Rory moving to Nike?

Rumours seem to be gathering apace that Rory McIlroy will be joining Tiger in the Nike stable before too long. I guess they've just saved a lot of money in ditching Armstrong, so could throw a lot of cash his way - £156 million over 10 years is being suggested.

So - would it be a big gamble to move away from his trusted Titliest, which haven't done too badly for him so far? Or, with the technology available now, will Nike be able to re-create exactly the same clubs for him with the Swoosh brand?

If Nike get Rory and Tiger playing their clubs, will they then dominate the market, or aren't we so easily fooled?

It's being going on the other side for a wee bit, my opinion is that Nike are old news and no longer a creditable force in golf. Boring products.

Tiger lives in a stable?...is he hung like a horse?

Another bad move by his new management team (who couldn't even ensure he got to the course on time for the Ryder Cup). He should take a look at GMac who moved from Callaway to Srixon (same management!) and has hardly been able to string two rounds together since.

If he's happy with the Titleist clubs, why change? It can't be because he needs the money!

LadyPutt wrote:Another bad move by his new management team (who couldn't even ensure he got to the course on time for the Ryder Cup). He should take a look at GMac who moved from Callaway to Srixon (same management!) and has hardly been able to string two rounds together since.

If he's happy with the Titleist clubs, why change? It can't be because he needs the money!

I'm with LP on this and I suggested on here last year that he was due to go over to swush then, but it obviously got delayed. The major movers this time last season were supposed to be Rory to Nike, Fowler was off as well and it sems the big blockage in the chain was tiger who was supposed to be going to Adams. Just maybe Tiger has decided to move this time? Rory's management company have made GMac a very wealthy man, but his game has gone backwards since changing bats. Rory has been very well supported throughout his short career, as lee Westwood was at that age, but the difference is that lee has stayed loyal to a brand that gave him support and allowed him to set up his academy schools etc. Big difference between team chubster and Rory's new management, is that the chubbettes are still using the same endorsements that they've had for years, and they're all moderately successful players earning a few quid. Loyalty counts for something amongst some of the players

LadyPutt wrote:Another bad move by his new management team (who couldn't even ensure he got to the course on time for the Ryder Cup).

I thought that was Caroline's fault?

What everyone is forgetting that he will still be playing Titleist irons - same as Tiger has always done

Rory, who isn't denying the rumours, is reported in my newspaper today saying: "I leave it up to Conor to sort out so I can concentrate on my golf". So he doesn't want to have a say in what clubs he's playing? He's not concerned that they might not suit him? How very naive of him. Of course his manager is going to go for the best financial deal - he's getting a cut of it!

Does Woods use Titleist irons?

No, he did for the first few years but now uses the Nike clubs he helped design.

smithersjones wrote:No, he did for the first few years but now uses the Nike clubs he helped design.

The difference is that his clubs are forged at Miura or Endo, so not quite your average Nike bats

I doubt Woods designed much of the club at all. He's not an engineer or metalurgist. I imagine his input was purely cosmetic.

smithersjones wrote:No, he did for the first few years but now uses the Nike clubs he helped design.

He should have designed them a bit softer, he wouldn't have had such a big bump on his head!

BlueCoverman wrote:He should have designed them a bit softer, he wouldn't have had such a big bump on his head!

From my understanding he had a fair amount of input, and always has into his clubs even at Titleist. But they have always been miura forged to the best of my knowledge.

Also I still think that the best iron nike has made is the original blade. Classic, simple and very elegant.

Plus they work!

super_realist wrote:I doubt Woods designed much of the club at all. He's not an engineer or metalurgist. I imagine his input was purely cosmetic.

I bet he had a huge input to get exactly what he wanted, eg sole design, firmness off the face, weighting, top line size and shape. I don't think anyone is claiming he was at the forge pouring molten steel into a pot.

Previous response from Tom Sites, head of product creation at Nike, re the rumours that Tiger's clubs are Miura forged irons:-

"I’ve heard that for a number of years now and I welcome the chance to respond to it. Never in the past, not now, not ever, will any of the Nike irons that Tiger plays be forged Miura products, that’s a fact. What has created some of this confusion is, prior to my joining Nike Golf, that I actually did consulting design work for Mr. Miura.

