Behind the Golf Brand Podcast with Paul Liberatore
Behind the Golf Brand Podcast with Paul Liberatore
Ep #34 - Redbird Avian Golf Clubs: Jay Turner (Founder and CEO)
We made it to Episode 34 of the Behind the Golf Brand Podcast. In this week's episode, I interview my friend Jay Turner the founder and CEO of Redbird Avian Golf Clubs.
Investing your time and money in getting a properly fit set of irons can enable you to play better golf but may have some hidden financial benefits as well. A well-built, well-fit set of irons will outlast the cycle of buying clubs off the shelve, having frustrations, and running back to the store or online forum to find your next set. The premium materials, impressive performance, and fitting capacity of the Avian iron family is impressive top to bottom. Understanding that clubs tailored to your golf swing can have immense benefits in your performance is paramount. A better fit can lead to more distance, more accuracy, and less stress on the course. Better fit, better equipment, and a better customer experience can all be found in the Avian brand.
Today, we play a golf. Let me show you how we do it in the pros. Welcome to behind the golf grand podcast. I've never missed with the seminar, a conversation with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs behind the biggest names in golf. My friends where the golf clubs I lived on the golf course. I lived on the driving range from pro talk. You should learn something each and every single round you play to fund from on and off the green. Why would you play golf? You don't play it for money. Just let me put the ball in the hole. This is behind the golf brand podcast. With Paul libertory behind the golf brand podcast is sponsored by OnPoint. The revolutionary three-dimensional dome golf ball marker on point provides a layman recognition as small as a degree of inaccuracy from the planned course of the putt face angle endorsed by Jim Furich us open champion and 17 time PGA tour winner on point alignment technology has been proven to increase putting performance and help lower your score. Visit OnPoint golf dot U S, and be sure to use code[inaudible] for a 10% discount on point, make more putts
Speaker 2:What's up guys, Paul from golfers authority. Welcome to the behind the golf ramp podcast. Today. I have a really good friend of mine, Jay Turner from Redbird Avion, pretty much I have through probably my favorite golf club company, and then Bobby Piven heard of them, but that's why we're talking to them today because they seriously make the best irons I've ever hit in my entire life. Um, I have a full set my bag so much so that I took my title as clubs out of my bag. So, um, yeah, that's how good these irons are. High, high, high, high, high quality, good people that based out of Seattle. And I probably started working with them about two years ago. Just testing them out. I think the make of Instagram, but love I'm good friends. And so without further ado, welcome Jay to the show. Hey Paul, thanks for having me. So where are you at? Are you at your studio? I'm in the shop this morning? Yeah. So came in early, cause it's quiet. We're not open yet less chaos. So be a little easier to talk, hopefully in a more focused manner before dusk starts flying and metal chips and all that good stuff. So let's, before I begin, I want to ask you this. So really you have, people might know you by a couple of different companies or brands. You have Jeff Mont, right? The parent company, and then you have Redbird, which is your sub company. I would say it's a brand name brand. And then Avi-on is that like, that's our high end? That's our I another high end brand. So probably the easiest way to explain that Jeff[inaudible] is now the corporate entity corporate umbrella. If you will. And red, we started as red bird sports in 1980, late
Speaker 3:84. And, uh, we're basically situated in Northwest, had a real strong presence in Washington, Oregon, um, and affordable golf clubs, really high quality. And in 2016, I wanted to, I was experimenting with hiring Japanese, for jeans and some milling and stuff we'd done in the past and wanted to move into higher end offerings if you will, because we have, we'll talk about it. At one point, we have a really, uh, patented, dimensional fitting system we use, uh, as well. And so we reformed the company and brought Redbird and[inaudible] under the Jeff wan umbrella and it's a little confusing, but it's kind of like the simplest way to explain it's like GM is to Cadillac and Chevrolet, for example, it's the, uh, the over overarching umbrella for everything, but it would be, we're known as Redbird sports in the Northwest. That's what people know us as. And we still go by that answer to that. And I'll be on as a higher end brand that we're promoting. So when did you start making clothes? It goes way back to when I started playing seriously, which I'm an old man now, but back in the early seventies, when I went and started high school in 73, I decided I was going to start to play a little more seriously. My father was a really good amateur on a national level. So I was always around golf, but never took it too seriously. I was playing baseball and basketball and all the other things moved fast. And so I got a job at the Jeffer at the Jefferson park driving range when I was a kid. And so I could hit balls who have, yeah. And it's, it's eight blocks from where I grew up so I could ride grew up. So I ride my bike there. It's where my dad played out of. And it's kind of like home away from home if you will. And, but