2009 has been a great year for Lind Golf with the launch of a number of new initiatives. We continue to give you creative freedom by improving our platform to make your golf clubs even more customisable. We introduced MiClub in October which enables you to preview your clubs as you customise them. We believe we are the first company in the world to offer this level of interaction when building golf equipment online. We released MiBag which has been a huge hit with goflers all around the country personalising their golf bags with names and slogans of their choice.

We were featured on the ABC and on Kochie’s Business Builders on Channel 7.

We had Tiger Wood’s visit our shore

Dear Lind Golf Supporter,

What a year for Lind Golf and our customers!

As a challenger brand in an industry dominated by giants, we are always striving to offer Australians more than any other golf brand out there can. Our intention has always been to deliver big brand performance without the big brand price backed up with unparalleled customer service. Our testimonials page has confirmed that we are on track, just have a read of this: http://www.lindgolf.com/customer-service/testimonials. We love receiving these testimonials so please don’t hesitate to write your own!

In 2009 we built over 15,000 custom golf clubs and managed to dispatch every club within 24 hours of the order being placed (excluding weekends). We introduced a series of new innovations and personalisation options, and also managed to grow our customer base significantly.

In 2009 we introduced some creative ideas that were unique to the golf industry. The biggest hit has been the introduction of coloured club components, made interactive by our MiClub platform. We pioneered the ability to choose your shaft, grip, ferrule and club head colour. To our knowledge we are the first golf brand in the world that allows you to interactively build a golf club online, and see what it will actually looks like before it is built. Our customers have embraced this concept and it excites us to see what combinations you come up with, and to see our drying racks full of coloured clubs every morning.

Another hit in 2009 was the introduction of MiBag personalised golf bags. Almost all of our bags sold since the introduction of this have shipped with personalisation including slogans, nick names and all sorts of interesting wording.

In 2009 we also upgraded our entire range of clubs and introduced a number of new models, many of which are our own original designs – which are proving to be very popular. We are confident that the construction and performance of our entire range and is on par with the world’s leading brands – and we back this with a money back guarantee. We also partnered with UST and True Temper to include their shafts as our standard shafts in all of our clubs. This was a heavy investment for us however the shaft is the most important part of the golf club and we are committed to delivering the best performance at a reasonable price.

In 2010 we will be launching an innovative concept that will take the personalisation aspect of the MiClub platform to another level. We can’t say what it is just yet, but it will be a world first and will add another element of fun and inventiveness to the Lind Golf experience. We are also preparing our web site to sell internationally and look forward to opening the business to the US and UK markets in time for their summer.

It has been a challenging year for many of us out there; the fact that Australia has remained one of the least injured economies in the wake of the GFC is a testament to the innovation, creativity and grit that people in this country have when it comes to meeting challenges head on.

On behalf of the Lind Golf team I would like to thank all of you who have supported our brand and offered feedback on your experiences. We look forward to continuing on the upward journey as we grow and innovate our way forward within the golf industry.

Happy golfing for the summer season.

Best Regards,

Brad & the Lind Golf team.

PS: We have decided to finish off the year with a 10% off sale ending January 4th. We will be on the golf course until then so please be patient as orders placed between December 23rd and January 3rd will only be processed on January 4th.

I recently read the book “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell. In the book he repeatedly mentions the “10,000-Hour Rule”, claiming that the key to success in any field is mostly a matter of practising a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.

Gladwell says that greatness requires enormous time, using the source of The Beatles’ musical talents and Bill Gates’ computer savvy as examples.The Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time, therefore meeting the 10,000-Hour Rule. Gladwell says that all of the time The Beatles spent performing shaped their talent so by the time they returned to England from Hamburg, Germany they sounded like no one else. It was the making of them. Bill Gates met the 10,000-Hour Rule when he gained access to a high school computer in 1968 at the age of 13, and spent 10,000 hours programming on it.

In Outliers Gladwell interviews Bill Gates, who says that unique access to a computer at a time when they were not commonplace helped him succeed. Without that access, Gladwell states that Gates would still be a highly intelligent, driven, charming person and a successful professional, but that he might not be worth US$50 billion. Gladwell explains that reaching the 10,000-Hour Rule, which he considers the key to success in any field, is simply a matter of practicing a specific task that can be accomplished with 20 hours of work a week for 10 years.

Golf is no different.

In 1997 Tiger Woods won The Masters at the age of 22. When we see results like this we ask ourselves how is such greatness achieved at such a young age. Tiger must be supernatural. The truth is that Tiger is a gifted golfer however by the age of 22 he had most likely spent more time with a golf club in his hand than any other person on this earth who was his age. If you couple this with his natural abilities and incredible levels of determination, drive, ambition and focus – it becomes clear to us why he is so great at what he does.

Here is a YouTube video of Tiger playing golf at the age of two:

What prompted me to write this post is this photograph we recently received from a great customer of ours.