TaylorMade pros using special hats and bags at US PGA

BY iseekgolf.com | US PGA Tour | 2003 US PGA Championship | General | 15 Aug 2003

TaylorMade Tour Staff professionals participating in this year’s PGA Championship, at Oak Hill Country Club, will each wear a special edition TaylorMade hat and use a special edition TaylorMade staff bag. Both items feature a distinctive icon, inspired by the history of both the PGA Championship and Oak Hill, embroidered onto them.

Designed by TaylorMade’s Global Design Department, this icon incorporates the following elements:

• A range of late summer colors commonly found outdoors in upstate New York, where Oak Hill is located, including dark olive and burnt orange.
• A large White Oak leaf, colored burnt orange, a reference to the thousands of trees – many of them oaks, but also including maples, elms and evergreens — that populate Oak Hill’s two golf courses.
• A graphic inspired by the Wanamaker trophy, named for Rodman Wanamaker, a department store magnate who hosted the exploratory meeting of the Professional Golfers Association in 1916, where the idea for the tournament was conceived. Wanamaker provided the trophy for the first event; the Wanamaker Trophy is still used today.
• “8624,” which corresponds on a telephone key pad to TMaG (TaylorMade-adidas Golf); “85th,” because this year marks the 85th PGA Championship; and “2003.”
• The word “Rochester” and the TaylorMade Golf logo.

“We created this special icon to salute both the tournament and the venue,” says Craig Barez, Creative Director for TaylorMade. “The PGA Championship has a terrific history and a special status as the final major tournament of the year, while Oak Hill Country Club is a beautiful and storied golf course. Together, they represent golf at its most authentic.”

Replica hats are available to the public in limited quantities through TaylorMade’s retail partners, and are offered in bright orange. The manufacturer’s suggested retail price is $20.

TaylorMade’s special edition staff bags combine four colors – saddle bag brown, squash yellow, olive and black — and include TaylorMade’s PGA Championship icon embroidered onto the front.

Two bags have been manufactured for each participating TaylorMade Tour Staff member, who will keep the bag that he uses in the tournament, and autograph the other. The autographed bags will be sold to a private collector, with proceeds going to the First Tee Foundation.

Players using TaylorMade’s special edition bags and wearing the hats at Oak Hill will include Rich Beem, Kenny Perry, Mike Weir, Fred Couples, Sergio Garcia, Retief Goosen, Darren Clarke, Justin Rose, K.J. Choi, Peter Lonard.