LA Golf Shafts, a new business venture spawned by Southern California-based LA Golf Partners (LAGP), appointed product designer and shaft guru John Oldenburg to chief product officer.
Oldenburg spent 20 years as the head of Aldila engineering and product development and brings a wealth of knowledge, experience and expertise. His two decades of experience includes designing shafts for golf’s best players, including the winners of 25 Major Championships and hundreds of professional tour events worldwide.
“As a company with the intent to be the number-one shaft company in the business, we’re always looking for the best talent with innovative ideas that can move the needle, so we’re excited to welcome John and his championship track record to the team,” said Reed Dickens, founder of LAGP. “The underpinnings of the company reside in developing new technology that will disrupt a stagnant market.”
After two decades working to keep up in the unrelenting “arms race” that has defined the golf equipment industry, Oldenburg had stepped away from the golf business to pursue opportunities in other technical industries. However, when presented with the opportunity to be a part of LA Golf Shafts disruptive business model, the chance to collaborate directly with golf’s top tour pros, LA Golf Partners player-owners and experience a heightened level of innovative freedom in the design process, Oldenburg jumped at the opportunity.
“Throughout my shaft design career, I often felt true shaft innovation has been restricted by the economic realities of doing business in golf’s OEM world. Since we are truly player-driven and oriented to the aftermarket, I have new and unprecedented freedom to pursue truly unique, innovative and state-of-the-art concepts in golf shaft design,” said Oldenburg. “The freedom to select and incorporate advanced and exotic materials based solely on technical and performance criteria rather than purely economic considerations significantly expands our design window and heightens my team’s ability to design and innovate groundbreaking products. Having these design shackles taken off is great for me, but the true winners will be our partners and the recreational players who end up with our innovative new shafts in their bags. Producing all our products here in the U.S. is another huge plus.”
Oldenburg continued, “The confidence of knowing I can walk out of my office and go onto the production floor to directly oversee bringing our ideas to life was the icing on the cake for me. It is a huge competitive advantage for us that all of the material sourcing, prototyping, manufacturing and testing is happening here in the U.S. with a dedicated and talented workforce that has decades of experience creating prototypes.”
A graduate of the University of Illinois School of Engineering with a degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering and a Master’s Degree in Engineering/Technical Management, Oldenburg earned the nickname “shaft guru” by his peers. With performance and technological advancements at the forefront of the LA Golf Shafts movement, Oldenburg’s background will be the driving force to bringing this vision to fruition.
LA Golf Shafts was established to create a golf equipment company unlike any other in the sport, one where the ownership group includes professional athletes from the world’s top professional tours. Through strategic partnerships with Tour professionals who have an equity stake in the company, the player/owners have direct involvement in product development, branding, marketing and product promotion. The company’s mission is to bring the player/owner signature series products to golfers at every level through a commitment to producing authentic tour validated products, designed and made in the U.S. with American sourced materials.
