Media Contact: Mary Beth Lacy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MIURA GOLF: WORD IS FINALLY OUT ON GOLF’S BEST-KEPT SECRET
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (April 1, 2006)—Japanese golf-club manufacturer Miura Golf
has quietly been making the world’s highest-quality forged irons for the world’s major golf
OEMs for 41 years.
Miura Golf’s 64-year-old founder Katsuhiro Miura, whose forged clubmaking skills over the past
48 years have prompted the Japanese to claim he has “God’s hands,” founded the company when
he was just 23 years old in Himeji, Japan. His company currently manufactures forged clubs
primarily on an OEM basis for some of the world’s major golf-equipment companies. However,
the company also makes and markets high-end clubs (iron sets start at $1,099) under the “MG
Golf” brand, which is marketed by Miura Giken Co. Ltd. in Japan, and “Miura,” which is
marketed exclusively by Miura Golf Inc. in the United States, North America and the rest of the
world.
Mr. Miura’s dream has been to put the highest-quality designed and manufactured golf clubs in
the hands of golfers worldwide so they may play their best and enjoy the game to its fullest. One
of the first steps he took to make the dream come true was to organize the creation of Miura Golf
Inc., in which he continues as one of the founding shareholders. Miura Golf’s mandate is to
market models for the North American and international market under the brand name Miura.
The company has been selling its products primarily through select green-grass accounts, but a
new website, www.miuragolf.com, marks a shift in strategy to a broader marketing plan.
Miura Golf clubs are sold at the finest green-grass and custom-fitting shops in North America,
and the company’s goal is to be the most sought-after club line in a golf shop. The company will
only let the world’s best club-fitters fit and sell its products because they ask questions of their
customers and listen to the answers. These dealers aren’t order takers like the big-box and proshop sales forces.
Until now, only top golf professionals, low-handicappers, affluent golfers and other male and
female amateurs who demand the newest hot products have been privy to the fact Miura’s golf
clubs are the industry’s greatest secret, or “forbidden fruit.” While Miura has been in business for
nearly five decades, Katsuhiro Miura’s clubs will be red-hot once word gets out in the U.S.
The fact is, many players on the U.S. professional tours are, and have been, playing Miura-made
clubs under the brand name of other equipment companies and, to a more-limited extent, under
the Miura brand. Miura Golf has been one of the world’s most dominant OEM producers for
many years.
Because of his prior confidentiality agreements with OEMs, Mr. Miura can’t discuss the
championships that have been won with his forged clubs. However, the public record shows
players using Miura-made clubs while under contract to use clubs manufactured by American
OEMs have won two Masters (Ian Woosnam in 1991 and Jose Maria Olazabal in 1994 in which
both players used Maruman blades made by Mr. Miura), one U.S. Open (Retief Goosen in 2001),
one Senior PGA Championship (Ray Floyd in 1995), plus 25 victories on the Japanese tour. The
OEMs paying those stars to use their sticks hired Mr. Miura to design their clubs.
In addition, Titleist hired Mr. Miura to make limited-edition irons for Tiger Woods when he was
playing Titleist’s clubs. Mr. Miura used Titleist’s dies and design, and then manufactured Woods’
clubs using his own 14-step process.
Many other players on the U.S. professional tours were, and still are, playing Miura-made clubs
under the brand name of other equipment companies and, to a more-limited extent, under the
Miura brand. In fact, Miura Golf has been one of the world’s most dominant OEM producers for
many years. Among the numerous OEMs Mr. Miura has done past work for include Titleist,
TaylorMade, Nike, Ben Hogan, Tommy Armour, Dunlop, PRGR and Maruman. Today,
Katsuhiro Miura only does specialty work for several OEMs—with which he has confidentiality
agreements—on behalf of their professionals.
Miura Golf—whose corporate office is located in Vancouver, British Columbia—believes the
world should finally know about Mr. Miura’s craftsmanship, which is something the man—and
the company—can’t realize by simply producing other companies’ designs and products.
Miura Golf president Douglas B. Buchanan and vice president, general operations Bill Holowaty
are based in Vancouver, B.C.
Meanwhile, Mr. Miura is Miura Giken Co. Ltd.’s director of manufacturing and product
development at the manufacturing facility in Himeji. He employs about 34 male and female
craftsmen in Hemeji, including his sons Yoshitaka (33) and Shinei (30), who are the director of
the finishing division and director of the forging division, respectively.
KATSUHIRO MIURA’S BACKGROUND
Himeji, Japan—a city of more than 470,000 residents—is known as Japan’s steel region and is
also the home of the ancient art of samurai sword making. In 1928 master sword craftsmen made
the country’s first golf irons, and Himeji moved away from the production of swords and became
known for its production of golf clubs.
Katsuhiro Miura began his career as a craftsman at age 16, and at 23 he founded Miura Mfg. Co.
