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In this day and age of mass produced golf clubs, there are very few TRUE masters that still craft a club by hand. I have had the pleasure of watching Masayuki Sasaya of Gold's Factory hand make all his wedges, putters and irons and in the process learning what it takes to make a golf club not only perform but a work of art.

Introducing Grind Studio...

A couple of weeks ago, I took a drive up to Gunma Prefecture to visit Grind Studio and its sole employee and owner, Masahiro Tomaru. Tomaru-san happens to be one of the few great grinders left in Japan that does every single club Grind Studio produces with his own hands. I had a chance to sit with Tomaru-san for nearly 2 hours as he talked about his designs, work and also his background in the golf industry. It was a great visit and I really learned a lot about his passion for golf club design.

The Background...

Masahiro Tomaru was an aspiring pro golfer and from 18 years of age to 22 he worked hard at trying to pass the pro test as its called in Japan to become a professional golfer on tour.  Tomaru-san came to the realization that making the tour was to high a mountain to climb so he instead joined Dunlop (Sri Sports as we know it today) in the golf sales department hoping to expand his golf background. As Sri grew, Tomaru-san wanted to move into golf club design, where his real passion lay however, Dunlop had no vacancies there so he left at age 25 and went to Fourteen Golf.  At Fourteen, Tomaru-san spent 11 years fine tuning his skills as a club designer and craftsman. He was responsible for most of Fourteen's irons designs as well as credit as the creator of the MT-28 wedge.In case you didn't notice, MT = Masahiro Tomaru.

Click Read More to find out about Grind Studio products and all the great pics!

RC DB Forged - a Tomaru grind...

Tomaru-san decided to leave Fourteen to start his own company called Grind Studio. At first he also lent a hand at designing wedges for other top Japanese brands including the still sought after Royal Collection DB Forged wedge (Double Bounce). This wedge has a cult following for its tour like grind and shape and was made in very few numbers, each hand ground by Tomaru-san and stamped with a small "T" on the toe face.

Original designs premium Japan forged...

Since starting Grind Studio, demand for Tomaru-san's wedges have steadily grown as has his skill for grinding and designing wedges and irons. He currently has his own wedge designs forged for him by Kyoei and Oichi from both S25C and S20C which he then grinds, engraves, stamps and finishes from the raw head. This includes a cavity back and muscle back blade as well. Since Tomaru-san creates everything from scratch, customers are able to not only choose lofts from 45-62* as well as bounce, but also, grind type, head shape ie round or tear drop, conforming or non conforming engraved grooves, face milling, amount of offset including zero offset,  custom logos, stamping and finish including non plated raw satin and black or a plated satin or chrome.

Very large demand, heavy Japan tour usage...

Tomaru-san's popularity has grown immensely in the last two years however he has remained a one man shop guaranteeing that every Grind Studio club is made by his hands. But because of this popularity, wait times can be long for customers wanting his wedges. As Tomaru-san noted to me in our meeting, his priority especially right now with the new golf season underway, is the over 50 pros around Asia (primarily on the Japan tour) using Grind Studio wedges.  Players who have used his wedge at one time or another include Ryo Ishikawa, Shinobu Moromizato, and Yusuke Miyazato (Ai's brother).  At this time customers are waiting 2-3 months for wedges and irons and even at that, most customers feel it is well worth the wait as customers wedges get the same options, attention and quality workmanship that pro wedges do.

The Process...

Creating each wedge is time consuming and a lot of hand work. Here is a break down of what it takes to grind one wedge, non plated satin.

Pricey, takes a while... but worth it!

I was lucky enough to own a Grind Studio wedge a few years back when Grind Studio was just becoming popular. (since then he has been featured in Golf Digest, Albatross, Weekly Par Golf, Choice and many other top Japanese magazines.) I sold that wedge and have regretted it ever since as it was one of the softest and easiest wedges I have ever played. Not to mention it was beautiful and spun the crap out of a golf ball. I am glad that I was able to meet Tomaru-san and discuss having him create Grind Studio wedges for Tourspecgolf customers.  Tomaru-san has agreed to begin crafting wedges and irons for global golf enthusiasts through TSG starting this summer due to his heavy workload at this moment.  The exciting thing is that this also includes custom irons with any kind of grind and bounce as well as any amount of offset including zero offset. The cost will be high due to the amount of work involved and the quality of the wedge since customers pretty much get a one of a kind custom made tour quality wedge. The wait time will be long, but good things come to those who are patient and wait. (^_^)

Contact us if interested in a some Grind Studio Wedges.

