ETIQUS : THE WATCHFACE OF GOLF?

At ETIQUS (pronounced eh-ti-kus), we believe it's good to be a golfer. The lifestyle and long term health benefits means that Golf is sport you can enjoy for most of your life.  For those that want to show their passion for golf I created a timepiece exclusively for golfers with design features that embody the unique spirit of the game. Everyday, wherever you are, if you love golf you can wear an ETIQUS Golf Timepiece with pride.

So is ETIQUS 'just a watch' or is it 'the watchface of golf'?  Well I believe the judgement is all in the detail.

As an example, take a close look at an ETIQUS Sport Tour with a Summer White dial – let’s work through the detail to see how many of the golf related design features you can pick out.

1. The case of the Sport Tour is the same size as a golf ball, give or take a few hundredths of a millimetre. Why bother with that? Well apart from the obvious link to golf, as an ecommerce business where many people won’t have the chance to judge the size of the watch, they can simply hold a golf ball to their wrist to at least get some idea of the diameter of the watch. So there’s a practical benefit as well as an aesthetic one – and you can gauge all of my models from the same perspective. See our new ‘Size Guide’ for more info.

2. When you look closely at the face of any ETIQUS timepiece you will see the 3D effect of a golf ball. It’s not printed. Those dimples are real and they change as you look closer at the edge of the face just like they would on a real golf ball. They’re subtle enough so it’s doesn’t look like you’re walking around with a Pro V1 on your wrist and the darker the face colour the more subtle the dimples are, such that you have to tilt the watch a little to see them. One other point is that the dimple pattern had to be unique so that it didn’t impinge any design registrations of the dimple patterns of major golf ball manufacturers.

3. If you look closely at the hour batons you will see that I chose inlaid markers that resemble a golf tee – nothing corny just very smart hour markers.

4. On the dial you will see the words ‘Golf Linksometer’ pronounced ‘Links – ometer’ not ‘Link – so – meter’. Many measuring devices are ‘ometers’ – eg speedometer, pedometer, barometer and in horology - chronometer. A device that comprises at least a minute hand and the Golf Bezel and so can help to regulate your pace of play over 18 holes (ie the Links) is called a ‘Golf Linksometer’.

5. When you look closely you will see that the second hand is in the form of a ‘red flag’. I was always going to make a feature of the second hand and a golf flag was a natural fit but should it be white, yellow or red? Well, as the face of the dial was going to be a golf ball and with white as the most popular colour for balls, a white flag wouldn’t stand out. I did consider yellow but if you Google ‘golf flag’ the favourite colour is red. I think red works best in combination with other dial colours. It is possible a yellow flag will appear at some point on one special edition model.

6. So red was the colour but … and this, I trust, is a good example of attention to detail … should it point to the right or to the left? I pondered this for a while and then late one night sat at my desk in the upstairs study that looks out across the golf course I leaned back in my Captain’s Chair (a nautical not a golf reference) and the answer was above my desk. A friend had visited the Masters and bought me a Masters towel. The red flag on the emblem points to the left so I decided if 'left' was good enough for those fine gentleman of Augusta, it would be good enough for an ETIQUS timepiece.

7. My two favourite Majors are The Masters and The Open and that’s why you will see, on any picture of an ETIQUS timepiece, the red flag second hand pointing to the 34th second as we all know that the Invitational Tournament first hosted by Bobby Jones took place in 1934.

8. As for The Open, well the lowest score in an Open Championship to Par at the time I created the design was 19 under by Tiger Woods at St. Andrews in 2000. That’s why the date window shows 19. (This score has since been bettered by Henrik Stenson at Royal Troon).

9. On the case-back of a Sport model and on the dial of a Classic Tour you will see possibly the four most important words in Golf – Spirit of the Game. It is what makes our sport and the players who play it and uphold those values so special. Play golf without any regard for the Spirit of the Game at your own risk.

Let’s move onto the bezel – the rotatable circular ring around the outside of the face – the bit you'll most likely to twiddle.

10. The first thing to notice is the segment with the white golf ball on a tee. Everyone knows that to start your round you will, mostly likely, need to tee up your ball to ensure you clip it off cleanly, as you swing your club and hit the ball majestically down the first fairway. We all do that don’t we? You can align this segment to your start time firstly as a reminder and secondly if you want to use the Linksometer feature when playing golf it acts as the start marker.

11. The most obvious detail on the bezel are the  hole numbers 1 to 18 but more intriguing is that they appear in a random 'roulette wheel' arrangement ... 5, 10, 15, 1, 6, 11, 16, 2, 7, 12, 17, 3, 8, 13, 18, 4, 9 and 14. There are no numbers at the hour positions on the dial. You don’t need the those numbers to tell the time.

12. The number sequence is actually the algorithm, 'the secret code', to play a round of golf in 3 hours 50 minutes which was the maximum pace of play guideline for club golfers originally published by The R&A. And that’s why the words ‘Pace of Play’ also appear on the face. So for example if your tee time is 10.27 simply align the start marker with the 27th minute and that sets the bezel so that as you play the holes in order -  1,2, 3 etc - the expected time for the completion of any hole is indicated on the bezel. As time progresses and as you move past the hour the hole numbers simply interleave with each other.

13. Everyone who plays golf knows that white lines mean ‘out of bounds’ and that’s why there is a white line after each number on the bezel to show when you are ‘out of time bounds’. If you start to average more than 15 mins per hole your round time will exceed four and half hours and to be honest, by that point, most of us will have lost the will to live!

14. If you have been following this then you will have realised that whilst there are 18 hole numbers there are actually 19 segments because the first segment has the ‘ball on tee’ start marker. As the 19th segment it can also be the finish marker. And isn’t it a joy to play a round of golf and be in the 19th Hole no longer than 4 hours after you started!

15. We all know that in golf red numbers are good as they usually mean a birdie or an under par score. So if you can play 9 holes in under two hours or …

16. …18 holes in under four hours I think that’s a time that on most golf courses you’ll have been found to be playing at a ‘good pace’ and you won’t make, or get too many moans about slow play. So those numbers 9 and 18 are worthy of the colour red.

17. The ETIQUS models come in a range of dial colours all themed around golf  - Summer White, Winter Yellow, Night Black - or from my own personal golfing experiences as I have travelled around the globe playing and watching golf – Auld Grey, Iberian Orange, European Blue and Georgia Green.

18. And last and by no means least is the brand name ETIQUS. We all know that golf is founded on the principles of etiquette – show consideration for others, take care of the course and play at a good pace. If you add the suffix ‘ous’ to a word it means ‘full of’ or ‘full of the qualities of’. So if you are full of the qualities of good golfing etiquette you would be ‘etiquette-ous’ from which the brand name ETIQUS is derived.

To add to all of those design details is a timepiece that is crafted from high grade stainless steel, fitted with either high grade stainless steel bracelets, genuine leather or durable silicone straps with a Swiss Made movement and sapphire crystal glass, all for around the price of a driver – from £179 - £299

And one last very important thing - both the UK, EU and US Patent Office have granted a full patent for the functionality of an ETIQUS Sport timepiece as a 'Golf Accessory Timepiece' - you don't get that recognition from something that is 'just a watch'.

So to the question, 'Why would you wear an ETIQUS?' my simple answer would be ...

'Because you're a golfer.'

Now you know.

Gary Butler, Founder