Mizuno’s Team JPX Gets the Pro Treatment

Written by: Jay Baker

You Play Famously, America.

Okay, I’ll admit it.  The title sounds like a rip off from Will Ferrell’s new Anchorman 2 movie if they had a golf channel bit.  What it really refers to is Mizuno Golf’s recent campaign, Team JPX, where they take average joes and turn them into everyday pros.  Does that sound too good to be true?  Well they did it and they were nice enough to invite Mygolfspy down to the culminating JPX Invitational last week in John’s Creek, Georgia.  Let me set the scene.

Reality of a Tour Pro

If you’re like me, you probably sit behind a desk all day, counting the seconds left until you can sneak away and get a quick 18 holes in before dark.  To pass a day full of counting, I often dream of what it would be like to live the life of a Tour Pro.  The private jets, 5 star golf courses, luxury hotels, free equipment, playing golf 8 days a week, top-level instruction, Bentley courtesy cars, a liger named Meriwether (okay, that might be a different fantasy), and all the tees you can break.

Unfortunately, I know that my daydreams are far from reality. If you’re not  a member of the top 200 OWGR, the life is not as romantic as the picture I painted above.  Missed cuts, long rides in a smelly Winnebago, 8 people to a room at the Admiral Benbow Inn, rarely getting to see your family, and begging tour reps for a sleeve of balls is a more accurate detail of so many pros.  (Please re-read the last paragraph while playing Sarah McLachlan’s Angel, animal shelter song, in the background for full effect).

 Game Improvement Professionals

Where am I going with this you ask and what does this have to do Mizuno Golf?  Well, Mizuno decided to kick off a brand awareness campaign for their JPX 825 lineup this year by taking 12 average golfers and giving them the high life of a Tour Pro from the second paragraph without all the crap from the third paragraph.  Everybody thinks of Mizuno as making some of the most buttery feeling, your words not mine, irons in the industry when in fact Mizuno also makes some of the most playable game improvement irons well.  In order to get the word out, Mizuno selected players of all ages, abilities, male, and female to create a team of “game improvement professionals.”

The selection process started with Lee Baughman who was picked by Golf Digest in a separate related casting call contest.  Lee had his first indoctrination into the life of a tour star in Florida with Luke Donald, Jonathan Byrd, Chucky Three Sticks, and Stacy Lewis.  The other 11 participants were picked through the website playfamously.com after they demoed JPX 825 equipment at participating retailers.  On the website, golfers were asked to submit feedback through essays, photos, and videos.  They were also asked to submit PED testing and give up their first child.  Okay, I may made that last part up to make myself feel better about being too lazy to go online and enter the contest.  Mizuno made it super easy and I have no excuse for not entering.

The team roster includes Lee Baughman, Steve Gierer, Rob Cohen, Josh Ray, William Cuebas, JB Phillips, Michelle French, Casey Parent, Joel Harrison, Tim Gaestel, Phil Talamo and eventual JPX Invitational Champion Lynette Fitzgerald.  The aforementioned players all were added to Mizuno’s staff web page as well as receiving custom fit JPX irons, JPX wedges, JPX woods, staff bag, clothing, accessories, and teaching from master professional Gary Wiren.  Rumor is Gary used to teach President Thomas Jefferson when he was in office. [Citation needed.]

 The Final Showdown

Once Mizuno assembled the final roster, the only thing left was a Royal Rumble style survivor match where 12 walk in, but only 1 walks out.  Actually they all walked out, but that seems a lot less anti-climactic.  Mizuno held the first annual JPX invitational at Country Club of the South in John’s Creek, Georgia which is near their headquarters North of Atlanta.  For those of you wondering ‘why not East Lake’, apparently FedEx and Coca Cola are holding some sort of corporate outing there this week.

The players got their first glimpse of a Tour Pro’s life as they arrived two and a half hours before they teed off.  I’ve never been at the course more than 15 minutes before I had to tee off.  The JPX Team members were interviewed and had their pictures taken for complete authenticity.  Even TMZ was at the course hanging around the fire hydrants, waiting…

After lunch and a short presentation by Chuck Couch, the players teed off at 12:15 to see who was the ultimate Game Improvement Professional.  To keep the playing field level, handicaps were applied.  Teri Hatcher’s former classmate Lynette Fitzgerald from Reston, Virginia edged out the other 11 professionals with a score of NET 72, even par.

The event was a huge success and why wouldn’t it be?  The JPX team members are just like you and me.  With all due respect to world economics, birth of children, quantum mechanics, and bacon, nothing in this galaxy is more important than golf to us.  We are all struggling golfers trying to get better regardless if we shoot 72 or 102.  Mizuno is just trying to do their best by providing not only the most advanced players equipment, but the most advanced game improvement equipment as well.  In closing, Mizuno’s JPX team proved that we should never settle because there is a Tour Pro deep inside every one of us.  Go play famously, America.