Club endorsements that undid their Pro

[grm24]

16 hours ago, JaNelson38 said:

 

Yep.  Strick's equipment change with his Peerless irons also created lots of sore feelings with Arnold Palmer, which took years to get over....he almost never played Arnold's event in Bay Hill after he turned his career back around and became a top-ranked player again.  I think he finally came back the year before Arnie passed.

 

Not sure if it was referenced earlier as I havent gone through the whole thread, but Steve penned an article for The Players Tribune a couple years ago basically saying that changing equipment he was used to as a young player for money pretty much wrecked a decade of his career, and he wishes every day he could go back and not do it.  The catalyst for him changing equipment and trying to change his game was when he was paired with Tiger Woods at Pebble Beach, and Tiger basically evicerated him off the tee.  Very similar to Rory's initial chasing of Bryson's distance.

 

People forget Stricker was a Ping staffer on some level in 2000. Did he go from Peerless to Ping? Wasn't with PIng very long. Picture was from the 2000 Open Championship.

 

 

Ping hat. Titleist driver.

Edited May 12, 2021 by grm24

[Mustard_Tiger]

1 hour ago, grm24 said:

 

People forget Stricker was a Ping staffer on some level in 2000. Did he go from Peerless to Ping? Wasn't with PIng very long. Picture was from the 2000 Open Championship.

 

 

Ping hat. Titleist driver.

 

 

Stricker won twice on the PGA Tour in 1996. For 1997-99 he signed with Taylormade for a then princely sum. It was a disaster.

 

After 1999 he was a free agent again.

[golfortennis]

3 hours ago, Mustard_Tiger said:

 

 

Stricker won twice on the PGA Tour in 1996. For 1997-99 he signed with Taylormade for a then princely sum. It was a disaster.

 

After 1999 he was a free agent again.

 

He did contend in the PGA in 98, though.  Played in the final group IIRC. 

[Greg_B]

17 hours ago, golfortennis said:

 

Did Palmer push him to the irons?  Curious as to the backstory here.  Never heard that part of things.

 

My recollection is that he played the Palmer Peerless PHD irons (http://www.golfreview.com/product/golf-clubs/irons/peerless-golf/peerless-tour.html) in the mid-90s for a few years as a staff member on a pretty modest financial deal. The initial deal ended at the end of '96 after he had scored his first couple of wins on Tour and TM offered him a big bag of cash to switch. Arnold wouldn't or couldn't match that and let him walk. You have to remember that Peerless was a small club manufacturer and despite coming up with the design of the finned hosel on their irons (which they ultimately licensed to Cobra) which worked well and let them enjoy some success, they never had big bucks to throw around and seemed happy to remain a niche manufacturer.

 

Stricker has always been an unusual sort of fellow who perhaps thought too much about what would make him happy, and often seemed conflicted internally. I suspect his struggles during his time with TM had less to do with the equipment and more to do with what was going on between his ears.

[NetBogey]

8 hours ago, grm24 said:

No worries the word sucking didn't offend me LOL! The numbers as I stated earlier in this thread show his game really going down hill at the start of last year. He played well in 2018. Not sure how much you can put this on Cobra. Rickie gets anything he wants from them. I really wonder how much the ball switch from Titleist to TM has played a part in this. How much have swing changes caused this? Maybe he's peaked. Who knows for certain. It's a multi-layered issue where these is no one catch all reason.

agreed. Although with cobra, they aren’t racking up the wins they once were when they had ogilvy, Holmes, Villegas, poulter and so on.  I just know a few people that loved cobra when they were an acushnet company but seems to have gone down hill since then. 

[golfortennis]

2 hours ago, Greg_B said:

 

My recollection is that he played the Palmer Peerless PHD irons (http://www.golfreview.com/product/golf-clubs/irons/peerless-golf/peerless-tour.html) in the mid-90s for a few years as a staff member on a pretty modest financial deal. The initial deal ended at the end of '96 after he had scored his first couple of wins on Tour and TM offered him a big bag of cash to switch. Arnold wouldn't or couldn't match that and let him walk. You have to remember that Peerless was a small club manufacturer and despite coming up with the design of the finned hosel on their irons (which they ultimately licensed to Cobra) which worked well and let them enjoy some success, they never had big bucks to throw around and seemed happy to remain a niche manufacturer.

 

Stricker has always been an unusual sort of fellow who perhaps thought too much about what would make him happy, and often seemed conflicted internally. I suspect his struggles during his time with TM had less to do with the equipment and more to do with what was going on between his ears.

 

Thanks for that background.  So then my question would be about the hard feelings that were mentioned.  Of all people, Palmer would seem to be the one who would be all for taking the money when  it's there.  Or did Stricker avoid the tournament out of shame?

