Off Course is back this week with a fantastic show and this is episode 207. Hosted by Dan Edwards, each Friday he gives you a deep look into the world of golf and equipment in a way unlike any other podcast has done before. Today, Chris Voshall from Mizuno Golf joins the show again to cover a myriad of topics including the benefits of moving to a new product and diving into the CORTECH CHAMBER technology in drivers.
It wouldn’t be Off Course without some tangents, but Dan and Chris dive into many topics including Mizuno flexing with finish abilities. This show has a lot going on and is one you will not want to miss as Chris Voshall goes Off Course.
Episode 207 is here and Dan and Vosh discuss the following topics.
The Benefits of Moving to New Products
Getting Stuck with Favorite Clubs
CORTECH CHAMBER
Fitting the 24 and JPX Series
Making Drivers for Every Swing
And so much more
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hello you golfing Legends and welcome back to another episode of the original off course I’m your host Dan Edwards and joining me this week once again although it’s been a while is uh my good buddy Chris vosa you know him from mauno golf he’s a fairly well-known very important guy over there vosch welcome back thank you your your level of importance on people is is getting pushed down too low so just I’m just a dude who happens to talk clubs a lot well you say that but the thp community like you are kind of the guy so we always get excited to have you on you always bring some interesting points of uh to the conversation so definitely excited to have you on you guys have a lot going on right now uh some some product that’s fairly new to the to the market I’m sure we’re going to see some new stuff as it always goes uh as the year progresses but what’s going on over at mauno right now yeah I feel like mauno is in a really really good spot right now I feel like we’re getting accepted getting trial and winning a lot of battles like on all front so I if you look at kind of again I’ll put the business hat on a little bit all the market share numbers and stuff are higher than we’ve ever been so we’re doing a lot of good things on the iron side we’ve got the jpx line Fir and strong in its second year we launched the mauno pro stuff the 24 family earlier this year 241 243 245 five phenomenal set of clubs that are really outperforming their looks is almost what how I like to describe it the wedges we added another finish to the t24 line we’ve got the amoi line of Putters and then the woods to me the woods are one of the more exciting things just our full family of the St 230 adding the max to the lineup to really round everything out we have the best offerings that we’ve honestly we’ve ever had and I feel like it’s starting to pay dividends so I love it so I I’ll ask what what is probably a weird question for you uh being that you’re there and you know the performance level um but mizuno’s always been from a consumer perspective at least the people I talk to it’s like I want Mizuno irons in my bag it’s very clearly I want Muno irons in my bag and I’m like hey do you want to hit this driver like no no no you didn’t hear me I want the Muno irons in my bag so I’d love to know perspective wise is is the conversation shifting a little bit to where it’s not necessarily the the featured focus when you engage with consumers of hey we want to hit your irons now it’s like hey we want to hit everything because it’s all very interesting to me yeah I think it’s the Muno customer is a particular person and we all kind of joke around I’ve seen some things on Instagram of guys saying I’m a mauno guy and like here’s all the things that make you a Muno guy and one of the things I feel like is a characteristic of a mauno guy is they’re looking for the best in every little bit and where where that SEL C on irons we’ve been that selection on irons for a long time and it’s almost like the mauno guy I’m going to name other competitors the Muno guy has a Titus driver and a Scotty Cameron Putter and a bokei wedge or something like it’s it’s almost like you can predict what a Muno guy will have and that’s funny because we’re Muno like we make all of these things too so you say you’re a Muno guy because you’re a Muno iron guy but I think what’s been really cool over the last little bit and honestly like you hate to go back and like keep talking about Co and new players and all like all these things that have changed within the game but to me one of the most exciting things that’s happened over the last little bit is with the new people coming to the game with launch monitors trackman foresight all these all this like data driven analytics it’s opened up eyes to people to different categories within our brand Beyond just irons so it’s become like that mauno guy doesn’t just Auto automatically pick that driver that Muno guy picks the driver that works best for them so now it’s now that data proves everything it’s like you don’t have to rely on reputation of oh well I don’t know Muno drivers I’m GNA try something else now just put it in the mix and whatever shakes out wins and when younger players are coming to the game it’s like younger players it’s like I don’t care what it says on the bottom I just want the one that performs the best and when it comes to Performance and dialing in technology and stuff like that I feel like we do as good a job if not better job than anybody out there and so a lot of our new products are so so good if you just get them in your hands and test them out put gather some numbers on them so that takes us potentially down a really interesting rabbit hole because I remember at the start of the year it might not even have been this year uh it was it was shortly after the two4 series dropped on the irons of course I’m absolutely going to go and hit them as soon as I can um and I walk through the line personally I hit uh 245 first because you know everyone loves that product line it’s it’s been a really fun progression uh and then I sort of walk through the lineup going down to 243 and then down to the scariest one which is 241 and by scary I mean you better hit it well when you hit it so right uh of course my instant feedback is how well did I hit them so that’s my perspective on the iron um but the other side of the coin is and I’m going to try and expand this to every golfer out there is there a challenge when you get a new lineup and someone says maybe they’ missed jpx but they’ like man that new Muno MP series or whatever you want to call 24 series uh that’s the one I want to go hit reality a lot of golfers should be in the jpx lineup so do you struggle a little bit where people don’t give jpx a chance and they isolate purely onto your your sort of pro lineup and then make their decisions based on that yeah totally I think you know there’s there’s so much of an ego in golf of like the Aesthetics I wanted to look a certain way and kind of start to ignore some numbers and kind of get driven down a path and that’s where I think from a from a golf club manufacturer side our job like to me on our marketing and stuff like that and what we put out our number one goal of everything we’re doing isn’t to say buy this particular iron or buy this particular wedge our number one goal in everything we do is get you to a fitting cart like that’s that’s our our whole analytics like it’s so funny where when we’re talking about like measuring website traffic our key analytic to website traffic is how many people clicked on find a fitter or find a