The Wire by Golf Press Association

For most of us, selecting a new driver or fairway wood depends on several factors that go beyond performance. Start with a dozen or more drivers and winnow them down until you have two or three. You get decent results with all of them on the practice range.

But how do you make a final selection?

Feel is important, of course; so is the way the club looks to your eye. And consciously or not, you probably allow sound to factor into your decision making.

Yep, the sound that the club makes when it makes contact can be a thing of beauty -- or a clang that makes you cringe. Versus Golf president and CEO Scott Son pays a lot of attention to acoustics in his company's new RCRX driver, VS-1 driver and fairway woods.

"Absolutely, (sound) really differentiates us from other companies," Son said. "On most of the 460 cc drivers out there, the sound is not too pleasant. The walls get very thin and stretched out. The face is actually two to three times thicker than the walls of the body."

And when it comes to adjusting sound, that can be tough -- which is why many manufacturers don't make it a priority.

"The body shell can be just 1 mm thick," Son said. "You don't have much to play with."

Atlanta-based Versus Golf does focus a lot of attention to the details -- including, but not limited to, the sound at impact. Son, who started playing golf at age 5, has a successful career as a photographer under his belt, followed by work as vice president of design and marketing at two other golf companies. He selected the name "Versus" to sum up the challenges that each golfer faces during a round.

Son's vision for his company involves keeping a "boutique" feel, limiting the size of the firm and focusing on creating premium clubs for low and mid-level handcappers.

"We're not trying to be the next big company. We're really satisfied with where we're at right now. We want to generate enough revenue to keep happy and to keep the company floating," he said.

Having just launched in July, the RCRX and VS-1 clubs are quickly beginning to tell Versus' story. Son says the company's goal by introducing products in mid-season is to establish the brand.

"We want to go after a certain target market," he said. "We're not going after the mass market. Callaway, TaylorMade have that -- it would be suicide to go after them. To be competitive in the golf industry you've got to find a niche to separate yourself from the others."

Versus clubs incorporate Son's beautiful external design and two proprietary technologies inside: Soundforged face inserts and Muscle Crown construction.

"The face is taken several extra steps," said Son of the Soundforged faces in Versus clubs. "We use the highest strength ratio titanium out there with our own proprietary milling inside. We go through numerous forging processes and severely heat the titanium to get the grains tight. Then we go back and press it again, then use high-end milling to create the variable face thickness. We use a slightly different pattern to create the acoustic sounds."

Instead of having a standard cast body with a face insert, Versus Golf creates a third piece that fits along the crown to keep thin club walls from producing an undesirable, high-pitched noise. And more importantly, this Muscle Crown technology reinforces the clubhead to minimize vibration on the crown and increase ball speed off the face.

"My mentality is that the performance has to be there," Son said. "I'll use the analogy of a restaurant -- it doesn't matter how aesthetically pleasing it is, if the food's bad, you won't go back. Our number one goal is product performance at the highest level, using technologies like SoundForged Face and Muscle Crown. Have performance first, then back it up with a great story."

A couple other factors make Versus Golf different.

First, the company offers more options for clubfitting. The V-Fitt system is the beginnings of an emphasis on making Versus' RCRX heads easy to taylor to any golfer. Because Versus heads are engineered to accommodate the fitting sleeve popularly used by club fitters and pro shops and still maintain precise weight and center of gravity, any shaft can be used without a great deal of tinkering.

"V-Fitt is kind of a band-aid. It's the first stage of what we're going to show off in the next year," said Son, hinting at a more comprehensive personalized fitting system yet to come.

Plus, Versus sells its heads to qualified pro shops and clubmakers.

Son said that the type of players his company targets tend to know exactly what they want in a shaft, and it doesn't make much sense to sell clubs made with a shaft that will just be removed. He's quick to point out, however, that a lot of thought goes into the shafts offered with his off-the-shelf clubs.

"We have an opinion on what shaft is right for our heads, but for me to say it's the right shaft is pretty bold," he said. "Everyone has different tastes, different swings. There are a lot of variables to consider."

Still, with its emphasis on customization and performance, Versus drivers and woods have that extra something that encourages golfers to seek out the brand. In the initial stages of brand building, Son is already making plans for how the brand will be continued in the future. He hopes to create clubs that change year after year, almost like collector's items, to further the brand and increase demand.

"My wife wants a Louis Vuitton bag. I say, 'What's wrong with this other (less expensive) one?'" Son said. "But that's how we are, we're social conformists in many ways. People want to buy a certain brand, they trust a certain brand. We're seeking that same loyalty for years to come."

Versus looks to be a company that can not only be trusted to produce high-quality clubs, but exciting ones, too.

For information, go to http://www.versusgolf.com/.