the job, whenthe golf industry, like you
can't wait to tell everybody.
Like anyone who talk to, guesswhat I do? I design golf clubs.
Like I do that. Well , andthen, so this was like in the
early mid two thousands whenlike poker was so massive, like
bar poker and all that stuff .
(05:26):
So I, my, my routine was Mondaynight I would go to this place
and play poker. Tuesday night Iwould go to this place and play
poker and just like, you know,you'd eat it , eat dinner, hang
out, do whatever, talk to thepeople, get to be friends with
everybody. And I remember likethe , one of the first times I
said, oh yeah, you know, Idesigned golf clubs for Meno
and the the then the personjust would not leave me alone
(05:46):
like for the rest of the night.
And the next week the personjust bugged the crap outta me.
Like all he wanted to do wastalk about golf and all I wanna
do is not, not talk about
Speaker 6 (05:53):
Golf, not about golf . You wanna get away from it
for
Speaker 7 (05:54):
An hour . And so it was like my evolution with ,
with the company and likeworking there is I used to tell
people I work at design golfclubs. Then I said, I worked in
the sporting good industry andthen I said, I worked at Sports
Authority ,
Speaker 6 (06:04):
I work at Shield . I just
Speaker 7 (06:06):
I just
started to say , yeah, I work
at a , at a at a retail shop.
And then people would stopasking me questions. So
,
Speaker 6 (06:11):
They're gonna ask you even more like, okay , get
a discount. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (06:14):
,
Speaker 6 (06:15):
.
Speaker 7 (06:16):
So it was kind
Speaker 6 (06:17):
Of fun . So , so you grew up, did you play like high
school golf and all that tooand
Speaker 7 (06:20):
Everything? I did.
So I went to a really smallhigh school. Uh, it's gotten
bigger now, but it's calledWesleyan up up on the north
side of Atlanta. It's amazing.
It's literally like a par fouraway from Mao's office, which
is kind of crazy that like, I'mstill right here. But it was ,
um, it was a middle school andlower school that was kind of
expanding up. So I was thesecond graduating class, like
Speaker 6 (06:42):
Brew around there and stuff.
Speaker 7 (06:43):
Yeah. So it , it was a tiny school. I was in a class
of only 26 graduating, whichwas crazy.
Speaker 6 (06:49):
One 500th of my class. .
Speaker 7 (06:51):
The cool thing about that though is like the school
was forming so you could kindof start things. So myself and
a couple other guys, like putthe golf team together. Mm . So
that was kind of one of thecool things was, yeah, I played
golf all through, all throughhigh school, kind of was the
inaugural, inaugural golf team.
Uh, and then as, as I gotolder, you know, we got some
freshmen behind us andsophomores behind us that were,
(07:13):
that got good. Like we weretrash early on, but we, we got
to be pretty decent. You
Speaker 6 (07:18):
From golf though , so that's okay.
Speaker 7 (07:19):
Yeah. And Wesleyan is now spitting out some
really, really good players,which is neat. But yeah, I
played golf in high school andthen went to college. Um, was
not on the team there.
Speaker 6 (07:28):
Where'd you go to college?
Speaker 7 (07:29):
I went to Vanderbilt up in Nashville.
Speaker 6 (07:31):
I remember that.
Speaker 7 (07:32):
So yeah, there's , then you got my little , got my
little star right there. So , I was , uh, I was the
team at the time. Uh, sneer wason the team. So I'm same age as
Brant . Really good player. Butthen be behind that. There were
a couple of decent players andthere were a couple spots where
I was like, Hey, I'm as good asthat guy. I know I wasn't, but
I would tell the coach like,Hey, I need a spot at this. And
(07:54):
he never really gave me toomuch of a ti the time of day.
But I played, I played golf allthrough college. Like that was
my getaway, that was myactivity. I'd go do connected
with some really good friends,like friends to this day just
around playing golf in college.
And then that's where I was anengineer. So graduating, I was
like, how can I pair up thepassion for loving to play and
(08:15):
engineering? So what kinda
Speaker 6 (08:16):
Engineering degree do you have?
Speaker 7 (08:17):
So it's interesting , I started as an electrical
engineer , um, which , which islike the hardest,
Speaker 6 (08:22):
Right?
Speaker 7 (08:23):
Well, and that was it. I was, I was valedictorian
in my class, which like soundsimpressive until I say it was
26 kids. Like it wasn't asimpressive. I
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Was a valedictorian.
Speaker 7 (08:32):
Well, I went in and I was like, I want the hardest
thing I can find. And that waselectrical engineering. And
then I go to Vanderbilt and I'mliterally, I remember one day
like talking to my hall matesand we were on a hall and I
think there were 40 of us onthat hall and there were 26
valedictorians. And I was like,I thought I was smart. And then
I like got around these people,I'm like, I'm an idiot. Like I
(08:53):
don't know anything. Soelectrical engineering didn't
last that long .
Speaker 6 (08:56):
How long was that?
Like a semester when youstarted like crappy ? Uh ,
Speaker 7 (08:58):
I , I made it two years in electrical. Two years.
Speaker 6 (09:01):
That's a long time, dude. That's the hardest,
that's the hardest part, isn'tit? The first two years. That's
what I heard
Speaker 7 (09:06):
Probably. But I guess I'm just soft and I gave
up like .
Speaker 6 (09:09):
That's a good thing.
I mean, you'd be like makinglike wafers or diets now or
something. Who
Speaker 7 (09:14):
Knows . Totally. So, but I swapped, I swapped over
mechanical. I ended up gradu ,I did engineering science with
like a focus on materials andstuff. So I really got into
like CAD courses andunderstanding like how to do 3D
design and understandingmaterials
Speaker 6 (09:29):
Now , the early two thousands too , when like that
was starting to really takeoff. Like AutoCAD I remember
that one . That's
Speaker 7 (09:35):
Right.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
Like nobody had had that
Speaker 7 (09:37):
Like , and that was cool. Like it was neat that
that was a program that wasoffered. Like I , 'cause I did,
I took a bunch of like AutoCADcourses at the time, which it's
a little bit different thanlike, it didn't translate
directly to the CAD programthat we used at mao , but you
have the basic, like
Speaker 6 (09:52):
Yeah . You understand
Speaker 7 (09:53):
How to think
Speaker 6 (09:54):
You , you understand . Yeah . Yeah. Just like a
different button does the samejob.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
Right , exactly. So yeah, that was kind of my
intro. And then I, I , I thinkmy actual like intro to Mno was
kind of funny. Where it was,this was Mao , well we're
talking early two thousands,like monster.com was the thing.
Like that's where you lookedfor jobs. I think I did that
And monster.com had a postingfor a golf club engineer at Mno
(10:18):
and you kind of go
Speaker 6 (10:19):
Through the back in , back in Atlanta. You're like,
what ? Yeah.
Speaker 7 (10:22):
But you go through the job description, it like,
it requires a master's in this10 years experience in this
blah, blah, blah. So I, andlike all of these things that I
don't even, I'm
Speaker 6 (10:31):
Not even close , I
Speaker 7 (10:31):
Close to , yeah .
I'm a kid who knows a littlebit of AutoCAD who has a
basement full of golf clubs atmom and dad's house. Like
that's the extent of my hey ,What I bring to the table. So
you play golf and I play golf,but I , so I put in an
application anyway, I sent in aresume and like a month went by
and then I got a response froma guy named MAs the guy . And
(10:53):
the Gean is the Japaneseengineer who basically
established Meno USA's R and Ddepartment. So we'd always had
one in Osaka, Japan. And hesaid, you know, because the US
market is so big, we need toexpand and become more global,
not just Japanese. So hereached out to me and was like,
dude, like you are notqualified for what you put in
(11:14):
for, but we're opening up aresearch and development center
with like a robotic golfer andbuilding like a center there.
Would you be interested ininterviewing for a position
there? So that was really myfootage ,
Speaker 6 (11:26):
What I was Would you say held to the Yes .
Speaker 7 (11:28):
Oh , absolutely. So yeah, so like my first couple
of years on the job wasliterally I would walk into a
golf store, buy everything.
Like I want a set of those setof those set of those set of
buy 'em, take 'em back to theoffice, you get the data , hit
'em , test 'em , cut 'em up,learn all about 'em , and just
do testing. So that was reallymy introduction into the golf
world was the testing engineerposition. But that's working
(11:50):
, he was
Speaker 6 (11:50):
Like literally the coolest job, honestly, I think,
you know
Speaker 7 (11:52):
What I mean ? It was awesome. Yeah. And it's the
perfect job to really get youto appreciate and understand
like the nuances of design asto why one little bit of CG
movement in this direction doesthis to a player or does this
to a robot. So it kind ofteaches you it's a great , um,
it's a great foundation tolearn club engineering.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
So then how long were you in the r and d?
Speaker 7 (12:16):
So I did that , uh, I was in that role. I started
in oh four in that role. And Idid that until I designed my
first, the first thing Idesigned was a fitting tool.
Uh, and that was in oh seven.
And then in oh eight was thefirst time I designed some
wedges and a putter and acouple sets of irons. Like it
started from there. So from2008 till really 2018 , yeah, I
(12:37):
started doing like all hardcoreengineering, like designing a
lot of our product. So I wasreally heavily focused on the
forged irons. I did themajority of like the Mao Pro ,
uh, or MP line at the time.
Remember that I say I did, it's, it's not me. There's a team
with Oh yeah .
