Honma: Another Iron in the Fire

When my daughter and I arrived at Sahalee CC in Sammamish, Washington for the first round of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, we scanned the tee sheet to find her favorite player—Ha Na Jang.

Eight-year-old girls choose their favorite golfers in a variety of ways, some of which actually involve golf. In this case, however, I think my daughter just liked Jang’s name because the name of one of her best friends, Hannah, sounds a lot like Ha Na. Or maybe it was because she liked the color of the shirt Jang was wearing when we saw her on TV once.

Anyway, I’m way off point. We caught up with Jang on the 9^th, and as she walked on to the tee she gave my daughter a smile and a little wave. Not only was she my daughter’s favorite player, she was now mine too, and I’d never even seen her hit a shot (apart from the par-4 hole in one she made at the Bahamas Classic in January, which I saw on YouTube.)

As an equipment writer, I was curious what clubs Jang played. I noticed Honma’s peculiar “Mole in the Hole” logo on her bag – the mole emerging from the letter ‘O’ – an image it has used since 1976.

We watched Jang for a few holes, then hung back to walk with another of my favorites, So Yeon Ryu, whom, I noted, also played Honma. I didn’t keep count, but noticed more than a few Asian players sporting a Honma bag.

Last week, we featured a superb new players’ iron (Avian 530) from a manufacturer (Redbird Sports) with which you probably weren’t very familiar. Forgive the lack of variety, but this week’s superb new players’ iron from another under-the-radar manufacturer is the Honma TW-BM.

One of a handful of Japanese companies making exceptional forged irons (Mizuno, Maruman, Miura, Epon, etc.), Honma Golf Co, Ltd. actually began in 1958 as a driving range in Yokohama started by brothers Hiro and Mutsumi Honma. Four years later, the brothers began manufacturing golf clubs.

The Honma family has been one of Japan’s wealthiest for several centuries, building its fortune primarily in banking and shipping. In 1813, the family built a summer residence 200 miles north of Tokyo in the port city of Sakata, where the Honma Golf Co. relocated in the 1980s.

Today, Honma is Sakata’s biggest employer, and the company has celebrated a half-century of producing some of the world’s most exquisite golf clubs—a result of Hiro Honma’s uncompromising approach no matter the cost. Hiro Honma believed every golf club was a work of art, a conviction reflected in the price of his company’s clubs, sets of which have exceeded $20,000.

Don’t worry, the TW-BM doesn’t quite reach that figure, but it certainly isn’t cheap. Part of the Tour World line that first appeared at the start of last year (Jang and Ryu both use the TW727V, one of four TW727 models), the TW-BM is a handsome muscleback whose head is slightly larger than that of the muscleback TW727M – the result of Honma player Hideto Tanihara (currently 103^rd in the world) wanting a blade design but with a little more forgiveness than what the TW727M offered.

Tanihara’s clubs have carbon-graphite shafts called the Vizard—a Honma-made product that combines graphite with metal fibers on the bottom 25cm creating a fairly light, tip-stiff shaft the makers say provides both speed and control. The Vizard IB95 comes standard, though the Vizard I is also available.

It took a few phone calls around Colorado golf superstores to find one that will be carrying the TW-BM. Shawn Corcoran, manager of the Golfsmith store at Denver Park Meadows in Lone Tree assured me they will be taking receipt of the club soon, although the price has yet to be determined.

“It’s obviously not a brand many people in the US know well,” he says. “But they are beautiful clubs, and we find those that have played Honma in the past are usually repeat buyers.”

Elsewhere in the country, Honma dealers are similarly hard to find. Not surprisingly, though, California has more than its share. The typical price for six irons (5-10 – yes, a 10-iron) is around $1,500 or $250 a club.
Next week, we promise to bring you something other than a forged, state-of-the-art, high-end players’ iron. But we just had to show you these.

More info: honmagolf.co.jp
golfsmith.com/stores/010/denver-park-meadows (303-708-1858)

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