Interview: Bob Thurman,
Wilson Sporting Goods Global Director of Golf R&D
February 2009

It's no surprise that Wilson Sporting Goods' Global Director of Golf Research and Development, Bob Thurman, was a member of the NASA Space Shuttle program. Talk golf tech with this former Aerospace Engineer and you get both sides of the story: aesthetics; and science. And that's precisely why one of the world's leading golf equipment manufacturers hired Thurman back in 1992.

Seventeen years ago, Thurman was brought on board as principal engineer for golf ball aerodynamics at Wilson. He successfully managed golf ball research, testing development before moving into his current role. Today, Thurman works closely with Wilson's PGA Tour staff - including three-time Major champion, Padraig Harrington - in product development. He also serves as an expert on numerous industry panels.

Thurman's background is impressive. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering at Mississippi State U. and his Masters of Business Administration at Union U. in 1996 before joining NASA.

London Ontario Golf editor Jeffrey Reed spent some time in late-February 2009 chatting with Thurman about the research and development side of Wilson Golf. During their chat, Thurman proved to be anything but a stereotypical engineer. He was funny, engaging and, of course, extremely passionate about Wilson Golf.

Reed shares that passion, so he was thrilled to learn a little bit about the next generation of Wilson Staff clubs being developed for release in late-2009 and early-2010. In this interview, Thurman talks about the new Wilson Staff Smooth driver which is winning accolades for its looks and design; what makes a golf club "sexy"; and what has changed the game the most from an equipment perspective during the last two decades.

Jeffrey Reed, Editor, London Ontario Golf: Bob, I'm a little tired of hitting balls indoors (laughing).

Bob Thurman, Wilson Golf: I was just doing that a few minutes ago!

LOG: I bet you do a lot of that.

BT: Yes. We tend to try a few things out. We have our outdoor facilities down in Tennessee and in Florida. But here in Chicago, it's so cold, we have a simulator where we test a lot of prototypes, give things a test run.

LOG: I'm a Wilson man, playing the Ci7 irons again this year, looking forward to hitting the new Smooth driver and the Tw9 wedges.

BT: We were actually just in the simulator, hitting the Ci9s. They are fantastic.

LOG: Will they still include the heel-toe weighting at the rear of the sole?

BT: That is one thing we want to keep in the Ci series, the heel-toe weighting. The Ci9 has more of an XO skeleton frame that goes on the back side of the iron that gives it a little higher Moment Of Inertia (MOI), so it makes it a little more stable. And we have a new Rifle shaft that we're going to put in there as well. Cosmetically, we've dressed it up and it has Urethane vibration dampener in the back. It looks the same from address. We try to keep the top line and the blade shape all the same. But we've dialled the performance up a whole lot. It looks fantastic. And the feel of the club and performance is excellent too.

LOG: I look forward to playing that club in 2010.

BT: Have you seen the Fg Prototype that Padraig Harrington and all of our Staff players - Ricky Barnes and Brad Adamonis, and the guys in Europe - are playing? They're a cavity back forging. Blade size is a little bigger than our Fg 59 muscle back. It's closer to the Pi series. They love them. We got them right into everyone's bag.

LOG: The Spine driver. Certainly revolutionary. Good club. The Dd6+ driver is a solid, solid driver.

BT: The Smooth driver is the upgrade to the Dd6+.

LOG: A driver is a personal thing and many do like the Spine. And now we have the Spine fairway woods.

BT: They are good! The Spine really works well with fairway woods. The whole scooped out crown, low profile face, drop the Centre of Gravity (CG) way down, and it helps people get the ball off the deck really easy. It's a stainless steel head, so it has a crisper sound. All the properties are right. The shaft is very good. Those are really easy to hit fairway woods.

LOG: Wilson has a superb reputation for irons and wedges. I found some great success with the Tw5 wedges, especially the 50-degree gap wedge with tungsten weighting in the back. Incredible spin! I moved to the Tw7 wedges with dark gun metal and they really improved my game. I understand Harrington had a lot of input in the design of those wedges. How does the process work with Harrington and club design at Wilson?

BT: Right now we have someone who is in charge of working with Padraig and all of our Staff model products. For example the FG Proto iron, we've been working with Padraig since October 2008. And we're working with him on the head shape and offset and what he wants in the way the iron performs. We're developing that process. So we're not launching that product until 2010. So he is usually about a year (helping develop products), on most products. The Tw9 wedges, there was actually a very short window. We showed those to Padraig in May 2008, he made a couple tweaks in what he wanted in the club, we took it to him right before the Open Championship - he was playing in the Irish Open. And he played them, loved them, went into his bag and he won the Open Championship the next week. So you just never know how quickly it takes to get products in their bags. But he is heavily involved. We show him everything. We're setting up our schedule right now to go to the Irish Open in May with all of our European Tour Staff and start working with all of our new products with them.

LOG: I've had the pleasure of speaking in great length with Harrington. Very amiable guy, down to earth for someone as accomplished on the golf course as he is.

