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I was in Tokyo earlier this week and had the chance to go for a meal with some Japan golf industry insiders including representatives from both OEM brands and actual manufacturers. We talked golf and gear while enjoying some delicious ramen and yaki gyoza and as always I listened carefully to pick up some interesting inside information about new products on the market and in development.

One interesting topic that always comes up with any gear enthusiast is where a club is made or forged. It's a common question we always get as well, especially when a new model comes out "Who forges that iron?", "Where is that driver made?". Brands shift manufacturing depending on design and budgets and sometimes its hard to keep track of what is made where these days especially if manufacturing remains within Japan. It's hard to tell these days as many brands list Made in Japan/Made in China or Made in Japan and Assembled in China. Several top brands like Tourstage and Callaway Japan while maintaining manufacturing in Japan have moved assembly to China or Thailand to save costs when it comes to standard spec equipment (most Japanese manufacturers will still do all custom order assembly in Japan).

I happened to bring up a recent magazine article where new drivers were rated based on performance especially for distance and feel. I noted that this article had the new PRGR 505 Red and Titleist VG3 both rated very highly for average golfer performance with soft feel.  I was glad to find out that both drivers are in fact made at Endo Japan which actually does not surprise me. It is common to find Endo producing the most advanced designs and most premium titanium drivers which is also why those drivers always seem to be at a premium compared to other brands. Endo Manufacturing is a rather pricey golf club producer but it is undoubtedly top notch. I had thought that PRGR had only moved their irons and wedges to Endo but the 505 Red is made there as well. I had suspected the VG3 to be made at Endo considering the Titleist/Endo relationship and the advanced multi piece forged head that the VG3 is.  Other clubs made at Endo are ones we probably already knew about like Fourteen 2010 models, Yamaha woods and irons and Callaway's Legacy line.

We also chatted about gear trends on the Japan tour which is always indicative of what gets hot in the Japanese market. As most know, Graphite Design's DI series shaft has claimed the number one spot on the JPGA men's tour. Graphite Design has long been the run away leader on tour here in Japan, easily out distancing Fujikura and Mitsubishi Rayon. Other news included Yuuji Miyagi of Cool Design MTI Wedge leaving the PRGR stable and going to Yonex where he is developing the new Nano V wedge that will be in play by Ryo Ishikawa.

Speaking of wedges, there is buzz about a new brand on the horizon called Seven Hills. Their prototype wedge has appeared on the Japanese tour and looks to be a very clean design. It  is forged in Himeji of premium S25C JIS steel. I'm always interested in writing about  new wedges that may be of interest to our customers (like Sky Dream Jump and others) so I have a couple of heads be sent to me. I look forward to getting them for testing and will report back soon on the blog and officially introduce them to the market as TSG has taken a huge interest in Seven Hills' development (and I mean literally (^_^)

For once I don't have any pretty golf club pictures to post since it was just a casual lunch get together. I do have pictures of where we went and what we ate though which is what you see above. (^_^)

Tario (aka gocchin) joined Tourspecgolf back in 2008 after spending over a decade in technology and business operation roles at a major Canadian financial institution. Before joining TSG and following his dream of moving to Japan, Tario and Chris (aka Tourspecgolfer) hit it off though their similar passions for Japanese culture. Chris hired Tario to manage TSG online operations, sales and marketing. While those are Tario's primary responsibilities, he has also taken up the role of blogger and custom club tester and fitter along the way. Tario's hobbies include golf (of course), gadgets and technology, cars, Japanese pop culture and idols, photography, sweets and walking the dog.

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Masayuki Sasaya has worked hard at being the premium custom putter maker in Japan and while many hardcore enthusiasts know and love his work, Gold's Factory has long been a boutique/niche brand with a smaller high end clientele. That may have all changed with Octobers issue of Golf Digest here in Japan.

Gold's Factory's Sasaya-san is featured as the master of hand crafted putter making and customizations in a 10 page article that talks about putters in Japan today. Gold's Factory is talked about along with IPT Yamada Putters as really being the two only custom crafted putter makers in Japan today and Sasaya-san's ability to craft putters of his own as well as modify other existing putter brands

In the last few years in Japan, with the demise of Gauge Design Japan/G-Field (where Sasaya-san was in fact the Chief of their Tour Division), golfers have longed for a Japanese brand that stood out against all the big overseas putter brands like Odyssey and Scotty Cameron. Many of you who know TSG have followed Sasaya-san's work on his blog as well as our site and know the fine detail and amazing feel and performance that his putters give.

