The Full “Mizuno Experience” for $150? Sign Me Up!

The catchphrase “Nothing feels like a Mizuno” is, in part, a marketing hashtag. It is also, in part, the battle cry of Mizuno loyalists everywhere. At some point during any round, the guy with a JPX anything in his bag will pure one, look at the rest of group, smirk a little and let you into his world.

“Nothing feels like a Mizuno.”

We know, dude. We know.

It stands to reason, then, that if nothing feels like a Mizuno, then nothing should feel like the “Mizuno Experience.” If MyGolfSpy’s recent tour of the new Mizuno Research and Performance Development Center, a.k.a. The Foundry, is any indication, the good folks in Atlanta might be on to something.

Welcome to The Foundry

Mizuno’s The Foundry is the company’s brand-new custom fitting and R&D center. It opened last month and is located about an hour north of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on the grounds of The Standard Club, a stunning private course in Johns Creek, Georgia.

“We had an R&D facility at a different club in town, but it was just a small shack with our robot,” Jeremy Galbreth, Senior Director of Mizuno’s U.S. Golf Division, tells MyGolfSpy. “We decided to create a space where consumers could come in and get the full Mizuno Experience and see all the amazing technology that goes into Mizuno products.”

At just over 3,700 square feet, The Foundry isn’t large, but it does feature two fitting studios, a full club-building workshop, a meeting room and a lounge area. There’s also a SamLab and PuttView-equipped putter fitting area.

Mizuno’s multi-sport R&D robot, known as Tee-Rex, has its own space.

“About 80 percent of the global robot testing for Mizuno will be done here,” explains Galbreth. “Our R&D team is going to be here all the time doing their testing.”

Japanese garden meets southern hospitality

While there is an R&D element, The Foundry is designed for the consumer. The aesthetic is a weird yet well-executed combination of modern technology, southern charm and Mizuno’s Japanese heritage.

“People are excited to see how premium the space is,” says Galbreth. “We like to tell the story of our heritage. We like to tell how the woodwork is imported from Hiroshima.”

“We’re trying to give it a Japanese Garden feel,” adds Associate Marketing Director Connor Mathis. “We have Japanese maples at the entry, plus patio seating. We’ll install big screen TVs out there when we have events.”

Inside, the reception area features more Japanese woodwork plus exclusive Foundry merchandise you can only buy there (it’s remarkably reasonably priced). The walls are adorned with Mizuno Tour pro imagery and framed sets of classic Mizuno irons. The putter fitting area is on the right. Beyond the reception desk is a comfortable lounge and snack area for golfers to chill while waiting for their fitting.

The centerpiece is a glass-topped table showcasing the Mizuno forging process from billet to club head.

“I like to call it ‘piece of metal to pretty piece of metal,’” says Mathis.

There’s also a corporate timeline on the wall that ends with a cryptic “World’s First (BLANK) Driver” coming in 2026. I tried, but Mathis and Galbreth kept mum.

The R&D lab and robot area is called The Nest (“That’s where running birds are born,” jokes Mathis), and a fully tricked-out Tour workshop.

“It’s an exact replica of our Tour truck,” Mathis explains. “Every piece of equipment in the Tour truck is also in here, all the way down to the way the drawers are laid out. It’s exactly the same.”

All of this, however, is window dressing for The Foundry’s real purpose: a fitting studio.

The Mizuno Swing DNA Lab

The centerpiece of The Foundry is the main fitting studio called the Mizuno Swing DNA Lab. I’ve been in many OEM fitting centers. Some are functional, such as Wilson’s fitting area located in its working Innovation Center. Others are fancier, such as Srixon’s in-house studio or Titleist’s Manchester Lane facility.

The Mizuno Swing DNA Lab travels in a different orbit.

Every club head Mizuno makes is there, but what grabs your attention is the shaft wall. At first, you see well over 200 shafts on the wall. Mathis then rolled that wall back to unveil another wall of well over 200 shafts. Then he did it again.

In all, there are more than 850 shafts packed into that three-layer wall for you to try.

And you can try them all. The cool thing, however, is that you don’t have to. That’s thanks to the latest iteration of the Mizuno Shaft Optimizer.

Three swings and the truth

Mizuno introduced its Shaft Optimizer tool in 2010. Since then, it’s been refined to where it can measure 40 unique data points. Mizuno’s software then creates what it calls your Swing DNA in just three swings.

“You could, in theory, take about four minutes and be fit for a full bag and a ball,” says Mathis. “It’s crazy how precise it is. Three swings and it’ll give you three top iron shafts to try. Otherwise, you’d be beating balls for 30 minutes.”

The Shaft Optimizer is a fully functional 7-iron. There’s the strap-on module you probably recognize, but the shaft includes internal strain gauges and other technology to help determine how you load and unload the shaft. It collects data on club head speed, swing tempo, shaft bow and forward bend and release. An internal gyro helps determine proper lie angle (way better than a lie board), as well as attack angle and shaft lean to help recommend a golf ball.

