COMMUNITY

I think it has to do with materials and new technology, and your assessment that people will buy it no matter the price.

But I think you made the right call, a putter and balls is more important IMO. Thinking about how many times I hit a driver in a round, I think wedges and putters are more important in this stage of my game.

What always get me is that people will pay 400.00 for a driver, but 30.00 for a putter, lol....

Oddly enough, I just bought a driver at Golfsmith last week. Went in to look at the Ping G15's advertised for $199. Tried a 9 deg stiff and a 10.5 regular on the launch monitor against my 6 year old Orlimar 9.5 stiff. Almost no difference in yardage or dispersion. Sales guy pulled a year old G15 10.5 with an Aldila stiff shaft from the used club rack and I started getting an extra 20 to 25 yards and a slight draw. Best of all. it was $149... Very happy with both the price and performance.

Don't know that I would spend what they are asking just to have this years latest and greatest even if I did have the available cash to do so. Last years latest and greatest is usually on clearance for half the price. I'd have gladly paid the $199 if the numbers on the launch monitor warranted it. Finding the lightly used model was just a happy bonus!

It's ridiculous. I'm not paying $500 for something just because it's got a white head, or because I can hit a golf ball with another colored driver 250 yards. Not worth it. Most I've spent on a club I think is around $140. I typically just wait for drivers to get 3 years old and then buy them when they're in that price range.

Small market x many competitors x high advertising costs x high research & development costs x high distribution costs = high price

Whether justified or not, each company churns out new driver models every year. That means new R&D, new tooling and manufacturing, new part numbers, inventory and new marketing/advertising campaigns and material to get the word out on the new products. Half the list price never reaches the manufacturer. Retailers and other distribution channels get the product at about 50% of list.

The cost of the materials that go into a driver are miniscule by comparison.

And yeah, a high percentage of golfers willing to pay the price.

You are thinking about this wrong.... It is not $400 per driver...

Assuming you get another 40 yards out of it... it is just $10 per yard.... surely you would pay $10 to get one extra yard out of your swing right?

.... oh ...... I guess not...... moving on....... sorry.....

It because golfers will pay that much. If you go to a golf shop and test drivers for the last for the last four years side by side and you will find that there is no difference in the performance all things being equal (shaft, loft, length, face angle, etc). So if you buy a 3 year old model you can pay less than $100 and get the same performance.

You want to hit it a Long,Long Way...it cost money.your going about the right way,testing out the drivers,Last year I,tested several drivers and the only one that worked Best for me is the Callaway FT9..and it comes out of the bag on every Par-4 & Par-5..I,tell my friends I,didn't Pay $400.00 to KEEP IT IN THE BAG! NEVER LAY-UP! GO FOR IT!

My driver is a used $39 TM burner tour bought it from globalgolf, it's out drive any of my friends $400. They're all been playing decade ahead of me. If it work for you? go for it. Im happy with mine until the end.

...or take your current driver you bought off the rack and get fitted and get even better performance.

Just about any brand of driver you are looking at will be reduced in price if you wait a couple of months. I get mad at myself after spending $400.00 on a driver only to see it on sale the next month for $199.00. Many reasons for high prices and then sale prices. Go figure.

Two things to remember, most of what you buy retail is initially priced at double cost. Also, almost nothing you buy retail is paid for by the merchant. It's all on commercial credit. After awhile the interest the merchant pays on the stock begins to outweigh the profit potential. He's better off unloading old stock at cost just to avoid paying interest on it.

I agree the putter is something that most of us over look. I bought the same putter I have now just upgrade to a mallet for faster greens. I bought the PROV1X golf balls just love the way they come off the club face and they seem to last a long time until you send it deep in the woods or give it a free swim.

Ok lets look at it this way:
Taylor-Made put 100 drivers on avg in:
80 Golf Galaxy's
85 Golfsmiths
85 Edwin Watts
450 Dick's
and for the sake of this lets add another 100 stores that I can't think of right now come to 800 x 100 drivers 80000
80000 x 350.00 avg gives the company 28,000,000 dollars. So you are telling me the companys overhead is more than the 28 million to produce a driver? To me that seems a bit high for a driver plus all the other clubs they sell. To me we are like sheep headed to the wood shed if you know what I mean. Of course I might be way the hell off but you see my point they should start at 200.00 then drop it to 100.00 in six months, but of course thats way I'm in the chemical Indust. and not making drivers.

Well, first off "the company" doesn't get $28 million on those clubs, they are lucky to get half of that. The retailer typically gets the club at 1/2 of list price or less.

Second, Callaway spent $40 million in advertising with their national ad agency last year, and that isn't all of their advertising, only the portion that went through their main ad agency.

Third, have you ever tried to build or buy and outfit a factory? Solyndra spent most of that $580 million of our tax money building theirs, and it wasn't enough to get them online.

Now I'm not saying Callaway had to spend $580 million on their driver factory, nor that they spent all those advertising dollars on drivers (that was for all products). I'm not even claiming that these companies don't make money. They do. I am saying it takes a lot of money to play this game.

I seem to recall a senator discussing the defense budget a few years back remarking, "A trillion here a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking real money"...