By ADAM SCHUPAK
Senior Writer
Bobby Jones Golf is turning to another marquee name to launch its newest entry in the market. The company announced that clubmaker Jesse Ortiz will team with short-game guru Dave Pelz to design the company’s first line of wedges.
“Dave’s impact is immense,” Ortiz says. “No one else in the world is so closely associated with the short game.”
The duo has worked together before. Ortiz, who has been Bobby Jones Golf’s chief designer since 2004, and Pelz combined their expertise in 2001 when Ortiz worked for Orlimar Golf.
Pelz has dabbled in golf clubs, with limited success. He made the Dave Pelz Featherlite clubs in the early 1980s, but left the manufacturing business, convinced his niche was in research, development and education. Pelz owned the patent for the Odyssey 2-ball putter, the best-selling putter of all time, but didn’t cash in on its popularity, choosing a lump-sum payment rather than a royalty-based deal. Terms of his agreement with Bobby Jones Golf were undisclosed.
Bobby Jones Golf is trying to break into a crowded marketplace dominated by Cleveland and Titleist, which combine for more than 50 percent of wedge sales, according to Golf Datatech. Ortiz is confident there is room for an innovative product.
“Wedges have been the lowest-tech equipment category in golf,” he says.
With the potential for the U.S. Golf Association to adopt a new rule pertaining to grooves, wedge durability may become more important. Pelz says the grooves of the new Ortiz-Pelz wedges will have less face wear and retain spin characteristics for an extended period of time. The club’s body is cast from a soft stainless steel. A pocket and deep-set channels are milled to accommodate the club’s wear-resistant face material. The insert is tough enough, he claims, that a Tour player who now changes wedges every month wouldn’t have to change all year.
Says Pelz: “For an amateur who normally will buy a wedge once a year, this one will last 3-5 years, depending on how much they practice.”
Some retailers think interest in this product will help Bobby Jones Golf gain shelf space at on- and off-course shops, something the fledgling company has struggled to do so far. Last year it relied heavily on an infomercial campaign touting its driver and hybrids.
“Their wedges were good the first time they worked together, and I think they will be good now,” says Mark Marney, CEO of The Golf Warehouse, “especially if they put that 30-minute infomercial marketing behind it.”
Bobby Jones Golf produced a wedge-specific infomercial, which will begin airing on Golf Channel in February. It’s the first time Pelz has appeared in an infomercial for any of his products or a product he endorses.
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Adam Schupak is a Golfweek senior writer. To reach him e-mail aschupak@golfweek.com.
Posted: 1/28/2008
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