Ryan Moore playing Parsons Xtreme clubs

2004 US Amateur champion Ryan Moore has long had a swing, style and attitude of his own. Now he’s playing equipment that no-one else is too…

Since winning the US Amateur in 2004, Ryan Moore has enjoyed a good PGA Tour career, winning four times in total, most recently a successful defence of his CIMB Classic title last November.

But Moore has never been afraid to do things his own way, whether donning ties and waistcoats on the fairways or spurning potentially lucrative equipment contracts to play the gear he wants to play. Moore started out as a Ping man on tour, but by the time he delivered his first victory in the 2009 Wyndham Championship, the only contract he had was to play the Callaway ball.

The following year he signed to play Michigan-based Scratch Golf’s irons, becoming part owner of the company, but later that year he signed for Adams before then joining TaylorMade in 2013. This year, however, it would seem that despite a substantial TaylorMade carrot, he has elected to go out on a limb once more, opening the season in the Hyundai Tournament of Champions with a set of Parsons Xtreme Golf irons and wedges in the bag. This week, at Riviera, he has added the company’s PXG 08 Prototype driver to his arsenal.

Both irons and driver, neither of which is yet available at retail, feature a series of distinctive weight ports in the toe and sole – 11 in the irons and 16 in the driver. The company is based in Scottsdale, Arizona, and is the brainchild of Bob Parsons who also happens to own Scottsdale National Golf Club.

It will be fascinating to see what becomes of this new equipment brand, which is clearly already able to make golf equipment that a tour pro would trust with his livelihood, with Moore already bagging a couple of top 20s in 2015 and going very well at Riviera as I write.

Perhaps this should come as no surprise given the man that Parsons Xtreme Golf has nabbed on the design side – none other than Mike Nicolette, who many years ago pipped Greg Norman to the Bay Hill Classic title in a play-off for his only tour win, but who has since been working as one of Ping’s senior club designers for many years now.

I once had the pleasure of playing golf with Mike on a Ping launch at The European Club in Ireland, and he is undoubtedly extremely knowledgeable and very serious about his design work, so it will be interesting to see where Parsons Xtreme Golf goes, and how quickly, should Moore continue to play well with the clubs.

There is certainly no shortage of ambition, with a message on the company's Twitter page declaring that Parsons Xtreme clubs "are designed by golfers, engineers and dreamers who have an unrelenting commitment to create the absolute finest golf equipment in the world."