working in the range, we've got access to, we had plane privileges, which was important in golf was only, I think probably in those days, five,$6 around, but when you're a kid, you know, five, six bucks was a lot of money. And, uh, so we would get to play free when it wasn't crowded and also get balls. And the gentleman I worked for was a guy named Steve Cole. He was the red half a Redbird flaming red hair, I'm the bird half Jaybird. And so he taught me the repair business. And this was in kind of what I call the golden age of, of golf clubs. You had Wilson staff irons, which were kind of the top of the heap with really nice forgings McGregor, persimmon woods, and litany of other brands that are no longer around Spalding made some nice stuff. McGregor made a whole bunch of different things. There are no longer really an existence. And so in the repair business, persimmon woods took a lot of maintenance upkeep. And I worked on those, doing everything from refinishing to re facing, to fixing cracks you name it. And through that experience, you kind of, you kind of, you, you learn what works and what doesn't and what really matters and what doesn't. So it's a fundamental, uh, grounding, if you will, in, in golf club, design principles and functionality. And so fast forward, when I graduated from the university of Washington, I went to work for an importer and this was in the very early eighties. And I was traveling all over Asia and my father had a really serious stroke to the point of where they weren't going to let him out of the hospital. And so the neurologist, um, I told him, you know, you're not going to put him in a home. And he said, well, you, you can't watch him. You're traveling all over the world. And I said, well, I'm quitting my job. And I had always had a repair shop at my dad's house. And so I started the club business and I went back to Steve, who kind of, who I worked for in the driving range say, Hey, let's start a club company. And we kicked names around and couldn't think of anything. I said, let's put our nicknames together. And so it became Redbird. And so we started that at the end of 1985 officially. And we started with persimmon woods and cavity back irons, ping I-Tunes were popular in that, at that point in time, very popular. And so we did some similar
Speaker 2:Red.dot. Yeah. It was forever like 40 years,
Speaker 3:Which, uh, corresponded to the club, being a little flatter, built for a person that's a little closer to the ground. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I just thought it was red. And then when I was a kid, he got me the blue one blue, one
Speaker 3:We're upright, um, and still are upright, which means angle is, is a more vertical shaft angle. And that, that kind of corresponds in simple, in a simple analogy to a person that's a little taller or bigger, but we can, our dimensional fitting system, we isolate all those variables. Cause it's not just how tall you are. It's how you're put together length of your torso with the vision
Speaker 2:Stuff. Like I always thought like, Oh yeah, it helped her. I didn't was never fitted before I was fitted by you. And it was like night and day difference.
Speaker 3:And we've never met in person, you know, just to qualify that. So we have a, I a form on our website where a person can enter. If you enter seven variables, which are physical variables, which are height, uh, fingertip to floor on your lead hand. So the left hand for right-hand of player, size of your hand from crease of your wrist, to your middle finger length of your middle finger, pant leg, and seam, waist, and weight, we can calculate the correct length and line goal for how you're put together. And that's our fitting system, which we have a us patent on.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let's, let's talk about this for a minute. So let, let me tell you this story. So I met Jeff, I mean, J sorry. And he was like, Hey, I have this man. He goes, Jeff, one thing on my head. So I mean, J J's like, what you do is you go onto the website, you know, he's like, I'll make you a set of irons. Right. Awesome. So he's like guys for my website, enter in all this information and we'll come back to you with the fitting. And I was like, Oh, okay. And that's what I did, what he just explained. And I don't know, within a day I had my fitting done. So, you know, to the T he was like, all right, this is what it is. You know, this is all the info. This is what, how we should make the clubs. And I was like, okay, you're the pro I'm not, I have no idea what I'm doing. And sure enough, man, those clubs are like butter. I mean, Percy sent me a seven iron. That's what he did for us. He sent me a crappy seven iron, right. And said, here's, here's the seven iron and swing it, take it to the range. Tell us how you feel. Does it feel right? You know? Cause when I saw that club, I had never felt a club like that in my life. And I'm not just saying, I tried to like sell this. I'm being completely serious. Like this club, it was like butter. It's like cutting a knife through butter. My swing was perfect. I was an over under anything. And I was like, Holy crap. And so then, um, once you know, a couple of weeks go by and then Jay's like, Hey, how's it. You know, how is it? And I'm like, this is awesome. Like, all right, we're gonna make the rest of the irons now. And that's what we did. Right. And I love my iron. I love mine. So the process that's Paul's version of the process, but can you tell me or the listeners like the behind the scenes part of the process?