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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Kamui Works has long been known to make some of the best hand made drivers in Japan especially for the athlete golfer. For many years their Asiri line was the premium choice for the better golfer those who wanted a custom made driver for performance. In the last year, we saw the release of the 456 Silver which took the performance of the Asiri line to a whole new level and more. Suddenly everyone wanted a 456 Silver including the average golfer. With the hand made custom specs, the 456 Silver can be made to perform for any player with any swing speed or style.  The 460cc forgiving performance driver opened the door to the average golfer market for Kamui.

In comes the all new 2010 TEIOO Mid Air Iron. This is a hybrid performance iron made for the average golfer wanting the ultimate in forgiveness and distance. With lofts 2-3* stronger than most average golfer models (22* 5 iron) and an ultra low center of gravity, players can gain more than a whole club distance by using the TEIOO.  Your an average to slower swinger but want to hit your 5 iron 185 yards? Sure, the TEIOO can reach those distances with the strong loft and longer recommended club length (38.5" 5 iron).  The high COR Maraging face is very thin producing ultra high ball speeds for lots of carry. The long irons feature a hybrid style head which progresses to a more traditional iron style head from the mid to short irons.

The new Kamui TEIOO is available in two models, the standard "Silver" model or an Ion Plated (IP) Gold model. Best of all, the TEIOO is available as heads only or custom built to any shaft you want. We've already requested demos so stay tuned for an in depth review! If you are interested in a set please contact us for more details!

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 many requests from customers to get Kamui's fairway wood in the pro shop, so we thought we would get a few heads in to check out. Yesterday I received a custom 3 and 5 wood from Kamui and they are indeed a simple and clean design with a very traditional shape and mid height or semi shallow face depending on how you look at it. The Kamui FW is hand made to spec just like the Kamui drivers that TSG carries.

Each Kamui Fairway Wood is made from soft SUS630 for the body and a FORGED high maraging face. Maraging steel is stronger than SUS630 so can be made thinner providing soft feel and POP off the face at impact.  The heads are considered mid to smaller sized heads with a pear shape.

As always Kamui's are hand made made to exact specs. Keep in mind also that while I list adjustment guidelines here, it is NOT uncommon for Kamui to be able to adjust even more beyond these guidelines.

3W
Loft 15* plus/minus 1*
Lie is 59* plus/minus 1* (or more)
Face Angle 2* closed to 1* open (but like the driver 2* is probably doable)
Weight is 207g and can be increased up to 217g

5W
18* plus/minus 1*
Lie is 60* plus/minus 1* (or more)
Face Angle 2* closed to 1* open (but like the driver 2* is probably doable)
Weight is 214g and can be increased up to 223g

7W
21* plus/minus 1*
Lie is 61* plus/minus 1*(or more)
Face Angle 2* closed to 1* open (but like the driver 2* is probably doable)
Weight is 223g and and can be increased up to 232g

Like the Kamui drivers the Kamui fairway wood can be purchased as head only or custom built with any of the best shafts Japan has to offer. The Kamui FW will be in the shop this weekend with a head only price of 299.00. If you need help with specs or need recommendations or a custom quote, as always feel free to contact me.  Here are some pictures, at the moment, head only:

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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Gold's Factory:  The last True Hand Made Wedges
When shopping around for the best made wedges money can buy you have quite a few options on the market, but the real question is are these companies giving you a sales pitch or are they really producing their own hand made wedges  in house and most importantly when they say it's 100% hand made is it really?

Do you know who did the grind on your wedges and if you do, there are some things you should know about how it was made especially if your paying top dollar.

TourSpecGolf has visited most of the manufacturing plants in Japan and even a couple in China noting the process used to produce some of the most expensive golf clubs on the market. We have learned a lot over the years and wanted to bring you the real skinny on  100% hand made wedges for those who care about quality and getting your money's worth vs what you are told you are getting.

Not Always as it Seems...
Almost every manufacture that claims they produce fully hand made wedges are really not doing so, well lets just say they are 25% hand made.  The process that 99% of the wedges on the market uses takes the finished ground head from an unknown factory grinder and puts it into a barrel of small stones and shakes it vigoursly for about 2 hours.  You can put 100 heads in these barrels turn it to shake mode for 2 hours, then set to vibrate for another 2 hours and presto you have 100 wedge heads done. I am not saying that these are not hand made or hand grind but the part that takes the most care, time and skill is done by the barrel.  So lets call them Barrel made wedges... let's be honest it isnt rocket science to grind a wedge to shape from a raw blank,  just about anyone can learn to do that in a month if they put great effort into it.

