Justin Rose is Dumping TaylorMade For Honma

The time of year is upon us where PGA pros begin to switch things up to get ready for the next season. Some make changes with regards to their caddies or coaches but Justin Rose is shaking things up big time with his equipment.

Rose, coming off another great year, is set to leave TaylorMade, the group that has sponsored him for several years.

Justin is the current No. 1 player in the world, the reigning FedExCup Champion, and coming off a huge Ryder Cup win but that’s not stopping him from making a big equipment change. After racking up another win at the Turkish Airlines Open, Rose addressed the rumors by saying that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

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Rose’s contract with TaylorMade is up after this season and it looks like they may want to move in another direction just as much as he does, especially after a merger with Adidas, which brings Dustin Johnson, Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy in as major ambassadors. The company Rose now appears to be moving to is the Asian group Honma.

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If you haven’t heard of Honma, that’s because they are much bigger overseas. The group is known mostly for creating gold faced clubs that carry an expensive price tag.

Now Honma is now looking to become a major player in the global golf market and if Rose ends up striking a deal with them, he will have some familiarity. As the group moves towards the North American market, they have hired several former TaylorMade executives, including former TaylorMade CEO Mark King, who signed Rose back in 1999.

With all the names now coming in for TaylorMade because of the deal with Adidas, Rose may not be a huge loss for the company but it does show a trend of an exodus from longtime ambassadors. Rose would become the second long-time sponsor to leave TaylorMade, following Sergio Garcia, who switched to Callaway clubs to begin this last season.

 

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TaylorMade’s potential loss would be a huge gain for Honma, as Rose is right now the best player in the world. If he gives the company his backing and he continues to play at such a high level, Honma could become more popular more quickly than anyone could have imagined.

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