BT: Absolutely. He gives you way more of his time than he means to. He enjoys talking with people.

LOG: Let's talk about the industry in general. I recently chatted with Barney Adams of Adams Golf about the state of the equipment manufacturing side. There seems to be so much pressure put on manufacturing from marketing to produce new gear on an overwhelmingly regular basis. No longer do we see a new line of clubs released every three-four years. Some companies are releasing new gear three times a year. But it seems to me that Wilson has that under control. You're not confusing the consumer. You're not producing new gear just for the sake of producing new gear.

BT: It's tough. It's a retail-driven environment. Consumer products. It became a rat race, a challenge. TaylorMade, with one-year life cycles. From a driver perspective, they really ruined it for everybody in terms of drivers. We talk about, owning the fairway. That means, fairway woods, irons and wedges. That's what we want to sell. That's what we want to be about. Our Smooth driver is higher priced than some of its competitors because we put all of the performance into it. We want it to perform. This Padraig's driver. This is what we are about.
We also looked at our business model. The successes and failures of Wilson over the years, it was big highs, a drop off, big high, a drop off. So we set a business model in place where we were going to be responsible in two and a half year product life cycles. Meaning we would have an introduction of a product in the last half of the year, it would have a first full selling year, it would have a second year so we could control our inventory and prepare the next product to come behind it. So everything is on a stagger. If you look at our financial statements, we're launching Di9 irons and Tw9 wedges and golf balls one year. The next year we balance it with Ci9s, Fybrids, putter line and a separate golf ball. So they flip flop. So we're launching new products every year, but we're not replacing a product on a year-in, year-out basis like we used to. So we did Di5, Di6 and Di7 irons, now we're Di7, Di9, Di11.

LOG: The Tx4 Tour golf ball I think is the most underrated Tour golf ball on the market. A European test ranked it as the longest Tour performance golf ball on the market.

BT: It's a good one. We have a new one coming this year.

LOG: Bob you're tempting me. This is like candy to someone with a sweet tooth (laughing).

BT: We're a product machine (laughing). We're not a huge advertising machine. Our livelihood is putting products into the market place and managing that.

LOG: Wilson irons. I'm a huge fan. Collect vintage Wilson irons and woods. Have some of the old X31 irons, for example. Some Sam Snead signature clubs. Wilson irons have a huge following in the golf world. And with such a long history of Wilson producing golf clubs, there are a lot of loyal consumers.

BT: Yes. There are loyal Wilson golfers. There are some stalwart Wilson golfers. That's great. Every brand has those type of people. And there are the golfers that are just starting to come back to Wilson. We're starting to bring those people back into the fold. They wanted us to win. They wanted to come back and play our products again. That is where we are seeing a ground swell of people who have an affection for our brand.
What we're trying to do for the future is reconnect with the younger golfer. All they know is Nike and TaylorMade. We have to bring Wilson back to a younger audience. That's what we're trying to do with our brand image. We're trying to look younger and cooler, not old and nostalgic. So we want to talk about our heritage, but also talk about Padraig Harrington with three Major championships.

LOG: Hopefully Paddy gets his game together. He certainly rambled on in his blog at his web site about the state of his game. Took some time off and is still looking to find his game. You are right when you say he likes to talk but we love him (laughing).

BT: (Laughing) Padraig is the worse rambler.

LOG: Jesper Parnevik: what is his current role with Wilson Golf?

BT: He is not a paid endorsee right now. He is still playing Wilson Staff equipment. We're trying to work something out with him. He carries the bag, has the irons. We pay him a smaller amount.

LOG: Maybe Padraig should put his Hi-Tec shoes back on instead of the FootJoys, then he might find his game (laughing). BT: (Laughing) Yes.

LOG: Bottom line: With Wilson Staff, how important is it to have a Tour presence, as compared to, say, the TaylorMades, the Nikes and the Callaways of the world? They rely heavily on Tour presence whereas Wilson does not.

BT: It is very expensive to have Tour leadership position. I think that's been the source of a lot of problems with the industry. There's so much pressure. Those guys cost so much. What we've always been pretty good at ... in the past we had some big Staff (players), bigger than everybody. But when you're paying $2.5 million a year for Padraig Harrington, that's a lot of money. That's your Top 10 guy. Then you get into all of the other players and they are $500,000 here, $1 million there, $200,000 here. You can run yourself out of money pretty quickly.
We're a sporting goods company, Wilson has a whole stable of athletes. That's the difference. We're not just a golf company. We're a sporting goods company.

LOG: Parent company Amer Sports is the largest sporting goods company in the world.

BT: Roger Federer (tennis) for example. Tom Brady (NFL football). Many key athletes. Those are our athletes.

LOG: And with golf, the grass roots level, the club pros, are loyal to Wilson Staff. Always have been.