I had the chance to take a few whacks with the Optimizer. Sure enough, it created a list of 50 possible iron shafts. The top three were the Dynamic Gold Mid 100, the KBS Tour Lite and the Nippon Modus 105, all shafts I’ve been fit into by various OEMs over the past two years. Additionally, the software created a full bag from driver to wedge based on my Swing DNA. It went so far as to suggest the lowest lofted iron I should swing was around 24 degrees before transitioning to either a hybrid or fairway wood.

“If your club head speed is about 90, you’ll probably be a stiff,” says Mathis. “But if you’re kind of fast at the top, you might need something that’s a little tip stiff. This thing will figure that out for you.”

Are you “Experienced?”

Raise your hand if you’ve been reading this and wondering, “When is this guy going to tell us how much?” Raise the other hand if you’ve been thinking, “This is gonna be stupid expensive.”

Okay, put your hands down. You look silly.

The price for what Mizuno calls its Premium One-Hour Fitting at The Foundry is $150. That gets you specifically fit for one product category, be it irons, metal woods, wedges or a putter. The Enhanced Two-Hour Fitting is $350 and will cover at least two product categories. However, if you follow the concept of Swing DNA, you could consider the one-hour fitting a full bag fitting and go from there. For an extra $150, you can even have your clubs built the same day.

What’s more, Mizuno will credit half the fitting fee toward a club purchase. For comparison, a Titleist fitting at Manchester Lane or TPI in Carlsbad starts at $350 for a single product, and is $750 for a full bag.

Even the merch is reasonably priced. It’s all exclusive to The Foundry, featuring quilted leather headcovers, Foundry-branded golf balls, hats and t-shirts, even leather-covered flasks, coasters and a crystal whiskey and low-ball glass set. It’s all exclusive and available only at The Foundry.

I figured the headcover would easily be in the $150 to $200 range, but it’s a relative bargain at $70.

“We’ll eventually open this place up for things like a buddy trip,” says Mathis. “You and three friends can come in and get fit and then go play the Standard Club. We can get you box seats at a Braves game or even a fishing trip.

“We’ll handle everything from flights, hotels, Ubers, everything. All you have to do is show up.”

Is Mizuno’s The Foundry worth the trip?

If your only goal is getting fit for Mizuno clubs, you can do that almost anywhere. Fitters have told MyGolfSpy that Mizuno is going out of its way to load them up with fitting tools this year, even stuff they didn’t ask for.

“There are a lot of great fitters who have our system available,” says Galbreth. “Our goal isn’t to compete with our customers. We just want an elevated space where people can get the full Mizuno experience.”

Would you travel to Atlanta for the sole purpose of a one-hour fitting? I can’t answer for you, but I’d guess most of your responses would be “no” rather than “yes.” But would you include it as part of a buddy golf trip to the area? How about if you were in Atlanta on business? Or what about that once-in-a-lifetime “experience” trip?  Despite brisk one-off business thus far, that’s Mizuno’s big picture view.

“Right now, we’re booked a couple of weeks out,” says Galbreth. “But I just had a guy call to ask if we could get him in today and we had an opening. It just depends on what kind of fitting you want and if you want your clubs built the same day.”

Final thoughts on The Foundry

The most common question when any brand in any industry does something like this is, “Do they expect this thing to ever pay for itself?” I would think most companies, if they answered honestly, would tell you “No” for one simple reason.

It’s about branding.

Now, you might not think a company like Mizuno would need to make a brand statement, but you’d be wrong. While it’s known as an irons company, Mizuno stands fifth in iron market share behind Callaway, Titleist, TaylorMade and PING. Despite years of emphasis, it’s still barely a blip on the driver and wedge radar screen. Putters? Well, they’re certainly trying.

The Foundry is more brand statement than anything else. As a branding initiative, ROI isn’t as simple as calculating whether Mizuno will sell enough clubs to offset the cost of construction and operation. It probably won’t. The Foundry is there to tell the Mizuno story to individuals, groups and, eventually, corporate events.

In other words, whether the Foundry is a success or not has little to do with the direct sales the facility generates. The Foundry is simply one element of Mizuno’s long-term U.S. branding efforts. Its impact will be measured in the arc of Mizuno’s fortunes over the next decade.

“We’ve shifted gears since 2018,” admits Galbreth. “We want people to know we’re not just that irons company you’ve always known. We’ll put our engineering team up against anybody. We’ll put our products up against anybody.”

And, Galbreth adds, once a golfer gets into Mizuno products, they tend to bleed blue.

“We have a very loyal following. We just need more people to have an opportunity to try our stuff and get fit for it.”

For more information on The Foundry or to book a fitting, visit mizunofoundry.com.

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