Speaker 6 (12:54):
But that you focus
Speaker 7 (12:55):
On . But yeah, that was my focus and myself. And
it's what's one of the coolthings about Mao is like, you
know, we've got such a historyof what you do in irons and
we're so well known for ironsthat, you know, there's no
chance they'd let just somerandom kid off the street
design an iron that gets theMeno name on it. So the way it
kind of worked is you wouldhave an engineer in the us an
(13:16):
engineer in Japan, and the twoof you would work kind of hand
in hand on a project. So it wasmyself and a guy named Kazu Do
. And Kazu was awesome. Hetaught me so much and he and I
would work on projects. Andanother cool thing is like,
because we're in Atlanta andthey're in Japan, like it's a
12 hour to 13 hour differencedepending on whether we're on
daylight savings or not. Butbasically like I could work on
(13:38):
a project all day and then hepicks up dir as soon as I sign
off, he picks up right where Ileft off and goes from there.
So it's like the, the data andthe project is constantly, it
never
Speaker 6 (13:48):
Ended . Right. It was like , okay , I'm gonna go
on now . It's like, you'regoing to bed, he's waking up.
So it's
Speaker 7 (13:52):
Almost like . Exactly. Right.
So it was really cool and heand I designed a lot of clubs
that have like got some reallycool history behind them . So I
did that until 2008, sorry,2018. And in 1819, somewhere in
there, my role kind of shifteda little bit to where I'm now
working with the RD teamdirecting a little bit of the
(14:12):
product of where we need to goand what we need to develop. So
still talking to the engineers,looking at the shapes, doing
hit tests and stuff, but alittle bit more of a marketing
and sales and business spin toit. So kind of understanding
the market. That's
Speaker 6 (14:26):
Freaking cool.
. So it was like , youliterally went , it was like,
because you went fromengineering, it's like, it's
like you walk the , the entrylevel job you got there, right?
Mm-Hmm. is like,it kind of gives you the
foundation of everything you'regoing forward because they're
letting you literally startfrom scratch and be like, this
is how you really do it. Right.
Right . And then all the r andd figuring it out,
(14:46):
understanding technology andhow people are making their
stuff and why their stuff stuffworks and why, you know,
whatever. And then, and then tobe able to like go from there
to actually, you know, beingpart of a team to build what
you guys are building becauseyou
Speaker 7 (14:59):
Know Yeah. That that's what's so cool about Mao
is like, it really was almostlike an apprenticeship to learn
your way up to up to anengineer. And you know, we've,
we've of course we've broughtin engineers from other
companies before and then we'vegrown 'em from the ground up as
well. And to me, like the onesthey truly get it and
understand what we're doing arethe ones that have kind of
(15:20):
started at the bottom andworked their way up. So like a
lot of the engineers that havecome from other places that
don't last that long to behonest, just because they're
used to doing it a differentway. And really there's not,
there's not like the heritagethat I feel like is almost
ingrained in me where I've beenwith the company now for like,
for 20 years. Your wholecareer. Yeah. Yeah. My whole
career.
Speaker 6 (15:39):
But it's like, you're loyal too because you're
like part of a , you're part ofit like, right. It's not like,
oh, I came in and I made aproduct and then I'm gonna ,
you know, I'm a I'm amercenary, I'm gonna go
somewhere else and designsomething. It's like
Speaker 7 (15:51):
Exactly
Speaker 6 (15:51):
Right. It's like I know what I took to make that,
you know? Yeah.
Speaker 7 (15:54):
And, and to me that speaks a lot to what like Meno
is. We're , I mean, it it, yougo deep down to it, there's a
Meno family. Like we're part ofthe Meno line. It's not just we
slapped a name on somebody whomade a product. Like it all
goes back to the history ofMeno is there was a Riachi Meno
who, he was a big baseballplayer who developed like COR
(16:14):
testing for baseballs back inthe early 19 hundreds. Like how
hot is a baseball? So that,that's kind of the origin of
us. So he developed a test likein his sporting goods store in
Osaka, Japan, where if youdropped a baseball from this
high, it could only bounce backto this high. Which essentially
is, you know, like arudimentary version of what a
golf COR spring test is now. Soit's like, it , it all goes
(16:38):
back to like the engineeringand the science and the , the
family too because, you know,riachi passed on to the next
Mao , to the next Mao andthey're still the Mao family.
So that's what's the cool thingis so many people have been
here so long. Like I'm friendswith the Mao , it was like we
we to sort of put our his nameon something we do, he has to
trust you a lot. And there's alot of history that goes behind
(16:59):
that. So I , it's
Speaker 6 (17:01):
Funny . Yeah . Right , because like if you're Yeah,
exactly. Like you , there's atrust there. Like they know
your , your best interest is inthe , is for the, is for the
company, right? Absolutely .
It's not like Absolutely . It'snot for you. Right. Or
Speaker 7 (17:14):
Your Right .
Exactly. Ego or whatever itmight be. And that's where you
look at some other companiesand they'll be like, oh well
the wedges are by this guy.
This the putters are by thisguy. And like you put a name
to. So no Mao product has anyname other than Mao on it. And
that's not to say there's not awedge guy and a putter guy and
a wood guy or whatever. They'revery much is, but we're all
(17:34):
overarching like building .
Speaker 6 (17:36):
They're all named Chris Haw . Kidding .
Speaker 7 (17:38):
. Right? I
don't wanna , I don't want a
voch. She wedge. There'salready another
Speaker 6 (17:41):
Voch. She wedge would , you could probably do
that. That'd be hilarious dude.
.
Speaker 7 (17:46):
And then it looked like a knockoff boey or
something. Be like this
Speaker 6 (17:49):
Guy , we
should like grind off the Vokey
part and put Bo shell on it.
actually don't do that.
But no, don't do that. Do haveone of your , one of your, one
of your wedges. That'sfreaking cool. Like, I knew
'cause it's like hard 'causeChris has had so many different
roles at the company that it'slike, when I was telling my
wife today, I was like, ohyeah, I'm talking to my friend
Chris, you know, from . She's like , what
does he do? And I was like,well it's hard to explain like
(18:10):
because I know he doesnow, but I know his history so
it's like I can't say what he,I don't know all of the in
between , right? Like , I dunnoknow how you got from A to B
'cause right ? Z it's like,'cause not, they're completely
different, you know? So nowit's like you're , one
Speaker 7 (18:23):
Of the things I love the most about, like the fact
that so many people at Mizunohave such a tenure here is it's
like, you know , I'm on theproduct and marketing side, but
I'm an engineer, like to say amarketer, the main marketing
guy is an engineer is prettyrare. It
Speaker 6 (18:39):
Never, that never happens, right? Because now it
never happens. Never happens,never, never. Or even have a, a
brain that could do both ofthose jobs, right? Because it's
like you're an engineer brainor you're a marketing person,
you know , it's like , not
Speaker 7 (18:50):
. Maybe
I'm just a bad engineer, I
don't know. But it ,
Speaker 6 (18:53):
Well you did fail out of like double E . So I
mean yeah , I
Speaker 7 (18:56):
Quit that
Speaker 6 (18:57):
Disrespect . I'm just kidding. .
Speaker 7 (18:59):
But the cool thing is it allows us to, when we're
telling a marketing story,there's an engineering spin to
it always. So, which to mecomes off as way more
authentic. Well , not . You've
Speaker 6 (19:10):
Never seen, right ?
I mean you go , oh , it's theblah blah blah , blah , blah .
And you're like, what the, what, what do those words even
mean? Right, exactly. Andyou're like, I know exactly
what that means. And that makessense. Like that sentence. Yeah
.
Speaker 7 (19:20):
I laugh at a lot of the marketing campaigns out
there and how everyone justshouts longer, faster, blah,
blah, blah. 10
Speaker 6 (19:26):
K, 10 K, 10 k.
Speaker 7 (19:27):
Yeah. And , and from my side, like if you listen to
what Meno , the stories we tellYeah . It's a lot of the, the
art and the science combined.
And we will talk aboutmaterials. Like when you look
at a Meno club, when you lookat the Zel of the irons, it'll
say Mali , a 41, 35 M or 10 25.
Oh wow .
Speaker 6 (19:46):
E pure sweat .
Speaker 7 (19:46):
Yeah . Like , like literally we put the, we put
the science right at theforefront. It's like, here's
the material, here's why thisis different. Here's why the
grain flow forging process isdifferent. So our stories are a
lot different. They're basedaround manufacturing,
engineering, productivity,stuff like that. As opposed
.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
I feel like that's a really big disconnect in, I
mean, you've been this waylonger than I have, but like in
the golf industry, like theengineers don't communicate or
there's no way, it's a hard wayfor the engineers to
communicate with the marketingteam because like Mm-Hmm.
, you talk to anengineer and I've , I've talked
to a lot of 'em like not on theshow or just people I know
other brands and they're likeso excited and you talk to 'em,
they know exactly what they'retalking about and they explain
(20:25):
why it works and you're like,oh, I understand that, that's
cool. And then, but that's notwhat's pr , that's not what's
sent out to the public. Youknow what I mean? Right . It's
like totally, new word thatmakes no sense. That sounds
cool. And we'll put some like,you know, whatever.
Speaker 7 (20:39):
No, you're, you're exactly right. And that's where
I, I I hope people recognizethey don't see that from Mao .
Oh , don't like what , what yousee from us is a, it's a what
and a why. Like the what is,here's what we did to it.