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's um, it all came out of, what's the easiest way to explain this. I'm a very visual person. So I see relationships, if that makes any sense. So I look at somebody and you can have a person that's never played before. And if the dimension of the golf club fits how they're put together, when they grab it and you tell them to set up an appliance position, they look like they can play because the size of the club forces them into the right posture, if you will. And so all of my guys in the early days, I taught to fit visually based on what they saw. And as we progressed and branched out of the Seattle area and things became a little more remote, it became relatively obvious that not everybody sees things the same way and interprets them the same way. And so I went back and anything you can, that's visual, you can quantify. And so I went back and developed a formula because essentially what you're doing when you're doing what the length and align glove golfer, we refer to that as yeah. It's size. And so you're just fitting the vertical height off the ground. And that's the starting point. Now, a lot of companies, they, they just, especially the big guys. They want to make one size fits all, which isn't a reality. And that is the inherent problem. Generally with equipment across the board, with the exception of ours and a few other companies that do it right. In my opinion, if the club does not fit well, you're going to have a tough time. Plane makes a hard game, infinitely, more difficult. And the analogy I use with people trying to simply explain it as it's like buying a running shoe, you may be new to running and you can go out and by you saying bolts, what he wears, for example, if the size isn't right, the shoe isn't worth a darn it doesn't work. Does if it's too big
Speaker 2:Hunter, until I met you and did this, I didn't really know one way or another. And I have like, my title is that we're having, I can't remember like they're$2,000 iron. I remember right.
Speaker 3:They may cut. They make like a lot, most of the big guys make good, nice product, but in most cases it doesn't.
Speaker 2:That's what happened to me. You guys, seriously? I had my old iron here. I had Titlest seven one eight, AP twos, Ford, super expensive. I could not hear them with a ever
Speaker 3:Because they don't, they don't fit you.
Speaker 2:And then the funny thing was like, I was like, Oh, these are the best blah, blah, blah. You know? And it's not at all. I mean, they probably aren't great clubs. They're just not made for me. Right. So like, and I mean, this is off the rack, you know, like this wasn't like I was fitted for him, you know? And that's a big disappointment when you're spending two grand for irons, you know? And then they don't be like, you're no better than you were before with my old pings that had, that were like seriously, 20 years old. Like, I mean, I was like, forget this. I mean, I still use them to look cool in my bag, but I don't know. So it's very true. Very, very, very true. You're saying I would a hundred percent agree.
Speaker 3:I've been all over the country. The last, uh, we patented the fitting system. We received our patent in 2011. And since then I had been kind of on a quest to license the, uh, the system so that these war would work perfect for a bigger company. You're able to identify which, what each person needs really quite simply within two minutes. And then you can continue on to the rest. Cause fitting is just not size. It's just not shaft. It's just not head model. It's all of these things. And you start with, if you get the size, correct, then you can move on to, okay, how do you break the set down? Where do the irons start? How many hybrids are there, if you will, where the lofts on the fairway woods, what kind of shafts are you going? What kind of flex? What's a grip grip size should be at the very front as well, which our system identifies that also let you do this in a logical fashion so that all of the various components of what comprised of total fit work best for the individual and what became readily apparent is the one thing you see with most of the major companies. Now, they all have innovation and AI and all of this. When in reality, they're not very innovative at all. They're basically all followers. One company does one thing and all the rest do their own version of it. And it basically gets back to one size or one thing. And one thing or one size or one variable is not good for the entire golfing population. It's an individual game. And our system gives us a way to identify a person's unique characteristics and needs. And then we address selves. So we're a boutique. In other words, we're like a high-end coroner tailor. You come in and we start after we know you after we've measured you where the big company is ordering a hundred thousand sets, right? We're gonna, we need to S they start with, you know, how much we need to sell in a given year and then work backwards, what we need to sell. We need to do$20 million in irons. So we need to, to sell a hundred thousand sets and then figure out how you build it. And you don't even know who your customer is at that point. And so you're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole in a lot of cases. And it's just, it's the coolest, not really good for the golfer.
