11-in-1 club aims to revolutionise golf
A Taranaki businessman is attempting to make golf more accessible for the Average Joe with just one club.
Simon Moore has spent the last two decades pondering the idea of an adjustable golf club, which allows a golfer to play without multiple clubs.
In one year, he and a small team have designed and manufactured the Urquhart Golf Club, which can be used as anything from a putter to driving iron with either 11 or six settings.
‘‘We’ve done this in less than a year, and I simply wouldn’t have been able to do it when I first thought of it.’’
New Plymouth-based Moore named the club after the first inventor of an adjustable club back in the 1890s.
A member of the New Plymouth Golf Club, Moore has been a keen golfer for more than 25 years but found the game had become inaccessible for many due to the cost and amount of gear, including up to 14 clubs.
‘‘In the beginning, golf was one club,’’ he said.
‘‘The vast majority of people playing golf is playing for fun.’’
He was able to fund the $500,000 it took to research and develop the club through his roofing company, Flexiroof.
It launched on Kickstarter in mid-January, and then at the Orlando PGA Golf Show, the world’s premier golf trade show, in the next two weeks.
The club is not Moore’s first innovation when it comes to golfing.
He developed the world’s first belly putter brand – an adjustable length putter – in 2003.
He then designed and patented a technology and licensed it to Taylormade Golf, again an adjustable length solution.
Thirteen years ago, Moore featured in television show Dragon’s Den New Zealand demonstrating an earlier iteration of an adjustable golf club.
His company at the time, Puku Golf, was awarded $300,000, and the patent was bought by Nike Golf.
Both Tiger Woods and Rory
McIlroy used the driver with this technology.
However, he did not want Woods or McIlroy to use his latest design. He wanted it to be used by everyday people, who did not want to lug a bag of 14 clubs around the course or spend the money on a set of clubs.
‘‘All we are going to do is expand golf,’’ he said.
He had initially ordered 2700 clubs to be made, at a sale price of $450 each.
Next year he will develop a kid’s club and a left-handed club.
‘‘This isn’t a golf club, it’s almost a golf revolution,’’ he said.