Here's the material, here's theprocess. And the why is because
it delivers that, you know,from everybody else. You get a
ton of just loud, bold claimsand trust us. There's something
(21:01):
in here making somethingmagical happen as opposed to
kind of explaining what we'redoing.
Speaker 6 (21:06):
That's always been like the hard part I think in
golf, right? It's like alwaysit's all about the pizazz and
then it's like, mm-hmm , , well was last
year's pizazz is not thisyear's pizazz , but why is this
better than last year? Youknow? Right. Oh , because you
put another screw in it or youput another weight on it.
.
Speaker 7 (21:18):
Right .
Speaker 6 (21:19):
It's like, I don't know . I think I , I think it's
why golfers distrust theindustry, right? They know it's
black . Absolutely. They knowit. Everybody knows it. They're
like, oh, apple's gonna gofarther. You know, it's like,
does it now ?
Speaker 7 (21:30):
Well what's funny is it's like almost like the
easiest way to tell that acompany did not change much is
if they made all the colors andnames way different. It's like,
well we gotta come up withsomething to tell why this
one's new and oh we'll changethis name to that and it was
green and now it's blue. Likethey'll literally change
something. So you're like, oh,that has to be new and
different when in actualityit's a lot of like, you know ,
(21:53):
slow progressive movementsWhere on our side, did
Speaker 6 (21:56):
You see that with irons though? Like in the irons
and wedge line a lot? Or? Iknow mainly you definitely see
in drivers for hundred percent, for Right, for sure. Balls, I
mean, mm , a little bit, butnot really. I mean that's ,
yeah,
Speaker 7 (22:07):
People , uh, the claims and balls aren't as
bold, but like on the ironside, yeah . There are some
companies who are very , um,I'd call it not evolutionary as
opposed to revolutionary, wherethe next one is an evolution on
the last one. And I think yousee a lot of that from Mizuno
where we'll evolve a , a familyand we'll evolve it to get
better and better and betterand better. And then you'll see
(22:29):
that like, you know, I'll sayfor the most part, Titleist is
very true to that. Ping'stypically very true to that.
Taylor made has some lines thatare true to that and other
lines that aren't necessarilytrue to that. Like the P series
versus like the one thatmatches the driver, whether
that be the stealth line or theqi line. Callaway kind of the ,
the , the Apex line is a littlebit more evolutionary where
(22:51):
they're rogue or paradigm line,they kind of try to tell bolder
claims and stuff like that. Soit, it's interesting how you
can look at different familiesand different companies speak
in way different terms, butlike for us, you look at like
the evolution of JPX . We'vehad our JPX line going back for
almost forever 15 years and itstarted with 800, 8 25, 8 50,
(23:13):
whatever . Like there have beensubtle changes within it, but
Speaker 6 (23:15):
You can explain what that is. Like, oh, what do you
change series , oh, we didthis, this, and this, this and
this . Okay . Right . Okay .
Not like, oh , we calling itthe new whatever line. It's
like, right . Just anotheriteration of that. And
Speaker 7 (23:26):
To me , the
Speaker 6 (23:27):
Hard work, right?
When they update cars , it'slike, it's the same car. We
just did something different.
Speaker 7 (23:30):
And it , to me, that's all about like being
trustworthy. You know, when youread about like, you know,
customer retention and stufflike that. I think Mao and I ,
I think Mao and Ping are thetwo that are known as having
like the highest customerretention. 'cause it's like, I
trust what I'm getting. So byinstead
Speaker 6 (23:47):
Of lifetime , like Lifetime , like my dad still
plays Ping. I mean, right ? Imean guys , once you get
someone in there , but he hadlike ping red eyed twos , you
know what I mean? I remember asa kid and like, you know, he
buys clothes for 20 years. Soit's like right. It's ,
Speaker 7 (24:00):
And I think that comes from being evolutionary
and saying, yes, we're makingjumps every single time we're
making improvements, but whatyou knew and what you liked
about the last one is stillthere. Like, we're not just
rein trying to reinvent thewheel every single time.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
You like the freaking , uh, golf whisperer
guy like . You probablyknow, like, I mean honestly, if
anybody know, you probably knowabout every brand and every
iteration of every club andwhat the little thing was like,
oh, I know that , thatwhatever, you know, that slogan
is. You know, whatever that was , they , that was
actually the bop bop bop bopbop club when they just add
(24:36):
another weight on it or theypainted it red or
Speaker 7 (24:38):
What , uh, one of the things I love to do is,
like you said ,
Speaker 6 (24:41):
Like I'm a blogger,
Speaker 7 (24:44):
I , I thought about that one time. I actually
talked to a website one timeabout being something like that
and I, I decided it wasn't agood idea. Just?
Speaker 6 (24:52):
No, because it got leaked . It would just be bad
for like, it would
Speaker 7 (24:55):
Be bad
Speaker 6 (24:55):
If you're like, yeah, they're like , oh,
because he's zu , that's whyhe's talking like that, you
know, . It's like,
Speaker 7 (25:00):
But , but I love looking at the new stuff coming
out, reading the claims andunderstanding how they're
claiming they did something andthen try to understand, oh well
maybe there's some merit tothat or Yeah, that sounds like
they're just pull grasping atstraws, like looking for
something to talk about. So youcan definitely like the more ,
the more knowledge, you know,and the more club engineering
knowledge, you know, it's easyto say, oh well they just did
(25:23):
this by doing that. Like, youknow, to me, like the 10 K
discussion is a reallyinteresting discussion because
there's very positives of a 10KMOI. But there's also some
very negatives to a 10 KMOI andit's like, we'll just shout
about the positives and ignoreall these and make , you know,
it's, it's there . There's giveand take in everything in club
engineering. And it's all aboutunderstanding that and
(25:45):
understanding fitting. That's
Speaker 6 (25:46):
Crazy. See , like that's the thing, they'll say
like, why 10 K is so greatright now, but like no one
talks about what the negativeside of 10 K, right? And
probably most people are notsmart enough to even understand
there's a negative side to itunless they're in that world
and they go, oh look, you know,based on the data, right?
That's why we're not doing itbecause of this. You know what
I mean? Yeah. But not being ina defensive position either.
(26:07):
Like if Meno came out the newdriver this year and they're
like, well why wasn't it 10 K?
Or it's like, you don't wannahave that conversation because
it's like,
Speaker 7 (26:13):
Well it's funny, I don't mind that conversation
because I can tell you like onour new, we have an St Max
driver that's out right now.
That's our super high MOI, it'snot 10 K, it's like mid nines,
but that's way higher thanwe've ever been. But it could
have been 10 K. But we chose tomove a certain amount of weight
from the very back to the frontto make sure that the club face
(26:35):
closed a little bit easier tomake sure the spin rates didn't
get quite as high. So it'slike, it's understanding what
you're trying to do. If , ifit's all about the story, like
it's easy to kind of push onedirection, kind of ignore the
golfing aspect of it and onlyfocus on the marketing or the
Speaker 6 (26:50):
Player. Right, or the player . Yeah , exactly .
Because they just see big 10 Kletters everywhere and they go,
oh , that's what I need. Youknow, that's the new thing this
year. And they , if enoughbrands say 10 K, that must be
the, it must
Speaker 7 (27:01):
Be great. Must be
Speaker 6 (27:02):
The new technology, you know? Right. And it might
be like, and you can
Speaker 7 (27:05):
All , you can even go back to like when the USGA
and RNA passed the rule oflike, a driver can only be this
big and they literally likedrew out a square that it could
fit in. So what happened thenext year, every driver was a
fricking square. Like itliterally fit in that because
it's , oh , it's within therules. So that is designing
product towards a marketingspin versus what did all those
(27:27):
square drivers do? They spunreally high. They sounded
terrible. They went short,like, 'cause to get there you
had to have flat surfaces, youhad to have a really deep
center of gravity. You had allof these like gives get the
take of the high of the squaredriver . So yeah, to me, like
that's why I love from themarketing side, like I'm on the
marketing side, but also a footin the product where I can say,
(27:50):
here's the story we need totell and here's why. Like, you
can't go this extreme on themarketing side. Like, because
the product has to do this.
Speaker 6 (27:58):
Yeah. If it doesn't deliver then it's not what's
what's the point? Right,
Speaker 7 (28:02):
Exactly.
Speaker 6 (28:03):
Like back it up with the data or back it up with a
good product, which you guysdefinitely do. I mean my , I
got , the first time I evertalked , I told you like my
favorite wedges you ever didwas those blue wedges, those
Speaker 7 (28:13):
Wedges. Oh yeah.
Dude , you want a funny storyabout that? Yeah, I
Speaker 6 (28:17):
Do.
Speaker 7 (28:17):
, I
remember, so this was in our
first blue wedge was the S 18wedge, which S 18 came out in
2018. I like , that's howcreative we are in our naming.
So it was literally, I remembersitting in a meeting, this was
in Osaka, Japan at the Mizunoheadquarters we had done , uh,
like back in the day we did ,we had a wedge called the raw
haze where it was like an oilcan finish. We'd had a black
(28:39):
onyx or a black ox wedge. We'dhad some uh , you know, like
some grayish black nickel andchrome and we would always do a
light in the dark. That waskind of the norm. And I
remember presenting in ameeting, I was like, why don't
we do one in blue? Like justfor something different. And I
essentially got like, I don'twanna say laughed outta the
room, but everyone was like,okay, next, like next topic,
(29:01):
next
Speaker 6 (29:01):
Idea. Yeah .