retailer like that’s our number one thing that we want to drive you to because by going to that fit cart that’s where people who thought they wanted 245 might end up in Hot Metal Pro or hot metal or hot metal guys might end up in high launch the fit cart is The Equalizer with all of it so to me if we can drive you to that fit cart then we’ve done our job because you’re right it’s it’s so easy to say well I’ve always played you know this shallow cavity iron I know what I want I’m gonna get this one I I’ll I’ll try a shaft in it I might switch those around but I know what head I want but these new heads do so many different things and they and I think people get shocked when they look at some of the quote unquote game improvement or distance clubs people get shocked at how good they look at a dress and how good they feel as well so again like I said if we can get you to the fit cart we can overcome a lot of I wouldn’t say objections but we can open people’s eyes to things that they weren’t even looking at so I I’ll take the adventure now because you’re dropping some good heat so I’m going to I’m going to sort of challenge myself but I also have friends and this is something I see a lot of times when I go around my golf course is the one thing that seems to really stay cons existed in a lot of bags is the the set of irons and especially the older series of mauno irons I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked in a bag and seen like an old set of MP 660s you know something that that has withstood the test of time and this guy’s you know can’t uh can’t seem to get to a fit cart as you say so so I think it’s interesting because I put the 221s and the 225s which were the set I played for a long time in the bag uh over the weekend and I have a a playing partner who plays an older series of zuno blades and I I spent the whole weekend trying to convince him to um and I should say I’ve been bugging him about hey maybe you should look at the new mauno irons they look amazing and uh meanwhile I’m not obviously doing that myself so I’m I’m a bit of a hypocrite there but um what I’d love to know is what is it like making that transition and at least from let’s say the last series into the the the latest series we know there have been some subtle refinements but right how do you convince a player that there is a gain to going to the newer series from a mauno they previously love that was built maybe in the last five years well funny I can kind of speak to my journey and what what has what my bag has done because I think it speaks to a lot of what Muno players and what a lot of players go through in that I was always a player who had like I I’ve never been a blade guy but I’ve never been a big Club guy either like I’ve always played a shallow cavity forging like that’s just what I played it’s funny if you look back here I’ve got like back here in this bag I have all my six irons of the last number of sets I’ve played and it’s mp57 mp60 mp58 MP 59 mp62 mp64 jpx 9002 or 9212 or 9232 or like it’s literally it’s they’re all versions of essentially the same Club so I I tell that story to get to the point of when mauno Pro last generation came out the two two series 241 243 245 I naturally was like well I’m a 243 guy I know that’s what I am that that’s the next in line of everything I’ve always played so when I went to that’s even before like going out and doing full testing I got a set built up to my specs I didn’t go to the fit card I literally just said I know what I want I want those so I got those and I tried them and I loved them they were great the 2 two three family was really really good and then it was interesting because when I got to the long iron side I was like let me try a 245 in like the longest iron because why not like I used to play h5s back in the day like in the long iron so let me try a hollow longer iron just to get a little bit more launch out of the five so it was really good and then I built a six and then I built a seven and then I built an eight and it was literally it was like that it was like a stick at a time as I started to recognize that it’s okay now I’m seeing that this is doing something a little bit different and it still looked really good like the 25 the 225 was not big and what really shocked me when I got to the scoring irons the pitching wedge and gap wedge almost impossible to tell the difference between the 223 and the 225 at a dress they were virtually identical so then I got to a point where for the rest of the season I I played for the mo majority of last season I played a full B of 225s which again that’s not a set I’ve ever played or I’ve ever worked my way into all that to say two four family drops so I’m like all right now I’m now I’m a full a hollow body guy like that’s just what I play so the first thing I did is I I built up I didn’t go full set this time I built up a couple clubs of 468 of the 245 hit them great they went even farther than the last generation they went even higher than the last generation which to me that actually scared me a little bit cuz I’m a high ball hitter like I I don’t struggle to get the ball in the air I don’t do it with a lot of spin but I do it with a lot of launch and they were just launching a bit too high for me so then I built up a couple two two sorry two 43s and they just brought it right back down but the distance didn’t drop off at all so it’s like my family like my bag has changed throughout a couple of years where I went from this this end of the spectrum to this end of the spectrum now I’m right here in the Middle with the 243 so all that to say again I’m fortunate enough and blessed enough to have the access to try all of them at once like I can build myself up a $2,000 set of golf clubs like it’s nothing so all I’m very lucky in that aspect but by experimenting and everything by essentially getting to that fit cart you might find something that you didn’t realize is going to work for you so to all those people who are stuck in well I play this when it’s I’m going to stick with it forever I it does what I want it to do try something because you might unlock something you didn’t even know you had I I think it’s a perfect time to Showcase here the comparisons between and and we’re flexing a little bit on video so for those listening on we have images of the 24 series lined up side by side um one of the first things I noticed Vos and maybe it’s just my head uh but when I hit 245 and I put it a dress I’m like this looks so Compact and so clean you you must have made notable refinements to that head shape didn’t you we did yeah and in the 243 and the 245 uh the the number one thing we did on all of those I W to say the number one thing but one of the major aesthetic things we did with them is we made them all smaller like we knew we had so much performance out of it and in the 245 family in particular if you’re looking at the screen on the far right side the 245 family we increased the amount of tungsten we were using inside that hollow body construction so when you increase that tungsten you’re able to shrink the actual head in terms of tow heel Direction and still not lose or sacrifice moment of inertia and forgiveness and launch so to me it’s like the easiest thing as an engineer to make a CL Club more forgiving or whatever just make it bigger Mauna we’re always trying to how can we make it smaller that’s our goal is to make it smaller and look better so you’re right the two four five family looks even smaller than the 225 family yet it goes higher goes farther