Kirkland Signature

There is no factory behind this name, and there never has been. Kirkland Signature is Costco's private label, started in 1995 and named for Kirkland, Washington, where the company kept its headquarters until it moved to Issaquah the following year. Costco itself is a membership warehouse chain listed on the Nasdaq, with around three hundred and forty thousand employees, and the golf clubs are a rounding error inside it. Golf balls came first and built whatever standing the name has in the game. Clubs took much longer.

KS1 was the opener, a 303 stainless putter milled with adjustable weight ports at both ends of the sole, and it cleared the website within days of going up in 2020. Three wedge sets have followed, the first two cast and the third forged, each a 52, 56 and 60 degree trio. A seven-piece players iron set came next on a hollow stainless body with an injected urethane insert and internal tungsten, then an adjustable driver with a carbon crown over a titanium sole. None of it is designed or built in house, which is how a retailer gets into hard goods: the conforming-list entry on the irons names Indi Golf. It's a golf brand the way a store brand is a brand, and the clubs haven't played like it.