Speaker 7 (29:02):
So, so we did not, and that was for the wedge
before S 18. So then fastforward six months later and in
the vokey kind of tourworkshop, they did like a
limited drop of like a kind ofa bluish finish and sold them
for like 600 bucks each andsold out immediately. So the
very next meeting I was like,Hey guys, re remember that idea
(29:23):
I had a while back. And so, sothe very next wedge, we did the
blue one and it was amazing. Itwas always, if you look at like
sales percentages, you wouldsell 70% of the, the light
color, the chrome or the satinor whatever. And 30% of the
dark color. The second welaunched the blue, it flipped.
It was 70% blue, 30% white.
Seriously. So it's Oh yeah,like that, like that quick just
(29:47):
because it was different. It'sunique in a we is like ,
Speaker 6 (29:49):
It looked cool too.
It looked really good,honestly.
Speaker 7 (29:51):
It looked cool.
It's, it's inexpensive enoughand kind of something that
churns through your bag fastenough that people will take a
little bit of a risk and trysomething. Yeah .
Speaker 6 (30:00):
Oh , a whole set of blue clubs, you know. But if
it's like, oh my wedge is thisyear, it's like,
Speaker 7 (30:04):
Yeah, exactly. So that, that was kind of a fun
thing. But yeah, we've stillhad the blue wed , we just
launched a new blue wedge justa little bit ago and it's
killing it right now. Like it'sjust a unique look and it
speaks to the meno color likethat. That's what we are. That
Speaker 6 (30:18):
Blue . Yeah, that blue color too. That's like
your logo color.
Speaker 7 (30:21):
Totally.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
That's so freaking fun dude .
Speaker 7 (30:24):
Speaker 6 (30:25):
Man, I could talk to you for two hours, but he has
to go . I already know this.
I'm gonna have him back on theshow though. I got a million
more questions for
Speaker 7 (30:31):
Let's do it. Anytime . Like I
Speaker 6 (30:33):
I'm gonna add you back. We gotta talk some more
about other stuff.
Speaker 7 (30:35):
Yeah, we'll do I feel like we're just scratching
the surface. We're
Speaker 6 (30:37):
Barely scratching the surface, but leave , have
another meeting.
Speaker 7 (30:40):
I know, I know. That sucks. . I
Speaker 6 (30:42):
Gotta be respectful of my guest time. But no,
Speaker 7 (30:45):
I, I appreciate you though dude. We gotta do this
more and I'll ,
Speaker 6 (30:48):
We do like, this is cool 'cause see like this is
what I love doing the show'cause I like hanging out and
like talking dork, you know,and then be like, oh yeah, I
remember that club. And thenthat club sucks, you know, and
whatever.
Speaker 7 (31:00):
But been doing it so long that we got stories about
everything. I don't know ifthat's a good thing or a bad
thing. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
But good
Speaker 7 (31:05):
For a
Speaker 6 (31:05):
Podcast . My story's only five years old. Your
story's gonna be like 20 yearsold, so you're gonna be like, I
remember just development. I'dbe like, yeah dude, I was not ,
I was terrible. , I washitting my maji irons that my
dad bought me that broke at theDr Nice You maji the
knockoff Tings
Speaker 7 (31:22):
. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 6 (31:23):
Off , I bring Snapped a face off that iron. I
remember me , the dr I ran andthe whole face just snapped. It
was like , like how do you snapa face, dude, it was crazy.
Speaker 7 (31:33):
That's awesome.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
Yeah, that's how poor I was.
like my dad when I glue it andstuff. Anyways , um, well thank
you for being on the show.
We'll definitely have you backsoon
Speaker 7 (31:44):
'cause I appreciate it. No, this is awesome. We
have a lot
Speaker 6 (31:46):
More talk about, I freaking get to talk about all
my questions I had my my hardline , my hard line questions.
Um, we'll,
Speaker 7 (31:52):
We'll get to those
Speaker 6 (31:54):
. I'll be
like Bill O'Reilly , whatever.
Uh , we're questioning, um, what's the other guy on
Fox News? I can't think of hisname. Anyways, anyways, thank
you for being on this showtoday. You guys, Misso makes
really good stuff, you know,it, their irons are phenomenal.
Their wedges are really cool. Ithey're not coming with any new
drivers this year. Right.
That's you were telling mebefore next year probably we're
Speaker 7 (32:16):
Through with , we launched the St . Max earlier
this year. Um, that whole lineis really good. Like give it a
shot. I know a lot of peoplekind of sleep on the Mauna
Woods, but give them a shot.
Yeah . Why is that ? I it comesfrom like, I , to me it comes
from, and not, not to like keepdragging on, but it comes from
like our own stuff. Like forthe longest time we didn't have
tour players playing our woodsand that kind of said
something, but that's all .
(32:38):
Yeah .
Speaker 6 (32:38):
Doesn't really matter anymore with the tour. I
mean, who's watching golf?
Speaker 7 (32:41):
Dude , it does .
People love to say they don'tcare what people play on tour,
but if you aren't played ontour, it kind of says
something,
Speaker 6 (32:48):
It makes it worse.
It's like you have to hiresomebody because your
competitor hires 'em . You'relike, yeah ,
Speaker 7 (32:53):
Right. So it's so , so I , what I'll say is like
put us up against like KeithMitchell who literally led the
tour last year in totaldriving. He's playing a MAO
driver like, and uh , GraysonMurray who won earlier this
year led the field strokes gaindriving like with Mao Driver,
like put it up against anythingand it's gonna surprise a lot
of people. There's a lot ofgood product out there, but we
make some of the best. So giveit a go. Yeah,
Speaker 6 (33:15):
That's for sure.
Well, thank you for being onthe show today. I really
appreciate it. Um, I'mdefinitely gonna have you back,
I think,
Speaker 7 (33:20):
Paul , it's always good to see you .
Speaker 6 (33:21):
I would love talk to you like once a month dude,
talk like the Dork Talkhour and talk about like, oh
Speaker 7 (33:26):
Yeah, that we gotta have our own Dork Talk logo .
Speaker 6 (33:29):
Yeah, we'd be Dork talk and I'll just , I'll let
you just talk and I'll just belike the , you'd like be the
smart guy and I'll be like thethe dumb guy, like Oh yeah,
. Um, but thanks forbeing on the show you guys.
Golden Mao's website. You guys, if you don't how I Mao then
you probably should own acomputer. Um, and I will see
you guys in the next episode.
(33:49):
Appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Thanks for listening to another episode of Behind
the Golf Brand podcast. You'regonna beat me golf , stay
connected, on and off the showby visiting golfers
authority.com. Don't forget tolike, subscribe and leave a
comment. Golf is always morefun when you win. Stay out of
the beach and see you on thegreen.
Today we play golf.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Let me show you how we do it in the pros.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Yeah . Welcome to Behind the Golf Brand podcast.
I never missed with the SevenIron , a conversation with some
of the most interestinginnovators and entrepreneurs
behind the biggest names ingolf. My
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Friends were the golf clubs. I lived on the golf
course, I lived on the drivingrange
Speaker 3 (00:19):
From Pro Talk . You should learn something from
each and every single round.
You play to fun from on and offthe green.
Speaker 5 (00:25):
Why would you play golf if you don't play it for
money?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Just let me put the ball in a hole. This is Behind
the Golf Brand podcast withPaul Libert tore .
Speaker 6 (00:34):
What's up guys?
Welcome to the fourth season ofBehind the Golf Brand podcast.
Today I have my good friendChris Vhel from Mno . I'm super
excited to having him on theshow. He's literally the nicest
person I've met in golf andthat's the truth. And we're
gonna talk all about mood,what's going on Mno , his
storied career and kind ofwhat's going on. It's welcome
to the show.
Speaker 7 (00:54):
I appreciate it , Paul . This'll be a fun time.
I'm looking forward to chatting
Speaker 6 (00:58):
Like BS Me for last, last half hour, so I was like ,
Speaker 7 (01:01):
Be the show . I hope I have more to say. Right.
Speaker 6 (01:03):
And that's it. And cut. I should like messed up
your last name.
Speaker 7 (01:07):
Speaker 6 (01:08):
So where you be the first, where are you located
at? So
Speaker 7 (01:11):
I am, Mizuno's office is in Norcross, Georgia,
which is, I'd say from like theheart of downtown Atlanta. It's
like 30 minutes north. Um, I, Igrew up in that area. I grew up
in northern Atlanta, kind ofleft for a couple years to go
to school and then have beenback for a number. So yeah,
we're one of the few golfcompanies that is not over on
the West Coast, but we like itover here. It's kind of
Speaker 6 (01:31):
Cool that you guys are in Atlanta. Like you
wouldn't think that, you know,it's like how p you know, PS in
Arizona it's like everyone'seither, well , everyone's in
California feels like, youknow.
Speaker 7 (01:39):
Right. What's an interesting thing? 'cause it's
like, it was for the longesttime it was Mno Rikon and
Bridgestone, like the threeJapanese companies were all in
Atlanta, which seems a littlebit odd, is like just that much
farther from Japan. But forsome reason, like all the
Japanese companies kind oflocated here, I know Stron has
since moved its headquarters.
Good
Speaker 6 (01:59):
Taxes probably or something. You probably got
some kind of
Speaker 7 (02:00):
Deal. I think that's exactly what it is. The
weather's not as not as niceas, as San Diego or Carlsbad
or, or Phoenix or anything. Butwe don't mind it here. And
land's a little bit moreaffordable for me, so I'll
Speaker 6 (02:11):
Take it. Yeah, seriously. Could you imagine, I
have a buddy of mine who's liketrying to get a job at a
another company, like a tailormade and Mm-Hmm .
