Jason Dufner, the winner of the 2013 PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y., has signed an endorsement contract with Cobra Golf. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Dufner will be using Cobra clubs and start using a Cobra bag this week at the Mayakoba Championship.
While the deal was officially announced on Tuesday, Dufner, 42, recently attended a Cobra event at Drive Shack in West Palm Beach, Fla., with Greg Norman, instructor Claude Harmon and Rickie Fowler.
At that event, the former Auburn University standout explained that his friendship with Fowler played a large role in developing his relationship with Cobra. Dufner said that he and Fowler are close friends, that they have played a lot of practice rounds together and he frequently stays in Fowler’s guest house when he is in South Florida.
During one of those practice rounds, he tried Fowler’s Cobra driver and liked it so much he put one into his bag. After that, he started tinkering with muscleback blades and cavity-back irons made by the Carlsbad, Calif.-based company.
“I sat down and thought that I was going to play (Cobra’s) stuff next year,” he said. “I talked with them and tried to see what they were going to do with marketing and branding and if they were going to add any new players. It just kind of worked out that they were ready to take a step with another new player.”
Among the clubs that are in Dufner’s bag this week are a Cobra King F9 Speedback driver (10.5 degrees) with an LAGP Olyss 6X shaft, a King Driving iron (4), and King Forged CB irons (5-PW) and King V Grind wedges (52, 56, 62 degrees), all with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue AMT S400 shafts.
“Another great thing about Cobra, and this isn’t a knock on any other brand, is that they don’t have a huge staff,” Dufner said. On the PGA Tour, Fowler and Bryson DeChambeau are the only other full-time Tour players. “So they have more time to spend with you, more time to be around you and really dig into what your equipment needs might be.”
