Stop to consider for a moment the implications, the acceptance by and the use of some of the top names in golf such as Ben Crenshaw, Vijay Singh, Kirk Triplett, Hubert Green, Jim Albus, Brad Fable, Dicky Pride, Lee Trevino, Leonard Thompson, Harold Henning, Walt Zimbriski, Tommy Armour, Gibby Gilbert and Steve Veriato just to name a few, of a golf club. Even Jack Nicklaus has switched to the Kasco Driver AND at Bay Hill, I also saw the King himself, Arnold Palmer, using the K2K.

It is rare in today’s highly competitive golf market, that a company can so capture the non-paid endorsements of those golfers both under competitors’ endorsements and independents.

Kasco’s products have become the most sought after club on the Senior Tour and PGA Tour. Their reputation and corporate philosophy of "Creating Perfection" is ubiquitous throughout their product line.

This article is about "an overnight success" story of a Japanese golf company called Kasco Golf. Kasco is also the most vertically integrated golf company in the world. Kasco is also considered to be in the upper most tiers of golf club manufacturers in the world, a fact not lost on some of the other major manufacturers. Their quality has no equal- period, hence the higher prices but well worth the expense.

Kasco is best known for it’s outstanding golf gloves, recognized as one of the top two brands of golf gloves for quality, feel and durability. These are the gloves that have been on sale at a major tournament in Georgia for a quarter of a century. Kasco’s president, Toshihiko Kamada himself was trained as a glove maker in a town that produced 90% of the Japanese glove market. It took him a decade to isolate the perfect hide for golf gloves.

Never mind the fact that as per James Achenbach of GolfWeek proclaiming that the "Kasco rocket golf ball is the best kept secret in America". Kasco has invented a new golf club that is very unusual but highly effective.

The K2K is in a class of its own –a new domain of clubs that can be best classified as "Long Range Attack Woods". It is one of those inventions that allow a company from being an also ran to the Master of their Domain. It is a club that completely revolutionizes a player’s game, strategy and style.

Our 25 testers recorded the highest satisfaction rating of over 95% of any club tested in the past two years. The ONLY negative being that one has to "acclimatize oneself" to the unique design. Nevertheless, the results obtained by almost all the testers responses reduced this slight negative to "not really a problem". The proof was in the pudding –great feel and exceptional easy of use and marvelous distance.

At the recent Toshiba Classic, I personally witnessed Harold Henning using the club, loving the results and replacing his 2 and 3 irons for a #33 and #55 K2K.

His high finish in the standings reflected the additions of the K2K to his bag. The Kasco driver is also, according to the "Darrell Survey", in the top 5 drivers on the Senior Tour.

The club is easier to hit, longer, straighter and higher than any fairway wood or long iron currently available. Kasco has improved on the best features of the fairway wood and the long iron in terms of distance and control.

The K2K, designed with Super Hyten (Kasco’s own patent), the hardest and strongest alloy presently being used in golf clubs and substantially stronger than titanium, can best be described as falling in between a driving iron and a fairway wood. It is not, in the true sense of the word, a fairway wood and it does not belong in the set of irons either.

The Super Hyten club heads are made with uniquely fine molds developed by Kasco using their own precise casting equipment. The Super Hyten club heads are half the thickness of a normal titanium head, which therefore allows for greater sensitivity of head design.

Kasco has transferred the weight to the sole, making it heavier for a lower and deeper center of gravity resulting in a higher trajectory and ease in getting the ball airborne more easily than ever before.

Of special note is that with the advent and use of Super Hyten, there is no need for Kasco to insert or add any other materials such as tungsten gravity screws on the bottom or face unlike the majority of other manufacturers. The result therefore is that the energy loss at impact is avoided at the junction of two (or multiple) different metals. This translates into maximum power transfer to the ball at impact and maximum distance.

The design of the K2K, while somewhat unusual, affords a "super wide Sweet Area" making the K2K very easy to hit, very forgiving and very straight. With the K2k’s full rounded sole, hitting from any conditions such as bunkers or roughs is extremely easy. The bore through shaft with its reinforced tip ensures maximum stability and straight ball flight at impact.

While the K2K comes with a standard Kasco proprietary shaft which really excellent, we also re-shafted all the clubs with the new and very popular UST 75 shaft. Our testers were basically astounded and flabbergasted by the result. Obviously, changing shafts is one’s prerogative and cost. (Kasco sells the only the fully assembled club) Each and every club performed demonstrably superior in both feel and especially distance. The #5 produced distances of 230 to 260 yards! 20 to 30 yards more than the standard shaft. Well worth the switch.

The K2K is currently available in a #33 (16°), #44 (19°) and #55 (22°). A #11, #22 #77 and #99 are planned for later this year.

While the suggested retail is $480, the market price seems to be settling in at about $400 per club.

Equally as impressive as the K2K is the Kasco VS Tour Driver with Super Hyten. This is the driver that Kirk Triplett used to win his first title after 262 starts on the PGA Tour. In the Audi Senior Classic, Hubert Green used the Kasco VS Tour Driver as did Gary Orr in winning the Algarve Portuguese Open.

Green grass retailers are clamoring for the Drivers and K2K especially in Florida, Georgia and California and Kasco is enjoying one of their best years in terms of business. In Japan alone, 60,000 K2Ks have been sold since September. As alluded to earlier, this long range attack club is simply the best piece of equipment available on the market today. The weight balance has been adjusted for the US market. Kasco does not plan on flooding the market and has instituted a brand awareness program and demo programs throughout the United States. Kasco clubs are available through Edwin Watts Golf 800.874.0146 or www.edwinwatts.com or for further information you can visit www.kascogolf.com or call 800.431.2560