Driver vs. Driver: Looking Deeper on Wilson Crowdsourcing Club Design

On Driver vs. Driver, a Golf Channel show, Wilson Golf crowdsources their next flagship driver design. Is that a good idea?

It’s an immediately intriguing idea. Who among us hasn’t thought they might have an idea to improve a golf club? Of course, designing a club from the ground up is a whole other ball of wax. The truth is few people have a clue how to design a modern driver.

Without the design talent, scientific education, facilities, software, materials, manufacturing, testing, and money (tons of it), you and I have a better shot at building the next Mars Rover (a Toro mower with a GoPro duct-taped to the handlebars, operated by a wireless Xbox controller. You’re welcome, NASA.)

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Creating a successful new driver is a yearly, pressure-filled moon shot for club manufacturers. Rather than relying on their in-house staff of experienced designers and engineers, Wilson Golf said, “Screw it, let’s just open this up to anyone who’s ever played Minecraft.”

I’ll bet the full-time club designers at Wilson are super stoked and motivated by this decision.

Before we get to the results, let’s talk about the show and meet the judges.

Wilson Golf is the major sponsor (re: Guinea pig) of this competition and selected three men to … honestly, I don’t know what they do.

They call them judges, but I’m not sure that’s accurate. They’re more of a Peanut Gallery. The show suffers mightily from the lack of a polished host; someone to keep order and pace. More than once the trio reminded me of Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show.

What’s abundantly clear from the get-go is this: none of them have any background in the hard scientific work of club design. (Don’t tell me Tim Clarke is down there manipulating CAD files.)

To be fair, I don’t want to watch a panel of MIT eggheads droning on about laminar flow, either. Perhaps next season they can have one person who’s actually designed a club … you know … judge the designs.

So what do these three bring to the table? Let’s meet the judges for this season.

Tim Clarke

Clarke is a long-time Wilson mainstay who is now President of Wilson Golf. He is often referred to as a “turnaround specialist” in the industry press. In other words, he’s a smart businessman with an MBA.

Tim Clarke has one job; turn Wilson Golf’s spreadsheet from red to black.

Jeremy Roenick

Roenick is a former hockey star and self-confessed golf addict. He says he plays about 280 rounds a year. He must get his mail in the bag room.

Other than that, he’s like you and me. He’s a club addict. He’s an admirer of club design. He appreciates it. He’s genuinely curious about it.

I should also tell you that I’m genuinely curious about owls. This doesn’t make me an ornithologist.

Rick Shiels

Shiels is a PGA Teaching Professional. Here’s our expert! He must be one of those swing whisperers who the pros consult. Let’s see, it looks like he’s best known for his work with (pulls readers down from forehead) … YouTube club reviews. Oh … ok.

I watch these types of videos, hours of them. Mainly because I’m an idiot.

What could I possibly glean from watching a scratch golfer review drivers? I don’t have Rick Shiels swing. He could probably hit a toaster bungeed to a broomstick further than I hit my M4.

And let’s not even talk about the videos crammed with launch monitor screenshots. Who am I, Wernher von Braun? I don’t understand all those percentages and decimals. Frankly, I don’t care to. Do you know why?

Because I’m a sane human being and I have only two questions when it comes to testing a driver.

Did the ball go in the direction I thought it was going to go?
Did it go far?

Check those boxes and your driver gets a Valentine Gold Heart© (I’m trying to brand my own personal rating system, just go with it.)

So where were we?

Ah, yes. Tim Clarke is a shrewd businessman, Jeremy Roenick spends more time on the green than Snoop Dogg, and Rick Shiels hits more clubs than the Kardashians. So it makes sense that they’d have a lot of insight into drivers none of them have ever hit.

Wait, actually that makes no sense at all. It’s like Car & Driver telling me about the handling characteristics of a new sports car they’ve never driven.

Yet that’s how they narrow down the field to the finalists. So yeah, the show has a couple plot holes.

Let’s just cut to the chase.

This week Wilson announced the Season 2 winner and launched their newest flagship driver. It’s called the Cortex. It was designed by contestant Evan Hoffman. On the Wilson website, it lists Evan’s credentials as “Industrial designer”. OK! That sounds promising even if no one knows what that actually means.

(A quick Google search and … )

Industrial design: a process of design applied to products that are to be manufactured through techniques of mass production.

Well, that couldn’t be any clearer. I see. So Evan is highly – and equally – qualified to design golf drivers and IKEA silverware trays.

Listen, I don’t want to bust on Evan. I expect all the contestants to be industrial designers (I’d probably show up with a box of Crayolas). Hoffman clearly has a passion for golf and design and those are the people who should be doing club design.

And good for him! He won the lottery here. The driver really does look nice. The design is beautiful. He did a great job. It looks the part; a modern, highly adjustable, powerful-looking hammer.

I could be talked into giving the Cortex a try. Hell, why not? Let’s do this!

Where do I send my $499?

Oh, I’m sorry. Did I just make you spit up on your screen?

Apologies.

Yes, Wilson wants you to fork over half a grand for its game show winner.

That puts the Cortex price tag right next to the latest Taylormade M3 Series and the New Titleist TS Series drivers. Callaway, Cobra and Ping flagship drivers come in at a significantly lower cost.

I mean, $499? I didn’t realize the Cortex is an artisanal driver eco-harvested by local fair trade indigenous tribesmen in the driver jungles of Sumatra.

Come on, Wilson. If it weren’t for Paddy Harrington you wouldn’t have a single Major to your name this century. Like it or not, the Wilson brand is closer to Buick than BMW.

I admit it, I’m a brand snob! And guess what, so are you. Brand matters. Branding carries significant weight in decision-making. Brand choices are emotional and personal. We make them daily. Clarke knows this. That’s what makes the price point so outrageous.

Wilson Golf doesn’t have the brand permission to ask me (or you) to drop $499 on the Cortex.

Unless the Cortex is demonstrably longer and straighter – by an eye-popping margin – are you spurning Callaway, Taylormade, Titleist, Cobra, or Ping, at a lower cost?

You can lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself.

All is not lost.

There’s an audience who wants to see behind the curtain and understand how equipment is designed, made, and marketed. Driver vs. Driver doesn’t suffer from being a bad idea as much as it’s just the wrong format. Rather than a game show, it should be a docu-series with the real designers, not contestants.

This approach would give golfers a better and deeper insight into the Wilson Golf brand. It would show us what they value, how they work, and how they think. That’s how you build a bond with consumers.

Just as we are all passionate about car brands, clothing brands, or technology brands, golfers care about the brands they play and wear. The clubs in your bag are a reflection of your golf knowledge, passion, and skill level. Even if you can’t shoot par, at least you can look the part.

In its current incarnation, I only know one new fact about the Wilson Golf brand than I did before I watched Driver vs. Driver – they aren’t particularly serious about club design.

I’m pretty sure that’s the opposite of what they were going for.

What other takeaway is there when a company pits newbie golf designers against each other to produce one of the most expensive drivers on the market?

Next. Golf Life: what men talk about on the course. dark

Then again, what do I know? I carry a used $19 Acer Flipper/Chipper in my bag. And I’m pretty sure that was overpriced, too.

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