The legendary 4-slice Kirkland Signature golf ball is back!

That would be your unabridged headline, except for that fact that information technology's gone. The entire inventory of $30 double-dozen boxes sold out. Again – seemingly in an instant. That part is pretty much par for the Costco course, though I expect that will alter.

As with any headline, information technology doesn't brainstorm to tell the whole story. In that location'southward a lesson in that, people, but I digress. The ball is back (and gone – but will be dorsum again), Kirkland putters are coming (true story), and wedges too, and that means the golf world should caryatid itself for a full-on epidemic of K-Sig fever.

Nosotros'll be doing some testing and cutting of the new balls ASAP (we were able to order a box), but in the meantime, I wanted to start by answering a question I've been asked several times already.

Is It the Aforementioned Ball as the Original?

Permit me to speculate. No. Hell no. No f'ing chance.

The new G-Sig is made in a dissimilar country at a dissimilar factory. It's got a unlike cover with a dissimilar dimple blueprint. It's got a new sidestamp also. I can clinch you, it'southward a vastly different brawl. That function is all reasonably easy to piece together.

Unfortunately, those critical details will likely be lost on the boilerplate Costco customer who won't notice the change in the state of origin displayed on the box (China, non Korea this time) and will remain none the wiser, at least until the ball gets put into play.

Bottom line: While I'm open to being proven wrong (it won't happen), the condom assumption is that the new ball won't match the operation of the original. For $15 a dozen, it'll be just fine, possibly even good-ish, simply you're not going to see legitimate bout-level tee to greenish performance this time around.

How can I know that? Let'due south start with a bit of Kirkland Signature golf ball history:

The original Thou-Sig was a unicorn in the golf ball market. It was a $15/dozen, 4-piece ball with a sparse bandage urethane cover. That'south legitimate bout-level construction, and it delivered legitimate bout-level performance. At that price, the pattern shouldn't accept been possible, and as we saw, information technology definitely wasn't sustainable.

Over the past couple of years, nosotros've heard a few variations of the K-Sig's origin story (overruns, a closet full of left-over cores), simply the mutual thread in all of them is that most or all of that legendary design originated with TaylorMade earlier beingness sold (or, at a minimum, leased) to Costco by Nassau (the Korean factory that manufactured the original K-Sig). The brawl yous know (and dear) as the Kirkland Signature 4-piece is notwithstanding bachelor in Europe as the Nassau Quattro.

So why doesn't Costco still set it?

Every bit it has been explained to me, the larger ball manufacturers weren't particularly pleased about Costco undercutting an entire ball marketplace. To sympathise why it matters what the traditional golf OEMs think, it's of import to first empathize that Nassau and a few other reputable factories are responsible for the bulk of golf balls made for brands that don't own factories (Wilson, Volvik, etc.). These same factories also produce a significant per centum of the 2-piece/ionomer balls for TaylorMade, Callaway, and others. It's a huge chunk of the names-y'all-know ball market, and that's before we include notable direct to consumer brands like Snell, Vice, and OnCore.

Long story curt, some screws nigh certainly got twisted, and the smart business organization move for Nassau was to cut Costco loose rather than take a chance losing reliable long-continuing OEM business. That fabricated the bigger customers happy and left Costco searching for a new factory to make balls for it to sell on the cheap. Information technology's why, every bit we predicted, one time the original 4-piece K-Sig was gone, information technology was gone for skilful.

What We Know About the New Ball

We'll know more once nosotros can hit (and cut) the new 4-piece, only there's a good flake we can piece together from the information at hand.

The new ball is produced in the same factory in China that makes the electric current Kirkland 3-piece model. That factory, formerly known every bit Fantom, was sold and is now operating as Qingdao SM Parker Golf Co. According to a source within the ball manufacture, SM Parker, equally the name might propose, is closely aligned with SM Global LLC, a warehousing, logistics, packaging and repackaging company. The connection to SM Global is meaning because Costco is 1 of the company's largest clients (if non the largest). Notably, SM Global LLC has, for some fourth dimension, been listed as the manufacturer of Kirkland golf balls on the USGA Befitting Ball List.

As an FYI, Fantom/SM Parker also supplies assurance for direct to consumer make Cutting. It also supplied Snell'south MTB Red.