Speaker 2:The cost is, is pretty much close to the same, in my opinion.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're a, we're a high, we're a high end brand, but it's yeah, there isn't, there isn't a lot of difference. Or iron's typically for us full retail starts per iron, about$250 a club. And that's for Ford's golf club that has some CNC, machining has steel shafts, in my opinion, the best in the world with come out of a company called Shimada in Japan to distributed by Oban. So we use Oban and Shamala brand steel shafts, just like super high and very, very precise,
Speaker 2:High quality. This isn't like, yeah. And the price. And it's the same essentially buying at, but you're getting a super high-end club. Like it's cool about this.
Speaker 3:How that's possible is we're not paying tour players. Quite obviously, most people have never heard of us. We're not on in golf digest. We're not on TV. We're not on banners on every golf website out there. You know, where the big companies, that's a big chunk of what they're spending of that total price. 35 to 40%. In most cases, retail purchase price is, goes directly to their marketing budget. We don't have that. And so we can, that allows us to spend more time with you more time building your golf club correctly and using what we consider the finest materials available to
Speaker 2:Customers. Right? It's a custom club
Speaker 3:Everything's built to fit. Yeah. There's nothing I have behind me. There's a couple sets on the wall, but that's just to show people what they look like. We don't sell stuff really off the rack unless it's used and then still we're fitting it.
Speaker 2:The process like we, you know, we built a club in the ground up and you're like, Hey, what, you know, what kind of grips do you want? What kind of color of those grips do you want? Like, it was like the end product is like, literally it's like getting a car made in a factory, right? Like take all the pieces to your club. Even like the, you know, down to the little D
Speaker 3:Dressing, all the details of stamping, the Paintsville colors, all of that I saw on the handles. It's amazing. Like my son handles all of that. The artistic part of it, I'm an old dog. So it doesn't, I don't really understand it, all of that, but it's important to people and I've kind of learned that through him the last few years.
Speaker 2:So it's like, you get a full custom club, like a full custom club, like high-end materials, right. High-end shaft high-end, uh, had, and then all the accoutrement of the club, the grip, the hozzle, you know, and it's like down to color. And then if you want to customize the hair, like stamping pain, it like mine are a hundred percent mine. If that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yours are the only set that's ever been made. Exactly like that. So, yeah. Everyone is kind of a one-off piece. When you look at all the details.
Speaker 2:It's, it's amazing. I love it. Well,
Speaker 3:We're glad you're happy. We're happy to have you in the army. Amen. Army.
Speaker 2:So where, so you guys are based in Tacoma, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Seattle we're in a, uh, little neighborhood I grew up in, which is close to Jefferson park, which I referred to earlier, uh, called beacon Hill, which in reference to probably the easiest way for people not familiar with Seattle, the stadiums were about five minutes South and about two minutes East. So,
Speaker 2:Well, let me ask this question then to you. Yes. When you started out, like, I think it was really fascinating. So, but didn't you play golf with or was it a famous golfer or like yeah. When you were a kid,
Speaker 3:Fred couples grew up where I played, so I got him a job at a driving range or kids.
