Golf Dom
Blog Home / 2017 PGA Merchandise Show / Mike Powell of Srixon/Cleveland/XXIO at the 2017 PGA Merchandise Show

Mike Powell of Srixon/Cleveland/XXIO at the 2017 PGA Merchandise Show

Srixon/Cleveland/XXIO president of USA Golf, Mike Powell, joins us from the 2017 PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando.  Mike discusses the new line of game improvement irons available from XXIO, new wedges from Cleveland and the new golf balls now available from Srixon.

Tom Brassell: PGA merchandise show in the Cleveland Srixon XXIO booth, take two, with Mike Powell. That’s our inside joke, Mike. Thanks for joining us.

Mike Powell: Hey, nice to see you.

Tom Brassell: Your thoughts right now about the buzz about the show because it’s pretty electric. Reminds me a lot of last year, probably a little bit better.

Mike Powell:  Yeah, I think there seems to be a great flow of people through the event. There’s a great energy, everybody’s busy and it’s nice to see.

Tom Brassell: New products from Cleveland Srixon XXIO, let’s start first with the iron XXIO, some game improvement irons right?

Mike Powell: Yeah, the new XXIO prime iron has just launched and the new XXIO forged iron. The XXIO prime iron is an iron that re-targeted at the slower swing speed of the slow swing speed category. So, those people swinging at sub 85 miles per hour, this XXIO prime is the ideal product, it’s super lightweight, it launches the ball high. This product is really designed purely for this type of category of players, it’s not a product that’s designed for elite players and then watered down for slower swing speed players. This product was designed purely with the slow swing speed players in mind.

Tom Brassell:  The slower swing speed player, they’re gonna see a difference when they hit this club.

Mike Powell:  They’ll see a remarkable difference, when we look at the driver in that particular product we’re talking about a 36 gram shaft, it’s super light.

Tom Brassell:  Wouldn’t be Cleveland Golf without wedges, let’s talk about wedges.

Mike Powell: Yeah, we’ve just launched the RTX 3.0 which is a new line for us, the products been phenomenal, already sold well in the back half or the back quarter of 2017, 2016.  And the nice thing about the RTX 3 is we’ve got some new technologies with the field balancing where we’ve moved the center of gravity more towards the center of the face of the club. We got the new v-sole design, which really makes a massive difference in terms of the way the club performs through the turf. And then also we don’t only have the blade version, if we have a look at the golfers out there, there are a lot more golfers using the cavity back irons than there are using blade irons. Yet, most golfers use blade wedges, we make a selection of both so we make the RTX in a cavity back version and we make it in a blade version so you can kinda get the best of both worlds.

Tom Brassell:  For those who are listening and not watching, they’re not seeing around us for this obviously ball, new ball season and what’s new from Srixon in the ball line.

Mike Powell: Yeah, we’ve had a couple of new balls coming out and the first one is our Z Star XV and our Z Star series that’s two different models, there’s the Z Star XV, which is the harder more distance orientated version. And then we’ve got the softer more controlled version, which is called the Z Star.

These are the balls our tour players use, the ball Hideki has been winning with all over the world and I mean that’s a really fantastic product.

Tom Brassell:  Mike final question, with all this technology out there in clubs, especially in clubs, talk about the importance of being custom fit for clubs.

Mike Powell: Yeah, I think at the end of the day it’s, you wouldn’t go a buy a pair of shoes without trying them on and getting them fitted, you gotta get pro product that fits you and that suits your game. Everybody has a different build, a different height, a different ability, a different type of swing action, so I think it’s super important to get to make sure that you got clubs that suit you and give you the best chance of playing better.

Tom Brassell: Mike Powell thanks so much for joining us, thanks for take two.

Mike Powell: Thank you, cheers.