“We hear whispers about this every now and again.
A big name tour pro even quietly admitted to it a couple years ago - but finally I read about it in a big circulation magazine”

By Dennis Burkey

For years, I have heard there was a guy who took the clubs some tour professionals want to use (and do use) and painted the logos on them to look like the clubs they were paid to use.  You almost have to read that twice, don’t you?  The Big Overpriced Club Companies let some of the pros do it!  It sounds too unbelievable.  Sounds like I finally went over the top.  Well, read on and be amazed.

“I’ll take your money but I’m only going to pretend to play your clubs.”

Never, not in a thousand years, would you read about this in a golf magazine.  Those big magazines know who buys millions of dollars of their ad pages, who gives them tons of free equipment and who supplies stories to them about their new clubs.  The Big Overpriced Club Companies can swing a lot of weight!  But a non-golf magazine might just half-mention it as a point of interest.

Last week I flew to Columbus, Ohio.  I picked up the in-flight magazine and flipped through it.  In-flight magazines are published by each airline and usually are loaded with articles about what fun it is to visit the cities they go to plus a number of stories that might actually be of interest.

There on page 70 was a short article about a small club company in Japan.  Their clubs were available only in Japan for years.  They make forged irons in a blade design.  A blade design has a flat back, little or no perimeter weighting, is very hard for a recreation golfer to hit but some tour pros like them.  The article said the founder of the company (Miura Golf is the company name) has been making clubs for years.  He makes clubs that are painted to look exactly like the clubs the players are paid to play!

These “Officially Sanctioned” Counterfeits have won major tournaments!

The magazine reported that Mr. Muira’s irons have won the U.S. Open and the Masters golf tournaments.  Only you would never know it.  His clubs were painted with the logos of the companies the players were paid to play!! 

Now think of this.  Mr. Muira is introducing his irons to the U.S. market this year but I’m pretty sure he won’t say his clubs are great and have won the Masters and the Open (and who knows how many regular tour events!) but were disguised to look like clubs from the Big Overpriced Club Companies!  I’m sure Mr. Muira would love to tell you about all the events the pros have won with his irons.  Of course, if he does, I can guarantee there will be an army of lawyers from the Big Overprice Club Companies all over him so fast he won’t know what hit him!

What did you think?

I mentioned in another article once how a big name pro casually admitted that he played clubs painted to look like the clubs he was being paid to play.  No, I won’t mention his name because

My partner Dan and I were stunned when we heard that he did ‘fess up’ to using painted clubs.

The same manufacturers, those Big Overpriced Club Companies fight like bulldogs to keep counterfeit clubs off the market (I once read that a staggering number of supposed name brand clubs on internet auction sites are phony counterfeits).  Yet when it comes to tour pros endorsing their clubs these same companies must be saying, “Go ahead and play the other clubs, just make sure you have someone paint our logo on them.”

Tell me, isn’t this exactly what they are saying:
“Get all those counterfeit clubs off the market, they hurt business.  Oh, hold on, except the counterfeits some of our pros play, those are OK because they help business.  And beside, we pay them for that!”

I’ll tell you, in the years my partner Dan and I have been in this business we have been amazed over and over at what the Big Overpriced Club Companies will do.  There is absolutely no end to it!