McLaren – Golfing Networks

Club Champion Named Among Select Global Partners to Fit and Carry McLaren Golf’s Debut Club Line

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 03:50:29 +0000

The World’s #1 Custom Club Fitter Becomes an Exclusive Fitting and Retail Partner for McLaren Golf

Willowbrook, IL – Club Champion, the world’s #1 custom golf club fitting company, announced it has been selected as one of a limited number of authorized fitting partners and retailers worldwide to carry and custom-fit the debut line of clubs from McLaren Golf, the new golf equipment brand born from one of motorsport’s most iconic names. Club Champion will offer McLaren Golf clubs exclusively through its custom fitting process at 160+ studio locations across the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia, ensuring every McLaren Golf club purchased through Club Champion is precisely fit to the individual golfer’s swing.

The partnership makes Club Champion one of the few places in the world where golfers can access McLaren Golf equipment – and the only fitting environment where they can do so backed by Club Champion’s proprietary fitting process, industry-leading launch monitor technology, and the most comprehensive component library in golf with over 65,000 shaft, head, and grip combinations.

“McLaren built its name on the pursuit of perfection and so did we,” said Nick Sherburne, Club Champion Founder. “This partnership exists because both brands share an uncompromising commitment to precision – and to giving high-performance enthusiasts equipment that actually matches their capabilities.”

McLaren Golf: A New Standard for Performance Equipment

McLaren Golf enters the equipment market carrying one of the most recognizable brands in the world of performance engineering. Known for Formula 1 championships, hypercar design, and an obsessive pursuit of aerodynamic efficiency and material science, McLaren brings a fundamentally different approach to club design – one rooted in aerospace-grade materials, precision manufacturing tolerances, and data-driven performance optimization that mirrors the technology used in its racing and road car divisions.

The debut club line reflects that philosophy at every level: advanced carbon fiber and titanium construction, proprietary face technology designed to maximize ball speed across the hitting area, and a design language that is unmistakably McLaren – clean, purposeful, and built for those who refuse to compromise.

“We didn’t enter golf to make beautiful clubs,” said Tim Rittenhouse, McLaren Golf Chief Commercial Officer. “We entered to make the best-performing clubs in the world. The McLaren name has never stood for anything less than that standard – and McLaren Golf will be no different.”

Why Club Champion – And Why A Fitting Is Required

McLaren’s decision to partner with Club Champion for fitting and retail distribution reflects a shared philosophy: that a high-performance club in the wrong configuration for a golfer’s swing is a high-performance club that underperforms. Equipment at this level demands fitting. Off-the-rack delivery would be inconsistent with what the McLaren name represents.

Club Champion was selected for its unmatched fitting infrastructure – 160+ studio locations, proprietary fitting methodology and technology, and a brand reputation built on delivering measurable performance improvements for golfers of every level. Every McLaren Golf club sold through Club Champion will be custom-configured – shaft, head, loft, lie, length, and grip – to the specific golfer based on real swing data collected during a Club Champion fitting session.

‘The right club in the wrong configuration is still the wrong club.’ That principle is why Club Champion was built – and it’s why McLaren Golf chose Club Champion as one of their exclusive global fitting partners.

Availability and How to Access McLaren Golf Through Club Champion

McLaren Golf clubs will be available through Club Champion’s custom fitting process beginning in mid-May. Golfers interested in McLaren Golf equipment must begin with a Club Champion fitting session, during which their swing data will be used to configure the precise McLaren Golf specifications that will maximize performance for their individual game.

Given the limited global distribution of McLaren Golf equipment, demand is expected to significantly exceed initial availability. Club Champion encourages interested golfers to book a fitting session as early as possible by visiting clubchampion.com.

About Club Champion

Club Champion is the globe’s most prominent name in custom club fitting and building services. Established in 2010, there are now more than 150 Club Champion locations internationally, including studios in Canada, the UK, and Australia. Each US studio offers golfers access to over 65 brands and more than 65,000 hittable head and shaft combinations. Club Champion has solidified their position at the top of the industry through comprehensive Tour-level fittings, unrivaled club building, and the use of top-tier technology. The company is headquartered in Willowbrook, IL and boasts more than 400 employees, including hundreds of the most highly trained Master Fitters in the world. For more information about Club Champion, visit clubchampion.com.

