Stephanie Luttrell had different ambitions than other engineering students at the University of Michigan. For a start, she’d walked on to a spot at the school’s golf team. But she also had an ultimate goal—to combine her love of golf with her affection and talent for numbers and science.
“I was motivated by something my dad said when I was growing up,” says Luttrell. “He said, ‘You have to find something you love because if you do it’ll never really feel like work.’ I never thought I had the ability to play the game professionally, but I was gifted at science and math. I started thinking about how I might apply that to something I really loved, which was golf. I was a very odd 18-year old.”
Luttrell followed her heart, and it led her to roles in product development in the golf business. Along the way she worked in product research at Callaway, and development at Cleveland, where she spent time with Vijay Singh, then the No. 1 player in the game. These days Luttrell holds the position of Metalwood Development Director at Titleist and played a significant role in the creation of Titleist’s TS2 and TS3 drivers.
Though Luttrell says she tries not to let her gender define her professionally, she is one of only a handful of female engineers in the product development side of the golf business. Titleist has had up to four female engineers in the department—though that number is currently only two—and it is a small part of the team of 60. But Luttrell says female engineers bring a unique perspective to product development.
“We do have a different sensibility as a female engineer and we do bring something different in terms of core strengths,” she says. “What I observe in female engineers is strong attention to detail, really great communications skills and they are really strong multi-taskers. That’s not to say male engineers don’t have that capability, but I’ve seen it more consistently in female engineers.”
Luttrell says more could be done to connect with women in engineering schools to the development side of the sport, but adds they’d have to be passionate about the game.
“It is an initiative for us,” she says. “How do we make our work force more diverse because we bring a different perspective. It’s important.”
Most recently Luttrell’s focused on the creation of Titleist’s TS2 and TS3, taking the driver from early composite prototypes right through to development. The driver has been a hit for Titleist, with players gaining ball speed and distance. Luttrell says her team took a different approach to the latest driver.
“In the past we really focused on the head alone and trying to get the best possible fitting tool to drive the best performance,” she says. “With TS we took a more holistic perspective in trying to find the best stock configuration and how we position the product to drive the best performance. That’s the head performance to move faster and CG in terms of launch and spin, but we took a really in-depth dive into what the best possible way we could configure the driver to maximize a player’s first impression.”