As An engineer who designs clubs for the tour’s top Athletes, tom stites knows tour-cAliber
performAnce. but As A mere mortAl on the golf course, he understAnds whAt the rest of us need.
which is why it should be no surprise thAt he’s the mind behind sQ mAchspeed irons, with
tour-level speed And distAnce in A design engineered for everyone else.
notes
Saturday's storm meant Harrington could
finish only the outward journey of his second
round. So he faced a 4:30 wake-up on Sunday
morning to resume the fight. Crucially, the
break allowed earlier doubt to be replaced
by the fierce determination of only three
weeks previously at Birkdale where he won
his second consecutive Open Championship,
and with a homeward 32, recorded a stunning 66. Now, at 1 over for the championship,
he was back in the hunt.
With old foe Sergio Garcia as one of his
partners in the penultimate three-ball of the
final round, we wondered how this renewed
rivalry would pan out. Would Garcia grab the
chance of revenge for the sickening setback
of Carnoustie, or would we see Harrington
confirming his superiority over the mercurial Spaniard?
As a battle of rare intensity progressed
towards its climax, the breakthrough came
at the short, 216-yard 17th. There, after Harrington holed from 10 feet for birdie, the
Spaniard had to make one from less than half
that distance to stay level. One could imagine
the gasps from millions of armchair viewers
as the effort was pulled ruinously onto the
left lip. It was effectively over.
On the following morning, in the company
of other Irish scribes, I visited the sort of
luxurious dwelling you would expect to find
Attired in a T-shirt
and shorts, the
host served us with
drinks from the
fridge.
in one of the 10 richest counties (Bloomfield
Township outside Detroit) in the U.S. It was
where Team Harrington were based, only a
five-minute drive from Oakland Hills. Attired
in a T-shirt and shorts, the host served us
with drinks from the fridge and then invited
us to join him out back, by the swimming pool.
There, Ireland's greatest-ever international sportsperson held the Claret Jug and
the Wanamaker Trophy in either arm as we
gathered around him for a commemorative
photograph. “Here, help me with this,” he
said of the weighty Wanamaker. And it was
impossible not to smile at the simplicity of
it all, and the glorious golfing summer this
remarkable man had given us.
developer/engineer club model tom stites q machspeed irons get spec’d in the oven at:
• AM355 stAinless Alloy And An off-the-fAce weld construction
creAtes A thinner, hotter fAce And wider sweet zone.
• the deep undercut repositions 50 grAMs of weight out And bAck to
the nike powerbow for high-lAunching shots thAt trAvel fAr And
lAnd softly.
applied technologies