About McLaren Golf

McLaren Golf is the golf equipment division of the McLaren Group, the British performance engineering and motorsport brand behind McLaren Formula 1, McLaren Automotive, and McLaren Applied. McLaren Golf brings the group’s expertise in advanced materials, aerodynamic design, and precision manufacturing to the golf equipment market, producing clubs built to the exacting tolerances that define everything the McLaren name represents. For more information, visit mclarengolf.com.

Media Contacts

Club Champion

Katie Johnson | (815) 690-8901

katie.johnson@clubchampion.com

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Justin Rose signs endorsement deal with McLaren Golf

admin — Sat, 23 May 2026 13:26:44 +0000

The 45-year-old Englishman will use the brand’s new blade irons this week at Trump National Doral.

Justin Rose is no longer an equipment free agent.

The 45-year-old Englishman, currently ranked No. 5 in the Official World Golf Ranking, has signed an endorsement deal with McLaren Golf, a new equipment brand tied to the McLaren Racing group. As part of the agreement, Rose will also serve as an investor and global ambassador for the company, which is making its competitive debut this week.

Rose will compete this week at the Cadillac Championship at Trump National Doral with a set of McLaren blade irons and a staff bag featuring the brand’s signature papaya color scheme. It marks the first time the equipment will be used in PGA Tour competition.

For Rose, the move represents a shift after spending the past few seasons without a full-time equipment contract. He won at Torrey Pines in January and now has 13 career PGA Tour victories and has won more than $77 million in career earnings.

According to the company, Rose has been involved with the project for nearly two years, working closely with engineers and designers to test prototypes and provide feedback.

“I’ve had the opportunity to be involved from the outset,” Rose said in a statement, noting his hands-on role in development and testing.

The partnership also highlights McLaren Golf’s broader ambitions. Built on the engineering foundation of its automotive and Formula 1 operations, the brand is positioning itself as a high-performance entrant in a crowded equipment market.

For now, all eyes will be on how the clubs perform under tournament conditions and whether Rose’s early confidence translates into results on the course.

David Dusek is a senior writer covering equipment for Golfweek.

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McLaren Golf releases the Series 1 and Series 3 irons

admin — Wed, 20 May 2026 13:19:08 +0000

Influenced by the design, attention to detail and materials used one of the most successful auto racing organizations, McLaren debuts its first clubs.

Gear: McLaren Golf Series 1, Series 3 irons

Price: $375 per club

Specs: Metal injection molded iron heads with proprietary steel blend and internal tungsten weights. Carbon fiber bonnet (Series 3)

Available: April 30 (via custom fitters and direct online in North America)

Who it’s for: Single-digit handicap players seeking a compact, blade-style iron with added stability (Series 1), and golfers with a handicap from 8 to 20 who are looking for a players-distance iron that blends speed, forgiveness, and control (Series 3).

What you should know: McLaren Golf is entering the equipment space with two irons built using metal injection molding, a process that allows precise control over shaping and weight placement. The Series 1 is a modern muscleback blade, while the Series 3 is a more forgiving players-distance design.

The Deep Dive: McLaren’s move into golf has been in the works for several years, and while the company teased its launch on social media in March 3, it had already assembled a roster of playing ambassadors and investors that includes Justin Rose, Michelle Wie-West and Ian Poulter.

The brand’s goal is to tap the expertise of McLaren’s racing divisions in fields like material science, manufacturing, quality control and design and blend it with experienced club makers and the input of its elite staffers. It’s approach becomes clearer once you look at how these irons were built.

Rather than start with traditional forging or casting and iterate from there, McLaren is leaning into a different manufacturing process, metal injection molding, to give engineers more control over how the clubs are shaped and how mass is distributed inside the head.

That decision shows up most clearly in the Series 1. At address, it looks like what you’d expect from a Tour blade. It’s compact, clean, has a short blade length and minimal offset, but internally, but there is more to it than looks.

A structural mesh pattern on the back of the heads, inspired by McLaren’s automotive designs, removes weight from non-critical areas so it can be repositioned without sacrificing strength or changing the overall shape.

