Bryson DeChambeau’s driver is equipped with a LA Golf Tour AXS BLU 60 X shaft

When the seventh annual Dustin Johnson World Junior Golf Championship kicks off at TPC Myrtle Beach in March, there will be a new sponsor for the game, and Los Angeles Golf will take over the reins from Tokyo Fujikura.

DJ is an investor in LA Golf and a member of the board of high-end aftermarket shaft brands, so their decision to sponsor the game is not surprising. Founder Reed Dickens (Reed Dickens) believes that for an upstart brand hoping to disrupt the golf equipment market, supporting the event is a wise strategic move.  

Dickens is flipping through a few pages of the script he used to push Marucci Sports to the top of the charts in another sport of ball and stick. As the first CEO of Marucci, Dickens cultivated a niche baseball bat manufacturer born in the backyard shed of LSU sports trainers into a national brand.

Instead of paying athletes to promote the company's equipment, Dickens changed the script by allowing large early adopters like Albert Pujols, Buster Posey, and Jose Bautista to replace equity. Compass Diversified CODI, a listed private equity firm, acquired the company for $200 million last year.

"We really took the wood bat market like a storm. We took about 80% of the major league market from the Louisville baseball team and became the dominant force in professional baseball in less than five years," Dickens Say. 

When it comes to the metal bat part, Marucci Sports decided to fight a protracted battle. "When we launched the first aluminum bat, we were after the best youth travel players and the best high school players. Earlier, maybe in our second or third year, the top 100 high schools 80% of baseball prospects carry Marucci bats on their shoulders. Five or six years later, many have entered the major leagues," Dickens said.

Last year, 74 of the 90 players in the Dustin Johnson World Junior Golf Championships entered the top 100 U.S. junior players. Past winners include rising golf stars Aksey Bhatia and Tron Te Phillips, Nicholas Dunlap and Alexa Pano.

Dickens said: "These are the people we want them to remember our story and let them master our products."

LA Golf was established in 2018 after acquiring the assets and intellectual property rights of Matrix Shafts after taking over. Matrix produces high-end aftermarket axles in the United States and stock axles in China and Mexico. Dickens knew that he did not want to engage in the commodity shaft business, so his first step was to close foreign factories and focus on manufacturing high-quality shafts made in the United States, hand-finished, and small batches.

"Materials and processes are very similar to the way we make composite baseball bats, so I already know a lot about this method of manufacturing," Dickens added, noting that as an added benefit, the factory is 20 minutes away from his home and transportation convenient. Newport Beach.

Dickens then invited Jeff Meyer, a senior golf equipment engineer, who has worked in Loomis, Aldila, Titleist and most recently TPT golf clubs, leading the product design team. He told him to start with a blank sheet of paper and let him participate in the seminar's data-driven ideas. He then connected him to Bryson DeChambeau, who is the biggest golfer and a partner of the company to get professional feedback.

The end result is a proprietary design with a very hard midsection that promotes a more sporty swing, so golfers don’t have to relax or wait for the club to load before starting with the ball. In short, LA golf clubs allow golfers to swing more freely.

Dickens said: "Some people will say,'It feels like a telephone pole' the first time it swings. "Well, it may take a while to get used to, but being able to get rid of shoes is more fun than worrying about being a Fred Couples. Many," he added.

"One of the reasons that professional players don't swing as hard as they can is because they are not completely comfortable, they don't kill a fan or four feet tall. Therefore, most golfers swing around 85% each time. One of Sting Johnson’s biggest compliments to me is using our driver. This is the first time he feels 100% comfortable in his swing," Dickens said.

This product is not only suitable for professionals or casual players. They also have products for high handicap players who cannot withstand the hardness of the Bryson DeChambeau caliber, but all shafts produced by LA Golf are still centered on the mid-section design to achieve a harder and more sporty swing.

Dickens believes that the shaft space has matured because most shafts on the market today are still made of steel using outdated technology. He believes that Los Angeles Golf has a huge opportunity to continue to innovate and gain market share in men's and women's competitions.

"Big brands have ignored women's football. The stories and the level of disrespect and dismissal are shocking. We will definitely make LPGA the focus," Dickens said.

In the 12-hole duel at Wynn Golf Club in Las Vegas on Friday (4pm EST), DeChambeau’s "fifth game" with his archenemy Brooks Koepka will also be a shaft. war. DeChambeau’s American-made LA Golf graphite tubes connect his hands to every club head in his bag from driver to putter, compared to Koepka’s Mitsubishi, Fujikura and True Temper shafts.