Speaker 2:You got to break off the job of the driving range.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Which, you know, he talks about having a job. He has never had a real job in his life because if it would, you know, winter when it's like, now it rain and we pick balls at night and he did it in two man teams. And if it's raining and he's your guy, you're, you're on your own. You know, he was a, no-show a lot of times, but not really, really good guy, obviously very, very talented, um, and yeah, great player. And, you know, couldn't be more happy for him. He, uh, to see somebody that's dreamt of being a great player and achieving the things he's achieved, that's a kudos to him. I'm very happy for him. He's a fantastic
Speaker 2:Golfer. The golf course together then
Speaker 3:Played a lot, played, probably a range. Let's see. He started actually before that, we worked hit up every summer. They had a hole in one contest to spot sponsor, the USDA public links team that came out of Seattle. And we worked on that and we were little guys. And I mean, I think I started there when I was 12 or 13 and he would have been probably 10 because he's two and a half years younger than I am. And so I, I knew a man, I knew him from the neighborhood because we all played baseball together and played basketball in the gym. But yeah, he's just, it's really interesting because everybody knew, uh, from the time he was 14, 15, this, this guy is gonna make it and he missed all up all the potholes in the road. He kind of navigated nicely and missed those. And just everything kind of moved in sequence as it should and go to a guy that's won, uh, players a couple of times in the masters. I mean, phenomenal talent, not people ask me, are you surprised? And I said, not at all. I was just surprised he hasn't won more, but just a very, very gifted, very gifted athlete.
Speaker 2:That was like, I went to high school with all already. Yeah. Great player. My neighborhood. I mean, I know exactly how his people have been. He was a couple years longer than me. And I mean, he was phenomenal in high school and junior high, you know? So it's like, Holy crap. You know, you just know when someone's like,
Speaker 3:Yeah. It just, there's all kinds of things that can happen. But in Fred's Casey, he didn't get involved with any of the stuff that derails, you know, potential, you know, part of that comes from coming from a really good family. His mother and father were like my second parents, really? Some of the best, Oh yes. Mom, Mr. And Mrs. C were fabulous people best probably the best is his mom was always on me. Make sure now you finished school because I took up a year and a half break to earn some money, uh, in between college. And she was on me every day. I'd, I'd see her almost every day. Cause we were together every day. Fred and I would we and practiced in the evening and worked when he decided he needed his$5 share of the ball picking fee. And uh, yeah, I had a lot of good times.
Speaker 2:That's so cool. So what models of clubs do you make? What kind of clubs do you mean? I know you make irons, obviously. What else do you guys
Speaker 3:Make drivers to peace, titanium drivers, real high end Japanese, Japanese titanium. We have a full line of hybrids, two, three, four, and five. Uh, we have a full line of wedges that we forge out a stainless steel and CNC machine. The face is a gap, wedge, sand wedge, lob, wedge. And we do custom grinds on those, um, heat staining, all the cosmetic stuff that you see out
Speaker 2:Really on the wedges. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So Instagram page, if you want there, you'll see. We post a lot of pictures of unique things we do for people. And that, that handle is Redbird dot ABM. And it'll have just the gallery of, of all, pretty much not everything we do cause we don't post everything. But the unique things,
Speaker 2:I didn't realize you had the good stuff, man, did you? Oh, I like that. Thank you. What's that, um, style? Where, how do they make it look like it's that brass color or they do that
Speaker 3:That's heat. That's what we call heat staining. So you're basically, uh, heating the head. You're torching it in other words. And as it gets warmer, it goes from the stainless. We use has a high nickel content. So when you look at it in light, it's not really silver. It's kind of got a little tiny bit of a yellow cast to it, which comes from the nickel content. And as you heat that and get it warmer, it goes from that kind of lightly yellowy silver to more of a straw type yellow. And as it gets warm or close to more of a darker gold than on a bronze than a bronze with purple glance. And then as it gets almost red hot, when it cools, it's kind of a dark blue and kind of muddled type finish with all different colors. Yeah. It's, it's uh, that's something we've done for years. Um, we've done a lot of things. We were, I don't know if we weren't the first probably doing that, but for example, milled faces, we started doing that on irons in 1998 before anybody did it. And we did it mainly because it provides a flat flat surface.
Speaker 2:So that's how you get that bronzy color then, right? Yeah. Do you guys do the one where it's like the purple color is more just the way the light's hitting it?
Speaker 3:It's actually, it's actually more heat if it's got some purple glints in, it's gotten warmer. So that's uh, it's my son is, does all of that stuff. That's kind of a, that's definitely as an art.
Speaker 2:It is. It's like art almost like, I don't know. It looks beautiful. You guys have to check it out. So when did you guys start doing, uh, hybrids?