and is more forgiving like that’s that’s like the ultimate of you engineered it better you didn’t just make it bigger right well the the sick part for me was like I pulled that 245 and I hit it and there was just I was just like hitting my window over and over again I’m like I still have two irons to hit on this lineup but I really don’t want to I want to just keep hitting this which is which is really fun but uh you know moving back into the conversation of combo sets I I would say based on this photo alone it’s pretty clear that you’re you’re open to the idea at Mauna that people want to do that um and there is definitely a gain to it um what would you recommend for golfers who go to try and experience that what what is what would you say the gapping makes the most sense and and and how would you apply the three uh irons in the lineup to that do you need all three to to Gap or no yeah there it’s that is so player dependent and that’s why and this this honestly it goes back from the engineering side this goes back to I’d say the first family that we really really focused on combos was MP18 mp20 followed along mauno Pro 22 and now 24 all follow along the same concept of get them get the Lofts to line up properly and then the offsets will line up properly as well the clubs aren’t designed in a silo they aren’t designed completely independently they’re designed as part of an overarching family what I mean by that is yes the 245 are the strongest of the bunch the 241s are the weakest of the bunch the 243 in the middle but all of them are designed and specked out so that you can tweak The Lofts to make them all combo together I’d say it’s not super common that we see somebody going all three families in one combo set but it’s very common to see at least two families and that’s could be 241 to 245 241 to 243 even 243 to 245 you see all of it and to me the the big thing I always try to talk to is where do you split your set to me it turns into a conversation of where are you trying to hit a green versus like work the ball into a green and that’s kind of how I try to like break my setup so it’s like you know if I’m somebody who with a six iron in hand my goal is just middle of the green don’t do anything funky just don’t screw it up then I want the six iron to be in the most forgiving if I’m somebody who’s trying to hit that you know low draw six iron to a back left pin then you probably go for the little bit more demanding one on that and then make the break on either the five or the four or something like that so to me it’s a conversation with your fitter it’s a conversation with yourself and honestly like I think a lot of people probably lie to themselves in that but think about how you’re going to score better because you know if you’re 190 to a front right pin over water like are you happy just to get it on that green and if the answer is yes you want the more forgiving one right there jpx yeah right so it’s it’s have an honest conversation with yourself of how do you split them and how do you combine them so to me that that’s what’s cool is they’re not it’s not cookie cutter in that you take a six from this and a seven from this and put them together like we don’t try to make it like that we want it so that one player might stop at an eight iron one player might stop at a five iron and in either instance it works like those sets work and the sets flow so to me that’s one of the greatest things about designing as a family versus designing as individual clubs awesome do you hear a lot of feedback from the folks who purchase or the folks who go get fit uh saying hey man I really expected to be in 241 and then shifting to whatever this club is uh at some point in the bag and I actually went all the way with that club and and left 241 in the cart because it’s so dynamic in its in its different stages of the set totally I I’ll joke and kind of say that the the mauno line brings people to the cart and the jpx line the hot metal line in particular like gets people out of the cart like that’s kind of what so many people walk away with I’ll say the players distance category is so I don’t want to say oversaturated but there’s so many different options and so many different things that people are looking for in that category that are jpx 923 forged our Muno Pro 245 our hot metal pro and are Muna pro 243 they’re really four different takes on One category of golf clubs like they all kind of fit the bill of they look a little bit more players but they go a little bit farther there’s Co built into them so it’s amazing how often someone will come in saying I wanted 243 I ended up with 245 I wanted you know 245 I ended up with hot metal pro or something like that like it happens all the time and to me that’s why I say our jobs to get you to the fit card our job isn’t to say oh man I am locked in on 245 that’s all I want I don’t want to try anything else because ultimately it’s the the numbers are going to dictate what works best for you and those all have different spin characters and launch characters to them so even though they’re in the same in the same family they do different things and that’s why it’s okay as a golf club manufacturer to have overlap in your lineup and for it to look a little bit intimidating a little bit confusing when you go to the cart and open it up and you see you know 30 different heads in there to try it’s because a a skilled fitter with a shaft Optimizer in their hand and looking it numbers can decode the differences between this spins 200 RPM more this launch is half a degree lower all those little things matter when you’re trying to score well let me try and prod you a little bit here and see if we can get a nugget so it’s um we’ve seen lots of beautiful things at a 241 243 245 when we know when that released and we know how long it’s been since a jpx release what does the future hold for Muno irons is there going to be something new this year we are on a I don’t want to say predictable but I’d say a reliable Cadence right now if you look at our launch Cycles um the two the two sorry the 923 family is you know Midway through its second year it’s still performing great honestly the market share on it is is still really really high and we’re selling a lot of of hot Metals but we are approaching a time when you we’re we’ve got other stuff in the works um I’ll say that there’s a thp event coming up uh later on this year and it might be focused around something that that leads to what you’re talking to I can’t really share too much information but we’re always working on the next latest and greatest all that to say you know we’re never the company who breaks it all down and says everything we made was trash until you try this new one we’re improving on what we’ve been doing and I think you will see something from us later in the year that will be eye opening it’ll be really cool I I accept that walk around the honest answer which we all know is coming but uh you you never know you got to not live on camera maybe had to bleep some of that out this might be the second take you guys don’t know uh but either way I tried uh but that’s really exciting because every time a jpx line comes out it seems like you get a little bit more excited about it so the expectation that you’re going to continue to evolve that product uh is it should excite golfers I mean I’ve seen many players put them in the bag and say these are the craziest things I’ve ever hit they feel like you know Forge blade but they launch like I’m actually good at golf so it’s a