[Greg_B]

6 hours ago, golfortennis said:

 

Thanks for that background.  So then my question would be about the hard feelings that were mentioned.  Of all people, Palmer would seem to be the one who would be all for taking the money when  it's there.  Or did Stricker avoid the tournament out of shame?

 

Without being privy to the discussions between him and the Palmer people it is difficult to say why he felt the way he did. I've never read anything from either side about the split and whether it was acrimonious or not. This article from 2010 suggests that it was due more to poor performance at Bay Hill than anything else.

 

https://arnoldpalmerinvitational.com/content/stricker-returning-bay-hill

[JaNelson38]

18 hours ago, Greg_B said:

 

Without being privy to the discussions between him and the Palmer people it is difficult to say why he felt the way he did. I've never read anything from either side about the split and whether it was acrimonious or not. This article from 2010 suggests that it was due more to poor performance at Bay Hill than anything else.

 

https://arnoldpalmerinvitational.com/content/stricker-returning-bay-hill

 

There was definitely hard feelings there, for whatever reason.  I distinctly remember local media guys talking about it as a backstory when Steve ascended back to the top ranked American golfer after his career being in the depths for so long.  Stricker went to Bay Hill in 2010 because he was #2 in the world and was on a major heater, but he didn't go back until 2019.  He's now been back every year since.

 

Back in the mid-90's, lots of business was probably still done by a handshake.  Steve has said that the biggest mistake in his career was changing equipment the year after winning his first two tournaments, so perhaps some sort of verbal or handshake agreement was broken when TaylorMade threw a bunch of dough at him.  One thing is for sure, once he got his bag straight with Titleist, he stayed true to them for over a decade.  Only just last year did he start putting some Callaway stuff in the bag simply because he had to....his irons were all wore out.  He played the AP2 710's forever.

[tad273]

On 3/19/2021 at 6:17 AM, mat562 said:

Francesco Molinari's decision to ditch his Taylor Made clubs for some Callaway ones certainly did the numbers on his bank balance more good than the ones on his scorecard.

 

To be fair he did score a win at the Arnold Palmer in the first week he played the Callaways and was going all right for a bit at the Masters a month later, but agree it's been all downhill since.  Sad face whenever I see a player take that Callaway money 

 

Here's a pretty old and obscure one for those that remember: Chip Beck, former top 10 player, 3-times on US Ryder Cup team, 2nd ever 59 shot on PGA Tour,  2nd at The Masters 1993 and two US Open runner up finishes  - switches from Ping to Powerbilt in 1994 for a $650,000 per year contract (a lot of money back then).  Ends up missing 46 consecutive cuts and quitting the tour to sell insurance.

Edited May 16, 2021 by tad273

[Shilgy]

Haven’t read the whole thread but doubt this one was posted….

 

John Huston and his illegal shoes. 

 

https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1990/03/09/huston-walks-to-front-in-new-shoes/

 

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-04-06-sp-797-story.html

 

Actually it was a blessing for him as he won events after but thought it would fit in this thread.

[Greg_B]

I remember seeing Huston wearing the "Weight-Rite" logoed hat on Tour when the shoes were still in play. In retrospect it seems an odd thing for the USGA to declare illegal. Most athletic shoes these days have removable insoles to allow for use of orthotics or other custom inserts, and those do not seem much different.

[Greg_B]

19 hours ago, tad273 said:

 

Here's a pretty old and obscure one for those that remember: Chip Beck, former top 10 player, 3-times on US Ryder Cup team, 2nd ever 59 shot on PGA Tour,  2nd at The Masters 1993 and two US Open runner up finishes  - switches from Ping to Powerbilt in 1994 for a $650,000 per year contract (a lot of money back then).  Ends up missing 46 consecutive cuts and quitting the tour to sell insurance.

 

I think Beck had other things going on. Unless he was playing a set of PowerBilt scotch blades for some reason, their cavity-back irons back then were very forgiving and very Ping-like. The same basic design stayed on the market for a number of years and was quite popular. Can't speak for the woods but those are usually able to be substituted under club contracts if the pro just cannot hit them. But I can't see PowerBilt woods at the time being much worse than Ping equivalents.

[KennyP]

20 hours ago, tad273 said:

 

Here's a pretty old and obscure one for those that remember: Chip Beck, former top 10 player, 3-times on US Ryder Cup team, 2nd ever 59 shot on PGA Tour,  2nd at The Masters 1993 and two US Open runner up finishes  - switches from Ping to Powerbilt in 1994 for a $650,000 per year contract (a lot of money back then).  Ends up missing 46 consecutive cuts and quitting the tour to sell insurance.

 

Interesting info. Before Ping I think Beck was contracted to Hogan. I seem to remember him using metal woods during the 1989 Ryder cup and his switch to Ping meant a return to persimmon woods (and beryllium Zings).

