For the First Time, Nippon Shaft Products and Services Will Be Available Onsite to Elite Players Week-to-Week; Veteran PGA TOUR Equipment Expert Lee Oyer Hired to Represent Nippon Shaft
SCHAUMBURG, Illinois (June 29, 2009) – For the first time in company history, Nippon Shaft will take its place on the PGA TOUR.
Starting July 6 at the John Deere Classic in Silvis, Ill., a full-time Nippon Shaft product representative will travel from tournament to tournament, offering players products, support, and information about Nippon Shaft with the aim of improving their competitive positions, according to Hiroyuki Fukuda, head of Nippon Shaft’s North American office located in suburban Chicago.
“Nippon Shaft’s move to the PGA Tour is a logical step in the evolution of the company,” Fukuda said. “The world’s best shafts need to be with the world’s strongest golf tour.”
Handling week-to-week Tour Promotions for Nippon Shaft will be industry veteran Lee Oyer, a skilled club technician who has spent 20 years on Tour, most recently with Titleist.
Nippon Shaft – the company that revolutionized the shaft business in 1999 with the introduction of lightweight steel shafts – will expand its product line with two new heavier-weighted prototypes aimed at elite players with higher swing speeds, Fukuda said.
“The two new prototypes are an expansion of our current line of products and will be created, designed, and produced at the same state-of-the-art manufacturing facility as our other highly acclaimed products,” Fukuda said. “We think PGA TOUR professionals will be very excited when they learn how they can benefit competitively from Nippon Shaft’s new products.”
Fukuda said Nippon Shaft will have shafts onsite in an independent tour van that carries a number of product lines. In addition, Nippon Shaft will provide major manufacturers whose vans travel with the TOUR with prototype products.
The prototype models are expected to be available for consumers in the spring of 2010, according to Nippon Shaft officials.
Nippon Shaft has strong relationships with the major equipment brands, having provided stock and custom shafts to them for a number of years. Acushnet (Titleist, Cobra), Callaway, Taylor Made, Bridgestone, Tour Edge, and Nickent are among the major manufacturers with whom Nippon Shaft has had longstanding business dealings.
Nippon Shaft’s move to the PGA Tour comes a decade after the Japan-based company revolutionized the golf equipment industry by developing the first sub-100 gram, lightweight steel shaft that maintained the consistency and shot accuracy of much heavier shafts. The ability to marry the pliability of graphite with the stability of steel enabled the company to earn the 80 percent market share it holds in Asia and to work its way to No. 2 North America – most major golf equipment companies offer Nippon Shaft as stock or custom items. In addition, Nippon Shaft has more than 100 professional victories worldwide.
“Nippon Shaft is confident that once PGA TOUR players get to know our products, they will elect to use them at the highest levels of competition,” Fukuda said.
Nippon Shaft is a subsidiary of NHK, a Yokahama, Japan-based munfacturer of steel engine valve springs used in automobiles. Such springs must be both pliable and durable over the course of 100,000 miles.
“Essentially, we view golf shafts as springs,” Fukuda said. “That is why we can manufacture our shafts to very precise weights and flexibilities.”
Contact:
Barry Cronin
Cronin Communications, Inc.
847-698-1801 (office)
847-867-3032 (mobile)