Speaker 3:Hybrids? We've built soon. So 2001.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow. Is that when it's kind of when they start taking off, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. They, they kind of came into a volt that basically we built one irons and two irons through up until probably we had a two iron up until about six, five, six years ago. We still have two arms in older models. Um, but hybrids eventually have replaced that.
Speaker 2:Now you guys, the irons you guys make are the three 35, right? The five 35,
Speaker 3:It was a blade five 35 is what you have. You have a five 30, which the five 35 is the newer version of that. And then seven 35. And the unique thing about our iron series is those are all blendable, which means from a plane position, when you set them down the leading edge and the hozzle have the same orientation. So you, for example, can build a set with blades eight, nine and wedge seven, eight, nine, and wedge, if you wish, and then go to a more forgiving, bigger cavity in the five 35 and then in the long dry-runs, if you want to go to a seven 35, which is a little more forgiving because the cavity is bigger and the weight's a little lower and do that. And from a plane position, when you look at them, they look like they're all the same set looking down on them. The only thing that's changed is where the weight's positioned in the cavity head is exactly the blank is exactly the same size. And there's, there's a lot of companies offering blended sets, but they don't really look like they belong. You know, you'll have the long grinds would be clunkier and thicker from a top-down view and address position view. And then as you get into the more blady ones are more sleek bars. We tried to do everything so that you couldn't there. They look like they all were family, brother and sister, if you will, throughout the whole set.
Speaker 2:So that was a different scene. Seven, five,
Speaker 3:Seven just refers to, um, the amount of perimeter weighting. So the seven has more permanent waiting. The cavity's bigger in the back.
Speaker 2:Oh, I see that. I'm looking at a picture of the two and it's like, it is bigger. Uh,
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's more there's, there's more cavity there. Yeah, totally. You can tell when you put it down a plane position, you can, you could not tell which one's, which
Speaker 2:What kind of player would want to have more cavity than a lesson.
Speaker 3:Somebody that's looking for a little more forgiveness lead needs, uh, the seven 35 launches the ball a little higher as well. So somebody that's looking for a little bit more of an increase in trajectory. Um, and that kind of also it's a lot of personal preference and an example I'll use, we have a young man named Sean Kado who won the Washington state amateur last, last summer, uh, plays at Oregon state collegiately, really good player. And he came in his latest set that we built him. Um, last fall, when we had these new ones out, he was going from a five 30, which is what you have. And I figured he would probably do blades in the short irons. And what he did was he went to the same model. He was playing because he wore out the other ones. He hits, uh, I mean, spotty hits it in it's ridiculous. It's like a dime. He went to the same one he was using in the short irons. And then he put the most forgiving one in the long irons. And I'm asking, I'm going, God, that, that really, that isn't what I would expect you would have done. And he goes, Hey, if I'm two 10 out, I need all the help I can get. If I can get any kind of little edge and it, let me get away with a miss, had a little bit more, I'm going to take advantage of that really smart young man. And clearly somebody that's thinking and evaluating his game and trying to figure out the best way to play. So it's not always, it doesn't always the more forgiving ones are not always for the highest handicap, if you will, let's see the point I'm trying to make. So would you say a majority of your sales are the irons or is it, yeah, we've, we've always been known as an iron company and we have a really good driver though. It it'll it'll perform with anything on the market. You know, I'll put it up against anything that any of the big guys make and that's not too difficult, really, because everything is legislated. Now, as far as ball speed goes and what's allowable with, from the USTA, but from a quality standpoint, we're dealing with really, really high end materials and processes, um, which makes it very, very easily easy to compete. Head-to-head with all of the big name Browns, but you know what most people that have known us over our years, or we're known as, you know, I have red bird irons, or I have avian irons, or I have, you know, this that's where our, uh, our bread and butter is and the fitting system, I love your irons. Like seriously, it has a lot to do with the fit. And, uh, when they're, when they're built to fit you correctly, you're hitting the ball off, off the turf. There isn't a lot of room to make a mistake. And so the more precisely we can fit it and build it to fit the better chance you're going to have to hit solid shots that go where they're intended. You want the club, the club