Alpha Golf, who has always been regarded as one of the higher quality component manufacturers in the industry, is know for having top notch designs made of the best materials. But....would they dare use an open foundry design for their flagship driver?
While at the PGA show last week I wandered over to the PowerBilt booth, and they had some new irons an a new driver which are about to hit the market in the U.S. And I immediately recognized the driver - it's identical to the Alpha VX Tour, which is Alpha's most expensive driver head at $309.
After talking to the president of PowerBilt himself for a bit and building a rapport, I asked about the driver and inquired as to whether they come up with their own original designs or just use open foundry models, and his reply - without hesitation - "oh no, these are all open foundry designs, it would cost way to much to design our own heads". So I then mentioned how it looked very similar to another driver made by Alpha Golf and I showed him a photo, and he chuckled and said "yeah that's the exact same head, it's an open foundry model". PowerBilt actually makes theirs out of a more expensive 8-1-1 Beta Ti, while the Alpha driver is made of 15-3-3-3, and he said their driver is going to sell for around $199 assembled with a Fujikura Atmos Red shaft - $110 less than the Alpha head, with a pretty decent shaft in it!
Crazy.