Upscale Buyer Fits Club Maker to a Tee : Golf: Camarillo’s Dasia Corp. already has lucrative contracts to provide its high-tech driver to Asian players. But the U.S. market is notoriously competitive and is showing little growth.

In the world of professional golf, for every Jack Nicklaus there’s a Duffy Waldorf. And in the world of golf clubs, for every Wilson Sporting Goods there’s a Dasia Corp.

Dasia is a tiny, little-known Camarillo supplier of exotic golf drivers, along with aerospace and industrial products, made from so-called advanced composite materials such as quartz, carbon and graphite fibers.

Its golf clubs were unveiled only six months ago, but already Dasia has landed two contracts to supply the clubs to Asian golfers. One, for $27 million, came from Tasco Ltd. of Japan, which will sell the clubs through department stores and at golf courses in Japan. The other, for $5 million, was awarded by Hi-Tech Golf of Arlington, Va., which plans to distribute the equipment in Pacific Rim nations.

In the U.S. market, meanwhile, Dasia is now knocking on pro-shop doors at golf courses nationwide in a bid to get the clubs--which are made by Dasia’s Atrigon division--into golfers’ hands.

It won’t be easy. The domestic golf-club business, as with most sporting goods, is notoriously competitive and is showing little growth. U.S. manufacturers’ club sales last year slipped 2% to $600 million, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Assn.

But David Fernandez, president and co-founder of privately held Dasia, said he sees a way to join the field.

For starters, Fernandez does not want Dasia to be the next Wilson or MacGregor, selling clubs to the masses. His drivers are expensive, costing up to $360, and he wants to be a niche player, serving golfers whose spending habits are way above par.

He’s also pitching for golfers who are not averse to using equipment made with advanced materials instead of the steel, wood or aluminum traditionally found in golf equipment.

“We felt that in a flat, mature market, the only chance a new company like ours has is to come up with something new, that performs, that appeals to these people who have everything and money is no object,” said Fernandez, 53, who, ironically, does not play golf.

The market for drivers made with high-tech composites--clubs that can easily cost several hundred dollars apiece--is dominated by Japanese companies, such as Yamaha, Yonex, Daiwa and Mizuno, and it’s no less competitive than the mass retail market.

Muscling into that market “is difficult, but not impossible,” said Steven Jess, marketing and product coordinator for Yamaha’s golf division, based in Buena Park.

Nonetheless, the trade magazine Golf Shop Operations this year named Dasia as one of the five companies “we believe have a chance to prosper” even though it “faces a stiff challenge to succeed in an already crowded high-tech market.”

Mark Sullivan, editor of Golf Pro Merchandiser, another trade publication, also gives Dasia high marks for hiring Jack Savage, a former Yonex executive, to head Dasia’s U.S. marketing effort.

“Certainly that’s a step in the right direction,” Sullivan said.

Dasia currently makes only two drivers: One, the Sterling, is a hybrid of metal and Dasia’s composite materials, and is a conventional two-piece club in which the head is connected to a shaft. The other, the Unibody 2000, is a one-piece club made totally from the composites.

In effect, Dasia is trying to become the next Callaway Golf Co., a club maker based in Carlsbad. With sales of only $4.8 million in 1988, Callaway saw its popularity begin soaring two years ago when it introduced Big Bertha, a metal driver whose most unusual feature is an oversized head that ostensibly gives golfers more control. Callaway’s sales last year totaled $54.7 million, and now most golf-club producers make a driver with a big head.

Although Fernandez won’t disclose precise results, he doesn’t argue with estimates that Dasia’s sales will total about $15 million this year and $25 million next year, with golf clubs accounting for about 60% of its business.

“It wouldn’t be out of line for us to be a $60-million company in three to four years,” he said. That means Dasia’s employment of 150--which is divided about evenly between Camarillo and Dasia’s plant in Mexico--will grow by 15% to 20% a year for the next couple of years, Fernandez said.

Fernandez, a Wisconsin native, is Dasia’s majority owner, and the minority stake is held by Walter Keller, whose Westwood golf-and-tennis store has long been popular with local players. They co-founded the company in 1983, and the name Dasia (pronounced Dosh-a) was conceived when Fernandez merged the first letter of his name with his wife’s name, Asia.

Originally, Dasia made ceramic-head clubs for such familiar suppliers as Wilson, Titleist and MacGregor. But many of those clients were repeatedly bought and sold in the 1980s, “and every time that happened we had to deal with new management,” Fernandez said.

So 2 1/2 years ago, Dasia decided to wind down those contracts and to start selling clubs itself.

“We are controlling our own destiny,” he said.

Outside of golf, Dasia makes floor panels that protect gunners in Sikorsky Blackhawk helicopters, interior panels for Otis elevators and bulletproof vests for police. Dasia also has a $2-million contract from Boeing Co. to make interior compartments for the proposed Space Station Freedom.

Those products help Dasia stay attuned to advances in composite technology, but golf-club sales will drive Dasia over the next several years. Eventually, Fernandez expects Dasia to manufacture the irons and putters that round out a golf set. The company also is mulling whether to apply its technologies to tennis rackets, bicycles and fishing rods.

First, though, Dasia has to prove itself in the golf market, where to many people “a golf club is a golf club,” as Sullivan put it. But even if Dasia remains the Duffy Waldorf of equipment, Fernandez isn’t complaining.

After all, he said, by selling clubs for $200 or $300 a pop, “you don’t need a lot of volume to make a lot of dollars.”