{"id":228,"date":"2010-05-19T13:37:32","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T18:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnstrawn.com\/?p=228"},"modified":"2010-09-02T22:17:18","modified_gmt":"2010-09-03T03:17:18","slug":"when-a-cup-is-more-than-a-cup-the-tacit-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/golf\/equipment\/228\/when-a-cup-is-more-than-a-cup-the-tacit-story","title":{"rendered":"When A Cup is More than a Cup: The Tacit Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As the UK hosts\u00a0 two of golf\u2019s greatest competitions this year:\u00a0 the recent Open Championship, on the Old Course at St Andrews<\/a> for the 28th<\/sup> time, and the Ryder Cup for the first time in Wales, questions and commentary abound.\u00a0 Amid the hoopla and gossip\u2014talk about Tiger\u2019s tumble, speculation about whether Tom Watson could work more wonders,\u00a0 and the strut toward Celtic Manor\u2014an unobtrusive, modest pair of contributors are helping stage\u00a0the competition. I’m talking about \u00a0the flagsticks and the cups.\u00a0 They\u00a0 do their best work if the wind is up, but whatever the conditions, the flagsticks\u00a0 bend with the breeze, and the cups will shine bright, their luminous white liners visible not just to the players on the greens but to galleries and TV audiences world-wide.\u00a0 Big deal, you say\u2014it\u2019s a flagstick right; it\u2019s a cup, correct?<\/p>\n

It means a lot if you\u2019re Tim Webb of Tacit Golf<\/a>, and you created these flagsticks and cups.\u00a0 You\u2019ve watched with pride as they\u2019ve been embraced not just at the Old Course and Celtic Manor, but by almost every great course in the UK, a success driven not by marketing hype but through word-of-mouth, one satisfied greenkeeper passing on his discovery to another.\u00a0 Gleneagles, Carnoustie, Wentworth, Royal St Georges, Walton Heath, Queenwood and Royal Country Down \u2013 the cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me<\/em> use Tacit cups and flagsticks.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re now in 60% of the courses in the British Isles,\u201d says Webb.<\/p>\n

Gordon Moir is the Director of Greenkeeping for the St Andrews Links Trust. \u00a0In that role Moir is responsible for safeguarding a legacy that extends from the Old Course, the granddaddy of golf courses everywhere, to the Castle Course, a brilliant example of modern golf design executed by a son of Scotland, David McLay Kidd. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cAt St Andrews Links,\u201d Moir says, \u00a0\u201cwe have found the Tacit hole cups to be long lasting– especially the liners, which are excellent. They stand up well to windy conditions,\u201d he confirms, \u201cand help the hole keep its shape\u201d<\/p>\n

So what makes a better cup, anyway, and who needs it?<\/p>\n

One of the great challenges in any business is figuring out how to create a premium product in a commodity space.\u00a0 And the golf cup is about as basic as it gets\u2014who thinks much about the quality of the cup, unless something goes wrong, like the flagstick getting stuck? \u00a0(And why do caddies make sure to pull the flagstick before their players putt, resting it gently in the hole?\u00a0 Partly to avoid shadows, but mainly to make sure they don\u2019t leave it in the cup and cost their player strokes.)<\/p>\n

The golf cup is younger than the game\u2014the requirement for a cup is just over one hundred years old, while the game is five times that age.\u00a0 The original cups were installed simply to keep the hole from growing unsportingly large.\u00a0 It was long the custom for players to grab a handful of sand out of the hole when they retrieved their balls and use it to build a little cone-shaped tee on the driving ground.\u00a0 \u00a0The first recorded hole was used at Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, in 1829, adapted from a drain tile and measuring 4 \u00bd inches in diameter.\u00a0 In 1891, the R & A standardized that as the legal cup size in its official rules.\u00a0 And while hole-cutters and other devices made holes more precise as the years went by, a cup was a cup was a cup\u2026.until Tim Webb\u2019s TACIT hole cup came on the market nearly two decades ago.<\/p>\n

