WHY ARE WE MORE AFFORDABLE?

Here, we’ll explain our price positioning.

By Inesis

March 8^th, 2021

Inesis is Decathlon’s golf brand. The mission set out by Decathlon is to “make sure the pleasure and benefits of enjoying sports are sustainable and accessible for as many people as possible”. Accessible, in all senses of the term, but most particularly in terms of pricing. We won’t deny it, golf is one of the most elitists sports around. So, when we apply the Decathlon philosophy to golfing, we obviously find ourselves in a unique position.

WHAT GOLFERS NEED

A useful product for golfers is:

a well-designed product, which responds to golfers’ actual needs, with performance that matches that of the best.
a carefully-developed design, with finishes that add value and a flawless aesthetic: it doesn't cost extra to design attractive products.
a real partnership with production teams, experts in their sector, to guarantee high-performance and faultless quality.

That’s all that you need to create an excellent.

WHAT GOLFERS DON’T NEED

Ex. works, our products cost the same price as those made by our competitors. That’s a fact. If the Tour 900 ball is sold at 30 euros for a dozen, which is half the price of other premium balls, it’s because there are other elements which add to the price of the product.

For example, sponsoring and publicity. When they play with a 500-euro driver, or a ball that costs 60 euros for a dozen, a golfer pays for the sponsorships of PGA players, and worldwide brand publicity campaigns.

Here at Inesis, we don’t want to make you pay for something that won’t benefit your game. Let’s be honest, it’s not sponsorships or publicity that will help you score higher on the fairway.

1. THE 500 SERIES EXAMPLE

AN EFFICIENT DESIGN

The 500 series has been designed for advanced golfers (handicap 30 to 15). These clubs are tolerant and powerful. Thanks to their hollow body technology (their heads are hollow), the design is similar to a blade, with increased tolerance.

How have we succeeded in offering the 500 series at a price of 400 euros for 6 irons (including 5 PW irons), which means they’re just 67 euros per club.

It’s all about the design choices. By opting for an “athletic and elegant” style (the preferred style here at Inesis), we achieve clean, simple lines and hence a mould which is easier to create. So, the simpler the mould, the lower the production cost. It’s also easier to use, which means that our faulty product rate is lower.

A TIMELESS STYLE

The same principal applies for finishes. The 500 irons have two different finishes: sanding then polishing, and a polished nickel-chrome mirror. The result is a classic, timeless style. This is something we’re very set on, as we don't think you should have to change your irons every year because they seem to be out of fashion. Look at the old Japanese iron series: very simple lines, one single finish, and clubs which still look just as great at ten, or even fifteen years old.

We’ve also worked hard to ensure that with one single head, we can offer 6 different profiles (size 1 and size 2, and slow, moderate or high speed) with 6 different swing weights. It would have been simpler to produce different versions of the same head with different waits, but that also would be more costly.

We have made no compromises in regard to shaft performances, by working closely with Nippon and UST Mamiya. Finally, we’ve made some savings by developing our own grips.

FEWER MANUAL STEPS

We’ve also sought to limit the number of steps necessary for the manufacturing process for a 500 iron head. With 40 manual steps. This is major work optimisation. We’re far from the more complex clubs which can neighbour the 300 steps. What is the correct number of steps? There’s a certain amount of work to be done to make sure a club performs correctly AND looks good, and other factors all contribute to exponentially increasing the product cost, without necessarily improving the basis.

INESIS MAKER LAB

In our Inesis Golf Park design and development centre, we’ve set up our Maker Lab. We have all the skills and resources there to design the 500 irons in-house. We can therefore accelerate to the prototyping thanks to the plastic and metal 3D printers. This saves an incredible amount of time, as it avoids back and forth with the production teams. There’s only the validation step for the finishes applied to the heads which requires the prototypes from the factory. As we’ve gathered in-depth knowledge of the processes, this is generally just a formality.

2. THE 900 TOUR BALL EXAMPLE

NO COMPROMISE ON PERFORMANCES

For us, a golf ball intended for advanced players (handicap < 15), is a ball that meets market levels for driving distance. It should have the right solidity, for a feel neither too soft nor too hard to ensure a good contact, whatever the swing speed. Above all, it should offer exceptional control around the green. It should stop quickly after the first pitch. Aim: play a birdie.

To respond to these design specifications, we worked closely with the manufacturing factory, based in Taiwan. The factory team have the skills and knowledge to create 3-, 4- or even 5-piece urethane balls.

We soon decided that a 3-piece ball was sufficient for creating an excellent advanced ball. Furthermore, the best-selling golf ball in the world, the Titleist Pro V1, is a 3-piece ball. Opting for 4- or 5-piece balls allows for the ball’s characteristics to be adjust more precisely, but doesn't improve performances. On the contrary, the price does go up!

You can spend hours of fun calculation the price per metre of a drive ball, the price per spin of a wedge ball, or the price per number of strikes across a section. :)

The development work consists of varying the ball’s characteristics (hardness, core size, intermediate layer thickness, urethane shell thickness) until we achieve the desired compromise. For the Tour 900, we developed 4 versions before settling on the final version. Each time, the balls are tested on the green by advanced golfers, as well as by using a robot at Golf Laboratories.

Golf ball performances are governed by the R&A. A certified ball cannot exceed certain limits, that all big manufacturers currently reach today. Of course, there are marginal differences between premium models, when they’re struck by a robot. Yet, when a robot advances a 2-metre difference in the drive, that doesn’t make any difference on the fairway, even for advanced golfers. We double-checked.

WHERE THE DIFFERENCE LIES

Once the final prototype is validated, we know that we’ve created an excellent ball for advanced golfers. To make sure we can reduce our factory price to lower than that of our competitors, we made some decisions.

First of all, of course we want an attractive ball, but we don’t need it to be a masterpiece, either. A ball remains a “consumable”, which will be finished with after a few golfing sessions at best, if not lost in the rough or in a water feature. So, we don’t think it’s necessary to go OTT on the cosmetic aspects. We worked on the colour of the core (yellow), and the shade of white, to make sure we had a ball that stood out. The Tour 900 yellow ball required more work, as it’s intended for players who attribute more importance to the aesthetic aspect of their ball. It therefore has more of a shimmer, similar to metallic paintwork on a car. For the alignment marking, we opted for something more practical and efficient, whether you're a fan of using it or not.

Here at Inesis, we always prioritise the aesthetics of a product, from materials to patterns, or aesthetic overlays which quickly fall out of fashion and require more regular product renewal.

Finally, we look at packaging. Packaging should be sufficiently aesthetic so as to showcase the contents well, practical with separate sleeves, for when you only want to take 3 balls out with you to the fairway, for example. Yet, once the balls have been used or lost, the box is no longer useful, and is just destined for the bin (obviously the recycling bin!). So what’s the point in having the most attractive packaging in the world? We’ve looked for a good compromise, with cardboard packaging with no metallic touches. Simple and effective ;)