You Can Believe Johnny Miller!

In 1991, when I created the new PROBE GOLF driver head with a tighter curvature on its face, I looked around for someone who could help me convince PGA Tour players to try it. The first Tour player I gave a PROBE driver to was Johnny Miller at the AT&T at Pebble Beach.

Johnny hit it at the driving range, and he was sold on its performance. Our ten inches of radius on the bulge and ten inches of radius on the roll imparted an additional 30 yards of carry to every drive. Johnny recognized it immediately, and the PROBE driver was in his bag. Then he told me, "Pete, hand your driver to any tour player who is warming up on the range, and ask him if he'd like to try a new driver that will give him an added 30 yards of carry and 2.5 seconds longer in the air than the driver he is playing now. They will hit it, and they will put it in their bag, unless some contract to play another driver won't let them switch."

I followed Johny's advice, and we had a lot of tour players playing The PROBE on tour in no time. But he was right about tour players using equipment for the money they are paid, and not for the performance!

In February of 1991, my tour rep. called me in our office in Yreka, CA and told me that Chi Chi had just broken his favorite driver that he had used for years. Tom gave me Chi Chi's specs, and we built him a PROBE driver overnight. Chi Chi used a Callaway driver that Friday, the first day of the tournament that week, and he shot 78, and was in last place. Tom received Chi Chi's PROBE on Saturday morning, and took it to Chi Chi on the practice tee. Chich hit it five times, turned to Tom and said, "It's in my bag!

Chi Chi shot 66-66 on Saturday and Sunday, and almost went from last to first that week. I decided to have my shop manager make Chi Chi a matching 3-wood and 5-wood, then drove to the next tournament in Ojai, CA. I arrived on Thursday, and looked for Chi Chi. When I saw him, he looked like death warmed over! I introduced myself to Chich, when I learned he was suffering from the flu. If the Ojai tournament had not been rained out on Friday, Chi Chi would have had to withdraw, but he got over the flu and was able to play on Saturday. He shot 66-66 and beat Gary Player the last two holes Sunday for the win!

Chi Chi told me his PROBE driver out drove Gary off the 17th tee by 60 yards. Gary hit 3-iron to the green, 60 feet from the pin, then three-putted. Chi Chi hit 9-iron close, and the tournament was over.

The next three months Chi Chi won four times, and was leading money winner, UNTIL he received an offer from Callaway to play their Big Bertha "for a lot of money". His attorney, Eddie Elias, faxed my office and told me he wanted $125,000 for Chi Chi to stay with his PROBE, or Chi Chi was switching to Big Bertha. I faxed Eddie back and told him, "Good luck to Chi Chi and his Big Bertha."

Chi Chi switched, and did not win again that year. He dropped from first to eleventh on the money list. My friends, that is not unusual on tour. I am proud to say that PROBE GOLF made the best performing golf equipment in the world at that time. That is why I am excited about returning PROBE to making custom fit golf equipment once again. There is nothing out there that can compete with us, because true custom fitting is vastly superior to mass produced equipment.

Because of Johnny Miller's help in introducing our golf equipment to the tour players, I sent Johnny a dozen PROBE driver heads every month for over a year, so he and his sons could experiment with various shafts, but only on a PROBE head. I remember the day I was playing Lake Shastina Country Club and my cell phone rang. It was Johnny calling, telling me that the PROBE stayed in the air about five seconds longer in Denver! He was playing a corporate outing at the Mile High city that day.

This last weekend Johnny made the comment that Tiger Woods needs to change swing instructors, take the driver out of his bag, and take some time off to "get his head on straight." If Johnny says it, listen and follow that advice, Tiger.