So he was one of my clients during my independent phase and he’s a wonderful gentleman. He makes an incredibly good product and we helped him develop some things for the North American market and developed that relationship. Some people have taken that and kind of embellished and exaggerated it to think that we might actually be using his product or his clubs for Tiger and any of our Tour professionals.

That’s just not the case. We built some base rough forgings at the Cornell Company in Chicago originally. From those blank forgings, we had a machine to build out Tiger’s prototypes and other clubs since the beginning of Nike Golf. Ever since then we’ve taken those to a production headquarters I worked with when I was back at the Hogan company and we’ve gone down a unique and individual path to market for all the Nike products that did not include Mr. Miura.

I wish him well but there’s just simply no truth to the fact that Nike products have been manufactured by or indeed been created in any part of Mr. Miura’s iron lab."

Nice spot Mary

Mary_S wrote:Previous response from Tom Sites, head of product creation at Nike, re the rumours that Tiger's clubs are Miura forged irons:-

"I’ve heard that for a number of years now and I welcome the chance to respond to it. Never in the past, not now, not ever, will any of the Nike irons that Tiger plays be forged Miura products, that’s a fact. What has created some of this confusion is, prior to my joining Nike Golf, that I actually did consulting design work for Mr. Miura.

So he was one of my clients during my independent phase and he’s a wonderful gentleman. He makes an incredibly good product and we helped him develop some things for the North American market and developed that relationship. Some people have taken that and kind of embellished and exaggerated it to think that we might actually be using his product or his clubs for Tiger and any of our Tour professionals.

That’s just not the case. We built some base rough forgings at the Cornell Company in Chicago originally. From those blank forgings, we had a machine to build out Tiger’s prototypes and other clubs since the beginning of Nike Golf. Ever since then we’ve taken those to a production headquarters I worked with when I was back at the Hogan company and we’ve gone down a unique and individual path to market for all the Nike products that did not include Mr. Miura.

I wish him well but there’s just simply no truth to the fact that Nike products have been manufactured by or indeed been created in any part of Mr. Miura’s iron lab."

So glad you posted that Mary. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever for a company like Nike to get a few clubs forged by one, presumably expensive company in order to provide tour players with a high quality product only to then get the clubs they actually sell made by an inferior company. Just because Joe Public can't try Tigers irons and compare them to the off the shelf offering, that doesn't mean they'd not know if they were being palmed off with an inferior product. Yet everyone on here knows a club fitter who knows a tour pro who knows another tour pro whose clubs were designed by Titleist, forged by Miura but had Nike stamped on them.

Hope you don't mind but I've re-posted that on the other side.

hmmm... so the rumours from nike are clearly more nonsense.

That said there are a lot more about the titleist irons he helped to design. (681 T stamps)

$200 to $250 million over 10 years from Nike - not a bad deal.

LadyPutt wrote:Another bad move by his new management team (who couldn't even ensure he got to the course on time for the Ryder Cup). He should take a look at GMac who moved from Callaway to Srixon (same management!) and has hardly been able to string two rounds together since.

If he's happy with the Titleist clubs, why change? It can't be because he needs the money!

Why is this a bad move? Why should he stay with Titleist? The argument if it ain't broke don't fix it is a pretty thin one in my book. If that held true then the best players would still be using hickory shafts. Rory changes his gear from time to time like every player, I doubt the brand of the equipment makes that much difference to him.

I remember a player who used Titleist clubs as a kid... won his first major playing Titleist clubs, kept with the brand for a few more years before switching to Nike. Oh and he won 14 majors... hardly a bad move for Tiger Woods was it?

raycastleunited wrote:

LadyPutt wrote:Another bad move by his new management team (who couldn't even ensure he got to the course on time for the Ryder Cup). He should take a look at GMac who moved from Callaway to Srixon (same management!) and has hardly been able to string two rounds together since.

If he's happy with the Titleist clubs, why change? It can't be because he needs the money!

Why is this a bad move? Why should he stay with Titleist? The argument if it ain't broke don't fix it is a pretty thin one in my book. If that held true then the best players would still be using hickory shafts. Rory changes his gear from time to time like every player, I doubt the brand of the equipment makes that much difference to him.

I remember a player who used Titleist clubs as a kid... won his first major playing Titleist clubs, kept with the brand for a few more years before switching to Nike. Oh and he won 14 majors... hardly a bad move for Tiger Woods was it?

