Taylormade at the 2011 Japan Golf Fair!

Every year Taylormade Japan has one of the most popular booths at the Japan Golf Fair. This year, was no different. Popularity aside, there certainly were other differences, the most obvious being EVERYTHING was WHITE. With a newly relocated booth, easily more than twice as large as last year’s booth (which was black in color I might add), TM Japan also brought along the most employees by a long shot.  Besides their irons and wedges, every club, putters included were white 2011 models, much to the fascination of the Japanese golfer.

TM Japan is easily one of the most popular and dominant sales brands in Japan. They very well know this and take certainly play this to their advantage. Frequent model updates with a mash of Japan Only products every year, keep consumers spending their yen and anticipating the next release. New designs, new technologies (whether they perform better or the same), seem to draw in the Japanese who actually think a 60,000 yen TM driver (or 720.00 USD) is actually on the cheaper side of drivers in Japan.

Along with the worldwide R11 models (the JDM models do have different shafts), the all new Burner Superfast 2.0″J” model, which is Japan Only hence the “J”, was heavily showcased.  The J’s feature an all new design Burner Superfast which is broken into two models, a more average golfer Red model and a Silver model for the better player.  The Red models feature lighter weight, more draw biased heads and longer shaft lengths to focus on distance while the Silver models are heavier, square faced and shorter length clubs for control/stability and workability for the faster more aggressive swinger. The new J driver has one of the more shallow back heads TM has produced (but still maintains the semi deep face). It’s head shape is more reminiscent of the very popular 2007 Burner, which is rounder and not nearly as triangular as Burner Superfasts of recent years. TM has also redesigned the face of the Burner to feature a bulge with 16* radius and roll with 12*. This is meant to reduce distance loss and loss of direction on miss hits.  A all new ridged sole on all the new J clubs help with aerodynamics and reducing friction (in the case of the FW’s and UT) on contact with the ground.

Taylormade’s Rossa Ghost putters were very popular worldwide so TM decided to release Ghost Tour models for the Japanese market including the Fontana, Maranello and Daytona. To follow that up there will also be 2011 Ghost Raylor putters which look very much like the Red Stripe putters except white and black. These feature the new Surlyn Pure Roll insert face and feel very soft at impact.

On the irons side, I have to admit I was disappointed to not see new JDM forged irons like a TP Forged or new Burner Forged or Burner TP irons, all which have always been Japan only. I spoke to one of the managers there and he explained that any new JDM iron release will come later this year, so as to not steal away the thunder from the standard global models, the Tour Preferred MB MC and CB which are being released right now.

Chris has together an awesome TSG video on the TM Booth as well as with Stew testing the new R11 and Burner Superfast 2.0J drivers.

While Stew surprisingly did not mind the looks of the drivers considering he said he wouldn’t play a white driver, the R11 did not give him as much distance as the other drivers he tested today. The R11 had a very low launch and did not produce the carry we would have liked, while the Burner 2.0J fared slightly better and had one drive get out to about 290y.

Check out the images from the show for TM by clicking on the album below!

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