The first takeaway from all of this is that Costco is now much closer to the source of its golf balls. At Nassau, where the original Chiliad-Sig came from, the behemothic retailer wasn't a priority customer. That won't be the story this time around, and then it'south reasonable to think that inventory bug will ease (the Costco website says the balls are expected back in stock Oct 15th).

Knowing both the factory and the specs from the USGA listing, tell the states quite a bit more. The USGA dimple specification for the new balls matches that of the current iii-piece ball. Information technology's a 338-dimple ball. The original 4-piece K-Sig was 360.

The crucial thing to empathize here is that designing a viable dimple pattern is excruciatingly difficult. It requires specialized aerodynamic expertise, so when a manufactory has a blueprint that works, it tends to use it over and over (and over) once more. Because these embrace designs are unique to each factory, the dimple count often provides a significant clue as to where a given brawl is made.

It'south a reasonable supposition the covers on the 3-piece and four-piece K-Sig balls are absolutely identical – and if that is the example, it'due south going to exist a large problem for anyone hoping the new ball will perform like the old ball.

Hither'due south why:

The comprehend Costco is using is thick (visible in our photos of the 3-slice ball). Thicker is almost invariably firmer, and that pretty much guarantees that the cover of the new brawl won't be virtually as soft as the bandage urethane cover of the original Nassau ball (Nassau has expertise in casting sparse urethane covers).

By comparison, SM Parker uses an injection molding technique, and while it's possible to produce an injection-molded cover that'due south soft and thin, that certainly isn't the example with the other SM Parker produced urethane balls currently on the market.

Every bit we saw in our ball examination, the Kirkland 3-piece volition requite you plenty of spin on full swings when there's still enough head speed to get into the middle layers of the golf game ball. When yous go closer to the green, nevertheless, spin is driven entirely by cover softness. More than accurately, spin comes from the hardness difference between the cover and casing layers.

Around the green, a business firm encompass over a business firm casing layer isn't going to produce about the aforementioned amount of spin you get from a softer and thinner cover. That's not an opinion; it'south the physics of spin working confronting a harder cover. It'southward likewise truthful that thicker urethane covers are generally less durable than thinner ones.

Piling it on further; I'll besides mention that the current 3-slice ball isn't peculiarly skilful in the air current. For lack of a more elegant description, the ball flight can get a little bit wonky and unpredictable. Given that the covers are almost certainly the same, I'd expect similar from the 4-piece.

The Probable Upside

While there's enough of buyer beware here, I don't expect the new K-Sig will be a bad ball. SM Parker (formerly Fantom) is among the more than reputable ball plants. Nosotros rated the 3-piece as Expert, and I suspect the iv-piece volition be just every bit Good. The affair is, we believe that serious golfers looking for complete tee to green performance should be looking almost exclusively at the balls we rated Very Practiced or First-class. I'd wager the new G-Sig doesn't qualify.

That said, I understand that not everyone wants to spend $fifty, or even $20 on a dozen golf balls. With that in mind, it's worth mentioning that Costco is still giving you a 4-layer, urethane ball for roughly $15 bucks a dozen. You could absolutely spend more than and get a lesser ball. That should count for something.

Signature Putters and Wedges Too

The brawl may not be the merely Kirkland golf story this fall. Those looking closely at Costo's selection of images for the new iv-piece brawl may have gotten a glimpse of what appears to be a Kirkland Signature putter. A source inside Costco has confirmed that the visitor is planning to launch a $149.99 putter which was described equally "like a Scotty Cameron Newport."

A Kirkland wedge is also in the works, and we're told that the retail toll for that will be 2 (possibly 3) for $99. That 1 is said to be like a Vokey.

Taking inspiration from Titleist may be a middle finger in response to the lawsuit Titleist filed over the original Kirkland Signature 4-piece. It may besides be as uncomplicated as common sense as both Vokey and Cameron savor market-leading positions in their corresponding categories. Either manner, the improver of hardgoods to the Costco golf game lineup suggests that the visitor believes it can reach the budget-witting golfer who's no longer willing to foot the always-increasing bill levied by the biggest names in the traditional golf marketplace.

Sometimes only skilful is good enough.

More than data on Costo's line of golf products equally it becomes available.

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