The Series 1 irons also feature a tungsten weighting system, with each weight being unique to that club. It allows the center of gravity (CG) to be tuned not just vertically, but also from heel-to-toe as well. In the long irons, designers added a slight bias to help the club rotate and square more easily, while also making it easier to get shots up in the air. In the short irons, the weighting becomes more neutral to support precision.

There is also an internal piece of vibration-dampening silicone inside each head that enhances sound and feel.

The McLaren Series 3 takes a different path. This is a more forgiving option, built for golfers who do not want an oversized game-improvement club but who need help with speed, forgiveness and consistency.

The cavity-back design let engineers to push mass to the perimeter to increase the moment of inertia (MOI) and boost stability. The addition of a tungsten weight, which has been added to the back of each head, lowers the CG location and encourages a higher launch angle. The amount of tungsten varies by club, ranging from 10 to 17 grams, and each weight is covered by a carcinogen fiber bonnet.

The structural mesh remains, but here it works alongside a thinner face and a channel that runs through the sole to enhance ball speed.

Each of the two irons also has been made with different sole designs. The Series 1 keeps a more traditional, flatter sole that better players tend to prefer, while the Series 3 adds more camber (curvature) and heel relief to improve turf interaction, especially for golfers who tend to get steep, and maintain speed through impact, particularly on slight mishits.

Both models share the same underlying philosophy that comes straight from McLaren’s Formula 1 legacy: Every element serves a purpose. The proprietary metal blend, the internal geometry, and the weighting systems are all designed to control launch, feel and consistency rather than chase a single performance metric like distance. It’s a different way of approaching iron design, and one that leans heavily on McLaren’s engineering background.

The pricing and distribution reflect that positioning. These are premium products—a set of seven clubs will cost over $2,600—and they will primarily be sold on the company’s website and through select custom fitters. And while McLaren is starting with irons, the plan is to build out a full lineup over time, so expect another iron to come in the months ahead (Series 2), followed by woods, wedges and putters.

For now, however, the Series 1 and Series 3 serve as an introduction—not just to new clubs, but to how McLaren intends to approach the golf equipment space.

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McLaren Golf can make the clubs, but the real test is just starting

admin — Sun, 17 May 2026 12:37:48 +0000

The irons impress, but history shows launch buzz fades. McLaren’s real challenge is becoming a trusted golf brand, not just a luxury name.

MIAMI, Fla. — There is a version of the McLaren Golf story that works.

The clubs are real, and the performance is there. I have hit the Series 3 irons and you feel it immediately. At impact, there is a clean, solid sensation, along with the kind of feedback that makes better players nod quietly and reach for another ball. They look the part, too. While they are a better-player’s distance iron, when you look down at them in the address position, you see a sleek sedan and aesthetics that seem built rather than assembled. For a company playing its first round in the equipment game, that’s a great start.

But the golf world has seen this movie before, and the portion that contains the opening credits is always the same. Big name. Bold pricing. Talk of disruption and the promise of something new. A launch event featuring loud videos, splashes of colors and plenty of promises. And then, somewhere around the 18 to 24-month mark, the real test begins.

McLaren Golf has hired enough industry veterans to know what it’s walking into. It has been careful to distance itself from the co-branding arrangements the golf world has seen before. This isn’t Oracle Red Bull Racing x TaylorMade. It isn’t Ferrari x Cobra Golf from back in 2012. McLaren Golf wants to be a golf company, full stop, not a licensing deal dressed up in carbon fiber and papaya orange.

That’s the right instinct, but the problem is that the market doesn’t make that distinction yet. When people see the McLaren name on a hosel, the first thing they think about is Zak Brown and the Monaco paddock, not a metal injection molded iron built for a golfer who wants more feel and forgiveness.

That’s the gap McLaren Golf has to cross, and it’s wider than it looks.

Justin Rose is the right man to help close it. At 45, Rose has become something of a sympathetic figure in professional golf after finishing second to Rory McIlroy at the 2025 Masters. He’s a player known for precision, attention to detail, preparation. When he had briefly had the lead at 2026 Masters a few weeks ago, before he finished T-3, people rooted for him. He’s likable, media-savvy and his game translates perfectly with what McLaren Golf is trying to say about itself.

