What if we started a company and the company was
under no time constraints, no financial constraints? And the one
thing that that company had, the one constraint,
is their clubs had to be exceptional performers,
and much better than any other alternative. So, that's what we did.
We didn't know if we'd do it or not. It took us a couple years.
We nailed it. We killed it. When the clubs were first released, nobody could
believe how good they were. Hi, I'm Bob Parsons, founder and CEO
of PXG.
Well, they thought I was crazy because at the time we started,
the golf industry was at a low level. It had...
it had dropped. There were articles appearing in Forbes, what happened to
all the golfers, this, that, and the other thing.
And some people said, "Why would you get into
an industry that is literally on its tail?" And I
thought that it's probably an excellent time to get
in because if you do something extraordinary,
it's going to get noticed. Might not happen when it's booming.
So, that never stopped me in the past; didn't stop me this time.
First of all, when we released the irons, since we had so much
in them, as a matter of fact, there's weights that go along the perimeter of
our flagship irons. And you know
we've kept that look because when people look at them, they know it's PXG.
we have more in those tungsten weights than our competitors do in their whole
club head. So, when we said we'd
spend some money on it to get the performance,
that's exactly what we did. And I was told time and again it'll never work.
It worked like a house of fire because all somebody had to do was hit them
and off they went.
Our commitment is we promise our customers
that we will not release something unless it's
noticeably and significantly better. And we work really hard to make sure that's
the case. So, when something has the PXG name on it,
they know that that means something. And so,
we have the discipline to keep working in order to make sure
that that is actually the case. And we don't take that easy
road. I mean, you know there'll be times that
our engineers are excellent golfers, but one of the
benefits that we have is I'm a middle-of-the-road golfer. Now
our engineers, they can hit anything. They'd probably play
with hockey sticks and do pretty good. And so, something that is
better in a small way, well they would notice that
and that'd be fine with them. Me, I need things that are better in a big way.
Developing our clubs, our equipment, our apparel, learning from
it, doing a better job, doing a better job, doing a better job.
And the sales will take care of themselves.
Now, the other thing that we do is we realize it's important that you
have enthusiasm on the staff. And we do that with our employees
because our employees love not being part of
something that is just standard, where they got to meet certain goals and
that. What they do is they try to become
better and better and better. And that translates to the customers. So,
a customer calls and they talk to an employee who has a
lot of enthusiasm. Now, what do we know about enthusiasm?
It's contagious! And the customers love that, too. And
especially when they get their products, they get
that big black box and they hit those clubs. You know what?
Then we get another salesperson.
Well, first of all, the Marine Corps raised me. I mean, I became a man in the
Marine Corps. And the guy that came out of the Marine
Corps was very different than the guy Who went in.
The guy that went in was a knucklehead
and wasn't a good student and a typical clueless
teenager. And the guy that came out
was serious, had major accomplishments, was taught discipline. And not
discipline in the form of punishment, although there was plenty of that, right?
It was discipline in the sense of, if you have a difficult
job to do, you don't have to like it, but you need
to have the backbone to see it through. And the Marine Corps taught me that.
They taught me of the importance of commitments and the
responsibility to honor those commitments.
So, when you tell somebody, especially in a wartime situation
on your right left, that you're going to do something, you got to do it.
Or if they need you to do it, you got to do it. You're part of it,
you're part of the effort. And they taught me that I could do more
than I ever dreamed I could do, and they taught me that I had a right to be proud.
We try to provide our military and and civilian heroes a little special
deal on our PXG products. And
somebody asked me, he says, "Why do you do that?"
And I said, "It is a gesture of respect and thanks for all you've done for this
country."
We will continue to work hard to improve our products, to do things nobody
else is doing, to do really high-performing
products, so that when people see the name PXG,
they're pretty stoked about it. And it doesn't just
end with golf equipment. Now my wife, Renee Parsons, is a fashionista.
So, she has adopted the PXG apparel line. And as good as our golf clubs are, the
apparel line is better. I don't mean just golf
companies. We blow the golf companies' apparel out of the water.
What happens is the apparel that Renee makes
stands tall and beats anything made by anybody, anywhere.
And what Renee's done with our apparel is that we have people
who don't even play golf that love to rock our apparel.
And then their friends buy it because everything we do
is not what the industry does. There's the golf industry.
And then there's PXG. And i'll tell you what – I think our customers love it. PXG.
Nobody makes golf clubs the way we do. Period.