. Like , he, he's like, yeah, Igotta move to Carlsbad. I'm
like, I'm a fat dude. I'm like,you can't afford good luck that
salary. Like right.
Speaker 7 (02:25):
Speaker 6 (02:26):
You know ? I know.
He , he's like, tell me gonnapay. I'm like , there's no way
you can live there . Thatsalary. Like you might get a
nice one bedroom apartment likea hundred miles away. Right .
Speaker 7 (02:34):
You know, it's amazing. Like, I get it. If
you're born there and that'swhat you're used to, like,
that's what prices are. I, Iget it. Why you'd stay there a
hundred percent. But to move toCalifornia is like a scary
proposition, especially fromthe south. Like, everything
here is so cheap.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
Really? Oh , Arizona kind of turning into like
California light, you know,like in the last I believe
that, I mean, you know, it'slike they can buy a mega
mansion here, sell their outthere , buy a pretty nice house
here, you know. But are youlike a professional golfer or
like, how'd you get into golf?
Speaker 7 (03:05):
No, so I mean, my intro to golf was my dad , uh,
he was a golfer. He played incollege. He played at what's
now VCU , uh, up in Virginia.
So he grew up in that area. Mywhole family's from the, the
Southern Virginia area. And um, it's kind of funny because
I've got two older sisters andyounger sister. I'm the only
son of three of four kids. Andit's like, as soon as the sun
(03:28):
came, my dad's like, great. Igot a golfer now. So it was
like we were dialed in forgolf. Yes . So from the get go
. So that was really myintroduction. And it's cool
'cause my dad was always a kindof a golf gearhead. I remember
so distinctly, like as, as akid, our basement was full of
dad's golf clubs. Like he had aton of clubs. And then our
Saturday morning ritual as wewould go get hot cakes at
(03:51):
McDonald's and then go over tothe golf warehouse and like
look at clubs, like that waskind of what we did. That's ,
that was our thing . So , sothat was really my introduction
to golf and it's just been apassion of mine ever since I
started when I was like 10 .
Well , I
Speaker 6 (04:05):
Bet your dad loved it when you got the job at Mno
Speaker 7 (04:07):
It was one of those things . Sohe was a guy who, he worked in
the, in the check printingindustry for the longest. Like
literally from outta collegeuntil he retired. And it was
always, I mean, he was great.
He was very successful in theindustry, but it was never like
a passion. A passion , it wasnever a fun thing. Yeah. So the
second I told him it was like,when I graduated from college,
(04:29):
I was looking at differentplaces. I had a job offer over
here, but I was waiting to hearfrom the club company and I was
like, whoa, whoa, whoa . I'mnot taking this yet. I want to
hear this. And he was a littlebit like, oh, well, you know,
you got a job here, you shoulddo that. And then the second,
like, Mizzou , what
Speaker 6 (04:45):
Was the job? What was the job? I'm trying to
Speaker 7 (04:46):
Remember exactly what it was. Oh man.
Speaker 6 (04:50):
Something like boring. You're like,
Speaker 7 (04:52):
It would've it would've been a boring job. It
would've, it would not havebeen one that I like, it
would've probably
Speaker 6 (04:56):
Paid Well ,
Speaker 7 (04:57):
Talking about, I promise you that
Speaker 6 (05:00):
Yeah . Now like , oh, my son works at Dairy Queen
or whatever. I don't reallyknow
Speaker 7 (05:04):
I , I do have a very, a kind of a funny story .
Like along those lines of like,when you graduate or like when
you're first in the job, whenthe golf industry, like you
can't wait to tell everybody.
Like anyone who talk to, guesswhat I do? I design golf clubs.
Like I do that. Well , andthen, so this was like in the
early mid two thousands whenlike poker was so massive, like
bar poker and all that stuff .
(05:26):
So I, my, my routine was Mondaynight I would go to this place
and play poker. Tuesday night Iwould go to this place and play
poker and just like, you know,you'd eat it , eat dinner, hang
out, do whatever, talk to thepeople, get to be friends with
everybody. And I remember likethe , one of the first times I
said, oh yeah, you know, Idesigned golf clubs for Meno
and the the then the personjust would not leave me alone
(05:46):
like for the rest of the night.
And the next week the personjust bugged the crap outta me.
Like all he wanted to do wastalk about golf and all I wanna
do is not, not talk about
Speaker 6 (05:53):
Golf, not about golf . You wanna get away from it
for
Speaker 7 (05:54):
An hour . And so it was like my evolution with ,
with the company and likeworking there is I used to tell
people I work at design golfclubs. Then I said, I worked in
the sporting good industry andthen I said, I worked at Sports
Authority ,
Speaker 6 (06:04):
I work at Shield . I just
Speaker 7 (06:06):
at a , at a at a retail shop.
And then people would stopasking me questions. So
,
Speaker 6 (06:11):
They're gonna ask you even more like, okay , get
a discount. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (06:14):
Speaker 6 (06:15):
Speaker 7 (06:16):
So it was kind
Speaker 6 (06:17):
Of fun . So , so you grew up, did you play like high
school golf and all that tooand
Speaker 7 (06:20):
Everything? I did.
So I went to a really smallhigh school. Uh, it's gotten
bigger now, but it's calledWesleyan up up on the north
side of Atlanta. It's amazing.
It's literally like a par fouraway from Mao's office, which
is kind of crazy that like, I'mstill right here. But it was ,
um, it was a middle school andlower school that was kind of
expanding up. So I was thesecond graduating class, like
Speaker 6 (06:42):
Brew around there and stuff.
Speaker 7 (06:43):
Yeah. So it , it was a tiny school. I was in a class
of only 26 graduating, whichwas crazy.
Speaker 6 (06:49):
One 500th of my class.
Speaker 7 (06:51):
The cool thing about that though is like the school
was forming so you could kindof start things. So myself and
a couple other guys, like putthe golf team together. Mm . So
that was kind of one of thecool things was, yeah, I played
golf all through, all throughhigh school, kind of was the
inaugural, inaugural golf team.
Uh, and then as, as I gotolder, you know, we got some
freshmen behind us andsophomores behind us that were,
(07:13):
that got good. Like we weretrash early on, but we, we got
to be pretty decent. You
Speaker 6 (07:18):
From golf though , so that's okay.
Speaker 7 (07:19):
Yeah. And Wesleyan is now spitting out some
really, really good players,which is neat. But yeah, I
played golf in high school andthen went to college. Um, was
not on the team there.
Speaker 6 (07:28):
Where'd you go to college?
Speaker 7 (07:29):
I went to Vanderbilt up in Nashville.
Speaker 6 (07:31):
I remember that.
Speaker 7 (07:32):
So yeah, there's , then you got my little , got my
little star right there. So
team at the time. Uh, sneer wason the team. So I'm same age as
Brant . Really good player. Butthen be behind that. There were
a couple of decent players andthere were a couple spots where
I was like, Hey, I'm as good asthat guy. I know I wasn't, but
I would tell the coach like,Hey, I need a spot at this. And
(07:54):
he never really gave me toomuch of a ti the time of day.
But I played, I played golf allthrough college. Like that was
my getaway, that was myactivity. I'd go do connected
with some really good friends,like friends to this day just
around playing golf in college.
And then that's where I was anengineer. So graduating, I was
like, how can I pair up thepassion for loving to play and
(08:15):
engineering? So what kinda
Speaker 6 (08:16):
Engineering degree do you have?
Speaker 7 (08:17):
So it's interesting , I started as an electrical
engineer , um, which , which islike the hardest,
Speaker 6 (08:22):
Right?
Speaker 7 (08:23):
Well, and that was it. I was, I was valedictorian
in my class, which like soundsimpressive until I say it was
26 kids. Like it wasn't asimpressive. I
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Was a valedictorian.
Speaker 7 (08:32):
Well, I went in and I was like, I want the hardest
thing I can find. And that waselectrical engineering. And
then I go to Vanderbilt and I'mliterally, I remember one day
like talking to my hall matesand we were on a hall and I
think there were 40 of us onthat hall and there were 26
valedictorians. And I was like,I thought I was smart. And then
I like got around these people,I'm like, I'm an idiot. Like I
(08:53):
don't know anything. Soelectrical engineering didn't
last that long .
Speaker 6 (08:56):
How long was that?
Like a semester when youstarted like crappy ? Uh ,
Speaker 7 (08:58):
I , I made it two years in electrical. Two years.
Speaker 6 (09:01):
That's a long time, dude. That's the hardest,
that's the hardest part, isn'tit? The first two years. That's
what I heard
Speaker 7 (09:06):
Probably. But I guess I'm just soft and I gave
up like
Speaker 6 (09:09):
That's a good thing.