True HAND MADE or HAND GRIND are made by hand from start to finish.   It begins by using a #60 grit rough paper to change the shape as most companies do but it's after that where just about every manufacture skimps out at goes straight to the barrell while  Master Sasaya of Gold's Factory continues to produce wedges with Pride using the True Hand Made method.

The REAL Process
After the #60 grit is used Master Sasaya then switches to a totally different grind machine to use #100, then #120, #180, and  #240 making it semi smooth yet still seeing things that need to be adjusted or fixed. Following Semi Smooth #320, #400, #600 are used to make the wedge very smooth with no flaws.  After that another specific machine is used that has a pencil thick sanding belt for all corners, edges, flowing transitional lines and fine areas and even after that  the same process is done once again to ensure the smaller areas have the same flow.  I am talking about all areas from the neck to the topline & sole etc..  Every line must lead into the proper area with consistency before using #1000 to made the wedge shine from raw metal to almost mirror finish.

This means the shape is 100% intentional, Not 80% luck or cover up like barrel made wedges are.  A master of grinding can only produce 2 wedges tops each day, it literally takes 10-15 times longer to produce a wedge using this true method over barrell made wedges.  In fact the only other person I know who used this method has passed away making Master Sasaya to our knowledge the only person doing this in the entire golf industry.

Better than the Tour
Even the worlds top wedge companies  use this barrel method,  The worlds best PGA Tour players use custom wedges that are half ground half barrell.  Now the barrell wedge will work on the course but the shape is always rounded, very round with few sharp areas.  So if you are serious and big on quality and process  we suggest a TRUE hand made wedge.  If you see your wedge as simply a tool of golf then it's not a problem but if you are being told what your getting is a true hand made wedge question them and send us an image, we can tell you right off the bat if it really is.

Plating does cover up flaw's as well, I know many like myself enjoy a satin finished wedge but keep in mind even the finishes that Gold's Factory does are done by hand 100%. Yes you can request it plated if you want but it's something to keep in mind if you are Quality oriented and want only the best hand made product. It's truley special from start to finish.

I know it sounds like im knocking barrel made wedges but the truth is that the factories need to do this for mass produced product. It's when companies that sell product that is built with mass produced methods and try to pass it off as hand made that has motivated me to share this insight with you guys.

Below we have a video of Master Sasaya doing the early #60 grit step to create the initial shape of the wedge and at the end he explains in rough terms what i did above.

Dont Forget to Read Part 2 of our Interview with Master Masayuki Sasaya by Clicking Here or Keep Reading!

Q: How long ago did you start playing Golf?

A: When I was 13 or 14 years old.

Q: What is in your Bag Currently?

A: Often the manufacturers ask me to test their product and sometimes I do test other maker’s products to study but now I play mostly Gold’s Factory Product.

Q: What has been your favorite Gold’s Factory Putter that you have made?

A: Always the next model is the best.

Q: What type of Japanese customer buys Gold’s Factory Product?

A:  I don’t think my customers any particular special group of people, I think they went to a golf shop but just couldn’t find something they wanted or made them feel proud and good about. You don’t need to be afraid to be in the minority, the minority doesn’t mean you’re wrong and often the Majority is wrong in the Golf Industry.

Q:  What are you working on Next?

A:  I am testing many new putters, Irons, and wedges right now. I am thinking about many products and their design is very important to us. I do think that the timing of selling the product is also very important as well.

Q: Can you tell us about your famous Sword Oil Product?

A:  Well it’s not my product. It is ancient Japanese oil used to maintain the Samurai’s sword. It just so happens it is the best type of product for a forged golf club. If you go to the Japanese Museum of history swords that are hundreds of years old are still shining because they are protected by Sword Oil.

Q:  How do you manage working with so many types of custom options?

A: Somehow? Ha ha ha….
Custom orders always have the danger of mistakes. We do our best and only deal with the best like TourSpecGolf because you guys understand about intense options and a wide selection of features.

Q:  What is the craziest putter you have ever made for a client?

A: I have never made a putter I consider Crazy; I hope someone will surprise me some day.

 

Thank you again Master Sasaya for this interview…

-          Your Very Welcome.