A Special Relationship

Every golfer has a close affinity with the clubs they use, and Nick Faldo is no exception. The Mizuno ambassador recounts the first time he discovered the Japanese brand in the mid-80s and why the TP9s became a permanent fixture in his bag.

Way back [in my career] I had to go all the way to the other side of London, to St George’s Hill, where Barry Willett was the only club maker who looked after professionals’ clubs – that used to be a two-and-a-half-hour drive pre-M25 days.

I sat with him literally all day and watched him work away on my clubs, and we’d hit balls together and that sort of thing. One day he told me about this Japanese company that was coming to Europe and showed me some heads, and I started putting mixed clubs into my bag.

And then Mizuno came to Europe with their truck/ mobile workshop and did a very clever thing. They would line clubs up outside the workshop and pros would come down and pick them up, look at them and put them down. I’d been watching this and looking at these clubs and I put a few in my bag. I then joined another brand, but they were going through a transition, trying to modernise, which wasn’t working. The boss let me put Mizunos in the bag, so I went back to Barry and said: “Would Mizuno make me a set of clubs with just numbers on them?” They said yes.

An unforgettable moment

I got those clubs in Greensboro, North Carolina, the week before The Masters in 1987. I’ll never forget that moment. It was snowing and I went to the range with these brand new clubs. I hit them for the first time and it was genuinely like hitting butter. I know that phrase is often used to describe feel, but the clubs had such a soft feel compared to anything else I’d ever experienced. That’s when I put the good old TP9s into my golf bag.