I mean, you'd be like makinglike wafers or diets now or
something. Who
Speaker 7 (09:14):
Knows . Totally. So, but I swapped, I swapped over
mechanical. I ended up gradu ,I did engineering science with
like a focus on materials andstuff. So I really got into
like CAD courses andunderstanding like how to do 3D
design and understandingmaterials
Speaker 6 (09:29):
Now , the early two thousands too , when like that
was starting to really takeoff. Like AutoCAD I remember
that one . That's
Speaker 7 (09:35):
Right.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
Like nobody had had that
Speaker 7 (09:37):
Like , and that was cool. Like it was neat that
that was a program that wasoffered. Like I , 'cause I did,
I took a bunch of like AutoCADcourses at the time, which it's
a little bit different thanlike, it didn't translate
directly to the CAD programthat we used at mao , but you
have the basic, like
Speaker 6 (09:52):
Yeah . You understand
Speaker 7 (09:53):
How to think
Speaker 6 (09:54):
You , you understand . Yeah . Yeah. Just like a
different button does the samejob.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
Right , exactly. So yeah, that was kind of my
intro. And then I, I , I thinkmy actual like intro to Mno was
kind of funny. Where it was,this was Mao , well we're
talking early two thousands,like monster.com was the thing.
Like that's where you lookedfor jobs. I think I did that
And monster.com had a postingfor a golf club engineer at Mno
(10:18):
and you kind of go
Speaker 6 (10:19):
Through the back in , back in Atlanta. You're like,
what
Speaker 7 (10:22):
But you go through the job description, it like,
it requires a master's in this10 years experience in this
blah, blah, blah. So I, andlike all of these things that I
don't even, I'm
Speaker 6 (10:31):
Not even close , I
Speaker 7 (10:31):
Close to , yeah .
I'm a kid who knows a littlebit of AutoCAD who has a
basement full of golf clubs atmom and dad's house. Like
that's the extent of my hey ,What I bring to the table. So
you play golf and I play golf,but I , so I put in an
application anyway, I sent in aresume and like a month went by
and then I got a response froma guy named MAs the guy . And
(10:53):
the Gean is the Japaneseengineer who basically
established Meno USA's R and Ddepartment. So we'd always had
one in Osaka, Japan. And hesaid, you know, because the US
market is so big, we need toexpand and become more global,
not just Japanese. So hereached out to me and was like,
dude, like you are notqualified for what you put in
(11:14):
for, but we're opening up aresearch and development center
with like a robotic golfer andbuilding like a center there.
Would you be interested ininterviewing for a position
there? So that was really myfootage ,
Speaker 6 (11:26):
What I was Would you say held to the Yes
Speaker 7 (11:28):
Oh , absolutely. So yeah, so like my first couple
of years on the job wasliterally I would walk into a
golf store, buy everything.
Like I want a set of those setof those set of those set of
buy 'em, take 'em back to theoffice, you get the data , hit
'em , test 'em , cut 'em up,learn all about 'em , and just
do testing. So that was reallymy introduction into the golf
world was the testing engineerposition. But that's working
(11:50):
Speaker 6 (11:50):
Like literally the coolest job, honestly, I think,
you know
Speaker 7 (11:52):
What I mean ? It was awesome. Yeah. And it's the
perfect job to really get youto appreciate and understand
like the nuances of design asto why one little bit of CG
movement in this direction doesthis to a player or does this
to a robot. So it kind ofteaches you it's a great , um,
it's a great foundation tolearn club engineering.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
So then how long were you in the r and d?
Speaker 7 (12:16):
So I did that , uh, I was in that role. I started
in oh four in that role. And Idid that until I designed my
first, the first thing Idesigned was a fitting tool.
Uh, and that was in oh seven.
And then in oh eight was thefirst time I designed some
wedges and a putter and acouple sets of irons. Like it
started from there. So from2008 till really 2018 , yeah, I
(12:37):
started doing like all hardcoreengineering, like designing a
lot of our product. So I wasreally heavily focused on the
forged irons. I did themajority of like the Mao Pro ,
uh, or MP line at the time.
Remember that I say I did, it's, it's not me. There's a team
with Oh yeah .
Speaker 6 (12:54):
But that you focus
Speaker 7 (12:55):
On . But yeah, that was my focus and myself. And
it's what's one of the coolthings about Mao is like, you
know, we've got such a historyof what you do in irons and
we're so well known for ironsthat, you know, there's no
chance they'd let just somerandom kid off the street
design an iron that gets theMeno name on it. So the way it
kind of worked is you wouldhave an engineer in the us an
(13:16):
engineer in Japan, and the twoof you would work kind of hand
in hand on a project. So it wasmyself and a guy named Kazu Do
. And Kazu was awesome. Hetaught me so much and he and I
would work on projects. Andanother cool thing is like,
because we're in Atlanta andthey're in Japan, like it's a
12 hour to 13 hour differencedepending on whether we're on
daylight savings or not. Butbasically like I could work on
(13:38):
a project all day and then hepicks up dir as soon as I sign
off, he picks up right where Ileft off and goes from there.
So it's like the, the data andthe project is constantly, it
never
Speaker 6 (13:48):
Ended . Right. It was like , okay , I'm gonna go
on now . It's like, you'regoing to bed, he's waking up.
So it's
Speaker 7 (13:52):
Almost like
So it was really cool and heand I designed a lot of clubs
that have like got some reallycool history behind them . So I
did that until 2008, sorry,2018. And in 1819, somewhere in
there, my role kind of shifteda little bit to where I'm now
working with the RD teamdirecting a little bit of the
(14:12):
product of where we need to goand what we need to develop. So
still talking to the engineers,looking at the shapes, doing
hit tests and stuff, but alittle bit more of a marketing
and sales and business spin toit. So kind of understanding
the market. That's
Speaker 6 (14:26):
Freaking cool.
because you went fromengineering, it's like, it's
like you walk the , the entrylevel job you got there, right?
Mm-Hmm.
foundation of everything you'regoing forward because they're
letting you literally startfrom scratch and be like, this
is how you really do it. Right.
Right . And then all the r andd figuring it out,
(14:46):
understanding technology andhow people are making their
stuff and why their stuff stuffworks and why, you know,
whatever. And then, and then tobe able to like go from there
to actually, you know, beingpart of a team to build what
you guys are building becauseyou
Speaker 7 (14:59):
Know Yeah. That that's what's so cool about Mao
is like, it really was almostlike an apprenticeship to learn
your way up to up to anengineer. And you know, we've,
we've of course we've broughtin engineers from other
companies before and then we'vegrown 'em from the ground up as
well. And to me, like the onesthey truly get it and
understand what we're doing arethe ones that have kind of
(15:20):
started at the bottom andworked their way up. So like a
lot of the engineers that havecome from other places that
don't last that long to behonest, just because they're
used to doing it a differentway. And really there's not,
there's not like the heritagethat I feel like is almost
ingrained in me where I've beenwith the company now for like,
for 20 years. Your wholecareer. Yeah. Yeah. My whole
career.
Speaker 6 (15:39):
But it's like, you're loyal too because you're
like part of a , you're part ofit like, right. It's not like,
oh, I came in and I made aproduct and then I'm gonna ,
you know, I'm a I'm amercenary, I'm gonna go
somewhere else and designsomething. It's like
Speaker 7 (15:51):
Exactly
Speaker 6 (15:51):
Right. It's like I know what I took to make that,
you know? Yeah.
Speaker 7 (15:54):
And, and to me that speaks a lot to what like Meno
is. We're , I mean, it it, yougo deep down to it, there's a
Meno family. Like we're part ofthe Meno line. It's not just we
slapped a name on somebody whomade a product. Like it all
goes back to the history ofMeno is there was a Riachi Meno
who, he was a big baseballplayer who developed like COR
(16:14):
testing for baseballs back inthe early 19 hundreds. Like how
hot is a baseball? So that,that's kind of the origin of
us. So he developed a test likein his sporting goods store in
Osaka, Japan, where if youdropped a baseball from this
high, it could only bounce backto this high. Which essentially
is, you know, like arudimentary version of what a
golf COR spring test is now. Soit's like, it , it all goes
(16:38):
back to like the engineeringand the science and the , the
family too because, you know,riachi passed on to the next
Mao , to the next Mao andthey're still the Mao family.
So that's what's the cool thingis so many people have been
here so long. Like I'm friendswith the Mao , it was like we
we to sort of put our his nameon something we do, he has to
trust you a lot. And there's alot of history that goes behind
(16:59):
that. So I , it's
Speaker 6 (17:01):
Funny . Yeah . Right , because like if you're Yeah,
exactly. Like you , there's atrust there. Like they know
your , your best interest is inthe , is for the, is for the
company, right? Absolutely .
It's not like Absolutely . It'snot for you. Right. Or
Speaker 7 (17:14):
Your Right .
Exactly. Ego or whatever itmight be. And that's where you
look at some other companiesand they'll be like, oh well
the wedges are by this guy.
This the putters are by thisguy. And like you put a name
to. So no Mao product has anyname other than Mao on it. And
that's not to say there's not awedge guy and a putter guy and
a wood guy or whatever. They'revery much is, but we're all
(17:34):
overarching like building
Speaker 6 (17:36):
They're all named Chris Haw . Kidding .
Speaker 7 (17:38):
voch. She wedge. There'salready another
Speaker 6 (17:41):
Voch. She wedge would , you could probably do
that. That'd be hilarious dude.
Speaker 7 (17:46):
And then it looked like a knockoff boey or
something. Be like this
Speaker 6 (17:49):
Guy
part and put Bo shell on it.
