Check out King's Thursday webcast for TaylorMade's new Burner 2.0 irons.
New Burner 2.0 Irons Unveiled from TaylorMade Golf on Vimeo.
The upgrade of the dramatically successful Burner iron of 2009 will be about increasing ball speed (distance) again, while improving the look, control and playability of the shorter irons. Indeed, iron innovation in general is a broadly expanding area of research, as Max Adler details in the October issue of Golf Digest.But aside from King's enthusiasm for the technology of his company's new irons, what's much more compelling is his enthusiasm for the future of golf technology. A day earlier, he answered my question about the future of innovation by suggesting the USGA and R&A, golf's rulemaking bodies, "take a more practical approach" to rules decisions in the future, and that he was encouraged by the plans for the upcoming USGA-R&A manufacturers meeting in Vancouver to discuss rule-making procedures. King said on Wednesday that "golf will innovate as rapidly as any other industry," and that while the last 10 years of innovation at TaylorMade have seen an unprecedented pace of product introduction, the next 10 years "we will increase the level of introductions." Because, he said, consumers demand it.
Hard not to get swept up in it. Steve Jobs would have been proud. One wonders, though, if we would have ever gotten the iPod, let alone the iPhone and the iPad, if the USGA were controlling Jobs' industry the way it monitors King's.
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