Zach Johnson's Masters win puts putter back in limelight

Then Zach Johnson used their putter to outplay Tiger Woods and capture the Masters. The co-owners of the SeeMore Putter Co. had to change course _ fast.

Business suddenly was booming.

"Before Zach won the Masters, we were doing maybe two orders a day," Pouliot said. "Not even 10 minutes after he put on the green jacket, we were doing one every five minutes."

The company's rise and fall and rise again mirrors the two stars to use the putter _ Johnson and the late Payne Stewart. The golfers' pictures clutter the walls of the company's headquarters in a Nashville suburb and highlight the good times that separate a rough eight-year period.

"I don't think most people even realized the putter was still around," said Pat O'Brien, Johnson's putting coach, who bases his teachings on Stewart's use of the club. "Zach won the Masters and poof, now it's in the hands of a ton of golfers. Suddenly, the putter is cool."

The putter designed in 1997 by California teaching pro Jim Weeks has a simple concept now called the Riflescope Technology alignment system. The club has a red oval on top of the heel, directly behind the shaft. If the position is proper, a golfer standing over the ball can't see the dot because of the shaft.

The club didn't resonate with most golfers until Stewart used one to sink the a 15-foot putt and win the 1999 U.S. Open.

But his death in a freak plane crash later that year left the company without its only household name on the U.S. PGA Tour.

"The brand went down with Payne," Grundberg said.

Weeks struggled to sell the club and ended up selling most of the company to an investment group led by Tim Raymond and Greg Kuppler.

SeeMore continued to struggle and was almost dormant when purchased in 2006 by former Odyssey executives Pouliot and Grundberg.

The new owners hadn't even had a chance to decorate their offices when Masters week arrived. They were glued to the television like all avid golf fans who couldn't flock to Augusta. The weekend was filled with a slew of up-and-down phone calls, shoes thrown at televisions and deals made with God.

Vaughn Taylor, another SeeMore user, led briefly in the second round before sputtering off the leaderboard. Then came Sunday when Johnson outputted Woods to win the coveted jacket.

Or, as Grundberg said, SeeMore slayed the golfing giants _ Nike, Wilson, Ping, Titleist, among others.

"Monday morning, we didn't have enough phone lines to keep up with all the calls," said Grundberg.

"I had to look at a map to find some countries that were calling," Grundberg said. "We had orders coming from Brunei. I said, 'Where the heck is Brunei?' Who knew it was a small country in the South Pacific? But there it was, right there on the map."

Suddenly everybody wanted a putter from a company with about 10 employees with 15-20 workers from independent contractors. Who needs an advertising budget when you've got a Masters champ using your putter?

"Look at how many large, oversized putters people bought after Jack Nicklaus was winning," O'Brien said. "That's sort of what Zach has done for them."

Grundberg said the company had 50 accounts before the 2007 Masters. Four months after Johnson's win, SeeMore is up to 500 and projecting 1,000 by the end of this year.

All for a product that, except for its paint, has hardly ever changed.

"Zach has allowed us to tell the putter's story again," Grundberg said. "He has built a bridge for the putter from Payne Stewart to the present."

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