The new shape "Theater Blade" has both feel and forgiveness, an achievement of functional beauty. Mr. Jun Ikeda, who is in charge of development, tells the story of TB-5 Forged and who it was created for.
Gen Nakajima (right) of the Fourteen Sales Department, who became the target player of "TB-5 FORGED", and Jun Ikeda, who is in charge of product planning, strove to become a professional golfers when they were young and have honed their skills with the same fire. At the age of 45, Ikeda and Nakajima want forgiveness from the player's point of view without compromise of look and feel.
The number attached to the model name symbolizes the function of Fourteen Iron. We have developed from the most severe "9" to "7", "5", and the easiest "3", but the "TB-5 FORGED" introduced this time is located in the moderately easy "5" series.
First of all, the meaning of planning a product by soft iron forging is the softness of the feel. The length of contact time (softness) between the face and the ball, which is transmitted from the impact, is linked to the feeling of operation of the ball, so it is mainly supported by veteran golfers. And in order to have a moderately gentle functional feeling of the theme "5" series, it was necessary to first target one player. Fourteen always starts by targeting one player when developing a product. When developing the gentle "5" with soft iron forged irons, the target was Moto Nakajima of the company's sales department.
Nakajima joined the company at the same time as I, Ikeda, and originally aimed to become a professional golfer, pursuing the same goals and honing his skills. Over time, we have now graduated from each other's competition, but we are perfect as target players. This is because veteran players like Nakajima, who are particular about clubs, want to make golf in their leisure time easy to play.
But the point was how to make it functional. It is not easy to say that it is easy to combine the feel of hitting and the function. With the cavity structure required to make the forgiveness functional, the face thickness becomes thin, and it is far from the softness of the muscle back. The days of repeating trial and error continued.
"Don't think about things with common sense"
The teachings of bamboo grove overturn the cavity structure
It became an opportunity
About a year and a half ago, every day I continued to create the unseen "TB-5 FORGED". Since this product was the first club I was in charge of in a new planning team, I was enthusiastic about creating something that had never been seen before, but above all, the founder Takamitsu Takebayashi always told us. The activity attitude inherited by Fourteen, "doubt the common sense," made me positive. While searching for a new shape by grasping the idea based on the existing model, the development goal was to overturn the common sense that the gentle soft iron forged iron has a cavity structure and effectively give it a partial wall thickness. I'm just grateful to the development team for responding perfectly to my unreasonable demands.
The surplus wall thickness that collapsed the toe heel wall of the cavity structure is added to the sole part to lower the center of gravity. In addition, the distance of the center of gravity, the depth of the center of gravity, and the moment of inertia can be intentionally designed by allowing the peripheral wall thickness to flow in the toe-heel direction on the back side of the face, and at the same time, the impact vibration can be effectively controlled to improve the feel of hitting. The new shape "Theater Blade", which is the key to the function of "TB-5 FORGED", has been completed.
"TB-5 FORGED" combines the "moderate forgiveness" of the 5 series with the "feeling and beauty" of a muscle back with a new concept that is typical of Fourteen, and goes to Nakajima's club that has been built for a long career. I was able to satisfy the commitment of.
Thanks to you, "TB-5 FORGED" is still out of stock in Japan at this moment (available in North America). I am glad that the iron, which has been completed by making Nakajima a stable target player and pursuing functional improvements, has sympathized with many golfers in the same situation. In the future, as with "TB-5 FORGED" in Fourteen clubs, we will continue to promote projects that allow amateur golfers to devote themselves to pursuing functions that are at the core of what they really need, regardless of trends.
TB-5 Forged is available throughout North America. You can even try before you buy through our Direct Demo Program. Learn more
