It's a Monday morning and Ryan Moore is in a coffee house. He did, after all, grow up just outside Seattle.On this particular balmy summer day, the industrial looking building he's in houses the Chattanooga Coffee Company. The brew is fantastic -- they supply about 30 restaurants in the area and have a few stores scattered around the country -- and it's also just down the street from the old Southern Saddlery Co. building, which now houses Scratch Golf.
The space is raw and intentionally unfinished and when I meet Moore at the headquarters of the fledgling club company that was founded just seven years ago, he's wearing a hooded blue sweatshirt and black sweatpants, neither of which has a logo.
Clearly, money and whatever fame he's established haven't affected him -- Moore still flies commercial, and later when he and his brother/agent Jeremy leave, they'll have to drive their rental car some seven hours to their next destination in Greensboro, N.C., after the aforementioned commercial flight was canceled due to a wicked thunderstorm.
Of course it wasn't all that long ago that Moore's golf apparel was logo-less, too, until he signed an endorsement deal in the fall of 2009 with Scratch that gave him part ownership.
It was an interesting decision, especially in the current age of big-dollar deals from big-name companies. Like Ping, for example, which endorsed Moore until his contract expired in 2008 and the two couldn't come to an agreement on a new deal. There were others interested in the former U.S. Amateur champion, but Moore says it was less about the money than it was about feeling comfortable with what he was playing.
"I didn't want to be a walking billboard," Moore says.
Financially, it meant giving up some money up front for potentially bigger money down the road as part owner of the company. It also meant Moore wasn't locked into playing a certain driver or putter as is not the case with many equipment contracts.
Scratch doesn't make drivers. They're known for their forged irons and as Moore puts it, a lot of companies say an iron is forged, but these truly are, done so at the hand of Don White, who used to work for MacGregor.
When MacGregor shut down, White bought all his old equipment, including the huge lathe he used to make clubs for everyone from Jack Nicklaus to Greg Norman. Not long after, Scratch hired White. The company had to knock a wall down to make room for his equipment -- that's how big the lathe is.
White's skill is a lost art these days. You give the guy a block of 18/10 carbon steel and he'll give you a 5-iron that's precise down to a tenth of a degree and so soft you can actually feel the ball coming off the clubface. It's a little like having Michelangelo sculpt you a lawn ornament.
MOORE CAN'T SIT STILL
Moore is tinkering around in the back of the shop. That's what he does. He tinkers. "It can be overwhelming sometimes if you don't know what you want," says Moore, who seems to have no real purpose on today's visit other than to tinker, check in with the company and meet with me for a glimpse into what a typical day in his life is like.
In all, Moore visits Chattanooga once or twice a month and when he's not traveling from tournament to tournament, he splits time between Seattle and Scottsdale. He'll soon reside in Dallas, mostly because it's a 2-hour flight from everywhere, he says. Plus, the house he just bought is "amazing."
It's not long before the talk turns back to golf clubs. The ones in Moore's bag, at least on this day, are a version of the company's AR-1 model. They're a mid-cavity back iron shaved down to resemble a blade.
"Jack [Nicklaus] had different sets for everything from Don White," says Moore, whose longest tenured stick in the bag is actually his Adams driver at two years.
Moore said he had "very little fear" getting involved with the club business, mostly because he grew up around equipment on the driving range his dad owned. Moore's current swing coach and best friend Troy Denton is also an "equipment junkie," as Moore puts it. Denton is the one who turned Moore on to Scratch in the first place after hitting some of their wedges.
With all the talk about irons and wedges and grooves, the kid with the homemade swing eventually takes a swipe at the USGA and its set-up of Pebble Beach for the U.S. Open.
Moore takes exception with the USGA's David Fay calling the greens at Pebble Beach the best greens they've ever had there, recalling a perfect 4-iron he hit on No. 12 that landed on the front edge of the green, took two hops and bounced off.
Moore does give credit, however, to the USGA's Mike Davis, the man responsible for the U.S. Open set-up, for agreeing with him about the course in an article in the Boston Globe.
"In hindsight, I wish we had put more water on the 17th green, because it got firmer than we wanted. A guy could hit a really good shot and he couldn't hold it, and we never wanted that to happen, particularly when it's the 71st hole of a national Open," Davis told the Globe. "That wasn't the golf course staff, that was us.
"Sometimes I'll see player comments, and sometimes you're like, you know what, they're right. You live and learn.''
STAYING LOW KEY
Before long, it's time for lunch and we head to The Purple Daisy, a local barbecue joint where the low-key atmosphere seems to suit Moore and his Scratch entourage well. The talk is mostly about golf and it's clear these dudes are all junkies of the game, every last one of them, including company president Ari Techner.
Afterwards, we head back to Scratch for a Q&A with Moore (click here to read), who says, among other things, that a hand injury early in his career could have possibly ended it. In other words, if he couldn't play the kind of golf he knew he was capable of, why bother?
Moore also explains why he wears the ties and sweater vests and the spikeless TRUE linkswear shoes and why he's a cat person.
A half-hour later Moore is back to tinkering, playing with nearly every club resting against the wall of the launch monitor the company had installed.
The launch monitor doesn't seem to be working, though, so they have Moore pull his own clubs and when he starts hitting 200-yard 6-irons it's confirmed. "I hit my 6-iron 170 yards," Moore says. On it continues as Moore works his way through his bag, hitting 300-yard 3-woods.
Needless to say, the sound of the ball coming off his clubface is a tad more thunderous than when it comes off the rest of ours. The distance control is also ridiculously accurate -- nearly every shot Moore hits is exactly 30 yards longer than it should be. That should make for an easy fix of the launch monitor.
Most of the guys who work here look like they could be buddies of Moore's and in some ways they are, given his relationship with the company and his laid-back, left-coast personality.
With that, it doesn't take long for the cash to come out and a bet to be made on who can get closest to the pin on the seventh hole at Pebble Beach. Thankfully, the launch monitor is not set to U.S. Open conditions. Still, my wedge lands nearly on the eighth tee left of the green. Moore? He stuffs one inside a few feet.
Six hours after his day at Scratch started, it's over. Moore packs his clubs and heads to Sedgefield Country Club for the Wyndham Championship's media day.
The funny thing is Moore hadn't even really planned to play the Wyndham Championship a year ago, but it was his first PGA TOUR event after winning the 2004 U.S. Amateur so he feels a sense of loyalty. Now he's going back as the defending champion.
Where Moore's career goes from here, who knows, but after a day with him, it's obvious he's content with its current direction yet still restless about not having won more. At one point, he says he was a better player in college than he is now.
No matter what, though, he'll always be that kid from Seattle who's a little different and does things his own way. And that's exactly how he likes it.
-PGA Tour
