(Edit. 3/7/22: The owners of Urquhart golf have elected to rebrand their company to Q Golf.)
Despite a down year, the 2022 PGA Show revealed plenty of products noteworthy both for their promise and their pathos. A new adjustable club from Urquhart (pronounced "urr-kit") Golf fits solidly in the former camp.
Adjustable golf clubs are nothing new - they've existed for more than a century. But versions I've seen in my lifetime have always looked cheap and gimmicky, more at home in a Hammacher Schlemmer catalog than a golf setting of any seriousness. Buoyed by their smash-success raising initial funds via Kickstarter, the New Zealand-based company has turned out a substantial offering, with a quality 39-inch graphite shaft and a polished steel head that can be used as a 64-degree wedge (best to choke down a bit on the extra-long grip), a 5-degree putter, 11-degree "stinger" and eight other lofts in between.
The engineer behind Urquhart, Simon Moore, patented several adjustability-based golf clubs and features in the industry, including Nike's Covert driver and fairway woods, in the 2000s. That experience and thoughtfulness sets this adjustable club apart from others
The play here is inclusivity. Urquhart is not courting you, the avid golfer, so much as they're a trying to pique the interest of the people in your life whom you've been bugging for years to take up the game. Expect the cost to be comparable to that of a new 3 wood, but for a club someone could conceivably use for an entire round, it's a steal relative to the startup cost of a 14-club set. It's a clever way to dip a toe in the waters of the game without a hint of pandering. I'm all for it.