is a tool, so it should be contributing to your success, not hindering it. And that's the fundamental cornerstone of our entire philosophy is build things to build things precisely where eliminating variables that can be eliminated, then it all, it all falls in your lap of what happens at that point. So what's coming out for you guys. Yeah. Your stuff coming out this year. Yeah, we have, uh, we just brought out a, uh, another driver, which is a mid-launch and we didn't have, um, anything in the middle. We had a tour launch, which was about nine, nine and a half degrees. Now we've taken that from eight and a half to a nine. We brought out a mid-launch, which is 10 to 11, and then we have a high launch. So now we have a complete driver line. High launch is 12 and a half 13 for ladies and seniors, slower swing speeds that need help getting the ball in the air. We have a new three wood that's coming out. We brought out a new, new hybrid. We've put a five into the line. Uh, we have a new putter model. That's be out in about a week. Uh, that's a shorter hassled, uh, square back. So that will be showing up and also some new wedges down the line. And we'll be refining some items later in the year. We usually keep designs in the line for at least two or three years, because there are no miracles, uh, design wise year to year or model to model. Quite honestly, it's all about fitting. It's all about fitting and building that, right. It's we're not going to be that. Well, this goes 10 yards further now. And now this iteration is eight yards further. You're not going to, yeah, you're not, we're not playing that game because it came out and it's going to, it's better than last year's model. It does this. And it does that. Yeah. We'll call it the new model, but it's because we found a way of refining what we already, yeah. Usually when we change irons, it's, we're basically now addressing small things that we didn't like, you know, how it looked. So it's changing the shape a little bit more than anything. So you just got back wine, right? I'm actually, I haven't gone yet. I'm going to go. We usually go for the Hawaiian open. Um, but with COVID, uh, we didn't go this year and we had a young man. I remember you telling me that I go always go over for the Sony, uh, as a rule because we do fittings there with the Aloha section of the PGA, but no spectators this year. So that didn't happen. And kind of the bummer with that is I had a, I have a young guy that has played our clubs. I've had him since he was 10 years old, young, Hawaiian kid. He's now 21, he's a red shirt, sophomore at the university of San Diego. He qualified to play in that, in the Sony and he missed the cut, but he shot 74, 73. And, uh, I would love to gone over and watched him a little bit. But yeah, but he really, really, that's been kind of the best part of this is watching the young kids now that Mike contemporaries from the early days that you helped when they were little Ryan Moore, for example, we built his first real set irons when he was about 10 years old to see guys like that succeed and grow up. It's, uh, it's very, very rewarding in that, in that sense.
Speaker 2:Well, they grew, you know, it's cool to see you watch these kids, watch them grow into really good players,
Speaker 3:Right. And Evan is, Evan is one of those, uh, he's going to do really well in whatever he chooses to do. He's a very, very bright young man has a really good attitude. Uh, and just, uh, he's a pleasure to work with. So I'd like to get to a point somewhere if he doesn't decide he doesn't want to play where we could hire him down the road, to be honest,
Speaker 2:That'd be cool. I mean, it would be an asset because you guys make really good clubs, but then it's like even the artistic ability of your, what your design does too, is like from the charts.
Speaker 3:Yeah. He's, uh, it's funny. He's been around the business since literally, since he could walk. He was in here when he was two, because when I started, I used to the last few years of my dad's life, he was, I'd bring my dad here. And so my son would be running around getting things for him. But he's, it's interesting because he's worked part time, all the way growing up. And now he's when people ask, I refer to it, he's the future, I'm the past. But he's, it's interesting to see all the little nuances and things. He's things he's picked up that I didn't realize he was absorbing over the years, the past 28 years or so, pretty incredible
Speaker 2:Through osmosis. Right? Like,
Speaker 3:And he's the, he's the track man guru on the shop. He under, he's a very, very gifted and knowledgeable with what all that data means. So he is the, uh, easy expert. Yeah. She does marketing she's um, she works full-time for Boeing as a, um, she's a high she's, uh, she's a buyer I guess, would be the simplest way to put it. It's not her official title, but that's her day job. And then she works on the side with us, with marketing and doing website stuff and, and all of that. So it's a family affair
Speaker 2:And that's why I like, you know, I love when you're smaller, you're able to make decisions and not, you know, we're nimble. Yeah. You're nimble. That's exactly what it is. It's not like you're in another tight panic. Right.
