Originally Posted by
phrantic09
That may be true of the journeyman tour pros. But if memory serves, during the earlier part of his career, Tiger was playing with Miura forged irons stamped with a Nike logo because they were what worked for him. I realize this is likely the exception not the rule.
No, they were a mixture of Mizuno MP 14 and MP 29s stamped with the Swoosh. He also used those terrible Nike drivers as did Rory McKilroy. As it was in those days, a player would sign a contract, then try/learn/adapt to playing the company's equipment in the off-season. Tweaking would go on, but eventually the player would have to play the clubs or the contract rewritten. At least Tiger got to keep the Titleist putter. Nike is/was a marketing/shoe company. They didn't even make their own clubs/balls until well into some of the pro contracts careers. They just copied everything until those drivers and some of the irons finally came out. Those drivers were so bad, a lot of contracts had to get rewritten. The actual equipment companies though, the players have to play one of their models, tweaked or not, at least on Friday. The poster child for bad equipment choices/endorsement deals would have to be Lee Janzen. He might be before your time.