The Open

The 135th Open Championship was the 11th tournament in a row for the workshop, and, as could be expected, it turned out to be a memorable one. Mizuno have a couple of agreements with the R&A: firstly we are the 'Official Workshop', then there's the Mizuno Open, the gateway to the Open. It's a tournament on the Japan Golf Tour, where the top four players gain entry to the Open. We also supply the marshals' jackets at the Open, so, as you can see, Mizuno and the Open are now quite a happy combination. In the Open exhibition hall we held the European launch of our Bettinardi putter range, giving the public a chance to try out all the models on a six-hole indoor putting green. This was very well received with long queues virtually all day long. Spectators can't wait to swing a club, having watched their heroes in action, and we certainly filled the bill for them.

We had a royal visit during Open week. Akito Mizuno (the President of Mizuno and a keen golfer himself) paid a call, as well as a few marketing and media guys from our HQ in Osaka. They were responsible for feeding back information and news for our Japanese website. It’s strange to see what they find interesting about us over there, but, I suppose understandable, bearing in mind such differences in our cultures. Pictures of fish and chips, English policemen and even a double decker bus (they don’t have them in Japan) all made it onto their site!

In the workshop it was a fairly long week for us. The truck was on site from the Saturday before the event started and left there on Sunday night after play had finished. But, as we’ve noticed before, it was not a particularly busy one. Having been at the previous 10 events, the players are fully prepared and unless something is drastically wrong they’re not going to make too many changes to their equipment.

Luke Donald was his usual self, as low maintenance as always, but he did have a couple of new wedges in his bag for the week. They were the same as he’s used for quite a while now – MP Tour Style in a chrome finish – just new heads that he hoped would provide maximum spin on the firm greens from the freshly cut grooves on the face.

It was great to see Seve back in action for the first time in a while. Armed with his MP-32 irons, with little bits of lead tape on the back to cover the manufacturer’s name, he held is own pretty well, not quite managing to make the cut but put in a decent performance considering his lack of tournament sharpness. Another legend, also short of tournament sharpness and also choosing to play our irons, was Nick Faldo. We’ve built a couple of sets of MP-60s for him this year with different shafts but he chose to use the ones fitted with Dynamic Gold SuperLite. They have a high kickpoint for a low ball flight but are lighter in weight than the standard Dynamic Gold shaft and I guess he finds the reduced overall weight of the club easier to use now he’s not playing so often.

It had been quite a long run for the workshop, starting with the British Masters in early May, visiting Ireland, Wales, Austria (for the first time), France and Scotland, before reaching Royal Liverpool, Hoylake. There had been some disappointments during that time for the workshop staff. The Japanese technicians, Tommy and Terry, took quite a bit of stick from players and caddies for their early exit in the World Cup, especially for losing to Australia after leading for 83 minutes. For the England supporters in the workshop, we had our disappointment during the French Open at Le National. On the bright side, though, in Versailles, it was great to see MP-60 notch up another win. John Bickerton was Mizuno‘s big winner in the French Open. After such a long run, it was nice to have a rest. We missed the Deutsche Bank Players’ Championship, to carry out servicing and safety checks to the workshop and also to re-stock it after nearly three months on the road. It’s amazing how much stock we get through sometimes. We didn’t rest for long. The wagon soon hit the road for the Scandinavian Masters in Malmo - a long drive from Liverpool to Sweden!

pic: Christian Donald, Akito Mizuno (President, Mizuno Corporation), Luke Donald and Mitch Hasegawa (General Manager, Mizuno Europe)

Andy Kikidas - Workshop Manager