Willie I don't know if this is important or not??? Or even worth your time in reading
I was talking about getting some of the Scratch wedges with one of my buddies (he uses Epon and Vega) and he sent me the following in an email, kinda long but I enjoyed the read.
I believe it's from Golf to Impress? As such, non of the opinions are mine just information one way and the other
The controvery continues and for those who know me I welcome this sort of debate. I first want to say this is nothing personal against Scratch Golf or Ari Techner. As a person Ari is a wonderful guy, very positive and helpful to all that encouter him. Nothing personal Ari and you're welcome to come in here and debate this with us or on the TSG forum. Our members are NOT the fanboy type that will back me up wrong or right. We have a mature crowd that is of a different demographic than other golf websites.
Some are asking what are my credentials? Without tooting my own horn to much I will simply say I have been deep involved in the Japanese golf industry for about 8 years. I've lived in Japan and travel there at least 3 times a year. For those who doubt, please find another person who has been inside the Endo factory multiple times, been inside Miura and just about every grind house and foundry from Osaka to Ichikawa cho and Himeji. I'm able to pick up the phone or make contact with Japanese engineers who run the forging presses, grind the golf clubs, and produce the CAD. The contacts go up to some of the executives on personal level. Outside of Japan, I have been inside Taiwan & Chinese factories some of the biggest.
Last thing I will say is since TSG started 8 years ago the amount of revenue added to the Japan Golf Indusry, not only our TSG sales, but sales of importers from Korea, China, S.E Asia, Middle East and other countries is estimated at over a half billion U.S dollars. I wish even a fraction of that was our sales, but it was our global marketing and the exposure to other countries that created the market and demand for these clubs. That is where the leverage and connections began.
Ari had a response to my last write up in another golf forum: Click "Read More" to check it out....
Ari Wrote:
That entire writeup is completely untrue. We used to work with Chris from Tour Spec Golf but stopped after he told me over and over again that he only cared about making sales and how much money he was making from a product and kept trying to get me to give him better margins so he "could" promote us more. He says what he thinks will help him sell the products that he is selling and has told me that specifically more than once.
We pay extra for our forgings that are made from 1018 carbon steel compared to what we would pay for 1025 or something harder. We even have higher minimums because we use an extra forging step. We use 1018 carbon steel because in our testing most players preferred the feel of it compared to the other metals that we tested. This specifically has helped us land Tour players Ryan Moore and Cristie Kerr who both cite feel as the main reason they play our clubs. I have been to the foundry in Japan many times and watched the whole process. The only Scratch clubs that are made in China are our 8620 wedges which are cast from 8620 "carbon" steel.
Ari Techner
President/CEO
Scratch Golf Clubs
ari_techner@scratchgolf.comOk so Ari has been in the foundry that produces his forged clubs. This is true. It was several of years ago and I know this because I saw the factory rep at the golf show and they said that we just missed them. In Ari's respone he does nothing to debate the specifics of my statements. He simply says that the only clubs that are made in China are 8620 wedges...
If he read our article, which I know he has several times, he would see that I don't claim they make their so-called 1018 heads in China. I actually saw their heads being produced in Japan! What I am disputing is that it's not made of 1018 because I think it's made of 1025 or S25C. The factories that produce his product doesn't offer 1018 they use S25C JIS. There is no JIS 1018, so if he wants to continue to say he is using an acceptable quality of 1018 its not true. Scratch used 1018 as a marketing angle from the start. Maybe they didn't know that 1018 is a not a good material to use for golf clubs, but in reality I am saying they use JIS S25C and that is a much better material than 1018. From a metallurgy stand point i just talked their product up, but from a marketing stand point they have been exposed.
I have confirmation from multiple reputable sources even at the materials supply level. If he wants to stand by his claims of using 1018, he will have to admit of using a very poor quality material for golf clubs.
Let's look at this a different way. Ari says they have higher minimums due to the extra forging step. May I ask what exactly is this extra step so that I can research and confirm it with our contacts in Japan? Scratch Golf claimed to have 1018 7 years ago when they were unknown and didn't have minimums. Another way to look at this is why haven't any other Japanese golf companies adopted1018 and this so called extra forging step? Why has Scratch claimed "Ishihara Forged" when Mr. Ishihara never had a forging press. Mr. Ishihara worked from a garage workshop with his family before passing away. In fact after Mr. Ishihara died Scratch continued with Ishihara forged. There is proof of that all over the web. Did Scratch not know or were they misleading the public? Why were we told that the TSG wedge was 1018 Ishihara forged when it was produced of S25C at Kyoei?
Here is my opinion in a nutshell:
- They use S25C for their 1018 wedges (my opinion: based on the fact that there is no 1018 forged in Japan.)
- Ishihara was not a foundry, yet Scratch stated otherwise countless times (fact)
- They lied about our TSG wedge being 1018 Ishihara forged (fact)
In regards to his comments about me only caring about sales, that is a lie. I will tell you the truth! Scratch has Great Margins! The brands we offer currently have much worse margins. When a product is open model meaning not an original design and they simply stamp their logo on it, the profit margin for scratch is significantly better vs brands who invest in R&D and produce molds that cost at least 8 million yen ( 80,000 USD ) per iron set and requiring 2000+ set's to sell to break even. If you need proof of that simply look at the same head as the AR-1 offered by Geotech at less than half the price. All of their heads have been used in Japan for almost 10 years and are always near half the price that scratch sells them for. So yes Scratch has great margins!
Those who know me understand that I am critical on quality from autos to food to golf clubs and I have even cut brands from our line up because of this. That's the reason why we had problems promoting Scratch due to quality issues. This has changed, I will be the first to admit that the product is on par now with others, but 5 years ago this was not the case. This has been the situation with many brands. For example it happend with Yururi. We removed the line, they fixed the product, we added it back. Same with George Spirits we had QC issues they fixed it and we plan on brining it back. Sky Dream Jump is fixing the issues as well so we can move forward to promote the brand with confidence. When you spend $200 bucks on a wedge it sure as hell be better made than the $99.00 wedge in your local proshop especially if TSG is going to stand behind it.
So in the end let's stick to facts that can be backed up or this will simply go on and on. Ari submit me a materials certificate from the factory that produces your heads and I will confrim it. But outside of that we know you were not truthful about Ishihara forged & telling us our TSG wedge was made of 1018.
Anyhow We are submitting samples to the METL (Metals Engineering and Testing Laboratory in Phoenix) to get to the bottom of this. Not only Scratch golf clubs but metal heads from about ten different brands and we will be more than happy to apologize and report all findings if we are incorrect.
So there you have it...or not lol
I'm sorry for the length of the post but I didn't want to cut anything incase it biased the op's intent.
I know I'll be trying out Scratch wedges if I find them on ebay. I have Clevelands with my own grind and I think I'm quite happy with them...tried Miura, Epon and Vega and not made the jump away from them so it'd be churlish of me not to try the Scratch should the opertunity arrive.
Kent
Topic: 8620 Wedges (Read 1491 times)