BT: That is what we try to do, support our local pro. We maintain an incredible Tour staff. What do they get you at the end of the day? They get you exposure on TV. You can use their likeness in magazines to pump your products. But we don't spend anywhere near what some of the other brands do, sometimes to foolish end, to keep that leadership position. But I think if you have a Padraig Harrington, the No. 3 player in the world, that's credibility to the brand. But do you have to do it with 200 guys on Tour? I don't know. You can argue that.

LOG: The Smooth is his driver, and I'm looking forward to playing it.

BT: I am 100-per-cent confident that not only will you like it, you'll love it. We're looking at it from a better player's eye. So the concept, Smooth, if you look at the way the crown and the skirt and sole all go together, those sharp little edges, we took those and smoothed them all down. We put a larger generous radius around the whole club. So when you set it down, the toe goes back. There's nobody who will say it looks closed, looks open, don't like the way the face sits. It has a great visual cue. When you look down at the club, it just looks great. And that is why it is called, the Smooth.

LOG: It's interesting to watch the videos on the Wilson Staff web site and hear what Harrington has to say about the new clubs. He really likes the Ci7 irons! Wilson Staff in general: a huge following in the U.K.

BT: Oh yes, absolutely. In the U.S. we have a balance of Wilson Staff, and Wilson Golf equipment. Two separate (markets). We participate in the U.S. with all the Wilson products in larger channels - the Wal-Marts, the Targets, the Dick's Sporting Goods. In Europe, we don't. It's still very specialized. So our profit margins are bigger. We spend more on advertising over there. Your reach is further. In the U.S., a page of Golf Digest may cost $70,000. Over there in their Golf Digest equivalent, it may be $15,000 or $20,000. So your share is a lot broader in Europe than the U.S. We're No. 2 in some European markets, No. 3, No. 4 in others. We do great business in Europe.

LOG: You have Martina Eberl of Germany of the Ladies European Tour on staff. And she played well in '08. Let's get back to equipment. Say, for example, it is time to develop a new Control iron, a new Ci series. Does it start with you?

BT: It does. We're working two years out. I'm working on 2010 and 2011 products. We're actually wrapping up 2010 products now. And in a half hour I'm looking at 2011 start for Di9 (upgrade). So our industrial designers will sit in a room. We ask, what is our Distance iron about? What is it that we're trying to achieve? It's to help the player hit the ball longer and straighter. What technologies have we been working on that help us to deliver this in a better way? And there are some thoughts on new shaft technology, whether it's lighter weight or tip flexibility. Vibration dampening. Better head components. Whatever it may be. And, how do we make it look sexy as hell? The next step is, how do you get the technologies, which we call function, and the form together on the same path so you are delivering something that performs exceptionally well and functions the way you want it to. So what we're doing now is the rendering stage - this is what we want to do with the product, this is how we make it look cool. So we put together models that we start to prototype this year. We'll play test next year. Tweak things. And then it comes to the market place.

LOG: It's a very detailed and structured process - a science.

BT: It is. I've been with Wilson for 17 years. Since I've had control over club (design), I have pushed hard for industrial design on our golf clubs. Hiring industrial designers. Because it really is about the form. It's male jewellery. People put them in their bags not only because it helps their golf game, but also they have to be proud of the clubs. It actually represents their person, if you will. You can have a guy who is a hack, but feels like he has a better image if he has a bunch of Titleist golf clubs in his bag, for example.

LOG: The clubs really are an extension of who you are. I identify my game with Wilson irons for example. For me that is part of who I am as a golfer.

BT: We spend a lot of research dollars on the consumer: Who are those people? How do we talk to them and not alienate them? What is that brand expectation? We try to put that into the products.

LOG: When I spoke with Harrington, he said other Tour players will stop by at the range and take a look at the Wilson irons, wishing they could play them, saying how pretty they look.
Bob, we'll end with this: What has changed the modern game the most? Is it new ball technology, or new clubs?

BT: You know what the biggest impact is on the game? 175cc Persimmon wood head to a 460cc super thin wall Titanium driver. I'm a 9 handicap. Fifteen or 20 years ago when I stood on the tee box with 175cc driver, I had to try harder to get the face on the ball than I do now. I can look down the fairway with my 460cc driver and know that the face is going to come in contact with that ball somewhere. Hitting a driver is 100 times less complicated than it used to be.

About Wilson Golf www.wilson.com
"Every Round Matters."
For more than 90 years, golfers have relied on Wilson golf equipment to fuel passion, build camaraderie, and create their own legends one round at a time. Wilson Golf and its premium line of Wilson Staff equipment are dedicated to giving golfers the best opportunity to make everyday legendary, from innovation that endures to the evolution of technologies and equipment to the customization of club performance. Wilson Staff, and Make Everyday Legendary are registered trademarks of Wilson Sporting Goods Co. Wilson Sporting Goods Co., based in Chicago, IL, is a division of Amer Sports, one of the world's leading manufacturers of sports equipment.

Read London Ontario Golf editor Jeffrey Reed's twice-weekly column, Reed On The Greens, sponsored by Wilson Golf, every Monday and Friday here http://www.londonontariogolf.com/inthenews/viewforum.php?f=14.