really funny mix so uh I’m going to be a little bit selfish here in the heart of the episode because one of my favorite clubs over the last couple years was the uh the Fly High I’ve had the two and the three in the bag with uh I’ll call them Franken shafts for quite a while right um I’ve not had the chance to hit the newest lineup so can you just give me a little bit of an idea of how much I’ll gain from switching to the newer product sure yeah from the tut two family that was the first time we did this fly high is a standalone part you know for the longest time I’ll say for long you go way back in the day we had fly highes that were you know long irons driving irons with a 370 uh you know hybrid shaft in them for a number of years we kind of went away from that and went towards more of what we call the this going to be a very mauno term our dlrs are direct long iron Replacements where like I talked about my h5s earlier H5 was a set of irons that basically in it housed our driving iron within it the hindrance to that is that they were designed to receive an iron shaft versus a hybrid shaft so wasn’t a 36 wasn’t a 370 tip so you know they were designed just to whatever you have in your pitching wedge is the same shaft you have in your longest iron with the last family with the Muno Pro 22 we split it out and that’s because the 225 was such a good iron like that’s in there but we saw an opportunity to make something a little bit longer in length a little bit longer in tow heel Direction and something that holds a a higher kicking hybrid shaft in it as well just because the what players use as their longest iron it really varies you know some players opt for their longest iron to be 10 yards longer than the iron before it like you know my four iron 10 yards longer than my five iron and then after that I go to wherever but a lot of players are opting for a club like this to be a goet of a fairway wood and an iron so you don’t need you’re not looking backwards to connect this dot you’re looking to connect a DOT between two larger spaces and gapping so with the tutu family that hot metal or sorry that um that fly high it was a you know a maraging steel face with a lot of tungsten in it and that hybrid shaft and that black head allowed us to make it a little bit larger the newer version of it the 24 version of that got even like a little bit smaller looking but we packed more performance into it as well we went to a chromal material that we’ve been using in our hot metal irons so the crali gives you even more kick out of it you can make it a little bit more aggressive a little bit thinner so it goes hotter we put more tungsten in it so it launches easier and the cool stock part in this is it comes actually with a steel fiber hybrid shaft as well a real deal steel fiber that you know you look at those that shaft in a lot of different you know OEM that’s a60 $70 upcharge that comes stock in that it’s the um 880 hls it’s a great great shaft really good combo and we’ve seen all the players who were you know converts to the 22 version have gone straight into the 24 version no problem really uh so I have a little bit of a thing for cromal if you remember back my trip to uh down to h a few years ago before you go that I want to say we also added the Lefty version of it too which I always take it in the shin from Lefty I say we got it it Lefty as well say that louder no yeah so I I remember hitting uh I think that was the first duration of crali in the hot metal pro back in the day that might have been 921 um and just having a Josh had way too much fun with his video when I was hitting chomal so the idea that You’ Incorporated is actually really exciting to me but uh yeah they I what surprises me is so I I’ve had issues with three woods and I’ve I’ve used the utility irons to sort of Band-Aid my mediocrity uh with a metal wooden hands and it and it’s actually worked out really well because there’s so much control on those heads but there’s also a level of forgiveness that exists from the broad uh heel portion or sorry the soul portion and um you know the hollow bunny is just a little bit bigger than that 225 so I I have a chance of missing it a little bit and still surviving um but it’s cool so one of the things I’d love to talk about is I just showed on the screen the picture of the new fly eyes which is a stunning black finish you guys have flexed a little bit recently with a gorgeous set of aelia irons which and I I didn’t see the 245 version so you’re clearly saving one of those for me for Christmas in the aelia Finish which is great uh but I get a sense you guys are having plenty of fun with finishes behind the scenes and and Taking Chances uh but also experimenting when you when you can are we going to see a little bit more of that uh sort of limited or custom finish option it’s funny it’s that’s one of those things where you want to you don’t only want to go to that well so many times like to keep something limited to keep something cool there’s a scarcity and unpredictability about it so I’ll say unpredictability but you if you look at our last limited editions we did a we had the the MP 20s we did a copper version the 221s we did a blue version and the two four ones we did our aelia Edition so we’ve had our last three blades have had a a finished component to it if anything it like it drives just some coolness to it the aelia was something that when we kind of started playing around with the Nano finish we were using on it we saw something we had never seen before we’ve seen people some Club makers and stuff try to copy it a little bit but no one’s kind of Hit the color palette that we hit which I think is really cool so that was a fun thing you know we’ve done some I’d call it less limited edition more just limited run or like a little bit more inline with the 225 we did the Black version of it so we’ve started to play around with finishes more than we ever have and again I think that’s something that comes with you know mauno is growing as a company like we’re we’re all of a sudden we’re we’re accepted by so many more players our Mark sh continues to grow people are looking at us to be you know more than just the standard Chrome finishes so you potentially will see something coming up sometime next year um I’ll say it’s not exact not I’ll say it’s not at all what you’re thinking it was going to be it’ll be completely different something you haven’t seen before so we’re excited about that and then what’s our answer to the aelia is a a highly debated thing right now because the aelia has been such a home run for Muno as a whole like it was just from the very first time we showed it like with the I got the box right there weird poting that the box right there was what a fun project like putting that together working with BB andf on the ferals designing something you haven’t seen before working with Golf Pride on a unique grip working with True Temper on a unique Dynamic gold toour issue shaft band every bit of that project was so much fun and just knowing that you’re building it around you know a certain tournament in April it’s like the most fun thing you can do so I don’t know how to quite answer that one because I feel like we we went for it all on that one oh so you mean the mass is what you’re saying I didn’t say that it’s so great being in my position I could say pretty much whatever I want I’m fine the Master’s Edition irons they’re gorgeous either stunning a really interesting thing about it is you know when the when that colorway first kind of