HISTORY & HERITAGE
Honma is known for its ultra-premium clubs, but there’s plenty more on offer...
One short transfer later, we were pulling up outside Honma’s Sakata plant where 350 people work. First impressions were that this was a functional facility rather than somewhere glitzy, which I liked. With Honma, the glitzy part comes when the clubs are sitting fully finished on the shelves or in a golfer’s bag; what comes before are hours and hours of hard work and Honma’s trademark attention to the minutest of detail.
The only flash elements in Sakata were the showroom and museum to where we were ushered on arrival. This housed not only the very latest products in Honma’s Beres, Bezeal and Tworld747 ranges, but also a back catalogue of clubs from throughout the company’s history, along with tour pro photos sitting proudly alongside.
Although the brand may not be widely known over here, the Honma tour victory count runs to 39 titles in the past three years alone, mainly on the Japan and Asian Tours where most of Team Honma play, but also on the LPGA Tour on account of the successes of Major Champions Shanshan Feng and So-yeon Ryu. The brand has had some presence on the European Tour too over the last two years in the hands of Hideto Tanihara, a 14-time winner in Japan who made the semi-finals of 2017’s WGC-DELL Technologies Match Play and finished 27th on the Race to Dubai that year.
Breaking new ground
Now, under new Chinese ownership, the brand has its sights set more firmly than ever on making serious inroads into the UK and European market, with certain big names touted to be playing Honma clubs on tour in 2019. The brand was also headline sponsor of November’s Honma Hong Kong Open, and as we ventured into the factory we were treated to a sneak glimpse of a set due to be shipped to another top player for testing.
The brand started out in 1959 when the Tsurumi Golf Centre Company was established by the Honma brothers, with the first Honma clubs hitting the market three years later. Since then, countless prestigious models have rolled out of the Sakata plant, with some of the most memorable names being 1982’s Prancer irons, 1995’s Super BIG-LB hollow persimmon woods and 2003’s Space Voyager putter.
In 1999, Honma released the Twin Marks franchise and in 2005, the Beres Series was first launched, a premium franchise that remains a core part of
the range today. Beres clubs are graded from two- to five-star, with the type of carbon graphite shaft dictating the star-rating, along with other bespoke options, such as gold or platinum plating. On a visit to one of Honma’s city-centre stores, we saw a five-star Beres model on the shelf, complete with platinum adornments, gold grip plugs… and a $45,000 price tag! We asked a sales assistant how many sets he sold a year. Five or six apparently!
Broader appeal
This super-super-premium product may be what sets Honma apart, but while Beres remains the premier series in the Honma collection, 2013 saw the Tour World range appear, the forerunner of 2019’s Tworld747 models. This new range has brought Honma’s craftsmanship and manufacturing expertise to a more affordable pricepoint, with iron sets from £969, fairway woods from £309 and drivers from £559. Yes, it’s still high-end, as you would expect, but it does mean that there are now Honma options much closer to the pricing of other top brands than in the past.