The fact is when it comes to hand made attention and quality, there is NO other putter in golf like Master Sasaya's. Gold's Factory is a one man operation, every putter is milled and crafted by the master himself. There is NO mass production here.  This is something that cannot be said about the larger brands.Besides crafting the most unique and one of a kind custom putters for each individual customer he serves, Gold's Factory has opened its doors to modifying and refinishing other brands. The putter tuning market has yet to be realized here in Japan.  Most buy off the shelf putters without realizing what a customized putter fit to a players stroke can do for their game.  When it comes to putter tuning, one of the most common things Gold's Factory does is add weight to each head, tungsten weights in the sole or face increase the MOI of a putter and change the CG positioning. This helps feel and roll as well as forgiveness on the face. The added weight creates control and can help smooth out a putting stroke.

Back to the custom work that Gold's can do, Golf Digest talks about how a Gold's Factory putter is built to spec for a customer including not only the head weight but the type of neck, the type of face milling which further enhances the feel, even the type sole.  Gold's Factory can create a tour quality custom putter from scratch... a billet of carbon steel to finished masterpiece.

So now that Gold's Factory is getting the recognition it so rightfully deserves, what does this mean for Sasaya-san moving ahead? Probably much more work and greater than ever creations as we saw when Tourspecgolfer posted about the Ryu-Zen putter earlier.  TSG is always here to help as building a custom putter is not easy and the options can be overwhelming. If you want a dream putter handmade by one of the TRUE masters in the golfing world, drop us a message and we can help you design your masterpiece.

Tario (aka gocchin) joined Tourspecgolf back in 2008 after spending over a decade in technology and business operation roles at a major Canadian financial institution. Before joining TSG and following his dream of moving to Japan, Tario and Chris (aka Tourspecgolfer) hit it off though their similar passions for Japanese culture. Chris hired Tario to manage TSG online operations, sales and marketing. While those are Tario's primary responsibilities, he has also taken up the role of blogger and custom club tester and fitter along the way. Tario's hobbies include golf (of course), gadgets and technology, cars, Japanese pop culture and idols, photography, sweets and walking the dog.

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After talking today with Master Sasaya at Gold's Factory, he decided he would again begin producing the Answer No.2 in SUS303. It was a premium high end head that was sold out due to supply of highest grade JIS (Japan Industry Standard) SUS303 (same thing as Scotty's GSS) but the master was able to source more JIS SUS303. The Answer No.2 which as a similar shape to the very popular Newport 2 has always been in big demand from golf enthusiasts who demand a premium putter. So Gold's Factory will once again be offering the No.2 SUS303 through Tourspecgolf. You can find the putter here or always email us for a custom design that we will help you with from start to finish.

Tario (aka gocchin) joined Tourspecgolf back in 2008 after spending over a decade in technology and business operation roles at a major Canadian financial institution. Before joining TSG and following his dream of moving to Japan, Tario and Chris (aka Tourspecgolfer) hit it off though their similar passions for Japanese culture. Chris hired Tario to manage TSG online operations, sales and marketing. While those are Tario's primary responsibilities, he has also taken up the role of blogger and custom club tester and fitter along the way. Tario's hobbies include golf (of course), gadgets and technology, cars, Japanese pop culture and idols, photography, sweets and walking the dog.

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Tourspecgolf has visited the Epon Factory/Endo Manufacturing several times in the last few years. With the growing recognition of Epon Forged golf clubs both in Japan and worldwide,  Epon opened a flagship store as part of the factory in Niigata, Japan. The store itself has grown a lot, with part retail space, part fitting area, workshop as well as the administrative areas of Epon. Epon shares the R&D facilities with Endo and a host of other name brands that we are all familiar with. It's a great place to check out the gear at Epon or get a fitting with the nice Epon folks.

Here's a quick looking into Epon's main shop. I bet your all asking about the new stand bags in the last two pictures. We'll have them in the pro shop very soon!

Tario (aka gocchin) joined Tourspecgolf back in 2008 after spending over a decade in technology and business operation roles at a major Canadian financial institution. Before joining TSG and following his dream of moving to Japan, Tario and Chris (aka Tourspecgolfer) hit it off though their similar passions for Japanese culture. Chris hired Tario to manage TSG online operations, sales and marketing. While those are Tario's primary responsibilities, he has also taken up the role of blogger and custom club tester and fitter along the way. Tario's hobbies include golf (of course), gadgets and technology, cars, Japanese pop culture and idols, photography, sweets and walking the dog.