leaked it was at the end of the year last year so end of 2023 late December Muno Japan showed off a master’s Edition and where that kind of came from is mizuno’s long had a relationship with Augusta National with the Masters that is a Japan exclusive relationship Japan mauno has the exclusive right to utilize the master’s name and logo on certain categories clubs being one of those categories in Japan that’s not something that we can do in the United States so that’s where you know it’s it’s our job then of how do you make your version as cool as the Master’s version if you can because you’re missing the coolest logo like I mean I don’t think anyone would argue the Master’s logo is the coolest most aspirational logo in all of golf like there it just is so how do we make something unique and different and I think we did a really good job with the aelia edition of tying it to that but it not leaning on it would it’s a master’s one like we we wanted to we had to make sure it wasn’t just that and that’s where ours had the unique feral ours had a different box or had different like different components and it was the white colorway versus the traditional Masters yellow and red like it’s the colorways were all different and I think it honestly I think ours turned out a little bit better so I one of the things I think is interesting because you can say the spring major or the you know first tournament or whatever you want to call it everyone knows what season opener everyone everyone knows what they’re talking about right but right one of the things to avoid doing I I think personally as a consumer is I don’t want see something if you take the badging off it’s not cool so what what I think was interesting about that release is compelling in both that it had shared like likeness to that experience but it also had you have released it and just called it Wicked new limited release set of Untouchables then everyone would still have the same kind of excited like man that looks unbelievable type of release and and I think that was a a huge huge um takeaway that I had on this one and I assume you’re going to continue to try and make sure that your releases are of that ilk and and I think just to to tie it in with something else you did some limited putter covers last year uh based on omoi and the the tie into the origins of assuming the name and and they were stunning and and I think it it seems to tie in every time that you’re not just going to do something to do it you you put effort and thought into it to make sure that people are getting something truly interesting not just Lim yeah the putter covers was really fun project Walker Slayton who works really closely with me who handles a lot of our putter our putter development and working with the team for that and our putter Direction and that was something that he kind of he spearheaded and did a phenomenal job with you know the um the the fall like the fall spring summer winter like the different versions not necessarily tying it to you know everybody’s got their Majors whatever we wanted to do something different that spoke to our heritage and it’s the Japanese Heritage and all of them feature Osaka Castle on it Osaka is the headquarters of Japan and like when we go to a lot of global meetings over in Osaka we’ll sit there’s a cool restaurant that we’ve eaten at where you literally just Overlook Osaka Castle so it was so cool and depending on where you’re that when you’re there the color paletts like of the sun setting behind it are so cool that it was something that when Walker had that idea we were like this is this is awesome and we the very first one was the spring that had the pops of pink and I think it was almost the coolest of them but then they got cooler and you can actually see if you have all four of them you can see the the progression of the seasons but also the progression of the Rising Sun and Setting Sun throughout it like the story that’s being told with those head covers it’s more than just a here we put out a head cover buy it or don’t buy it like we’re trying to tie it into everything we do and put a lot of thought and effort and something just really aspirational about it and each time we dropped one it was like like that everybody wanted them and it was really a fun project so we hope to do some more cool things like that in the future as well um I kind of did it to you today vosch we talked about how mauno is kind of an iron company first for some people’s mindsets and I forced you to talk irons first so that’s right it’s sort of unfair on my end but uh you know I I had the questions was a little bit selfish because a lot of interactions I’ve had lately have had to do with uh um older versions of mauno iron so I really wanted to get out there to force them to listen to this episode not just for the click but also so they actually put new product in their bag um but I want to give you an opportunity to talk about the St line of drivers or even just the the wood series uh we’ve had awesome feedback already on thp about it it sounds really interesting I haven’t had a chance to hit them yet but I I’ve really enjoyed following along the progression that Munos had in their metal woods um I’ve gamed them a number of times and really enjoyed them I think all the way back to uh the the last blue head you guys did which was unbelievably cool um how has the the St release gone so far is are things have have they been positive it’s been great you know it’s it’s an interesting one because this this whole family is like it’s a step to get to where we’re going with the woods you know if you’ve followed the St story over the last couple Generations the St project was really a tour driven and a Muno metalwoods acceptance project of how do we reinvigorate our just everybody’s vision of what a Muna wood is what a Muno driver is the performance level how do we get our drivers to be thought of the same way our irons are thought of so it’s a Monumental task and a big undertaking to try to get there but I think we’re we’ve gotten to a point where our metal woods are so good right now and I’ll say that it’s taken a couple of generations to get to having the proper heads like the mix of heads to speak to all levels where you know when you look at our market share again putting my business hat on again is from the market share side do we need this many drivers maybe maybe not but from a fitting side do we need this many drivers the answer is yes because there’s so many different levels of play ability in a driver and just like I said there’s a lot of overlap on the irons to making sure you can tweak certain looks feels spins launches all those things the driver world is very much the same you know it’s no longer the world of there’s a the players play a small one the the high handicaps play a big one you now see all levels of player some of the best drivers in the world play bigger higher spinning more forgiving drivers because you can do so much in the fitting world with the adjustable sleeves with shafts all these different things so now adding the St Max to our lineup really rounds it out to give us a fitting option for all levels of player we’ve got the STG which is our super low spin weight adjustable driver we’ve got the stz which is a very neutral if not slightly fade bias driver the STX is a little bit more deeper face draw version than there then the St Max is just our highest Moi straight hitting bomber so to have those four options for levers to pull in the fitting Bay gives you the opportunity