For companies like Callaway, Cobra and TaylorMade, you know you are getting a new driver each January. It’s like clockwork.
For Srixon and Ping, they also release drivers in January, but they only release a new line every two years, but again, it’s like clockwork.
Then there’s Titleist, which also follows a two-year release cycle for its metal woods lines. The company just started teasing its upcoming GTS metalwood line with a Tour launch two weeks ago at the Texas Children’s Houston Open. That’s earlier than the typical summer launch they’ve employed in their last couple of cycles.
On this week’s episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped, co-hosts Johnny Wunder and Jake Morrow broke down why it makes sense for some companies to go for a two-year product cycle and others a one-year cycle.
While many people on the internet always claim there aren’t meaningful performance gains for companies that release a driver every year, Morrow pushed back on that common criticism.
“I think some of the companies going every year is smart, because I think those companies churn out iterations faster,” he said. “And there’s a reason for all those launches.
There’s always that one thing that they needed to release. And a lot of times it’s because that thing leads to the next thing, but they can’t get there unless that’s actually out in the public.”
But on the other side of the coin is Titleist, which sits back and can react to the market with its more flexible release cadence.
“Titleist is like the tiger that’s sitting under the shade, just waiting to see what’s happening in front of it until they decide it’s ready for their food, right?” Morrow said. ““And that’s why people are like, why did Titleist switch to a release schedule this year? Because they f****** can. Like, because they sat back, they were like, okay, we’ve got this, we’re going to do this, we’ve tested this, here’s the update to our thing, how it compares to others. We’re just going to sit here and wait until we think it’s ready for the market and people are going to actually see benefit from it and then we’ll release it.
“Turns out this year, it looks like, it appears like it’s going to be a little bit early.”
We still don’t know any technical details behind the new lineup, but there were 34 GTS drivers in play at the Valero Texas Open, making for an impressive two-week conversion rate.
Morrow guessed that Titleist is probably bullish on the new GTSs, leading to the earlier launch.
But there’s also good pressure on the R&D teams of companies with one-year cycles to constantly innovate.
“You don’t get a sit back for six months,” Wunder said. “Not that any of these companies, even the two-year launch cycle people, don’t sit back. But when you are constantly thinking about next year, next year, next year, next year, next year, I know for a fact that Callaway, TaylorMade, all those guys, I guarantee they’re all 75% cooked on the one for 2027 already. Because this is kind of when— we’re in April, so if I go back in time, we’d be seeing unpainted prototype heads on the truck kind of around now.
“It wouldn’t have a name on it. It would be a project name, and you’d see it wouldn’t have any paint on it, but you’d see it and you’d be able to hit it.”
