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Golf's Secret Weapon: A Set of Miura Irons Hand-Forged in Japan
By Michael Buteau
June 13 (Bloomberg) -- A world away from the U.S. Open equipment trailers of golf's biggest clubmakers, a man hunches over a grinding wheel, quietly aiding some of the game's top players.
Katsuhiro Miura and his family-owned Miura Golf Inc. have been shaping hand-forged clubs for three decades in Himeji, Japan, where craftsmen once pounded steel into samurai swords.
Without a formal presence or a single endorsement contract at the Open, which starts this week at Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburgh, the work of the 67-year-old Miura is well known. Retief Goosen and Jose Maria Olazabal used his clubs in major victories.
``From what I've seen all these years, what he did really stands out,'' said Olazabal, one of golf's most finicky equipment critics, who used Miura clubs to win his first Masters Tournament title in 1994. ``He was very, very meticulous.''
Miura Golf sells its own custom irons for about $2,000 a set and provides what it calls ``professional discounts'' for top-ranked players, whose clubs can cost far more. While it doesn't sponsor any golfers, Miura clubs have been used in 25 Japanese Tour victories.
The company also has forged irons for manufacturers such as Adidas AG's TaylorMade and Fortune Brands Inc.'s Titleist. Because of such branding, players often aren't aware of who is behind their clubs, even when they win.
``I haven't met him,'' Goosen said when asked about the Miura-forged clubs he used to win the 2001 U.S. Open. ``I didn't know he did my clubs. I hit it pretty solid that week.''
Solid Feel
A solid feel is what Miura is known for, and a forging process developed over 47 years by the company's founder is what sets the clubs apart, Bill Holowaty, a Miura vice president, said in an interview in the company's North American office in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Forged clubs are made from steel that is heated and pounded into shape, smoothed and finished on grinding wheels like the ones in Miura's shop, 6,600 miles (11,000 kilometers) from Oakmont.
Most forged clubs are struck twice with a forging hammer. Miura's irons get one more striking, creating a tighter molecular structure in the steel, which under a microscope looks more like a jar filled with sand than a jar filled with marbles, Holowaty said.
``There are fewer voids in the steel, creating a more solid feel,'' Holowaty said.
TaylorMade, based in Carlsbad, California, worked with Miura's 25-employee company for four years for its Tour Preferred line of RAC CB 300 irons. The partnership ended in 2004 because Miura's 14-step forging process doesn't lend itself to mass production, TaylorMade spokesman John Steinbach said.
50 Sets
Miura Golf makes only about 50 sets of irons each week, or about 1 percent of the output of major manufacturers such as TaylorMade or Titleist.
Miura himself typically can be found sitting in the last chair along the company's line of grinding wheels, with his two sons, Yoshitaka and Shinei, working alongside. His wife, Akemi, often rejects clubheads for the slightest imperfection.
Described by Japanese golf media as having the ``hands of God,'' Miura is a master craftsman, not just a club maker, Olazabal said. In his 1994 Masters victory, Olazabal used clubs forged by Miura under the name of Maruman & Co., a Japanese club company.
``He was quite serious about it and took his time with every step,'' Olazabal said. ``There was no rushing anything.''
Purists
As many club companies create oversized, mass-produced clubheads by pouring metal into casts, Miura's forging process remains an anomaly. With a thin edge on the top of the clubhead and a straight connection where the shaft meets the face, the classic look of Miura clubs tends to appeal more to purists and highly skilled players than average golfers leaning toward ease of use.
``Most players look at them and say, `I can't hit those blades,''' Holowaty said. ``Mr. Miura would argue the other way. A well-made forged blade is actually easier and more forgiving, and produces a more precise strike than oversized clubs.''
Tiger Woods, the world's top-ranked golfer, who is paid about $20 million a year to endorse Nike equipment, said at a news conference last month that he never has used Miura clubs or met Miura himself. Beth Gast, a spokeswoman for Nike Inc.'s golf division, said in an e-mail that Miura never has made clubs for the Beaverton, Oregon-based company.
Miura said in an e-mail that he has made wedges for Nike, and his company's Web site says that in the late 1990s he forged irons for Woods under the Titleist name, then a Woods sponsor.
Miura, who won't comment directly about Woods, made 500 sets of limited-edition Tiger Woods Titleist models exclusively for the Japanese market in the late 1990s, Holowaty said.
For golfers such as Olazabal who have won with the clubs, there's no denying the secret to Miura's success.
``The Japanese people regard their work as if it was a piece of art,'' Olazabal said. ``That's what really stood out. He paid attention to the smallest of details.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Buteau in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, at mbuteau@bloomberg.net Last Updated: June 13, 2007 00:04 EDT |