to fit any level of player and what’s cool is we get play on tour from almost every one of these drivers so it’s not like the driver the you know the tour players are only looking at the 440 CC one we’re building them up Max Fairway woods and hybrids like everybody’s trying everything and that’s what I love about just the analytics of golf right now in terms of how do I gain the most Strokes from TAA green it might be in a club that fits in a different call it player category than you would think it would for even for a tour player like they could play a high Moi driver because they see that the you know the four yards that cost them an overall distance gains them a certain level of you know accuracy which ultimately leads to more Strokes gain so that’s where it’s so cool to like analyze all those things and have all these wood parts to speak to that and they all share a very similar technology package they’ve got a you know increasing amounts of carbon depending on how much weight we had to move around the Max has a ton of carbon on the crown on the sole to move Mass around a big old weight uh uh place at the back to increase the moment of inertia and then the CCH chamber that lives throughout all of them helps us to lower that sweet spot lower that spin and get a higher core area is what we like to call the the amount of the face that lives in that super high C zone so just adding forgiveness adding playability across the board yeah cortex is a very stunning visual just looking at the driver um and and it might be a good idea Vos for you to break down it a little bit more and what exactly is going on with it and and why it has propelled this product into what it’s become for sure yeah you’re right if when when I’m talking about the cortech chamber I’m talking about if you’re looking on the visual it’s what’s on the Leading Edge on the soul side if you don’t if you aren’t looking at this if you’re listening to it on podcast go check one out in the store on the STG it’s in a gray color but on the ZX and Max it’s in a bright blue color uh what this is is it’s a TPU material with an embedded stainless steel weight that lives in that TPU that then is inserted into the sole of the golf club to allow a number of things to happen first by having that that slit go all the way through into the head we’re getting a larger hinge so you’re getting a larger basically trampoline effect out of a larger percentage of the f face allowing that TPU material to compress and decompress to increase the ball speed increase the core area but then by embedding that stainless steel weight within that TPU we’re making sure that we’re still me keeping a very very neutral uh spin rate within it so we’re not just shoving all the weight back so it’s like you know super high spin getting M Moi at the expense of spin we’re still controlling spin while adding Moi in a different way so it’s a really fun and cool looking and striking visual that gives a golf club a ton of performance and a ton of ball speed so I’m you put us up against anybody and we are right there in terms of ball speed if not winning a lot of our ball speed battles which is really fun especially from a company that people don’t think of in terms of distance they think of us in Precision they need to start thinking of us in distance as well so I pulled up SG again for those listening along just it it it’s definitely a different look there’s a lot more going on in the head which I think uh really speaks to the likelihood of this player wanting to manipulate the the way the head enters the Zone maybe a little bit more uh focused on shaping than someone in the Max uh but I I can see that that corch is is very subtle uh it’s the colors changed a little bit uh do you do things like this to give them an um a a slightly different look is the goal to really highlight cortech for the folks who are are uh playing the Max and then and maybe just saying for the the more Discerning golfer like hey it’s there we want you to know it’s there but we don’t want to overpower you with the technology from a visual perspective totally yeah there there are very subtle things done cosmetically where our goal is to let you know who it’s for and what it’s supposed to do without you ever reading any sort of marketing material like just to understand by looking at the club so yeah you’ve got the the G up right now which the G is the smallest head 440cc where all the others are 460 which again when you’re talking that 440cc that’s going to speak to a little bit better player uh it’s smaller from toe to heel smaller from front to back and you know I talk about putting weight all the way back like the Max has a massive weight in the back here you can literally see there’s almost no weight in the back because this is designed to be ultra low spin so when you’re talking about those players who have a you know tremendous headp speed who are looking for workability who are looking for you know just max out you know knock the spin down that tends to be a better player and that’s why I’d say we almost leaned more on I don’t want to call it blade cosmetic but very simple cosmetic clean cosmetic on this on the Z the X and the Max on the other hand we we highlighted a little bit more we made it bright a bright blue and another like subtle thing again these images probably won’t show it but if you look at the crown of every one of the of these we actually kind of show a little bit of the trajectory intent on the crown as well there’s a very subtle decal that runs across the trailing edge of the attire head on the Z it’s right there’s a little highlight right in the middle on the M on the X the Highlight lives on the heel side on the max it’s blue and straight back because it’s designed to be a very straight hitting and on the G it’s very understate it’s almost muted almost almost blacked out so all these little subtle things we do we try to let you know what this club’s going to do even if you don’t really ize what we’re trying to do like there there’s there’s method to the Cosmetic Madness all these little technological Easter eggs you’ll find on Muno drivers I love that um I do have one question about it I I’ve played g a fair bit you know me I’m a high spin guy uh and I hit in the middle of the face every time I wish I could say that means I hit in the Fairway every time but it’s not my flaws are elsewhere uh but the the low spin head’s always been something I’ve leaned on and when I allow at least from previous iterations I’ve I’ve allow folks to hit the driver of course just to see what it’s all about and fortunately I I at one point had I think the X in in play as well so I could compare the two heads um but there are plenty of guys who who went to hit it and it just you know drops out of the planet has very low spin out by Design um and and I want to qu challenge in this case is there a fear as a manufacturer with going too far in in each head in the lineup to avoid something where you let your playing partner hit it it and it just really is truly a poorly fit product for them um and then you you know obviously separate yourself from that product because like well every Muno is going to be like that now CU I just hit my friends and it fell out out of the sky so is there a fear of going too far with that a little bit we we hope that the fitting Bay can neutralize some of that fear but you’re you’re totally right I I totally get that concern like I’m a player who I love the look of the G like at a the G is phenomenal but if I were just to put