[Sixcat]

20 hours ago, tad273 said:

 

Here's a pretty old and obscure one for those that remember: Chip Beck, former top 10 player, 3-times on US Ryder Cup team, 2nd ever 59 shot on PGA Tour,  2nd at The Masters 1993 and two US Open runner up finishes  - switches from Ping to Powerbilt in 1994 for a $650,000 per year contract (a lot of money back then).  Ends up missing 46 consecutive cuts and quitting the tour to sell insurance.

Beck talked about this in great detail on the No Laying Up podcast back in February.  You have to put different parts of the conversation together to get the whole picture but it's well worth the listen.  

[Sixcat]

1 hour ago, Greg_B said:

 

I think Beck had other things going on. Unless he was playing a set of PowerBilt scotch blades for some reason, their cavity-back irons back then were very forgiving and very Ping-like. The same basic design stayed on the market for a number of years and was quite popular. Can't speak for the woods but those are usually able to be substituted under club contracts if the pro just cannot hit them. But I can't see PowerBilt woods at the time being much worse than Ping equivalents.

Beck was contractually obligated to use the TPS Elipsoid of Power model iron.  PowerBilt actually dropped anyone who refused to play them, including Larry Mize.

 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1994-06-23-9406230336-story.html

 

[north_east_pro]

Charl Schwartzel's move to PXG clubs at the end of 2016 hasn't been fruitful. Only once made into the FedEx Cup playoffs since the club switch from Nike in the past four seasons and hasn't yet won with them on any tour.  😬

[Righty to Lefty]

On 3/18/2021 at 5:30 AM, dhen9 said:

PXG fan here, but where is Lydia Ko?

She just won on tour a couple weeks ago.  

[dhen9]

1 minute ago, Righty to Lefty said:

She just won on tour a couple weeks ago.  

Yep, Now I gotta get me one of those Thunderbolt putters.... YA HEAR ME, PXG?!?!?!?!

[QuigleyDU]

It seems to me that many of these club switches come as the player is already fading. Its like a contract season in other sports. They play great that year, sign a contract then get comfortable. I think it is generally (not always) the player had already peaked and was on the other side. The club switch was just timing. Maybe the company their were with saw them fading and didnt want to offer big dollars.  

[me05501]

Curtis Strange's reputation for being ornery comes from his competitive days on Tour. It's easy to forget that he was a somewhat dominant player for a few years there just before Tiger came on the scene.

 

The same sort of behavior that got Strange labeled "rude" or "unfriendly" was somehow reframed as "intense" or "competitive" when it came to Tiger.

 

It really comes down to that overall changing of the guard between Curtis's era and Tiger's. I remember when Tiger's pointing and fist pumps and exhortations were considered unseemly for the staid PGA Tour but that talk died down as the ratings went up. 😕 

Edited May 17, 2021 by me05501

[Greg_B]

3 hours ago, Sixcat said:

Beck was contractually obligated to use the TPS Elipsoid of Power model iron.  PowerBilt actually dropped anyone who refused to play them, including Larry Mize.

 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1994-06-23-9406230336-story.html

 

 

I had to do a bit of digging because the TPS irons Beck switched to when he went with PowerBilt were quite shovel-like game improvement irons. I found it hard to understand why he would have a hard time transitioning from Pings to those. But looking at old photos online, he had been playing Hogan forged blades prior, not Pings. They would have been about as far removed from the TPS irons as you could get, so now the issue starts to make some sense. He suffered the same fate as Janzen, Stewart and a few other longtime blade players.

[Sixcat]

1 hour ago, Greg_B said:

 

I had to do a bit of digging because the TPS irons Beck switched to when he went with PowerBilt were quite shovel-like game improvement irons. I found it hard to understand why he would have a hard time transitioning from Pings to those. But looking at old photos online, he had been playing Hogan forged blades prior, not Pings. They would have been about as far removed from the TPS irons as you could get, so now the issue starts to make some sense. He suffered the same fate as Janzen, Stewart and a few other longtime blade players.

He talked about it some on the NLU podcast.  He mentioned other guys suffering the same fate such as Stewart, Janzen and Hale Irwin (leaving Wilson).  If I recall the podcast correctly, he said PowerBilt paid him $650,000 per year for a four year contract.  So, it was purely a money grab.  He gave the money back for the final two years of the contract but by then, the damage had been done.  His confidence was shaken and he had begun to have injuries he felt were related to compensations in his swing to mitigate the inferior equipment. 

[mat562]

I always though it was remarkable that Beck's game didn't founder when he went to Ping; let alone PowerBilt.

