TORQ – High Tech Materials, Quiet Performance
The “Quiet” TORQ Racquet with polyurethane
construction and gel tape around the insert and inside the solid edge guard.
Graphite TORQ consisting of a graphite cover and aluminum honeycomb.
The TORQ Racquet comes apart with quick turn screws.
Gel Tape surrounds the insert and tightly fits into the edge guard frame.
The TORQ Racquet Series – High Tech, Interchangeable, Quiet
Pickleball is the fastest
growing sport in the US, having grown from 450,000 players to almost 2
million over the past ten years. It is foretasted to reach 4 million players by 2020.
The sport is 50 years old, but its
manufacturing has mostly been a cottage industry until three years ago.
The last breakthrough idea
happened in the 1980s when commercial airplane flooring composite replaced wood
as a new paddle material. Since then
every new paddle has been based on the same idea.
Now the fastest growing segment
of players is younger people coming from other racquet sports. They expect space age/carbon fiber “racquet”
design, and are accustomed to playing with - and paying for - truly
high-quality equipment. Tennis,
racquetball and squash blogs are full of stories of Pickleball, and how people
have added Pickleball to their routines, or switched entirely to this new, less
injury prone sport.
TORQ Sports Group has found a
way to create a new evolution in the sport, to help it grow to levels of high
expectation and performance that other sports like tennis and racquetball
already enjoy. TORQ has invented and patented a new paddle design that delivers
higher performance, simpler manufacturing, less expensive updates and
replacements, and allows the entire industry to participate in its success.
Who we are:
TORQ Sports Group is a Seattle
based company made up of experts in the Pickleball and racquet sport
industry. Its vision is to introduce new
innovative designs and sales development techniques to this rapidly growing
sport.
The sport of Pickleball began
in the late 1960s as a diversion for a family in Bainbridge Island to keep the
kids busy during the summer months. The
first games were played with wooden paddles and a whiffle-ball found in a
garage. The family quickly made up rules
and gave structure to a court sport that was fast, energetic and, most
importantly, fun.
The evolution of today’s Pickleball
equipment:
For years the game was played
with wooden paddles cut out of simple plywood sheets. Soon handle forms were added and lighter types
of wood were found. But not till the mid
1980s did a new paddle concept arrive when a Boeing engineer took airplane
flooring material, made up of light composite honeycomb cores and graphite
surfaces, and used it as a wood substitute.
Its light weight yet sturdy construction provided the first real breakthrough
in the sport. Suddenly paddle design
began to be a major factor, creating significant advantages to players and
changing the make-up of the market.
Since that time, all
manufacturers have built their paddles with the same construction methods and
concepts. Not one significant new paddle
idea has appeared.
The TORQ Sports Group was created to change all
that.