The Nike Golf Tee: 10 Years Later

Written By: Tony Covey

From time to time golf companies need a little help reinvigorating, energizing, or re-branding themselves. And sometimes companies just need help stepping out of their own tightly-packed corporate boxes. When those needs arise, the biggest names in golf often turn to industrial design firms to bring the sexy back to stale product lines.

Although you may never have heard of them, design firms like Priority Designs and The Hive have played major roles in designing products for the biggest names in golf. While their corporate logos never made it onto the clubs, these companies are responsible for products like TaylorMade’s R7 series and Nike’s VRS Covert lineup.

Not Every Design Becomes Reality

Of course, not everything these design firms create makes it to a retail shelf near you. Sometimes what looks like a really cool idea never makes it past the concept phase. Take for example these concept drawings of what could have become Nike’s High Performance Golf Tees.

In 2004 a “product innovation firm” called Altitude Inc. was asked to design a better golf tee for Nike.

“As part of our effort, we were also tasked to re-invent the golf tee, increasing its height to enhance the performance of Nike’s new over-sized driver. We analyzed incumbent golf tees, the physics of the swing, ball set-up, and other tactical elements. We also examined the attributes customers desired, such as performance and convenience. Our research and design efforts yielded a diverse range of 33 concepts, and a standing ovation from Nike. Provided free with Nike clubs, these distinctive tees demonstrate Nike innovation, while helping golfers perform better and enjoy the sport at an elevated level. Nike is currently evaluating the four prototype designs for large-scale production.” – Altitude Inc.

The more noteworthy concepts from Altitude’s include:

Card (pictured left) – a flat design that enables easy storage.

Spline (pictured right) – a design the cradles the ball and moves it away from the stem, reducing club interference. Score lines on the stem make it easy to set the tee at  a consistent height.

Genie (pictured middle) – the upper (made from recycled cellulose powder) is designed to disintegrate on impact, while the bottom half (made from time-released fertilizer) is designed to stay in the ground and help keep the course healthy.

Mojo Interior – features a liquid center that Altitude suggested be brewed from Tiger Woods’ sweat, turf from Scotland, sand from Pebble Beach and tears from the Nike goddess.

Mojo – a bright orange power core increases visibility while the hourglass shape helps manage friction.

According to the Altitude website, at one point in time Nike was evaluating 4 of 33 prototype designs they created for large-scale production. The designs were featured on the cover of Innovation Magazine and also won a 2004 Business Week/IDEA Gold award in 2004. Despite the accolades within the design community; as far as we know, not a single one of these tees made it to retail.

The Tee Matters

In our MyGolfSpy Labs article on Golf Tees, we showed that the tee can make a huge difference in performance (in once case 15.7 yards more than the standard wooden tee), so we’d certainly be interested to see how these prototypes would perform in the real world. Who knows why Nike never let them see the light of day, but as Nike is fond of saying, “there is no finish line”. So within that context, it’s possible that it’s not too late for these interesting (and shall we say unique?) designs to become reality.