 

Solid player with a couple of TM metals and a bagful of Wilson blades. Shoots 59 with some Hogan Apex blades. Then debuts some graphite-shafted beryllium Zings and some graphite-shafted laminated Zing woods? The youngsters have a three letter abbreviation for their reaction to such decisions I believe.

 

 

[Greg_B]

I didn't realize he was with Ping for '93 and the infamous '93 Masters until I listened to the podcast. The pic I found of him with Hogans was from '92. So he went Hogan-Ping-Powerbilt in a span of 3 years. He slagged Powerbilt without actually naming them in the NLU podcast, saying they were one of the worst club manufacturers around, who couldn't fit him properly and couldn't make clubs that could be tailored to his needs.

 

I found the podcast interesting but a little hard to swallow. He killed Venturi for calling him a coward for laying up at the '93 Masters. I listened to the broadcast on the Masters Youtube channel and didn't hear that on the CBS broadcast. He said he fired Pete Bender on the spot during the '93 Masters after Bender and Venturi had a conversation on the course about the layup on 15. I just don't know what to make of a lot of the things he said.  A lot of it was interesting but a lot of it just left me scratching my head. I find it odd that he was originally coached by Ray Floyd's dad and was apparently close with Raymond in his early years on Tour. I think that would have been a pretty good role model for him. Maybe he should have just copied everything Raymond did.

[KennyP]

10 hours ago, Greg_B said:

I didn't realize he was with Ping for '93 and the infamous '93 Masters until I listened to the podcast. The pic I found of him with Hogans was from '92. So he went Hogan-Ping-Powerbilt in a span of 3 years. He slagged Powerbilt without actually naming them in the NLU podcast, saying they were one of the worst club manufacturers around, who couldn't fit him properly and couldn't make clubs that could be tailored to his needs.

 

 

Prior to signing, you would think any player would comprehensively test the brand to make sure they were happy, wouldn't you? 

[KennyP]

10 hours ago, Greg_B said:

I didn't realize he was with Ping for '93 and the infamous '93 Masters until I listened to the podcast. The pic I found of him with Hogans was from '92. So he went Hogan-Ping-Powerbilt in a span of 3 years. 

 

 

 

I think he was with Ping for '92 & '93. 

[mocokid]

16 hours ago, Greg_B said:

I didn't realize he was with Ping for '93 and the infamous '93 Masters until I listened to the podcast. The pic I found of him with Hogans was from '92. So he went Hogan-Ping-Powerbilt in a span of 3 years. He slagged Powerbilt without actually naming them in the NLU podcast, saying they were one of the worst club manufacturers around, who couldn't fit him properly and couldn't make clubs that could be tailored to his needs.

 

I found the podcast interesting but a little hard to swallow. He killed Venturi for calling him a coward for laying up at the '93 Masters. I listened to the broadcast on the Masters Youtube channel and didn't hear that on the CBS broadcast. He said he fired Pete Bender on the spot during the '93 Masters after Bender and Venturi had a conversation on the course about the layup on 15. I just don't know what to make of a lot of the things he said.  A lot of it was interesting but a lot of it just left me scratching my head. I find it odd that he was originally coached by Ray Floyd's dad and was apparently close with Raymond in his early years on Tour. I think that would have been a pretty good role model for him. Maybe he should have just copied everything Raymond did.

Yes- Copy later career married Raymond, but maybe not early career playboy Raymond.

[Ghostwedge]

Remember seeing that huge orange PowerBilt staff bag all over courses back when, they made top of the line equipment. Their initial lines of game improvement irons weren't any more chunky than Ping and Callaway stuff.

That's on Beck not PowerBilt.

[Greg_B]

8 hours ago, Ghostwedge said:

Remember seeing that huge orange PowerBilt staff bag all over courses back when, they made top of the line equipment. Their initial lines of game improvement irons weren't any more chunky than Ping and Callaway stuff.

That's on Beck not PowerBilt.

 

One of his big complaints about them was that the iron heads were made from titanium and thus they could not be bent to change the lie angle for him. I found that odd as I'm pretty sure they also made those same iron heads in stainless.

[NetBogey]

On 5/11/2021 at 11:41 PM, grm24 said:

No worries the word sucking didn't offend me LOL! The numbers as I stated earlier in this thread show his game really going down hill at the start of last year. He played well in 2018. Not sure how much you can put this on Cobra. Rickie gets anything he wants from them. I really wonder how much the ball switch from Titleist to TM has played a part in this. How much have swing changes caused this? Maybe he's peaked. Who knows for certain. It's a multi-layered issue where these is no one catch all reason.

Might explain some of Rickies poor play 

 

https://golfweek.usatoday.com/2021/06/04/pga-tour-rickie-fowler-prescription-sunglasses/?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2RncsuWlVLgOMQ2FUeTq5m99hPYG1UcRDW5tfk5efL-FLye6H430sUKdM