If Rose contends in majors with McLaren irons in his bright orange bag, it will create the kind of visibility and validation that startup brands dreams of.

Ian Poulter and Michelle Wie West, who are also brand ambassadors and equity holders, feel like a different calculation. Poulter, now on LIV Golf, isn’t playing in majors and isn’t on network television. He’s a recognizable name, but recognition fades when the camera stops following you. Wie West is iconic, genuinely, but she hasn’t been a competitive presence in years. Both signings feel less like performance endorsements and more like additions to McLaren’s social media infrastructure. Reach over relevance. That’s not necessarily wrong for a brand in launch mode, but it puts more weight on Rose’s shoulders than any one player might want to carry.

And then there’s the price.

The $375 per iron cost is real money. A set of seven clubs clears $2,500 before you’ve thought about a fitting or a bag. For a certain kind of golfer, the one who leases a new new luxury SUV every three years and keeps a locker at two or three private clubs, that price isn’t an issue. That player buys them because they’re good and because they’re McLaren. It’s a market that exists and PXG proved it. But PXG also proved something else: that you can’t live there forever.

PXG launched as the maker of some of the most expensive gear in golf at a time when a lot of brands were still licking their wounds from the recession of 2008 and its fallout. It was built around the idea that extraordinary performance commanded extraordinary prices. The clubs were good, the buzz was real, and for several years, the ultra-premium positioning held. Then, quietly, the prices started coming down. Not dramatically, but meaningfully. Today, PXG drivers and irons are priced in line with companies like Callaway, Ping, TaylorMade and Titleist.

Fanboys buy once, but serious golfers buy on performance and value, even when value is relative.

McLaren Golf is at the beginning of that arc right now. The racing faithful will come. The company’s launch event in Miami was filled with beautiful people admiring Formula One cars, sipping champagne and watching splashy videos. They took selfies standing next to those impressive machines, often holding a club. They’ll admire the Series 1 blades, and many will buy the Series 3 irons. That’s the idea of a launch event, but those are not the people who will turn McLaren Golf into a successful, thriving, long-term business.

The business is what happens after the launch event is over.

It’s what happens when McLaren needs to fill out those remaining categories. The drivers, the fairway woods, the wedges, the putters. All of those clubs, like the irons that were just released, are going to be compared not just to other premium clubs, but to the expectations set by the name McLaren. Given that name, and the positioning of the brand, golfers are going to want to know if McLaren gear outperforms stuff made by Cobra, Mizuno, and brands that cost less and carry decades of credibility.

McLaren’s clubs are good. The strategy of limited distribution, with direct-to-consumer sales and with sales through premium fitting partners makes sense. The Tour presence with Rose is smart. The ambition to be a 14-club brand is the right ambition.

But the challenge ahead isn’t making great clubs. McLaren can do that. The challenge is becoming a great golf company. One that people think about the way they think about Mizuno or Titleist or Ping, not because of what the name means in auto racing, but because of what it means on the range, in a fitting bay, and out on a course where the only thing that matters is what the ball does when you hit it.

McLaren Golf needs to be known for its clubs, not cars. Achieving that is a long race.

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Justin Rose explains his McLaren Golf move: ‘I’ve learned so much’

admin — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 03:07:14 +0000

As he stares down his 46th birthday this summer, Justin Rose is the oldest player in the Official World Golf Rankings top 50 — and that experience isn’t lost on him.

In fact, his past experience is part of the reason he feels so comfortable becoming an investor in McLaren Golf, the new venture of the F1 and Supercar juggernaut.

Rose was announced as the company’s first global ambassador on Monday at this week’s Cadillac Championship in Miami. On Tuesday, at a pre-tournament press conference, he was asked about the new partnership, with the brand is set to officially announce its new clubs at an event on Wednesday.

“McLaren Golf has been something that’s been on the back burner for a good number of months,” Rose said Tuesday at his pre-tournament press conference, his first comments since the announcement. “Obviously, to launch a brand out of the ground obviously has been going for a lot longer than a year. It’s something I’ve been involved with from the outset, really helping the engineering team, really testing the very first editions of the club. So yeah, I’ve been kind of working with the project for well over a year, probably.”

