Tiger Woods Makes Milestone Shift to Nike Golf Forged Wedges
November 04 2003 - 12:34PM
PR Newswire (US)
Tiger Woods Makes Milestone Shift to Nike Golf Forged Wedges
Unheralded Switch to Forged Wedges Is Cause for Celebration
BEAVERTON, Ore., Nov. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Tiger Woods,
without fanfare, cameras or questions, has quietly made a milestone
switch to two more golf clubs from Nike Golf as he prepares for one
of the biggest challenges of the 2003 season, The TOUR Championship
this week at the Champions Golf Club in Houston, Texas. (Photo:
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020719/NKGOLFLOGO
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20031104/SFTU097 ) While the
addition of Nike Golf's 56-degree and 60-degree Forged Wedges to
Woods' bag may not stop presses or warrant expert analysis, it has
spurred spontaneous high-fives at Nike Golf's world headquarters in
Beaverton, Ore. and at its club R&D facility in Ft. Worth,
Texas. The change had been nearly 20 months in the making and was
set up by more than six years of trust and dedication -- that's how
long it had been since Nike Golf introduced its first Forged Wedges
to the world, and respectively, how long Woods had been playing his
previous wedges. Confidently, Nike Golf introduced the 56-degree
and the 60-degree at retail (Suggested Retail Price: $139 each) in
March 2002 bearing a red underscore below the degree marks on the
wedge heads. The markings, unbeknownst until now, were created in
anticipation of Woods' eventual change. Admittedly, designers and
engineers with Nike Golf's 2-year old club team knew only one thing
for sure -- that getting Woods into the wedges would take time and
a series of tests with no guarantees. "Tiger is very methodical and
takes one thing at a time," said Nike Golf's director of product
creation, Tom Stites. "We worked hard at getting him into a driver,
then into our Forged Irons. His game is his livelihood and he is
not going to trust that to any piece of equipment that does not
live up to his high standards." Nike Golf will begin identifying
the forged wedges at retail with stickers and point of sale
displays declaring "The New Choice of Tiger Woods." Woods first
tested Nike Golf's Forged Wedges earlier this year. He put the
56-degree Forged Wedge in play at the WGC -- American Express
Championship in early October. Woods added the 60-degree Forged
Wedge to his bag in time for the start of the FUNAI Classic at the
Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Fla., October 23. Woods now
carries 12 (of 14) clubs from Nike Golf -- a prototype Ignite
driver, Forged Irons (2-PW) and now the 56-degree and 60-degree
Forged Wedges. A putter and 3-wood remain out of the mix of clubs
from Nike Golf in Woods' bag but they are high on the list of
projects for Stites and his team. "We won't be completely satisfied
until we've got everything in the bag," said Stites. "Most critics
did not give us a chance of replacing any of the clubs in Tiger's
bag two years ago. I'm not sure what they are saying now, but we
haven't heard from them in a while." Nike Golf, located in
Beaverton, Oregon, is passionately dedicated to honoring and
respecting the traditions and heritage of the game, and to
providing committed golfers with the absolute best equipment in the
game in every product category. For more information on Nike Golf,
visit our Web site at http://www.nikegolf.com/.
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020719/NKGOLFLOGO
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20031104/SFTU097
http://photoarchive.ap.org/ DATASOURCE: Nike Golf CONTACT: Dean
Stoyer of Nike Golf, +1-503-532-6018, or Web site:
http://www.nikegolf.com/
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