Barney Adams story #1

Barney Adams story #1:

Barney Adams is the CEO/Founder of Breakthrough Technology Golf shafts.

He's a celebrated golf entrepreneur (Adams Golf), author (The Wow Factor), developed the concept that became "Tee It Forward,” and a member of the Texas Golf Hall of Fame.

When we asked him to write articles for the BGT Community, he quickly agreed… as long as he could write whatever he wanted. As if we would want it any other way.

Barney Adams On: Marketing vs. Technology:

"We are a small team at BGT, so this all came from a massive corporate meeting involving three of us. The premise was for me to write a monthly piece on golf and make it available to our customers.

Now, I like to write and have submitted ideas to the golf industry for many years, so the exercise wasn’t a problem. However, I was adamant about one thing and that was turning my monthly effort into a (very) thinly disguised series of ads.

As I have written, golf equipment is not a product business; it’s a marketing business. Look at the four companies who command nearly 90% of the market today: Callaway, PING, TaylorMade, and Titleist. Go back in time 40 years, same players!

Quick lesson for anyone deciding to challenge these guys. They are so well established. It’s never been done except for brief appearances in specific categories.

So anyway, we agree and here I am with Story #1. Except, well, I’m backsliding!

I’ve had dozens and probably closer to hundreds of questions about our driver shafts. They’ve ranged from “could you explain why they work so well” to “cut the crap, BGT claims are phony just like the norm in the golf equipment business. And that means you, Mr. Adams sold out!”

I don’t handle the latter well, so despite my plea not to advertise I’m reneging on my no-advertising premise but just this one time!

BGT started with a look through a NASA camera that transmitte

d at 100,000 frames a second. Therein we were able to identify very minor shaft oscillation which becomes major while affecting the face angle at impact. Our story caught on and our putter shaft business blossomed.

Then I remembered something from my past. I knew a gentleman by the name of Karsten Soleheim, not intimately, but I knew him. This relationship was fueled to when we lived within 2 miles of each other albeit different time periods in Upstate NY.

When Karsten introduced his PING Eye Two irons, they ultimately became the most sought after in the history of golf equipment. Moreover, they had one characteristic that I never forgot. Every set had 100% X-Flex shafts regardless of who they were for. Why? Because he wanted stability of the head and shaft through contact.

Every set. College kids, grandparents… take that you shaft flex aficionados!

So, we started with the putter face. But why not design a driver shaft for a square face at impact? It’s official data that missing the center of percussion (sweet spot) by one-quarter inch at impact (and that’s scary small) at a 90 mph swing speed loses 21 yards of distance.

Now play with the numbers, but 20 or so yards is huge to virtually every golfer. Yes, the pros hit much closer to the center, so we’ll ignore them and talk about the rest of the golfers and 20 yards. And for the record in proportion, ladies too.

We don’t denigrate light shafts or super whippy ones. We make them all significantly better with a patented technology that keeps the club head square at impact.

So, here’s Story #1. No marketing. No carefully selected “facts.” It's true and proven technology, what I’ve worked on all my life."