RAWLINGS SCORES ACE AT VEGAS GOLF EXPO.

Byline: Gregory J. Wilcox Daily News Staff Writer

Warren Levy, president and chief executive officer of Chatsworth-based Rawlings Golf, can measure the impact Tiger Woods is having on his industry simply by checking his sales invoices.

Levy brought 6,000 new Tiger Tail drivers to the PGA International Golf Show in Las Vegas this week and sold all of them Monday, the expo's first day. The club, designed for junior players, is orange with a tiger-striped shaft and a magnesium-alloy head. Buyers for a variety of retail outlets snapped them up at an average of $30 each wholesale.

Rawlings was one of about 1,100 companies doing business at the nation's second-largest golf merchandise show. Levy alone spent about $20,000 on the three-day event, which closed Wednesday.

``It's a good investment because we get a broad range of people here and an international audience,'' he said. ``And it gives us an opportunity to show what's new. We write some big numbers.''

This year, his company's factory is hustling to meet the demand Woods is creating for junior clubs. Rawlings has even added a line of clubs designed for the better junior players.

``Normally we do about 5,000 junior sets, and this year we're already at 25,000 and we still have a few months to go,'' Levy said. ``It's unbelievable what's happening in junior golf.''

Rawlings also is using the show to introduce two new titanium drivers aimed at the mass market. Titanium drivers typically are high-end clubs, sometimes selling at retail for more than $500.

Rawlings is selling two models, one for golf specialty shops and the other for mass-market retailers, with a top suggested retail price of $149.50.

He said the company sold out of the mass-market model before the production run even started.

Jeff Aubery, president of Agoura Hills-based Tornado Golf Inc., is also building revenue thanks to Woods and Tornado's new line of golf bags.

Aubery scored a marketing coup of sorts right after Woods won The Masters championship by getting trademark and copyright rights on a tiger-stripe motif for golf bags.

``I thought there was no way someone didn't have this,'' he said, ``and I couldn't believe that Nike had not locked it up. It was unbelievable that it had not been taken.''

The company is an original-equipment manufacturer of golf bags sold at a variety of outlets, and Aubrey's business is booming.

Tornado employs 85 people, about twice as many as last year, and is outgrowing the facility it moved into last year. It manufactures the bags in Ventura.

The junior bag business has grown fourfold in the past two years, and the tiger-motif bags take up about 40 percent of Tornado's storage space.

Some companies, though, used the trade show simply to showcase new products.

That was the strategy of Michael H.L. Cheng, president of Harrison Sports, a Pacoima golf club shaft manufacturer.

Harrison has carved out a niche in the custom shaft business with clients such as Arnold Palmer. Harrison shafts also are featured in a new King Kong titanium driver being sold via an infomercial and have been used by several long-driving champions.

Cheng spent a little more than $10,000 at the show, using it primarily as an advertising vehicle for his company, which makes 300 different shafts sold through a variety of golf specialty shops. He didn't plan on writing a lot of new business this week.

``We're here basically to showcase our products and bond with the customers,'' Cheng said.