Justin Rose was asked directly if he thought changing clubs at this point in his career was a risk.

He was direct and he was unwavering.

“In the long-term, no, I don’t see there being an issue at all.”

Many people have compared this to when Rose switched to Honma clubs in… pic.twitter.com/6eqQzTX18q

— Jack Hirsh (@JR_HIRSHey) April 28, 2026

Rose himself brought up his past experience with making equipment changes. After spending the first 20 years of his career with TaylorMade Golf, he shocked the golf world when, at the beginning of the 2019 season and as the reigning World No. 1, he left the company to sign with Honma.

Although Rose won early that season at Torrey Pines — like he did this year — the partnership quickly soured and all of the Honma clubs were out of his bag by early 2020. Both parties exited the deal shortly thereafter.

Justin Rose becomes McLaren Golf’s first global ambassador, investor

By:

Jack Hirsh

Since then, Rose has been a gear-free agent and one who tinkers frequently from using lead tape on his driver shaft to using split brand set of irons or gaming seven-year-old fairway woods.

On Tuesday, Rose was asked if that freedom was worth giving up given how well he has played of late, winning twice on the PGA Tour since last August and finishing in the top-3 in the last two Masters.

Without being directly asked about it, Rose brought up the 2019 situation with Honma.

“From my point of view, no, I’m actually looking at what can be better. I’m looking to mitigate risk,” Rose said. “Yeah, I’ve done this once before as well in 2019, obviously, and I kind of learned a lot from that process. So I feel a bit better place now to kind of go down this path.

Justin Rose did NOT SIGN with McLaren. Justin Rose IS McLaren Golf.

This is not Honma.

Justin Rose is an investor in the company.

He has 0 contractual obligation to play the clubs.

Nobody would blame him for playing his Masters bag.

He CHOSE to play the clubs this week. pic.twitter.com/YDkkwsCuj2

— Jake Morrow (@MadeForTheRange) April 28, 2026

“I think yeah, I think there’s some best practices that we’re kind of, we’ve sort of put into development really that I think are giving me what I feel are a fantastic set of golf clubs. I’m looking at some of the performance data that I’m getting on the range and places like that and outperforming what I have.”

The main differences between 2019 and now are that Rose isn’t signing on with an established brand looking to push into a new market. McLaren is starting their golf business from scratch, and Rose has been along from the start. That’s why he’s also not just an ambassador; he’s an investor in the company.

He added that while he enjoyed his years as a free agent, he didn’t think what he was playing currently was the best thing for him, but he was able to form ideas about what exactly he needed.

“I think when you’re not with an equipment manufacturer, there’s a little bit of temptation just to bounce around anyway, there’s so many good options out there,” Rose said. “But at the same time, I’ve learned so much from being brand agnostic for a while that I kind of have my own preference list now. I feel like I’m in an environment where I can take all my preferences to one place where they can execute on that for me.”

Our spies are everywhere… are those McLaren irons in Justin Rose’s bag?

SPECS (Lofts/Lies/Length/Swingweight)

4 – 22/62/39”/D3
5 – 26/62/38.5”/D3
6 – 30/62/38”/D3
7 – 34/62.5/37.5”/D3
8 – 38/63/37”/D3
9 – 42/63.5/36.5”/D3
P – 46/64/36.25”/D4

KBS C-Taper S+
Lamkin JR REL… pic.twitter.com/Nbveo1V9dw

— Fully Equipped (@Fully_Equipped) April 27, 2026

For now, Rose confirmed the company’s initial offering will be two sets of irons, a blade and a cavity-back, which Rose was still contemplating the exact makeup of his set this week in Miami. He acknowledged that there will still be some growing pains as he puts the clubs in competition for the first time.

“Obviously, there’s going to be a refinement process,” he said. “You can test all you want, you got to get the clubs in play, and there’s going to be little mini situations out there, different lies, all sorts of things, just getting comfortable. But in the long-term, no, I don’t see there being an issue at all.”

But this will just be the beginning and he looks forward to building out a complete bag with McLaren.

“I got lots of ideas on every part of the game,” he added. “This is a good place for me to be able to put my ideas down and let the smart engineers go figure it out. But yeah, it’s a fun process to think of it all.”

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