PXG FOUNDER AND CEO, BOB PARSONS ON WHAT MAKES PXG DIFFERENT.
TRANSCRIPT
What if we started a company and the company was under no time constraints, no financial constraints? And the one thing that that company had, the one constraint, is their clubs had to be exceptional performers, and much better than any other alternative. So that’s what we did. We didn’t know if we’d do it or not. It took us a couple of years. We nailed it.
When the clubs were first released, nobody could believe how could they were.
Hi, I’m Bob Parsons, founder and CEO PXG.
HOW DID PEOPLE REACT TO YOU STARTING A GOLF COMPANY?
Well, they thought I was crazy because at the time we started, the golf industry was at a low level. It had had dropped. There were articles appearing in Forbes, what happened all the golfers, this, that and the other thing. And so, people said, why would you get into an industry that is literally on its tail? And I thought about it and I thought that’s probably an excellent time to get in, because if you do something extraordinary, it’s going to get noticed. Might not happen when it’s booming. So that never stopped me in the past, didn’t stop me this time.
WHAT DEFINED PXG’S FIRST 0311 IRONS RELEASE?
First of all, when we released the irons, since we had so much in them, as a matter of fact, there’s weights that go along the perimeter of our flagship irons. And we’ve kept that look because more people look at them, they know it’s a PXG. We have more in those tungsten weights than our competitors do in their whole club head. So, when we said we’d spend some money on it to get the performance, that’s exactly what we did. And I was told time and again it’ll never work. It worked like a house of fire because all somebody had to do was hit them and off they went.
WHEN IS A CLUB GOOD ENOUGH TO BE CALLED PXG?
Our commitment is we promise our customers that we will not release something unless it’s noticeably and significantly better. And we work really hard to make sure that’s the case. So, when something has the PXG name on it, they know that that means something. And so, we have the discipline to keep working in order to make sure that that is actually the case. And we don’t take that easy road. I mean, there’ll be times that our engineers are excellent golfers, but one of the benefits that we have is I’m a middle of the road golfer. Now our engineers, they can hit anything. They can hit anything. They’d probably play with hockey sticks and do pretty good. And so, something that is better in a small way, well they would notice that and that’d be fine with them. Me, I need things that are better in a big way.
HOW DOES PXG MEASURE SUCCESS?
Developing our clubs, our equipment, our apparel, learning from it, doing a better job, doing a better job, doing a better job. And the sales will take care of their self. Now, the other thing that we do is we realize it’s important that you have enthusiasm on the staff. And we do that with our employees because our employees love not being part of something that is just standard where they got to meet certain goals and that. What they do is they try to become better and better and better and better. And that translates to the customers. So, a customer calls and they talk to an employee who has a lot of enthusiasm. Now, what do we know about enthusiasm? It’s contagious. And the customers love that too. And especially when they get their products, they get that big black box and they hit those clubs. You know what? Then we got another salesperson.
HOW DOES YOUR TIME IN THE U.S. MARINE CORPS INFLUENCE YOUR WORK AT PXG?
Well first of all, the Marine Corps raised me. I mean, I became a man in the Marine Corps. And the guy that came out of the Marine Corps was very different than the guy that went in. The guy that went in was a knucklehead and wasn’t a good student and a typical clueless teenager.
And the guy that came out was serious, had major accomplishments, was taught discipline. And not discipline in the form of punishment, although there was plenty of that, right? It was discipline in the sense of, if you have a difficult job to do, you don’t have to like it, but you need to have the backbone to see it through. And the Marine Corps taught me that. They taught me of the importance of commitments and the responsibility to honor those commitments. So, when you tell somebody, especially in a wartime situation on your right left, that you’re going to do something, you got to do it. Or if they need you to do it, you got to do it. You’re part of the effort. And they taught me that I could do more than I ever dreamed I could do, and they taught me that I had a right to be proud.
WHAT IS PXG FOR HEROES?
We try to provide our military and civilian heroes a little special deal on our PXG products. And somebody asked me, he goes, “Well, why do you do that?” And I said, “It is a gesture of respect and thanks for all you’ve done for this country.”
Learn more about our PXG for Heroes Program here.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR PXG?
We will continue to work hard to improve our products, to do things nobody else is doing, to do really high performing products that when people see the name PXG, they’re pretty stoked about it. And it doesn’t just end with golf equipment. Now my wife, Renee Parsons is a fashionista. So, she has adopted the PXG apparel line. And as good as our golf clubs are, the apparel is better. I don’t mean just golf companies. We blow the gold companies’ apparel out of the water. What happens is the apparel that Renee makes stands tall or beats anything made by anybody anywhere. And what Rene’s done with our apparel is we have people who don’t even play golf that love to rock our apparel. And then their friends buy it, because everything we do is not what the industry does. There’s the golf industry. And there’s PXG. And I’ll tell you what, I think our customers love it.
PXG, nobody makes golf clubs the way we do. Period.
