technology
HOW COBRA PUMA
CRAFTS COLOURFUL
PERFORMANCE >
Henry Peters
[email protected]
@hsspeters
L
OCATED near Melbourne’s worldfamous sandbelt region, one company
is making massive strides in its
quest to become a global leader in golf
club manufacturing. Cobra Puma Golf has
endured great change in the past 20 years
but its Australian headquarters is now settled
in the Melbourne suburb of Moorabbin and
pumping out orders across Australasia.
Over more than 40 years, the brand has had
many twists and turns but ultimately aligns
itself – where golf is concerned – with a
younger, sexier version of the game.
Founded in 1973 by prominent Australian
amateur golfer Tom Crow, Cobra grew until
Greg Norman bought into the company in
the early 1990s at the peak of his powers,
providing unrivalled brand exposure
Norman sold out of Cobra before it was
bought by Acushnet, the parent company of
Titleist and FootJoy.
“They marketed the brand as Titleist for
the serious player and Cobra for your more
leisurely player. Cobra really got lost in the
message a little bit,” says Cobra Puma Golf’s
Australasia Category Manager Jason Louey.
However, at the time, the brand was getting
plenty of recognition with Geoff Ogilvy
winning the 2006 US Open with Cobra clubs,
while Colombian Camilo Villegas and Ian
Poulter were as identifiable by their brand
performance and personalisation. Their
Super Game Improvement Baffler XL line,
for example, is one of the most forgiving
products in the marketplace, giving golfers
the maximum playability.
of club as almost any player barring Tiger
Woods’ concrete link to Nike.
In 2010, Puma bought Cobra and, earlier
this year, Norman returned to Cobra Golf as a
brand ambassador to help it separate itself in
the marketplace as a brand representing not
just performance but also youth, colour and
vibrancy. American ace Rickie Fowler is its
poster boy and deserves to be after top-five
finishes at each of the year’s first two majors.
There’s a definite link between Puma’s
apparel and Cobra’s golf clubs. In Cobra
Puma’s perfect world, its customers wear
head-to-toe Puma gear in colours matching
the Cobra clubs they swing.
One walk through the Cobra Puma Golf
Moorabbin factory shows just how big Fowler’s
identity is within the brand – giant posters of him
are plastered on walls in rooms where custommade clubs are built, an orange Puma shirt he’s
personally signed is displayed triumphantly
in one of the hallways and giant novelty-sized
orange Puma caps are piled up in one office.
“We’re certainly not like some of the other
companies out there that run the apparel line
completely separate,” Louey says. “We use
the same colour trend forecasts for the golf
clubs as we do with the apparel. If there’s a
shirt you like, you can guarantee that there’s
trousers, shorts, a jumper, hat, golf bag and
golf clubs that will match.”
But Rickie is just one of the many highprofile players in the Cobra Puma stable. As
the brand has matured and expanded in the
market, they have boosted their tour profile
with the likes of Greg Norman, Jonas Blixt,
Graham DeLaet and others.
Thompson mixed and matched perfectly
when she won her first career major at
this year’s Kraft Nabisco Championship,
complimenting her aqua-coloured Cobra
driver, with her aqua-coloured hat, ribbon,
glove and Puma shirt.
But performance is Cobra Puma’s
overarching aim as it chases recognition as a
major player in the clubmaking game. Anyone
who visits the factory bares witness to just
how impressive it is to see Cobra clubs made
from start to finish. Whether you’re a solid lowhandicapper ordering a forged blade used by
Fowler, or a weekend warrior sourcing a set of
Nineteen-year-old Lexi Thompson – arguably
women’s golf’s greatest proponent of power
and athleticism is Cobra Puma’s poster girl and
has her own poster presence at the factory.
But Cobra Puma is not just about vibrancy
and colour. On the contrary, the brand aims
to have their name synonymous with high
Cobra’s innovative shaft cutting process can
precisely cut an entire set of irons at once;
saving significant time versus the standard
one-at-a-time method
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