Toulon Design – the Stradivarius, Aston Martin, and Rolex of Putters

Sean Toulon was a big part of TaylorMade’s success in the early 21^st century. A stalwart at the company for 15 years during which he worked his way up to Executive Vice-President of Product Design and Creation, Toulon worked on a number of its most successful clubs including the M1, r7 Quad, 300 Series, 500 Series, r9, r11, SLDR, Rocketballz, Burner and plenty more besides.

He left in June of last year, supposedly to retire. But just five months later, clearly not ready for a life of ease on the Southern California coastline, he launched Toulon Design, a high-end putter manufacturing company with premises in Vista, CA just five minutes east on Highway 78 from Carlsbad, the golf equipment epicenter of the world.

“Setting up his own company is something he’d always thought about, but didn’t seriously consider until after retirement,” says Toulon’s son Tony who, along with brother Joe, was instrumental in encouraging his father back to work.

Despite the long list of drivers, he had a hand in developing, Sean Toulon, now 56, is really a putter guy at heart. In 1992, he had founded Zevo Golf which produced a number of excellent flatsticks, and he also co-designed the Rossa and Spider, two of TaylorMade’s most successful models. At the two companies, he designed putters for a number of the world’s best players including Sergio Garcia, Ernie Els, Justin Rose, Jason Day, Jim Furyk, Loren Roberts, Ian Leggatt, Kenny Perry, Shaun Micheel, Robert Garrigus, Mike Weir, Paul McGinley, Paula Creamer, Natalie Gulbis, David Toms, Willie Wood, and Dave Stockton.

Toulon Design is all about quality, high tolerances, craftsmanship and high-level engineering. If it hadn’t already been taken, GMC’s ‘professional grade’ tagline would have been a suitable slogan. The company currently offers five models – Madison, Rochester, San Diego, San Francisco, and Memphis – which combine elegance with function. The Deep Diamond Mill pattern etched into every face is a distinctive feature of Toulon Design putters and, says their maker, “effectively channels the vibration of impact away from your ears to produce a slightly softer, yet still crisp, solid sound and incredible feel.”

Every putter is built from 303 Stainless Steel, a material Sean Toulon has long favored for putter design. “We chose 303 because it really does create exceptional feel,” he says. “It machines beautifully, and is very easy for the golfer to care for requiring very little maintenance.”

As well as the five heads, Toulon Design offers three hosel designs – Standard L-Neck, Long Neck L-Neck, and Short Flow – which alter the way the toe hangs (when the putter is balanced using your finger) and therefore affect how much your putting-stroke arcs. This choice of hosels is available with the Rochester, Madison, and San Diego putterheads.

The head and hosel in Toulon Design putters begin as two separate parts, but are welded together using a process, common in the aerospace industry, known as vacuum braising. “It essentially fuses two pieces of metal back into a solid single piece,” says Sean Toulon. “It’s important for us because it allows us to mill our hosels and heads in two separate parts, and gives us the opportunity to mix different heads to different hosels – a key advantage to creating new and different models quickly.”

Offering this choice of heads and hosels is actually part of an eight-step customization process Toulon Design announced last week. Customers can now get the full Tour-player service, able to choose:

• Alignments marks (lines, dots, etc.)
• Finish (Tour Satin Mist Silver, Black Pearl Satin, Rose Gold Satin)
• Paint-fill and stampings
• Grip
• Shaft
• Specs – weight (three sole plate options – 7g aluminum, 20g stainless steel, 40g tungsten), lie, and loft.

The Toulon Design team (Sean, Tony, Joe, Sean’s wife Kathy, and former mini-tour player and family friend B.J. Taylor) then creates your putter in the Toulon Garage where, as you can imagine, the customization possibilities are virtually endless, and from which two identical putters have yet to emerge.

$399 and up.
More info: toulondesign.com

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