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The
Original Black Ball
from Golf Refugeesr
As
a new brand, Golf Refugees initially had some media exposure
through an appearance on Channel 4's early morning 'Big Breakfast'
TV show, interviewed by loud mouth Johnny Vaughan and the tasty
Denise Van Outen. Next, we filmed three of our skateboarding
friends trying to play golf through the hazardous streets of
London, filmed by us and MTV, for broadcast on their sports
show called 'Balls' hosted by rapper Coolio.
At
this stage, there was only a painted black ball to show the
audience, but the response was so positive, we had to try and
make the idea a reality. After talking to a golf ball engineer
at Titleist, who helped us to understand the technical aspects
of golf ball design, we set off with some cash to find a manufacturing
partner. Wishing to find a someone local, a visit to Penfold
in Birmingham, UK ws arranged. Unfortunately, they refused to
make a black golf ball. Ironically, Birmingham is known as part
of the 'black country'. Realising that most other UK based manufacturers
had closed down and their moulds shipped out to the far east,
it became clear we had to look overseas. After six months, we
eventually found someone willing to work with us and developed
a black golf ball to our specifications. The main technical
objective was to try and increase the temperature of the core,
as Titleist had told us that if you can achieve this a performance
advantage can be gained. From this conversation Golf Refugees
developed Thermal Distance Technology ( TDT ) to produce the
ultimate long distance ball. The warmer a golf ball gets, the
more efficiently it can transfer energy for entra distance.
Our two-piece ball, has an ultra-thin heat-absorbing black cover
with a high conducting metal-mix core.
Samples
were sent out to numerous style, fashion and golf magazines.
It became apparent that the style magazines loved the concept
of a black ball, whilst the golf industry mags were dubious,
Golf World calling it 'bonkers'. Golf Refugees were open to
the fact that our black ball is designed to perform in hot sunny
conditions, it is more visible in the air but less visible on
the ground than a traditional white golf ball. None the less,
we were confident we had created an iconic golf ball.
Through
a contact in California, who worked for Reeebok, our black balls
were featured in GQ USA, and played with in pro-am events by
Alice Cooper and NFL football stars filmed by ESPN. It won the
longest drive competition at the MGM media golf challenge day.
The response was fantastic and we started negotiations with
Modern Amusements about including our black ball & clothing
range in selected stores across the USA. Mean while back in
the UK, Selfridges & Dockers had agreed to stock our original
black golf ball.
We
were flying high, until news from one of our USA customers e-mailed
us of the imminent arrival of a Nike black golf ball. Reports
ranged from it just being a PR stunt to help launch their new
white golf ball called Nike One Black, because of it's black
graphics. However, it soon became a reality that Nike had manufactured
a black ball, given it to some of their golf professionals and
started a media campaign. What had taken us nearly two years
was all undone in a matter of days. The Nike black ball was
splattered across all forms of media, we'd been buggered by
the mighty swoosh.
Nike
perhaps did something that Golf Refugees couldn't of done. They
made the idea of a black golf ball legitimate with the golfing
media. The golf magazines who thought our original black ball
was bonkers, we're all soon lovin the Nike black ball. The same
magazines were not too keen to mention, let alone test and compare
our original black ball to Nike's. Understandable, considering
the amount of money Nike spend on advertising, editors had to
protect their revenue streams, still it was a bitter blow to
us. One glimpse of light was freelance golf journalist, Tom
Cox, who agreed to play with both black balls, albeit on a cold
and damp February day and write an article for The Times newspapers,
where a Nike executive is quoted as saying 'never heard of Refugee
Golf black ball'
Orders
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