But no, don't do that. Do haveone of your , one of your, one
of your wedges
'cause it's like hard 'causeChris has had so many different
roles at the company that it'slike, when I was telling my
wife today, I was like, ohyeah, I'm talking to my friend
Chris, you know, from
does he do? And I was like,well it's hard to explain like
(18:10):
it's like I can't say what he,I don't know all of the in
between , right? Like , I dunnoknow how you got from A to B
'cause right ? Z it's like,'cause not, they're completely
different, you know? So nowit's like you're , one
Speaker 7 (18:23):
Of the things I love the most about, like the fact
that so many people at Mizunohave such a tenure here is it's
like, you know , I'm on theproduct and marketing side, but
I'm an engineer, like to say amarketer, the main marketing
guy is an engineer is prettyrare. It
Speaker 6 (18:39):
Never, that never happens, right? Because now it
never happens. Never happens,never, never. Or even have a, a
brain that could do both ofthose jobs, right? Because it's
like you're an engineer brainor you're a marketing person,
you know , it's like , not
Speaker 7 (18:50):
don't know. But it ,
Speaker 6 (18:53):
Well you did fail out of like double E . So I
mean yeah , I
Speaker 7 (18:56):
Quit that
Speaker 6 (18:57):
Disrespect . I'm just kidding.
Speaker 7 (18:59):
But the cool thing is it allows us to, when we're
telling a marketing story,there's an engineering spin to
it always. So, which to mecomes off as way more
authentic. Well , not . You've
Speaker 6 (19:10):
Never seen, right ?
I mean you go , oh , it's theblah blah blah , blah , blah .
And you're like, what the, what, what do those words even
mean? Right, exactly. Andyou're like, I know exactly
what that means. And that makessense. Like that sentence. Yeah
.
Speaker 7 (19:20):
I laugh at a lot of the marketing campaigns out
there and how everyone justshouts longer, faster, blah,
blah, blah. 10
Speaker 6 (19:26):
K, 10 K, 10 k.
Speaker 7 (19:27):
Yeah. And , and from my side, like if you listen to
what Meno , the stories we tellYeah . It's a lot of the, the
art and the science combined.
And we will talk aboutmaterials. Like when you look
at a Meno club, when you lookat the Zel of the irons, it'll
say Mali , a 41, 35 M or 10 25.
Oh wow .
Speaker 6 (19:46):
E pure sweat .
Speaker 7 (19:46):
Yeah . Like , like literally we put the, we put
the science right at theforefront. It's like, here's
the material, here's why thisis different. Here's why the
grain flow forging process isdifferent. So our stories are a
lot different. They're basedaround manufacturing,
engineering, productivity,stuff like that. As opposed
Speaker 6 (20:04):
I feel like that's a really big disconnect in, I
mean, you've been this waylonger than I have, but like in
the golf industry, like theengineers don't communicate or
there's no way, it's a hard wayfor the engineers to
communicate with the marketingteam because like Mm-Hmm.
to a lot of 'em like not on theshow or just people I know
other brands and they're likeso excited and you talk to 'em,
they know exactly what they'retalking about and they explain
(20:25):
why it works and you're like,oh, I understand that, that's
cool. And then, but that's notwhat's pr , that's not what's
sent out to the public. Youknow what I mean? Right . It's
like totally, new word thatmakes no sense. That sounds
cool. And we'll put some like,you know, whatever.
Speaker 7 (20:39):
No, you're, you're exactly right. And that's where
I, I I hope people recognizethey don't see that from Mao .
Oh , don't like what , what yousee from us is a, it's a what
and a why. Like the what is,here's what we did to it.
Here's the material, here's theprocess. And the why is because
it delivers that, you know,from everybody else. You get a
ton of just loud, bold claimsand trust us. There's something
(21:01):
in here making somethingmagical happen as opposed to
kind of explaining what we'redoing.
Speaker 6 (21:06):
That's always been like the hard part I think in
golf, right? It's like alwaysit's all about the pizazz and
then it's like, mm-hmm ,
year's pizazz is not thisyear's pizazz , but why is this
better than last year? Youknow? Right. Oh , because you
put another screw in it or youput another weight on it.
Speaker 7 (21:18):
Right .
Speaker 6 (21:19):
It's like, I don't know . I think I , I think it's
why golfers distrust theindustry, right? They know it's
black . Absolutely. They knowit. Everybody knows it. They're
like, oh, apple's gonna gofarther. You know, it's like,
does it now ?
Speaker 7 (21:30):
Well what's funny is it's like almost like the
easiest way to tell that acompany did not change much is
if they made all the colors andnames way different. It's like,
well we gotta come up withsomething to tell why this
one's new and oh we'll changethis name to that and it was
green and now it's blue. Likethey'll literally change
something. So you're like, oh,that has to be new and
different when in actualityit's a lot of like, you know ,
(21:53):
slow progressive movementsWhere on our side, did
Speaker 6 (21:56):
You see that with irons though? Like in the irons
and wedge line a lot? Or? Iknow mainly you definitely see
in drivers for hundred percent, for Right, for sure. Balls, I
mean, mm , a little bit, butnot really. I mean that's ,
yeah,
Speaker 7 (22:07):
People , uh, the claims and balls aren't as
bold, but like on the ironside, yeah . There are some
companies who are very , um,I'd call it not evolutionary as
opposed to revolutionary, wherethe next one is an evolution on
the last one. And I think yousee a lot of that from Mizuno
where we'll evolve a , a familyand we'll evolve it to get
better and better and betterand better. And then you'll see
(22:29):
that like, you know, I'll sayfor the most part, Titleist is
very true to that. Ping'stypically very true to that.
Taylor made has some lines thatare true to that and other
lines that aren't necessarilytrue to that. Like the P series
versus like the one thatmatches the driver, whether
that be the stealth line or theqi line. Callaway kind of the ,
the , the Apex line is a littlebit more evolutionary where
(22:51):
they're rogue or paradigm line,they kind of try to tell bolder
claims and stuff like that. Soit, it's interesting how you
can look at different familiesand different companies speak
in way different terms, butlike for us, you look at like
the evolution of JPX . We'vehad our JPX line going back for
almost forever 15 years and itstarted with 800, 8 25, 8 50,
(23:13):
whatever . Like there have beensubtle changes within it, but
Speaker 6 (23:15):
You can explain what that is. Like, oh, what do you
change series , oh, we didthis, this, and this, this and
this . Okay . Right . Okay .
Not like, oh , we calling itthe new whatever line. It's
like, right . Just anotheriteration of that. And
Speaker 7 (23:26):
To me , the
Speaker 6 (23:27):
Hard work, right?
When they update cars , it'slike, it's the same car. We
just did something different.
Speaker 7 (23:30):
And it , to me, that's all about like being
trustworthy. You know, when youread about like, you know,
customer retention and stufflike that. I think Mao and I ,
I think Mao and Ping are thetwo that are known as having
like the highest customerretention. 'cause it's like, I
trust what I'm getting. So byinstead
Speaker 6 (23:47):
Of lifetime , like Lifetime , like my dad still
plays Ping. I mean, right ? Imean guys , once you get
someone in there , but he hadlike ping red eyed twos , you
know what I mean? I remember asa kid and like, you know, he
buys clothes for 20 years. Soit's like right. It's ,
Speaker 7 (24:00):
And I think that comes from being evolutionary
and saying, yes, we're makingjumps every single time we're
making improvements, but whatyou knew and what you liked
about the last one is stillthere. Like, we're not just
rein trying to reinvent thewheel every single time.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
You like the freaking , uh, golf whisperer
guy like
anybody know, you probably knowabout every brand and every
iteration of every club andwhat the little thing was like,
oh, I know that , thatwhatever, you know, that slogan
is. You know, whatever that was
actually the bop bop bop bopbop club when they just add
(24:36):
another weight on it or theypainted it red or
Speaker 7 (24:38):
What , uh, one of the things I love to do is,
like you said ,
Speaker 6 (24:41):
Like I'm a blogger
Speaker 7 (24:44):
I , I thought about that one time. I actually
talked to a website one timeabout being something like that
and I, I decided it wasn't agood idea. Just
Speaker 6 (24:52):
No, because it got leaked . It would just be bad
for like, it would
Speaker 7 (24:55):
Be bad
Speaker 6 (24:55):
If you're like, yeah, they're like , oh,
because he's zu , that's whyhe's talking like that, you
know,
Speaker 7 (25:00):
But , but I love looking at the new stuff coming
out, reading the claims andunderstanding how they're
claiming they did something andthen try to understand, oh well
maybe there's some merit tothat or Yeah, that sounds like
they're just pull grasping atstraws, like looking for
something to talk about. So youcan definitely like the more ,
the more knowledge, you know,and the more club engineering
knowledge, you know, it's easyto say, oh well they just did
(25:23):
this by doing that. Like, youknow, to me, like the 10 K
discussion is a reallyinteresting discussion because
there's very positives of a 10KMOI. But there's also some
very negatives to a 10 KMOI andit's like, we'll just shout
about the positives and ignoreall these and make , you know,
it's, it's there . There's giveand take in everything in club
engineering. And it's all aboutunderstanding that and
(25:45):
understanding fitting. That's
Speaker 6 (25:46):
Crazy. See , like that's the thing, they'll say
like, why 10 K is so greatright now, but like no one
talks about what the negativeside of 10 K, right? And
probably most people are notsmart enough to even understand
there's a negative side to itunless they're in that world
and they go, oh look, you know,based on the data, right?
That's why we're not doing itbecause of this. You know what
I mean? Yeah. But not being ina defensive position either.
(26:07):
Like if Meno came out the newdriver this year and they're
like, well why wasn't it 10 K?
Or it's like, you don't wannahave that conversation because
it's like,
Speaker 7 (26:13):
Well it's funny, I don't mind that conversation
because I can tell you like onour new, we have an St Max
driver that's out right now.
