Harrison Shafts - shutting down end of April

[ValueGolf]

Sad to see Harrison is shutting down 4/30. Mike is a great guy and did a lot for the golf industry.

[kekoa]

[quote name='ValueGolf' timestamp='1395423845' post='8919203']
Sad to see Harrison is shutting down 4/30. Mike is a great guy and did a lot for the golf industry.
[/quote]

Wow thats sad. Is there a particular reason? I guess the whole shotmaker thing didn't catch on.

[ValueGolf]

[quote name='kekoa' timestamp='1395423968' post='8919225']
[quote name='ValueGolf' timestamp='1395423845' post='8919203']
Sad to see Harrison is shutting down 4/30. Mike is a great guy and did a lot for the golf industry.
[/quote]

Wow thats sad. Is there a particular reason? I guess the whole shotmaker thing didn't catch on.
[/quote]

No specific reason given other than "retirement". Industry downturn no doubt.

[JCAG]

Sorry to hear. Not surprising given the state of the golf business (especially custom/component markets) but still sorry to hear.

[knock it close]

Too bad, doubt a lot of guys outside WRX know about harrison. Outside of WRX most guys are playing stock shafts and if they're not their playing aftermarkets from one of the big manufactures

[mizguy]

Really good guy and a good product. It's too bad. Sign of the times...

[kwooten31]

Definitely too bad, my first experience with Harrison was with, I think it was called the striper, blue and yellow with a little window showing the titanium threads in the shaft. I really liked that shaft, and really do hate to hear this.

[MattMo]

Saga was one of the better shafts I've used in my driver. Unfortunate.

[ValueGolf]

[quote name='MattMo' timestamp='1395464383' post='8923633']
Saga was one of the better shafts I've used in my driver. Unfortunate.
[/quote]

For sure - I thought more people would care about this.

[ImBurningStarIV]

Sad to hear this, Saga was one of my favorite shafts ever.

[GooseHook]

Bummer. I thought they offered a really competitive product, but didn't get enough rep compared to the other big names. Graphite shafts are already somewhat of a niche market though.

I did have a Shotmaker in a driver for a while, and the thing was dynamite.

[NevadaGolfGuy]

Wow that sucks...guess I'm going to have to stock up!

[markheardjr]

The Harrison Pro series was really a great line back in the late 90's early 00's. Harrison pro Low Launch 1.4° (that's 1.4 torque!) was a great option early for guys wanting lower launch before the Fuji Tour Spec stuff came to market. The 1.8 was a great 2W shaft and the 2.5° was comparable to the Speeder 757 at a more affordable price. I played a Pro 80 Boron for a few years and I would play it today if it hadn't cracked near the hosel on me. Excellent feel in a nice heavy shaft. Too bad. I think they should have tried to get in as a stock OEM shaft to pay the bills, they just got gobbled up lately with the Aldila's, Fuji's, Mitsu's taking those orders away.

[thecraw]

Really sad to hear indeed. Never tried a SAGA but feel as though I really should now.

[KWheels]

This is sad but not surprising. I played the 1.8 tour, 2.5 tour, 2.5 UL and 2.5 FL over the years and really liked most of them. Once the Fuji's, Graphite Designs and others became available they just had more swag... Sign of the times in the Golf business unfortunately.

[brock9007]

Any body have a Saga or Mugen Black they want to sell, before someone treats this like "Flappy Bird"....

I agree this is sad, but if he is ready to retire, he should go relax....

[WRXClarky]

This is really too bad, Mike spent 30 minutes on the phone with me one day just answering my many questions never ever trying to end the conversation. Really really good guy.

[Awalkspoiled]

[quote name='brock9007' timestamp='1396057355' post='8972387']
Any body have a Saga or Mugen Black they want to sell, before someone treats this like "Flappy Bird"....

I agree this is sad, but if he is ready to retire, he should go relax....
[/quote]

I have both Saga and Mugen Black 70 in stock...

[Mitchell]

Recall going to PGA Merchandise show around 2000 and seeing Mike in aisle in front of his booth telling people as they walked by "Come check out the no BS shaft company!"
As Mark stated, the boron pro 80 was a great fwy shaft.

[MrFlapjack]

That's too bad. I also really like the Saga shaft.

[LittleLeftToRight]

I had a Harrison Professional in my driver in the early 90s and I used to annihilate that thing. After not playing for 20 years, I recently put it in my 5 wood. I wish I had the specs on it, but it predates the internet! Sorry to see another manufacturer go the way of the dodo.

[starsail85]

I used to use, and love a pro 2.5 Titanium shaft. The bright yellow one in my driver, and the blue one in my 3 wood

super product, shame theyre gone.

[baseballfrk8998]

What a shame. The Saga still my absolute favorite shaft of all time..

[super20dan]

i also have the proffesional in many clubs. great shaft and as good as any i have found since.

[dave s 316]

Was the shot maker snake oil after all, or was that part of Harrison sold off?

[hobbygolfer]

Sad to see Harrison shutting down. The shafts were good and Shotmaker makes a difference, if properly fit to the players swing. It might have been too complicated and too expensive at the end, but we did quite a couple of Shotmaker fittings with great results.

Regards,
Michael

[JCool]

This is the first I'm hearing of this company going out of business.
I used to make quite a few clubs from components, back in the 1990's. In the last ten years, the major OEM clubmakers come out with so many new models of drivers that their prior model goes on sale for half price six months after it first came out.
That badly damaged the component clubmaking industry. With the way the price of shafts has exploded, it is far cheaper to purchase a brand new driver (the model that is six months old and now on sale) than it is to purchase a custom driver from a clubmaker, even if one can test shafts and pick the specs one wants in a shaft from a good clubmaker.
A very good shaft now costs more than the entire club from most OEM makers after the model has gone on sale at that six month to a year mark.

It's a shame that Harrison is leaving. They made a lot of very fine quality shafts.
It's tough to get a tour presence these days, and it seems like OEM club companies like to use very cheap shafts in their drivers, or else they use those Made Especially For "[i]fill in brand name of club[/i]" knockoff shafts that look like the real deal but have very different specs and shaft profiles.
It had to be super tough for Harrison to compete with some of those shaft companies that compromise their ethics to make such cheap shafts so that they could sell them to OEM club companies at a very low price in high quantities.
Always makes me feel sad when a good company goes out of business simply because they can't compete with the giants even though they make a very fine product.

I personally still have a Harrison Striper Titanium (vivid royal blue with yellow graphics) in an old Golfsmith three wood of mine.
At the time, it was a very popular shaft, as it was not just a good performing shaft but also a reasonably priced one with good specs.
I've tried many other three woods since, but nothing beats that old standby.

[markheardjr]

Oh yeah. I also had the Harrison Striper J601 (Jim McLean version) in a Tourstage X-Drive 405 and the Striper J801 in fwy.

[dmael]

For anyone who is interested, I bought-out pretty much all of Mike's shaft and Shotmaker inventory (plus a bunch of clubheads that he had for shaft testing and fitting purposes). I am down to less than ten Harrison shafts (al lMugen Black and SAGA models, in X-flex only, and most of them are the 70 gram series (I have two Mugen Black Prototype 60-Xs, and one of them may be going into a customer's TM M2 driver next week).

 

If interested, please send me a PM here or email me at [email protected]

 

Thanks, and kind regards,

 

Doug Mael

Doug's Custom Clubs / Tour Quality Golf

www.dougscustomgolfclubs.com

[Joe9977]

Anyone have any info on Harrison Striper J 60 stiff shaft?