So What’s With Callaway?
First it was Callaway Golf’s suit against Acushnet for alleged patent infringement by Titleist Pro V1 balls which resulted in an injunction against Acushnet and which Acushnet is appealing. The short term result however was forcing Titleist to reformulate the Pro V1 and pulling the offending models from store shelves.
Acushnet contends the original injunction coming out of a jury trial should never have been issued since the U.S. Patent Office ruled the four patents in question invalid. Callaway continues to push the issue seemly being of the mind since they can’t beat Acushnet in the marketplace the courtroom is the next best place.
Now Callaway is being stood up against the wall by Taylormade for advertisements run for the Diablo driver claiming it to be nine yards longer than the Taylormade Burner driver. I won’t get into the particulars but according to Taylormade, Callaway set up conditions in the comparison test insuring the Diablo would win by using launch angles and spin rates real life golfers can’t achieve.
Taylormade has produced a video detailing what it says are Callaway’s numerous misleading statements in the subject advertisements and pointing out a simple fact; as with Acushnet in ball business, Taylormade is the number one driver brand by a long margin. They have more driver sales worldwide than Callaway, Nike and Titleist combined.
Further Taylormade commissioned an independent lab test of the two drivers under swing and launch conditions reflecting those of real world golfers and showed the Burner was longer than the Diablo.
Which of course is not the point of this column.
The point is, what’s with Callaway?
They make good products, have achieved respect as a company and especially as a marketer of clubs but in these two instances Callaway gives the impression of desperation. Saying or doing anything to win.