That's our super high MOI, it'snot 10 K, it's like mid nines,
but that's way higher thanwe've ever been. But it could
have been 10 K. But we chose tomove a certain amount of weight
from the very back to the frontto make sure that the club face
(26:35):
closed a little bit easier tomake sure the spin rates didn't
get quite as high. So it'slike, it's understanding what
you're trying to do. If , ifit's all about the story, like
it's easy to kind of push onedirection, kind of ignore the
golfing aspect of it and onlyfocus on the marketing or the
Speaker 6 (26:50):
Player. Right, or the player . Yeah , exactly .
Because they just see big 10 Kletters everywhere and they go,
oh , that's what I need. Youknow, that's the new thing this
year. And they , if enoughbrands say 10 K, that must be
the, it must
Speaker 7 (27:01):
Be great. Must be
Speaker 6 (27:02):
The new technology, you know? Right. And it might
be like, and you can
Speaker 7 (27:05):
All , you can even go back to like when the USGA
and RNA passed the rule oflike, a driver can only be this
big and they literally likedrew out a square that it could
fit in. So what happened thenext year, every driver was a
fricking square. Like itliterally fit in that because
it's , oh , it's within therules. So that is designing
product towards a marketingspin versus what did all those
(27:27):
square drivers do? They spunreally high. They sounded
terrible. They went short,like, 'cause to get there you
had to have flat surfaces, youhad to have a really deep
center of gravity. You had allof these like gives get the
take of the high of the squaredriver . So yeah, to me, like
that's why I love from themarketing side, like I'm on the
marketing side, but also a footin the product where I can say,
(27:50):
here's the story we need totell and here's why. Like, you
can't go this extreme on themarketing side. Like, because
the product has to do this.
Speaker 6 (27:58):
Yeah. If it doesn't deliver then it's not what's
what's the point? Right,
Speaker 7 (28:02):
Exactly.
Speaker 6 (28:03):
Like back it up with the data or back it up with a
good product, which you guysdefinitely do. I mean my , I
got , the first time I evertalked , I told you like my
favorite wedges you ever didwas those blue wedges, those
Speaker 7 (28:13):
Wedges. Oh yeah.
Dude , you want a funny storyabout that? Yeah, I
Speaker 6 (28:17):
Do.
Speaker 7 (28:17):
first blue wedge was the S 18wedge, which S 18 came out in
2018. I like , that's howcreative we are in our naming.
So it was literally, I remembersitting in a meeting, this was
in Osaka, Japan at the Mizunoheadquarters we had done , uh,
like back in the day we did ,we had a wedge called the raw
haze where it was like an oilcan finish. We'd had a black
(28:39):
onyx or a black ox wedge. We'dhad some uh , you know, like
some grayish black nickel andchrome and we would always do a
light in the dark. That waskind of the norm. And I
remember presenting in ameeting, I was like, why don't
we do one in blue? Like justfor something different. And I
essentially got like, I don'twanna say laughed outta the
room, but everyone was like,okay, next, like next topic,
(29:01):
next
Speaker 6 (29:01):
Idea. Yeah .
Speaker 7 (29:02):
So, so we did not, and that was for the wedge
before S 18. So then fastforward six months later and in
the vokey kind of tourworkshop, they did like a
limited drop of like a kind ofa bluish finish and sold them
for like 600 bucks each andsold out immediately. So the
very next meeting I was like,Hey guys, re remember that idea
(29:23):
I had a while back. And so, sothe very next wedge, we did the
blue one and it was amazing. Itwas always, if you look at like
sales percentages, you wouldsell 70% of the, the light
color, the chrome or the satinor whatever. And 30% of the
dark color. The second welaunched the blue, it flipped.
It was 70% blue, 30% white.
Seriously. So it's Oh yeah,like that, like that quick just
(29:47):
because it was different. It'sunique in a we is like ,
Speaker 6 (29:49):
It looked cool too.
It looked really good,honestly.
Speaker 7 (29:51):
It looked cool.
It's, it's inexpensive enoughand kind of something that
churns through your bag fastenough that people will take a
little bit of a risk and trysomething. Yeah .
Speaker 6 (30:00):
Oh , a whole set of blue clubs, you know. But if
it's like, oh my wedge is thisyear, it's like,
Speaker 7 (30:04):
Yeah, exactly. So that, that was kind of a fun
thing. But yeah, we've stillhad the blue wed , we just
launched a new blue wedge justa little bit ago and it's
killing it right now. Like it'sjust a unique look and it
speaks to the meno color likethat. That's what we are. That
Speaker 6 (30:18):
Blue . Yeah, that blue color too. That's like
your logo color.
Speaker 7 (30:21):
Totally.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
That's so freaking fun dude .
Speaker 7 (30:24):
Speaker 6 (30:25):
Man, I could talk to you for two hours, but he has
to go . I already know this.
I'm gonna have him back on theshow though. I got a million
more questions for
Speaker 7 (30:31):
Let's do it. Anytime . Like I
Speaker 6 (30:33):
I'm gonna add you back. We gotta talk some more
about other stuff.
Speaker 7 (30:35):
Yeah, we'll do I feel like we're just scratching
the surface. We're
Speaker 6 (30:37):
Barely scratching the surface, but leave , have
another meeting.
Speaker 7 (30:40):
I know, I know. That sucks.
Speaker 6 (30:42):
Gotta be respectful of my guest time. But no,
Speaker 7 (30:45):
I, I appreciate you though dude. We gotta do this
more and I'll ,
Speaker 6 (30:48):
We do like, this is cool 'cause see like this is
what I love doing the show'cause I like hanging out and
like talking dork, you know,and then be like, oh yeah, I
remember that club. And thenthat club sucks, you know, and
whatever.
Speaker 7 (31:00):
But been doing it so long that we got stories about
everything. I don't know ifthat's a good thing or a bad
thing. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
But good
Speaker 7 (31:05):
For a
Speaker 6 (31:05):
Podcast . My story's only five years old. Your
story's gonna be like 20 yearsold, so you're gonna be like, I
remember just development. I'dbe like, yeah dude, I was not ,
I was terrible.
dad bought me that broke at theDr Nice
knockoff Tings
Speaker 7 (31:22):
Speaker 6 (31:23):
Off , I bring Snapped a face off that iron. I
remember me , the dr I ran andthe whole face just snapped. It
was like , like how do you snapa face, dude, it was crazy.
Speaker 7 (31:33):
That's awesome.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
Yeah, that's how poor I was.
like my dad when I glue it andstuff. Anyways , um, well thank
you for being on the show.
We'll definitely have you backsoon
Speaker 7 (31:44):
'cause I appreciate it. No, this is awesome. We
have a lot
Speaker 6 (31:46):
More talk about, I freaking get to talk about all
my questions I had my my hardline , my hard line questions.
Um, we'll,
Speaker 7 (31:52):
We'll get to those
Speaker 6 (31:54):
Uh ,
Fox News? I can't think of hisname. Anyways, anyways, thank
you for being on this showtoday. You guys, Misso makes
really good stuff, you know,it, their irons are phenomenal.
Their wedges are really cool. Ithey're not coming with any new
drivers this year. Right.
That's you were telling mebefore next year probably we're
Speaker 7 (32:16):
Through with , we launched the St . Max earlier
this year. Um, that whole lineis really good. Like give it a
shot. I know a lot of peoplekind of sleep on the Mauna
Woods, but give them a shot.
Yeah . Why is that ? I it comesfrom like, I , to me it comes
from, and not, not to like keepdragging on, but it comes from
like our own stuff. Like forthe longest time we didn't have
tour players playing our woodsand that kind of said
something, but that's all .
(32:38):
Yeah .
Speaker 6 (32:38):
Doesn't really matter anymore with the tour. I
mean, who's watching golf?
Speaker 7 (32:41):
Dude , it does .
People love to say they don'tcare what people play on tour,
but if you aren't played ontour, it kind of says
something,
Speaker 6 (32:48):
It makes it worse.
It's like you have to hiresomebody because your
competitor hires 'em . You'relike, yeah ,
Speaker 7 (32:53):
Right. So it's so , so I , what I'll say is like
put us up against like KeithMitchell who literally led the
tour last year in totaldriving. He's playing a MAO
driver like, and uh , GraysonMurray who won earlier this
year led the field strokes gaindriving like with Mao Driver,
like put it up against anythingand it's gonna surprise a lot
of people. There's a lot ofgood product out there, but we
make some of the best. So giveit a go. Yeah,
Speaker 6 (33:15):
That's for sure.
Well, thank you for being onthe show today. I really
appreciate it. Um, I'mdefinitely gonna have you back,
I think,
Speaker 7 (33:20):
Paul , it's always good to see you .
Speaker 6 (33:21):
I would love talk to you like once a month dude,
talk
Speaker 7 (33:26):
Yeah, that we gotta have our own Dork Talk logo .
Speaker 6 (33:29):
Yeah, we'd be Dork talk and I'll just , I'll let
you just talk and I'll just belike the , you'd like be the
smart guy and I'll be like thethe dumb guy, like Oh yeah,
Golden Mao's website. You guys, if you don't how I Mao then
you probably should own acomputer. Um, and I will see
you guys in the next episode.
(33:49):
Appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Thanks for listening to another episode of Behind
the Golf Brand podcast. You'regonna beat me golf , stay
connected, on and off the showby visiting golfers
authority.com. Don't forget tolike, subscribe and leave a
comment. Golf is always morefun when you win. Stay out of
the beach and see you on thegreen.
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