What’s Next, TaylorMade?

Written By: Tony Covey

TaylorMade’s unmetal (yet still mostly metal) M1 driver is selling well, despite its $500 price tag and the dwindling daylight that signals the end of the golf season for those of us for whom snow is as regrettably inevitable as another Lena Dunham nude scene.

Avert your eyes and acknowledge that this is welcome news for TaylorMade. The M1 vibe is mostly good and there might even be a modicum of trust restoration underway as well. Let’s pause that part of the discussion and see how this plays out for the next little while.

Let’s look at the big picture.

The PGA Show isn’t far off, and even if the cadence of the equipment industry has slowed a bit, TaylorMade, like many of its competitors, is happiest when there’s new product on the shelves in Q1 of the new year.

No matter how well M1 performs in your hands or mine, five-hundred bucks is prohibitive. For most, though not all brands, higher-priced offerings need to be offset by something a little more attainable. The list of companies on Golf Datatech’s monthly market share reports that thrive exclusively at the five-hundred-dollar price point numbers exactly zero.

So as the inevitable rumors about the next TaylorMade budget driver begin to swirl, it’s reasonable to wonder what the company will offer up as a compliment (or detriment) to M1.

Something else is almost certainly coming.

Here are some ideas for what TaylorMade might do next:

AeroBurner 2 – The Deuce

AeroBurner wasn’t well received.

Would TaylorMade take another shot at a speed-based approach to what amounts to its alternative driver market? Imagine Hank Haney talking an updated version of Swing Faster as golfers consider whether or not to embrace yet another high spinning and unforgiving TaylorMade driver designed to produce one monster drive at the expense of 9 others.

A second crack at it would almost certainly produce better results, but a rational mind remains hopeful this scenario isn’t reality. The market doesn’t need this.

Pour Water on the M1

For those of you comfortably positioned in front of a roulette wheel, for better or worse, here’s your black.

Bet on it.

Recent history is rife with examples of TaylorMade offering diet versions of its flagship products.

What would that look like this time around?

Perhaps a M1 clone with only a single weight track, but which  SLiDeR do you yank?

The smartest variant of this particular flavor of weak sauce is to retain front to back adjustability. At least throw some more weight in the track, push the CG farther back.

Alas, left to right has always been TaylorMade’s thing, however; so that’s the one that likely stays.

If you’re going all-in, I’d put your money on a driver with absolutely no movable weights.

Whatever the potential execution, what we’re talking about is an M1 with fewer features and maybe even a made for shaft just for good measure.

Pay less, get less isn’t a particularly imaginative (or appealing) play, and would certainly suggest either an inability or unwillingness on TaylorMade’s part to reach a segment of golfers beyond guys who really want an M1 but don’t want to spend $500.

TaylorMade has better options.

Actually Offer Something Distinctly Different…that Golfers Want

TaylorMade has never been particularly good at differentiating its metalwoods based on anything more than price, paint, and movable parts. AeroBurner was a reasonable attempt, but within the larger history of TaylorMade Golf, it’s an almost singular anomaly. Also, not for anything, from a performance perspective, it’s the wrong kind of differentiation.

I’m not exactly what you’d call a Callaway guy, but I love the fact that each product in their extensive driver lineup is different to the point where the consumer can actually recognize, appreciate, and maybe even benefit from the distinctions.

Double Black Diamond is different from Great Big Bertha. OptiForce/V-Series has, at least for now, been folded into Great Big Bertha, but when it was its own thing, it was distinctly different from the rest of the lineup.

Even if I believe X2 Hot and XR were as much about hitting a price point as they were about hitting a performance specification; if your budget limits you to XR, you don’t walk away feeling like you were forced to settle for Bertha light.

Contrast that to what TaylorMade has done with its recent B-lines.

SLDR S – new paint and a glued hosel, but otherwise it’s exactly a SLDR.

JetSpeed wasn’t SLDR…not exactly (it did’t slide), but there’s really not much more you can say about it. It was still low/forward CG, and from a playability perspective it wasn’t exactly distinct. It too existed largely for guys who couldn’t afford the SLDR.

So how can TaylorMade differentiate?

Looking at where successful competitive products are positioned, a few scenarios make sense to me.

Think G30/FLY-Z. I’m talking about a playable, high MOI offering that would never be mistaken for the red-headed stepchild of the TaylorMade family.

How about something desirable that can stand on its own?

It’s fair to suggest that this is the type of product TaylorMade has seldom produced for the B-tier. More relevant to the discussion, TaylorMade has continuously tried to spin itself as a brand that caters to better players. Serving that illusion has prevented the company from showing any real interest in, let alone actually producing, anything that approaches best in class forgiveness.

I’m not sure what I’m describing is a driver TaylorMade knows how to make.

If that’s not the path forward, maybe it’s ultralight (Wilson, Cleveland, Callaway Opti/V-Series), although I doubt the market is there. The alternative is a well-balanced product. I’d suggest a totally middle of the road, safely-playable-for-a-significant-number-of-golfers offering like the Titleist 915 or Callaway Great Big Bertha. Like M1, but just a bit more forgiving..

I’m told that this is a new TaylorMade with fresh ideas. It remains to be seen whether or not that means a company willing to acknowledge that, for some golfers, forgiveness and greater playability just makes sense. It’s a message that runs contrary to loft-up/low forward story of the last couple of seasons, but again, we’ve been promised a new, in-tune-with-the-consumer, version of TaylorMade.

Here’s your first test.

Maybe Just Do Nothing

This final option is an unlikely one.

Between M1 460 and M1 430, TaylorMade has a decent percentage of the market covered. With old inventory remaining an issue, would TaylorMade exercise extreme restraint, leave well-enough alone, and let M1 stand on its own?

What’s the probability of that actually happening?

While we’re talking, you wanna lay odds Lena Dunham keeps her top on? It’s what many of us want, but it’s probably not happening.

So What Will TaylorMade Do Next?

I think I know what’s coming next, and I’d really like to see TaylorMade makes the most of this opportunity to do something different, make a real statement, and re-establish itself as an innovation leader.

Then again, what I think and what I want doesn’t matter.

As Nike says, The Consumer Decides. So I want to know what you, our reader and golf consumer think.

What would you like to see TaylorMade offer in its next sub-$400 driver? Do you believe it’s what the company will offer?