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Nike is no longer making golf clubs. That's a big deal for two reasons and those two reasons are Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

With McIlroy in the thick of his prime and presumably poised to contend in major championships for the next decade, he's going to be a coup for some equipment manufacturer as he transitions away from Nike sticks to something else.

Woods won't win as much as McIlroy over the next few years, but him simply playing -- or being around the game -- is worth exponentially more than anyone else in golf winning. So he will be a coup, too. And this doesn't appear to be a move that will be in as distant a future as we might have originally thought. Those two will likely still wear Nike gear and shoes, but Woods at least is on the move when it comes to clubs.

"Clearly he and I need to be thinking about a change on the hard goods side," Woods' agent Mark Steinberg told GolfChannel.com on Wednesday. "He and I have discussed at length the plan for that and feel comfortable with what we're going to do going forward. But clearly, there's likely to be a change."

Woods and McIlroy both played Titleist clubs before coming over to Nike.

No decisions for Nike athletes have been publicly made nor are likely to be made until after the FedEx Cup Playoffs, but this upcoming offseason just got a lot more interesting in terms of equipment free agents. In addition to Woods and McIlroy, Jason Day's equipment contract is up. Could he sign with Nike apparel and elsewhere for clubs, or will he just stay with TaylorMade sticks and Adidas gear?

Nobody knows, but it's going to be fascinating.

There's a tone in the industry from a lot of these Nike athletes that suggests they are going to adopt new equipment sooner rather than later. For McIlroy, that's apparent from something he tweeted as well as an anecdote from last week's PGA Championship.

Here's the anecdote via Ryan Ballangee of Golf News Net.

"I did see something," PGA Championship competitor Rich Beem said. "[Rory's] locker was right across from mine during the week and he came in on one of the days. He'd just gotten a brand new Scotty Cameron putter which looked exactly like the one he won with at the U.S. Open in Congressional and I said, 'Can I see it?' I said, 'Man, that thing is pretty,' and he goes, 'Yeah, isn't it?'"

That doesn't sound like someone in it with Nike clubs for the next three or five years. I would expect a change to come as soon as possible for him and others. Nike also seems to be wrapping up its equipment-making shortly, according to ESPN's Darren Rovell.

Nike spokesman Brian Strong said the company has no plans to sell its golf equipment business as part of the transition, and that where there are products being made, production will continue to completion, which Strong says will take place over the next few months.

It would be pretty shocking to me if any of these Nike athletes were still playing Nike clubs in 2017 although most if not all will still wear the clothes and shoes. There's also this little nugget from Bob Parsons of the new equipment company PXG, which makes $5,000 sets of clubs.

"For now I just don't know what we'll do about potentially signing any new players like Rory or Tiger that might be available, but I can say that within an hour of the announcement we had no less than 30 calls from people who have relationships with Nike Golf," Parsons told Golf.com. "I think this situation caught a lot of people by surprise, and I'm going to let the golf community digest the news and then see the lay of the land."

So yes, this offseason will fascinate as Nike transitions out of the equipment-making business and several big names are up for equipment free agency.