Undoubtedly, the technicians and engineers who design the latest playing equipment are fully capable of getting the job done – and, with every new club, to dazzle your game. But some gears like to go in a very different direction, because disruption isn’t just about breaking things. It’s about being radically better.
The golf equipment industry is loaded with big brains and majors. Aerospace ballistics doctors. Engine designer from the automotive industry. Materials scientists from advanced manufacturing. They constitute a vast army of heads, pouring their expertise into a game governed by rules of conformity and rooted in tradition.
Innovation happens constantly, though not always as dramatically or regularly as the ads suggest. Golfers crave the next breakthrough. Manufacturers promise it with every product cycle.
But truly disruptive ideas are rare. They don’t arrive on schedule and can’t be fooled by a marketing blitz. At first glance, they seem to appear out of nowhere, like a hole-in-one, but they spring from hard work, a tolerance for risk, and a willingness to question what others take for granted.
Innovators like Cobra Golf’s director of innovation, Ryan Roach, whose story you can read below, didn’t just contribute innovative products—they challenged assumptions about how equipment should be designed, built and sold.
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RYAN ROACH WAS the kind of kid who could spend Saturday morning at the driving range and Saturday night spinning a 20-a-side. An athlete with an eccentric bent, he played on his high school golf team, but was just as drawn to Dungeons & Dragons as he was to grinding on the practice squad.
“Looking back, the kind of imagination that game required, I think it was probably good training in a way,” Roach says. “You can build whole worlds.”
At 51, Roach retains the boyish enthusiasm of someone always planning his next experiment. Except now those experiments involve lattice structures and powder-bed fusion, and the designs he builds are made of metal, printed layer by microscopic layer.
From his office in a box building in a Carlsbad business park, Roach has become a driving force in what he believes is the next big revolution in golf manufacturing: 3D printing.
Cobra 3DP X Custom Handcuffs
Super game-enhancing performance in an elegant, gamer-inspired shape with an exceptional feel that sets it apart from the rest. The 3DP X model is designed to pack more than meets the eye, offering exceptional forgiveness in a sleek package that gives any golfer the confidence to play their best and look the part. PLAYER X FORGIVE GAME IMPROVING SHAPE takes a base shape that sits between the DS-ADAPT and KING TEC-X and utilizes a 3D printed internal grille structure to create an iron engineered to the highest level to deliver the most forgiveness with the purest feel. EXTREME FORGIVING MEETS SOFT FEEL The 3D printed inner grille structure not only optimizes weight savings, but also provides the stiffness and strength to support the face and fine-tune the acoustics of each iron to produce the most engaging sound and feel at impact. TUNGSTEN WEIGHTING The generous weight savings from the 3D printed grid allow up to 55g of tungsten to be placed in the toe and gut to achieve an MOI that produces forgiveness equivalent to a larger iron, the super game improvement in a traditional iron shape.
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Inside, the soft exterior gives way to an engineer’s playground. Roach’s desk is littered with iron prototypes in various stages of completion—some cut in half to reveal their insides, others with pits still unfinished. His computer screen flickers with CAD renderings of impossible geometries. Walk down the hall with him and he’ll open drawers filled with more prototypes: rubber heads, wedges, designs that once were and may one day be again.
Roach, who grew up in Sacramento, joined Cobra Golf straight out of UC San Diego and, aside from a brief stint with Spalding, has been with the company ever since. During his 26-year tenure, he has witnessed defining moments: titanium drivers that pushed size and forgiveness to new extremes, adjustable weights and clutches that gave players on-the-spot control. For Roach, 3D printing — or additive manufacturing, as people in the industry call it — is just as revolutionary.
In the early 2010s, Roach had seen 3D printing transforming prototypes and medical devices. He wanted to know what he could do about golf. The potential was clear, but the costs were high: the technology was unproven in performance applications and the industry was hesitant.
“It was kind of clandestine, but not entirely clandestine,” says Roach. “We kept working on it, despite some people saying maybe we shouldn’t be.”
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The COBRA AGERA putter is a 3D printed multi-material construction that brings ultimate stability to an oversized flagship model. With a single swing shaft designed for players with a straighter swing type. Combined with LA GOLF’s Descending Loft Face Technology that delivers consistent launch and unmatched end-to-end spin performance on the market. MULTI-MATERIAL CONSTRUCTION An oversized blade shape combines a 3D-4g printed nylon grille cartridge, a MIM 304 stainless-302g frame, and a 3g carbon fiber crown that creates the ultimate design for stability. 3D PRINTED NYLON CARTRIDGE An intricate 3D printed nylon grid cartridge optimizes weight savings by allowing the CG to sit low and forward to optimize power transfer and stability. LA GOLF’S DESCENDING LOFT TECHNOLGY Featuring a 6061 aerospace grade aluminum insert with LA GOLF’s proprietary Descending Loft Technology, it utilizes 4 descending lofts (4°, 3°, 2°, 1°) to cushion optimal launch impact and reduce head impact during launch. unparalleled end-to-end roll performance. ADJUSTABLE WEIGHT SYSTEM The adjustable weight system gives the player the ability to swap the weight for a lighter or heavier weight to achieve a personal feel. All machines ship stock with nominal 15g weights and can move +- 5-10g in each direction. Additional weights are sold separately. (5g, 10g, 15g, 20, 25g)
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Many believers within Cobra were willing to gamble. In November 2020, the company released its first 3D printed club, a SuperSport-35 barrel. Roach, who had long specialized in irons, was convinced that the technology could go further.
The process is not like making a Xerox copy. Additive manufacturing builds objects by adding materials—fine metal powder, in this case—layer by layer, guided by digital files. The result is a structure of incredible internal complexity. Cobra’s 3D-printed irons are hollowed out to reduce bulk, then filled with intricate lattice patterns that balance strength and flexibility. Weight is added again with tungsten inserts, letting engineers control not only the mass of a club, but exactly where it lives.