that club in play people would be like you don’t drive the ball that good because it does not spin enough for me like I’m a player who needs spin you can make up some of that by have just adding Loft to it which again I was very tempted just to play a 105g just to to do that just because I like the look of it but I didn’t so it’s interesting right now just in the world of like I’ll speak to the PGA Tour you would think that the G would be the one that players would automatically gravitate towards because it is such low spin they swing so hard but it’s amazing I’d say the g is the one we have the least amount in play because it does spin so low so it’s a very very like pigeon hold golf club which there’s a fear of is that a good thing or not but the positive in that is that a fitter who has experience with it can trust that club like when a fitter knows oh I see you’re a high- spin player I know right where to go for you it’s like an easy pull to that Golf Club so I’d say we get in internal debates in terms of how low spin is too low spin and we’re getting to a point that I think we’re close to that to where now even if those like super high spin players or s High spin players are pulling that it gets borderline low spin but that’s why the G also has adjustability to it so that you have the G to be able to be that crazy low spin with the weight forward but you can make it more playable and spin it in a more reasonable Zone with those weights back so there there’s given take in everything so you’re you’re you’re right about that being a fear and it’s like you don’t want to push it too far but you got to push it enough so that there’s a clear difference and playability difference between each model so that’s what I think is interesting just as a I wouldn’t even say this as being just generally a consumer but someone who has followed the process of manufacturing for so long now that it we we understood that there is a limit you can take it to and we saw early on when we started to really Chase low forward that it became quite problematic to get there um but I get I read comments and I see people say all the time they make too many heads they make you know too much of this but the fact that there’s such a level of differentiation between the heads validates why you’d want them first of all but it also says to me I don’t swing anything like uh you know if I played with 20 golfers the chances of me Swinging like two of them is probably pretty low so the idea that there are heads built for each one of us is actually quite appealing to me I I think I think golfers couldn’t be in a better place because of that um and and and I think this is a nice example of that because if you make a product that someone can’t hit but I can that tells me you’re really thinking about me as a as a buyer as a consumer right well that’s why when when a customer complains about too many options I don’t get that complaint it’s like we want you to have the best one for you if a retailer complains about too many options I understand that more they got to think about inventory levels and all that stuff but that’s why it’s our job to encourage again I’ll all Circle back to say get to the custom fit cart the point of the custom fit card is we know we have a lot of options we know we have a lot of wood options hybrid options wedge options options we know that let us take on that inventory risk and you go to that fitting cart we don’t want you to carry eight billion of everything and then try to fit somebody into something that’s on the Shelf we want to take that burden because we understand and we’ve done the research in terms of we have these four heads because we know this percentage will fit into this one this percentage will fit into this one this percentage fit into that one so let us take that burden off of you so when someone complains about too many options I don’t get it like more options the better like you know if you said everybody has to drive this car everyone would just complain like I want options I want to be personal I want it to fit me let us take on that burden and make sure we have something that fits you as accurately as possible so I I want to follow up on that comment about comparing uh consumers to retailers because there’s definitely a different need there between the two um but have have you ever built products and thought like maybe we should just run this internally and make it a custom fit option or a fitter only option or a you know a website only option and making it very clear what the product can do or has it always been our goal is to put our line in everywhere we can uh and and make sure the golfers can all get a chance to hit it we are a company that again like I think the proof is in the fitting so what I’ll say is that I don’t think we’ve I don’t trying to think we’ve never done a club that’s just website only we’ve never done that because we want a person to experience it and get it dialed in we will when we present to the retailers when we present to PJ TOUR Superstore Golf Galaxy worldwide like you name all the big Fitters Club Champion TR spec all of the great Fitters that are out there we will absolutely say this is the re the the mix we recommend you bringing in yeah I’m going to show you a lot of different things but I I can I can count on it know the exact question that’s coming from you Justin at at Superstore Justin wants to know tell me your percentage of these uh you know 19 different wedge heads in five different finishes let me know what I what you should buy what I should buy and I’m happy to say you know all right this is what you need to have on the Shelf but just make sure you have some demos back here so people can try them and go get custom fit because you’re right a million options it’s not good for retail because some of those options are for outliers there’s no doubt about that so to all of a sudden you know stock a bunch of outliers in a retail Channel they’re gonna have to close them out then the next thing you see is you see wedges that are marked way down which again to the customer might be all right but then they might be encouraged to buy a spec that doesn’t fit them because it’s cheaper like I would much rather them have healthy inventory that works that that’s going to M that’s going to move that’s going to fill a lot of people and then for those who are the outliers fit cart all the way because we will turn it around very quickly we’ll get it dialed in for you and ultimately like the reason we want to drive some into a fit cart is because it’s a bet we we know we’re giving you the right Club if the fitter gets you dialed in and you have the right uh the right specs your experience will be better even if that shaft is you know very close on the on the wall we don’t want very close we want exactly right so we feel like our clubs are going to perform the best you’re going to get the most out of them you’re get most enjoyment out of them if you get dialed in and then we know it’s right for you that’s going to how you’re going get the most out of the technology how you’re going to get the most out of the enjoyment of the game all those things again let mauno be the ones to say come to us we’ll get you dialed in we’ll get we’ll get it right and we have an option for you nice um as we wrap up the show vosch obviously always appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective from mauno is there anything you want to share about what’s going on with you guys right now you know other than we’re just excited about