Speaker 3:You know, it has pluses and minuses. Some of the minuses are, you don't have the, the resources or the capital to do everything you'd want to do. But then on the flip side, we can do things and run circles around a big guy. And that part is kind of satisfying. And I've had them when we've had in this as bigger companies. I'm not going to say, but I've heard this a couple of times. We can't do what you do and I'm gone. God, that's amazing because we're a small under-capitalized company. We can do it. You certainly should be able to do it. You choose not to do it is really what it boils down to.
Speaker 2:That's so cool. I mean, I just like what you guys do because you, you make really good clubs.
Speaker 3:We make really good clubs that fit.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That works. Yeah. And it's no, there's no BS. And I mean, honestly, like I've never hit my iron better in my life, like ever. So,
Speaker 3:So anybody that, that goes on the website that wants to get it, we do, uh, that fit that we initially did for you for free for people. And we provide one, a 606 irons should be, and what a driver link should be in what we make, give a recommendation of what we would put the person in without talking to them other than just seeing their answers. And if you fill out, anybody fills out that evaluation thoroughly and accurately, we'll give you a pretty good answer that you can take to your local club fitter or your pro and get something ordered. You know, whether it's ping tide list. What have you, um, it'll give you a starting point. That's really quite accurate. And I won't cost you a dime. There's no obligation. And that's our little gift bag.
Speaker 2:These people down to no, you know what I mean? Like, Oh yeah. Like it's like a warrior custom golf. It's like, when you buy one something one time and they'll ever leave you alone for the rest of your life, like, you're just like, Hey, you can try it out. We'll give you a fitting guide and we'll tell you what you need to be doing. And I'll just so you know, and buy from us. That's cool. And if you don't, that's cool too.
Speaker 3:Yeah. There's no, there's no obligation. I'll say,
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you're doing it for the education of the offer, right. I mean, that's really like, I'll do cause most people don't understand until the last couple of years, I never knew the importance of getting fitted and everyone's was like, Oh, this is so expensive. Or I have to go to this place. No, no, no, a man. It's not, as, it's not as scary to think it is. Right.
Speaker 3:No. And that's, you're playing, you know, you're devoting guys, people that are playing golf are devoting a lot of time to it and they're paying money to play. The equipment should facilitate having more fun. It shouldn't be a barrier. And if you're going and buying clubs off the rack, I've got news for you. It's going to be a barrier in most cases, 80% of the time, at least because they aren't going to fit well. And if they don't fit well, they don't perform well. And the only way they perform well is if you swing the clubs poorly. So it reinforces poorly fit clubs, reinforce the wrong kind of motion, where clubs that fit well, create an environment of sustainable improvement.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it makes you happy when they,
Speaker 3:I can still, when I started playing seriously, I think the first round I, I shot where I really kept score and added everything up correctly. I think I shot 108 and I kind of remember an eight iron. I hit on the 17th hole, still at Jefferson park for a third shot, par five, and I can still see it in the air. And it was hit perfectly Atlanta, about three feet. And I captain made birdie. I still shot 108, but know that I always come back to, uh, trying to remember that what we do is important as it relates to golf and a person having more fun. Our job is to give them the best chance to have a good time. And if we'd done that, if we do that, we've done something good. We take them away from the, especially the environment we've lived in the last year with COVID. If we can give them a four or five hour break every once in a while from that, where they can go out and enjoy themselves and breathe the fresh air and listen to the birds, sing and see the sunshine, we've done something that that's a value. Well, you guys have a huge fan of me and I don't say that often for products. So the guide is there sort of, I mean, literally I carry your clubs in my bag so I can stand behind more product and actually carrying it yourself every time you goofball thing. So, I mean, honestly, if it was the listeners and the viewers just go to the website, check it out. What's your website again? Www dot Jeff month, which is J E F F M O N t.com. Click on the fitting link and it's free. Get fitted. It's free. It's free.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to another episode of behind the gold red podcasts, stay connected on the show by visiting golfers authority.com. Don't forget to like subscribe and leave a comment. Golf is always more fun. Stay out of the beach. I'll see you on the green, but,
Speaker 3:But thank you so much for being on the show today. Thank you for having me. I appreciate your friendship and I appreciate what you do for the golf community at large. And I'll talk to you soon. Did all sounds good. Thank you, Paul.