TaylorMade's RBZ fairway wood
Sometimes even the most optimistic of sales forecasts can be wrong. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. For example, TaylorMade-adidas Golf, figuring it would have a hit on its hands with the RocketBallz metal woods line, gave itself some lofty sales forecasts. Understand that TMaG is rarely wrong on such things, but in this case, the company missed the mark. That is, RBZ sales have exceeded its sales forecast.
“It shows the demand is there and demand hasn’t slowed down at all,” said Tom Olsavsky, senior director of product creation for TMaG.
Citing sell-in numbers provided by Golf Datatech, Olsavsky said TMaG garnered an almost unprecedented 52 market share in metal woods this past February, with 25 percent coming from the BZ family. You have to go back to Callaway Golf in the early and mid-1990s to come up with numbers anywhere near those.
If you’ve hit the RBZ metal woods, you can’t be too surprised. The RBZ driver and fairway woods each are solid performers. The RBZ 3 wood, in particular, is terrific – easy to hit and long off the tee and fairway thanks to its Speed Pocket and low/forward center of gravity.
Olsavsky told me that at any given PGA Tour event this year, TMaG has had between 50 and 60 RBZ fairway woods in play compared to 20-something with the previous generation Burner series.
“Usually what you find historically is that 3 woods are 50 percent of fairway wood sales,” Olsavsky said. “Now the (RBZ) 3 wood is about 70 percent of fairway wood sales.”
Make those 3 woods. TMaG has three models of the RBZ 3 wood – the standard 15-degree model, a 14.5 degree Tour model with heavier shaft options and the 17-degree 3HL. The 3HL (High Loft) is the first 17-degree 3 wood TMaG has ever made. It’s aimed at players – better and average – who have trouble getting the ball off the ground with a 15-degree fairway wood.
“It gives them that much more loft with the RBZ technology,” Olsavsky said. “It can benefit even good players because it gets the ball up in air that much quicker. One of the benefits of the RBZ is that it’s so much longer because thy spin less than traditional fairway woods because of the CG position.
“Because of that we’re finding even good player good players, who would have shied away from higher lofts because they spin too much, are playing the higher loft because it gets the ball up but it doesn’t spin. Just like a driver – high launch, low spin, goes farther.”
And sells a lot of RBZ fairway woods.
Watch Tom Olsavsky explain the technology behind the RBZ fairway woods.