everything you know you’re going to see some stuff from us in the next couple of months that will be very exciting you’re going to see some stuff early next year that’s going to be really exciting as well and I’ll say that perceptions that you have of Muno I think will change very very quickly um you know those players we we’ve talked a lot about Muno irons you’re going to start recognizing Us in more categories as well and start seeing some really cool stuff coming from us some stuff you’ve never seen before so I’m so excited about what is just over the horizon so like our next chat is going to be even more exciting than this one because there there’s I can’t wait to tell some stories that are that they started in a fitting cart and have worked their way into reality like we’re always looking for things of how we can optimize that that fitting cart how we can optimize what you get out of the club and we’ve got some things that are overcoming some barriers that we’ve never seen people overcome so it’s gonna be just an exciting little bit okay well let’s try not to wait so long to have you on again obviously everyone enjoys your time do you have any questions for me today yeah talk to me about the Your World of Golf right now like what are you seeing in terms of let’s talk about Woods in particular like the W the wood Market is so interesting with so many different so many different products out there so many different people telling different stories I want I want your state of the industry I’d love to hear it from you really yes full boore well I I don’t really want to speak from the industry in total i’ I’d love to speak about uh the folks that I play with and the perspectives that they’ve had what I found really fascinating is everyone seems to have a really personal identity with uh fery woods and I say that because hybrids and utilities have come along and really disrupted that wood category and it’s like there are a number of guys I know who go three wood and they trust it wholly and then after that it’s either a hybrid or utility and there’s no arguments as to what should come next um I I also have guys who play four or five different Woods in their bag because they’re so fond of these products and they just really anchor into the technology that exists there so it it seems to be that the fairywood categor is almost being I don’t want to say left in the dust but like challenged so aggressively from different avenues that there really needs to be a tech benefit or or a very serious benefit to get it in the bag right what what I love about the Fairway Woods of today is that you you used to know what a fivewood what a seven wood did now you can get a fivewood that launches high with no spin you can get a fivewood that spins and gets the ball in the air easier again it’s there’s so many options in the fairway wood world that I think a lot of players who are locked into after my three wood I can’t do another wood need to revisit it like when you look at Dustin Johnson playing a seven wood or a nine wood or something Keith Mitchell one of the longest hitters you know at Muno staff or one of the longest hitters on the planet he plays a fourwood and a seven wood like it’s that end the bag is so interesting because there’s so many different options up there and just talk 19 degrees of loft there are so many different ways to play with 19 degrees of loft there are four irons that have it there are five irons that have it there are two irons that have it there are hybrids big and small there are Fairway Woods big and small that spin a lot and spin a little like that those numbers of Loft right there are so interesting that for people to like really dig into that transition area in their bag between the three-wood and call it a six iron there’s countless options in there that could work for people I would say it it’s it’s so fascinating when you ask each individual why is this why is this product in your bag and and compare it just to again playing Partners I’ve got a good friend who has had a fivewood in his bag for I don’t know six or seven years now and he is so deeply invested in that product he will not hit another thing there he’s tried it uh and and it always ends up back in the bag but to his credit it’s also the best product or best club in his bag 99% of the time so here’s the funny part about that he’s never tried that club in a three-wood he’s never considered those those uh that product in a driver or that company in a driver it’s that one particular product in a fivewood that simply works for him it it’s like it comes with a mind of its own and there’s like this this this end game that exists there if you have a three-wood that you love you’re not going to go and hit that fivewood because you love the three-wood not the fivewood that’s like the mindset that goes on if you get to that fivewood spot is like well that’s where my hybrid goes like does it because why right so yeah I think that’s sort of untapped I feel like we’ve gone so far away from Woods we need to come back to it a little bit as a maybe the not necessarily industry but perspective um it’s paralysis by over analysis right well it it’s so funny like when you look at the mix that players have on the wood side of the world we’ve seen a trend on particular a lot of our European tour players we’ve seen a number of them play STG in their driver which is the super low spin STD Max in their Fairways which is the big and the high Spin and then I look at myself I play St Max in my driver the bigest highest spinning I play STG in my three-wood and fivewood the smallest lowest spinning so there’s different like combinations for different people which is really interesting and it’s all because what are you trying to do in that part of your bag so it it’s it’s a fascinating thing and there are so many levers to pull that’s that’s what I love about it and that’s what I love about like developing different options and being like did you think about that club in this way like it’s it there’s different things you can unlock so it it might be a really fun thread to start on thp we usually have a call to action this this uh this show will have a threat on thp where we’ll discuss uh the conversation today but it might it might Merit its own it might Merit its own discussion in itself is what is a what is an 18 Dee Club in your bag and why and why and why is the big one exactly right I might kick that off before the show goes live so people are wondering you know why it went but uh Vos man it’s always so awesome to have you on the show you always bring the heat I’m super excited about the the mauno trajectory especially the metalwoods man you guys worked so hard for that it’s nice to see it uh paying off a little bit so cool I appreciate it’s always a fun conversation with you we I love chatting with you and chatting gear and kind of nerding out on it I love it you ask me to go ier which is good usually I’m trying to dial a back to nerd which is hard never never never never hey if you folks are out there playing golf this weekend have a great time if you have mauno irons in there that are older than your children are please go get fit put a new set in the bag I promise they’re very interesting potentially some new jpx this year we couldn’t quite dig it out of them but I feel really good about the opportunity to see some new product at the end of this year so we’ll see uh but either way have a great time make it count and we’ll see you guys next week
1 Comment
Vosh bringing the heat as always!