“How This Putter Company Got Started!” – Sunset Beach Golf

FOR MORE INFO: If you are interetsed in learning more about what Sunset Beach has to offer and all the options they have to choose from click here.

Highest Quality – Lowest Price – Tour Player Attention

My name is Chris Jordan and having two small children and with the economy being what it is I started Sunset Beach Golf with one thing in mind, crafting custom made putters for the lowest price possible with the highest quality materials available.

“Here you can get the attention a tour player receives without a tour player’s game or a big bankroll or connection.”

When setting up a mission statement I had a couple of things in mind. First was that with today’s change in golf balls from balata to urethane the feel of a purely stroked putt with a stainless steel putter had become undesirable to many players. However with carbon steel, the material that many players grew up playing with, but maintenance was a serious issue that many players were not willing to compromise on.

The first order of business was to find a way to take the pure feel of carbon steel and make it as maintenance free as possible. The first option we looked at was a black oxide coating. The problem with black oxide is that over time the coating wears of leaving the putter susceptible to rust, which obviously was not the solution. Who wants have their gamer refinished every six months, year, or couple of years? Then we looked into nickel as a standard finish, but the change in sound and feel was unacceptable as was the durability. Nickel can react with fertilizer and other chemicals on greens as well. Not to mention that over time the nickel can be infiltrated by surface water if there is any trace of water in the putter headcover when it is stored.

MannKrafted Golf Partnership

The final chapter of the creation of Sunset Beach Golf came through the work of Lamont Mann of Mannkrafted Golf. Lamont was refinishing putters as a side business at the time I met him and it was with the help of his brother he was pioneering the use of a polymer coating on his refinishes. We talked and I did research, and our relationship was born. The polymer coating we use is not just a spray and go material. Our polymer is sprayed on and then baked in an oven, because of this the polymer does not just coat the metal, it bonds or fuses with the metal. Because the polymer is inert it does not react to salt, fertilizer or rainwater. However we still recommend that you do not store your putter wet, just like you should not store a stainless steel putter wet. Basically we have succeeded in making a putter with the feel of carbon but the maintenance of stainless steel a viable option for golfers today.

Our first two production putters the Surfside and the Yaupon were designed to offer our customers with as many hosel choices as possible. Being a small company without a large backing behind us we needed as many options as possible to reach as many customers as possible. The Yaupon has the angular lines of an Anser 2 style putter that have been brought back and rounded out to form a mid-mallet. With this design we have made and are currently offering the following hosel options.

• No.9 heel shaft
• Flo-neck
• Santa-fe style neck
• Plumber’s neck
• Mid-slant
• Center shaft
• Double-ben

The great thing about being a small self contained company is that if you have a hosel you want and can either draw it or send us a picture and we can custom make the hosel for you.

What’s Next At Sunset Beach?

The next two production putters we are releasing are the Ocean Isle and the Southport. While our first two designs were like nothing else on the market, our third and fourth offering sought to take two classic designs and modify them to make them better. Our Ocean Isle model looks like the classic anser 2 style with a few small modifications. We also have the Southport model, which looks strikingly similar to an anser style putter with a few not so subtle changes. Both models come standard with a plumber’s neck hosel, but can be modified to accept any hosel you can come up with.

We always keep a large selection of prototypes around, from the Pawley, to the Ocean Isle Shore and Southport Shore. I have a couple of other prototypes that I should have out later this month as well, only two of each, but something new for everyone to check out. New prototypes come out every so often when I have a chance to hit the drawing board, which is not as often as I would like as I talk to every customer that is even thinking about purchasing one of our putters. It is not something for a select few, but the treatment every one of our customers receive.

Coming Soon at Sunset Beach….(Wedges)

While Sunset Beach Golf started as strictly a putter company we have continued to expand to bring our same ideals behind our custom putters to other clubs. Coming soon will be our first release of our wedges. I went through three prototypes before finally getting my design the way I wanted, and my initial release will be a small number of wedges, I will continue to expand the options and clubs available. The initial release will be only 52, 56 and 60 lofts, but will expand to 48, 54 and 58 over time. Our finish options will be your standard chrome and a raw finish, but we will be applying what we have learned from our polymer on our putters to our wedges. We will offer a couple of polymer colors and possibly a copper plate and a oil rubbed bronze plating.

I have four iron designs that I have seen prototypes of, but with releasing all four putter lines and three wedge lofts into production I have to hold off for awhile so as to not spread myself too thin.

Design-Your-Own Putter!

Also relatively new to Sunset Beach Golf is custom crafting a customers putter design. With our SHOP putters the customer sends me a putter and tells me what they want different about it or they send me a drawing and I can either enter the design and CNC mill the individual head or it can be hand milled depending upon which is more economic for the customer or which they prefer. We have created two so far both very close to a no.9 style, one is right handed and the other is left handed. These are not a standard head design and because each one requires either its own programming based on design and head weight or hand milling they are obviously more expensive.

Sunset Beach is a young company but with its eyes looking up at the companies above us, with some hard work and one big break we will get there.

FOR MORE INFO: If you are interetsed in learning more about what Sunset Beach has to offer and all the options they have to choose from click here.

Related Articles:

– 15 Top Custom Putter Designers
– HOW IT’S MADE! – The “Slighter Snubnose Putter”

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