In April of this year, The Tour Spot took a moment to look at how quickly Miyazaki Shafts was gaining acceptance on professional golf tours around the globe. If you didn’t get a chance to read that article, you can check it out here. Now that the 2011 PGA Tour season is winding down, we thought we’d take a look at a few players with Miyazaki in their bag and the success they have seen during the season. We’ll also talk about some exciting developments at Miyazaki that we’ve recently learned about.
First off, let’s look at three players on the PGA Tour that are at completely different stages in their careers, but share two things in common: PGA Tour wins and Miyazaki shafts.
One of the players that The Tour Spot spoke about in April was David Toms. At that time, it appeared that this PGA Tour veteran was in the process of revitalizing his career. Amazingly, Toms did break through with a hard fought second place finish at The Players Championship, followed by a win at the Crown Plaza Invitational. In total, he’s had six top-10 finishes this year, including a t-4 at the PGA Championship. Toms uses three Miyazaki shafts, including the C Kua 39 in his driver and he is currently 4th in driving accuracy on the PGA Tour.
Some may also know of another Miyazaki staffer that had some incredible success this year. His name is Keegan Bradley and he went from a virtual unknown to a lock for the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year. His 2011 season has been explosive with two wins, including a major victory at the PGA Championship. Like Toms, Keegan also uses three Miyazaki shafts, including the Kusala Blue in his driver, and he is averaging over 300 yards in driving distance this year. Here’s what Keegan is currently carrying in his bag:
Driver: Cleveland Launcher UltraLite TL 310 10.5° w/ Miyazaki Kusala Black Shaft
FW Wood: Cleveland Launcher FL 14° with a Miyazaki Kusala Black 83 shaft
Hybrids: Cleveland Launcher DST 18° with a Project X XHB6 shaft; Mashie 20.5° w/ Miyazaki C Kua shaft
Irons: Cleveland CG7 Tour (4-PW) with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue shafts
Wedges: Cleveland CG14 52°, 58° with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue shafts
Putter: Odyssey White Hot XG Sabretooth
Ball: Srixon Z-Star
The final player that we’d like to mention is a 2011 PGA Tour winner, but is actually a staffer for another equipment manufacturer. Fredrik Jacobson finally broke through and secured his first PGA Tour win at the Travelers Championship in June. He did this with Miyazaki shafts in his fairway woods. It was hard to miss the unique graphics of the Kusala Black shafts he was carrying. The victory was a long time coming for this journeyman that possesses a very effective, but somewhat unorthodox swing. One interesting statistic from the tournament is that Jacobson didn’t miss a single fairway during the final two rounds on the way to the win.
Now that we’ve highlighted the success of some professionals playing Miyazaki shafts, it only seems fitting that we discuss the success Miyazaki itself is seeing. When we last discussed the company’s acceptance on Tour, they had over 150 professionals worldwide using over 250 of their shafts. A mere five months later, The Tour Spot has learned that there are now over 200 players using over 400 shafts across the world’s professional tours. That rate of growth is spectacular and shows that Miyazaki is on a very large upswing. Stay tuned to The Tour Spot for future updates as we will be watching closely to see what the coming year brings for this company on the rise.
