If you haven’t heard the big news yet, Rickie Fowler signed with TaylorMade Golf this past weekend to play their TP5X ball and 2UNDR to…well, wear their underwear.
Rickie Fowler Signs with TaylorMade
It was announced Monday that Rickie Fowler signed with TaylorMade to play their TP5X golf ball and use their Tour Preferred glove. Now, I’m not as intrigued by the glove, but this ball change marks a huge move for Rick. Well Jonathan Wall at Golf.com got the insight on why Rickie decided to stop playing a Titleist balls after the entirety of his professional career is interesting. Take a look at how the thought even got in his head:
The foursomes format at the Ryder Cup comes with a built-in learning curve for players paired with a partner who doesn’t use the same ball. For Rickie Fowler, that meant getting acclimated to Dustin Johnson’s TaylorMade TP5x ball early in the week at Le Golf National to ensure he had a good idea of how it performed in a competitive environment.
Fowler figured the TP5x crash course would last a week, but the more he learned about the ball and saw how it performed in a game situation, the more he started to consider the idea of testing it further during the offseason.
The article goes on to say that Rickie spent quite a bit of time with a lot of golf balls in the industry during “the offseason,” but he was seeing the biggest performance gains on the course and range from the TP5X. Rickie noted that his biggest gains came in longer yardages with his irons.
“[Rickie] was mentioning that TP5x was giving him some gains he simply couldn’t ignore,” Loper said. “He was getting a couple more yards off the tee, it was cutting through the wind, and he gained a half-club length with the irons. When combined it was shortening the hole by a club for him. Those gains drove him to TP5x.”
The roughly 7-8 yards Fowler picked up required him to re-gap his set during the testing process to get his yardages dialed in.
Wall then explains that Fowler was very pleased with his results on the greens. 15 to 20-yard wedge shots were checking up more and allowed him to get more aggressive with pins.
But this quote is my favorite of Wall’s piece. It’s an explanation of what goes into a player signing a long-term gear deal. It’s not as simple as “I really like what your current equipment does.” Wall spoke with Eric Loper, Director of golf ball R&D at TaylorMade, and this is what Loper pointed out:
…the last thing a tour player wants is to make the switch and then have to go back [to their old ball] a year later. It’s the same thing I’ve had with every tour player that’s come onto our staff over the last 20 years I’ve been here. They all want to know what our plan is moving forward and that the technology we’re supplying them with is going to do what they need it to do each time without fail.
That makes total sense, but you don’t always think about that.
Fowler Signs with 2UNDR Underwear
Obviously Rick’s having a great marketing week, getting out there with two sweet sponsorship deals. This 2UNDR deal might be my favorite. A good pair of underwear goes a long way in golf, and Rickie was happy to explain that.
Nobody can see it on TV, but I consider underwear to be an essential element of my wardrobe and styling,” said Fowler. “2UNDR has mastered the perfect combination of comfort, fit, and design that is missing from other underwear brands. It provides maximum comfort on and off the course and allows me to focus on winning golf tournaments.”
Having worn 2UNDR before myself, I can attest to his statement, but I’m just excited to see an underwear brand making a splash just after another major Tour player signed a deal with a “men’s wipe” brand!