The perfection of the cup came not from a moment of inspiration, Webb says, but \u201cthrough years of trial and error.\u00a0 The first problem was figuring out how to keep top dressing from jamming up the flagstick.\u00a0 When the flagstick\u2019s too tight it makes the hole wobble in the wind, which can affect the hole\u2019s shape.\u00a0 Then we had to figure out how to keep the cup from sinking into the greensmix, a problem when people jam the hole back into the cup.\u00a0 And we wanted to minimize wear if we could.\u00a0 Tacit is the only <\/span>cup\/ferrule system that actively sheds the top dressing away from the central bore and also effectively seals the central bore top and bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Mating the Flagstick with the Cup<\/p><\/div>The TACIT flagstick has an interlocking ferrule that mates with the cup.\u00a0 Below it a plastic base (Webb calls it a \u201csub-cap\u201d) spreads the load enough to keep the cup from sinking, but won\u2019t distort the shape of the hole.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve brought an end the ever-sinking holecup,\u201d says Webb. \u00a0\u201cWe tried many years ago to use a cover for the whole bottom of the cup.\u00a0 That was unsuccessful, because the cup couldn\u2019t be bedded into the green.\u00a0 It rocked loose in the hole and pulled out.\u00a0 The sub-cap on the underside, on the other hand, increases the ambient surface area by 300%, and that stops the holecup from ever sinking below the Royal & Ancient\u2019s recommended one inch depth. \u00a0The sub cap also stops greensmix from entering from the bottom of the holecup and up through the central ferrule socket.\u00a0 And as a final benefit, the ferrule on the base of the flagstick locates itself perfectly every time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The European PGA Tour staff responsible for setting up its courses travels with a set of TACIT cups, Webb says.\u00a0 \u201cAt the WGC – HSBC Championship last November at the Sheshan International Golf Course in Shanghai,\u201d he notes, \u201cthey used our cups and flagsticks.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0But unlike most golf industry products these days, TACIT\u2019s products are made not in China, but in the UK.\u00a0 \u201cWe employ around 30 people,\u201d Webb says.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve sold almost exclusively in the UK, but we have developed an American model\u2014it has a larger bore than the UK model\u2014 and are just setting up our sales and distribution in the US.\u00a0 Our advertising inserts have attracted a lot of interest, especially from daily fee courses looking for ways to boost revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n

The TACIT cup is milled aluminum, so the insert\u2014which can be blank for televised events or feature a club\u2019s crest or printed with a logo for corporate outings\u2014fits smoothly against the margins, seamless to the touch.\u00a0 \u00a0The blanks sell for about $1.50, and it costs another $5.00 or so to add a decal.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cFor annual events, the inserts can be re-used for many years,\u201d\u00a0 Webb says.\u00a0 \u201cA course can easily sell that advertising for $450 per event, so it can be a simple, on-going revenue stream.\u201d<\/p>\n

The flagstick was the final element in TACIT\u2019s solution to perfecting the cup and pin.\u00a0 \u201cIt has a high fiberglass content,\u201d Webb says, \u201cso it doesn\u2019t bend so much in the wind.\u00a0 The PVC coating then keeps it from chipping or scratching\u2014the colors last longer and look brighter.”\u00a0 Mated with its ferrule, the flagstick will rotate within its gromit rather than twisting the cup itself.\u00a0\u00a0 This, too, extends the life of the cups and flags.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0“The coating,” Webb says, “also assures that no fiberglass splinters will pierce the hand of any potential litigious golfer\u2014surely a selling point in the USA.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on TACIT: www.tacitgolf.co.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n

In the US, contact RS Carlson and Associates, 503 788-7865<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the UK hosts\u00a0 two of golf\u2019s greatest competitions this year:\u00a0 the recent Open Championship, on the Old Course at… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[944162],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-equipment","category-personalities","tag-st-andrews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/05\/Holecup2-copy.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":345,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions\/345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}