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Tourspecgolfer posted up parts ONE & TWO of the Gold's Factory Interview as well as the video he took while we visiting Master Sasaya in his workshop. While TSGolfer was busy taking videos, I had a chance to photo document our visit and here it is for your viewing pleasure! We only had the morning at the shop but learned a lot about how much work is put into hand made and crafted clubs and watched the master in action.

Gold's Factory is located in Itabashi, in Tokyo. We took a 10 minute JR train from Shinjuku to JuJo on the Saikyo Line. (I took Chuo to Shinjuku)		Jujo is a typical smaller scale Japan Rail Station with two main enterances and exits.
The West Exit is the main rotary where cars and buses drive into. Master Sasaya picked us up here.		Itabashi is one of Tokyo's 23 Wards and is rather densely populated like most of Tokyo. There are some pretty tight spots for driving and walking.

Gold's Factory is tucked away in the Nakajuku block of Itabashi.		The workshop is a cozy size with all the tools of the trade needed to produce hand made clubs.
Master Sasaya was kind enough to spend the morning with us explaining his machines and techniques.		We talked about golf club designs especially putters, wedges and irons of course!

Make sure you read more to check out more of the great pics from the Gold's Factory visit!

We wanted to see in person how a raw forged head becomes a beautiful hand crafted wedge. So Master Sasaya showed us.		Watching him grind the wedge was a thing of beauty. He confidently worked the wedge in his hand and we watched it take shape.
By the way the grooves are engraved by hand, another time consuming task.		And yes because of this they are very sharp. Gold's Factory wedges spin like crazy!

How do the edges get so perfectly smooth and  shiny?		Unlike other manufacturers, Gold's wedges are hand finished from raw all the way to shine on this grinding belt by hand.
As explained in our Part 2 interview, many levels of grit are used to hand polish the wedge which results in many hours of work.		Master Sasaya creates templates for all his logos and engraving of names and initials. It is not a simple hand stamp.

The CNC engraving machinery takes a lot of expertise and experience to operate. One small mistake and you'll have to start over from scratch.		Bits and tools of the master. These are also used for cutting out putters for tungsten weights and alumite inserts.
No those are not toothpicks, those are for paintfill!		Finished and ready to be custom shafted and gripped with at the customers specs.

Here's a look at some of the items Master Sasaya was working on at the time we visited as well as other machines and cool stuff in the shop. We saw milling from the block/billet, engraving, machining as well as a few nice toys like custom Vega Gold's Factory Blades and several nice putters for customers.

Tario (aka gocchin) joined Tourspecgolf back in 2008 after spending over a decade in technology and business operation roles at a major Canadian financial institution. Before joining TSG and following his dream of moving to Japan, Tario and Chris (aka Tourspecgolfer) hit it off though their similar passions for Japanese culture. Chris hired Tario to manage TSG online operations, sales and marketing. While those are Tario's primary responsibilities, he has also taken up the role of blogger and custom club tester and fitter along the way. Tario's hobbies include golf (of course), gadgets and technology, cars, Japanese pop culture and idols, photography, sweets and walking the dog.

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Great news for the many fans of Dance with Dragon and Gold's Factory!

Dance with Dragon putters which are hand crafted by Master Sasaya at Gold's Factory are now available at Tourspecgolf!

Previously only available to the Japanese Market, Tourspecgolf will now be bringing DWD putters to the world. The first three models available are Missile, Rocks and Lucky. All three have a White chrome finish with Black Paintfill and accents. All three models can be matched with different head shapes including the Anser No2 (Missile in the picture), a Private Stock No.1 (Rocks in the picture) and a GF01B (previously a GF01A as shown in the pictures with Rocks but that head is finished production).

Customers can choose the length as well as grip color to compliment their putter.

Check out the DWD Putter in the TSG Pro Shop!

Tario (aka gocchin) joined Tourspecgolf back in 2008 after spending over a decade in technology and business operation roles at a major Canadian financial institution. Before joining TSG and following his dream of moving to Japan, Tario and Chris (aka Tourspecgolfer) hit it off though their similar passions for Japanese culture. Chris hired Tario to manage TSG online operations, sales and marketing. While those are Tario's primary responsibilities, he has also taken up the role of blogger and custom club tester and fitter along the way. Tario's hobbies include golf (of course), gadgets and technology, cars, Japanese pop culture and idols, photography, sweets and walking the dog.