Ltd., and has been making the world’s highest-quality forged golf clubs for 48 years. His passion
for producing only the most perfect irons requires that he avoid the mass-production process
common to most other club companies, and include in his process a significant amount of handson craftsmanship, including hand-weighing and balancing each club before shipping. Each Miura
club must possess a balance of specification, technical perfection and beauty. Simply put, Mr.
Miura makes the planet’s finest forged irons.
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN
Each club’s design is personal to each golfer. Miura Golf provides a wide range of designs, both
technical and style, to fit any golfers’ skill level, swing mechanics and psychological needs. But
not including all the variables that go into a club’s design, Mr. Miura feels there are two
fundamental principles of golf club design that can’t be varied—technical design and transition
design.
--Technical Design: The club must “work” in the technical sense. The technical design includes
variables such as size, weight, center of gravity, balance, bounce, and the sweet spot’s size and
location. Mr. Miura has, for 48 years, studied and mastered not only the aspects of each of these
technical elements but, more importantly, the interrelationship among all these elements. Every
Miura club combines a perfect blend of these interrelated technical elements.
--Transition Design: The second principle is the “transition design” of the club, from long irons
through the middle irons through short irons. The Miura-designed clubs are unsurpassed in how
they accomplish this transition through a combination of adjustment to loft, lie, weight and
design, leaving the golfer as confident with a 3-iron as he or she is with a 7-iron.
MANUFACTURING TECHNIQUES
Mr. Miura uses forging techniques that have taken years to perfect. These special techniques—
which include using mild steel in all of his forged clubs—produce a clubhead with the most stable
and refined molecular structure found anywhere in the golf industry. Mild steel produces a sense
of feel and control that simply can’t be matched by other forging or casting processes currently
used by club manufacturers.
Miura’s forging techniques rearrange the molecular structure of the mild steel in a pattern that’s
uniform throughout the club’s hitting area in a manner unique to his clubs. The result is a sense of
solid softness at contact that is unmatched by other golf clubs. The unique precision of Miura’s
forging process provides a weight error of plus or minus 0.5g after polishing, an unmatched
standard for quality. In addition to the forged mild-steel golf club’s playing characteristics, it also
has the added advantage of adjustability, allowing a golfer to have the lie and loft of his Miura
clubs adjusted to fit his or her swing perfectly.
Miura’s forging process features 14 steps, many of which are unique and proprietary to Mr.
Miura, who fully supervises each step. Because Mr. Miura is able to have the fundamental weight
adjustments in the clubhead occur during the forging process rather than the grinding process, it
creates an unsurpassed uniformity of head weight resulting in unbelievable feel.
CURRENT PRODUCT LINE
Miura Golf is known for its extremely beautiful muscleback irons, and that’s where Mr. Miura’s
heart lies. However, he also makes cavity-back models, and stresses that his clubs are geared to
low- and high-handicappers. That’s why Mr. Miura’s creations are not only popular with tour
professionals and low-handicap CEOs, but with average golfers who have lowered their
handicaps by taking advantage of Miura’s craftsmanship. To date Miura’s best customers have
been the country-club influencer, affluent young businessmen who play at semi-private and resort
courses, and male and female amateurs who know about Miura and simply want the best. In all
cases, because of Mr. Miura’s craftsmanship, and the company’s approachability and credibility,
Miura Golf customers take ownership of the irons and become the company’s most effective sales
people.
Mr. Miura also displays an integrity seen nowhere else in the worldwide golf market by not
introducing a new product every year just for the sake of marketing purposes. Mr. Miura will only
introduce a new club if and when technology demands it—which might be every 18 months to
two years. The loyal Miura customers have no reason to change irons, and they can’t wait for a
new company model so they can be the first to have the new Miura product. They might get their
next opportunity soon, as the company plans to introduce a new iron model in early 2006.
The current product line includes right-handed and left-handed irons and wedges, and a putter
model.
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Right-handed irons include Blade (Tournament Blade Model, MSRP: $1,099)
CB-201 (Ultimate Cavity Back Model, $1,099)
MC-101 (Midsize Cavity Model, $1,099)
MT-001 (Inner Cavity Model, $1,249)
IC-2003 (Utility Model, $219)
CB-301 (Newest Cavity Back Model, $1,249)
Wedges (Wedges Series, $135)
Right-handed putter: MP Series (Heel & Toe Balanced Model—Slant Neck, $290)
Left-handed models include: LH-Blade (LH Series Muscle-Back Blade Model, $1,249)
LH-Cavity (LH Series Cavity Model, $1,249)
Wedges (Wedges Series, $149).
Once the fitter uses a launch monitor to compare Miura’s clubs with a golfer’s own clubs,
and then the proper shaft is installed, the Miura clubs speak for themselves—100 percent
of the time.
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For more information or company/product images please contact: Mary Beth Lacy at 760-2021181 or mb@mblacy.com.