Did he have Titleist in the bag for the 1st major? I know he used a cobra driver and a scotty putter... but I also thought his irons were mizuno at that point.

I see that Rory says he hasn't signed for Nike (or anybody else), and we will hear news in a few weeks.

Anybody care to throw Srixon into the mix??

I see that Oakley are sueing McIlroy for breach of contract, as when they tried to invoke their "right of first refusal" to match the Nike deal, Rory and his agent ignored the offer. Apparently Oakley had already spent $300,000 on a photoshoot for merchandise which Rory was expected to endorse in 2013.

His management group are saying that there is no foundation to the lawsuit.

Will be interesting to see how this turns out.

If there is any reasonable claim, Nike will pay our without complaint. It will be interesting to see if this affects the McIlroy PR love-in though

The Jumeirah Group has "jointly agreed" to bring their sponsporship with Rory to an end. Any others that need to be dumped before this Nike deal will be finally announced?

Has it been announced yet who is sponsoring the box that he needs to stand on when he is out with Caroline?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2NCDYjHtEcU

£150m not a bad endorsement, but Tiger is the better actor by a mile

And he's still saying it's not about the money ....... If he's got a squillion or two to spare, I could do with it.

LadyPutt wrote:If he's happy with the Titleist clubs, why change?

Perhaps he fancied spending the weekend with Caroline, rather than on the golf course?

Perhaps he's playing with the new Nike wanchor clubs, guaranteed to send you slipping below the cut line and towards the bottom of the leaderboard.

They said he was using the new Nike "Covert" driver - so named because it hits the ball where no one can see it!

Can't believe you picked him in the fantasy league Grumps...

I had my reservations over the new clubs but he's supposed to be the best player in the world and everytime I've chosen someone over him LPRPitis strikes. It's all your fault anyway Blue, you burst my bubble last time out and I've not recovered yet.

Well if you will pick half my team Grumps, what do you expect?

But only one turned out to be a bad pick.

Davie wrote:They said he was using the new Nike "Covert" driver - so named because it hits the ball where no one can see it!

Unlike Tiger who was using a driver that couldn't even reach the fairway!

Rather than practising with his new clubs, he's just posted a photo of the view of the Alps from his hotel room with Caroline on Facebook.

Anyone else thinks he needs to get his priorities right? Sadly I am finding it difficult to support him any more. I know he's a young lad with oodles of cash, but he's not being a very good role model. He needs to remember where he came from and the sacrifices his parents made to get him there. I wonder what they think of it all? Don't see his Dad at so many tournaments now.

Didn't everybody say stuff like that last year when he missed a few cuts? He came back pretty well from that, let's wait and see if he does so again.

I'm with LP on this one. I really wanted to take to him but as things go on (various incidents including ill-advised tweets, stupid comments in pressers etc) I'm just finding it harder and harder to warm to him

Ideal situation would be for Luke to find his form again from two years ago - he has been a perfect professional apart from one bad tweet that was meant to be private but he f***ed up. Justin is another

Luke posted an interesting piece of Facebook, stating how happy he was with Mizuno and would never change his club supplier. A dig at Rory perhaps?

I saw an interesting piece of information, in a comment on a BBC article of all things, about Seve's equipment early on. Apparently he would play with different clubs based upon where he was playing; Mizuno in Japan, Slazenger in the UK, Sounder in the US and Titleist elsewhere. Don't know how true that is but sounds like the kind of deals players could be forced into.

Perhaps that might explain why he could only hit it sideways towards the end of his career!

He was probably playing the wrong clubs for each course!

World number 1 and 2 Rory and Tiger, both Nike players. The young fella trying to emulate the senior partner? Not the way he's carrying on off the course. Tiger had his problems later in life, but to get to where he wanted to be, he concentrated and gave 100% focus to his job. He built up an aura of invincibility, because of the dedication and single mindedness. Rory needs to do the same if he wants to be as great a player, otherwise he may find himself being known as the player who had everything and threw it away.

Caroline just been spotted with a huge diamond on her finger apparently

Not the first time apparently - wasn't it seen over Christmas too? I remember it being discussed at the time that the traditional 4th finger left hand wasn't necessarily the same in Denmark

unfortunately for mcilroy he's a wee nyaff. not much he can do about it either unless he has a personality transplant. did anyone see his ex on come dine with me? shameful.