2009 PGA Show Report Part 2  -  New Products.  

This will be a short report this week. I had some computer problems that shortened my writing this week so I’ll continue with some other products next week.  

The bottom line is that truly new products at the PGA Show seemed to be in short supply this year. There we’re fewer start-up companies with exciting products this year, I guess because of the economy.  

The trends we’ve seen in the past few years continued. There were more square drivers, more hybrids and more mallet putters. Those really aren’t new now just more of the same trends we’ve seen for the past few years.  

There was one million dollar product launch at the show. That was the introduction of the PowerBilt Nitrogen Charged Air Force One Drivers. I haven’t seen an advertising and infomercial blitz like the one for this new PowerBilt nitrogen charged woods since 1991 when Callaway introduced the Big Bertha. That year Callaway saturated the television airways of the Orlando area with Big Bertha ads and infomercials. This year PowerBilt did the same. The advertising campaign and infomercials were very well done and very impressive. (Note: How good the infomercial is actually has little or no correlation to how good the product is (or isn’t).) See http://www.powerbilt.com/technology.php 

My favorite new product was a little putting training aid. It’s from Fine Tune Golf and it’s not even available yet. It will likely be available in May. It’s called the Robocup. You can see a video clip of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNJyiD2v3e4 

One other new product I liked was the “The Radar” powered by Zelocity.  Here’s a store that has a good description of it. (The product’s own site sucks so I’m not sending you there) http://www.protogolf.com/p-2741-the-radar-by-zelocity-golf-launch-monitor-new.aspx   The Radar is endorsed by VJ Singh and sold by the company that does “The Golf Mat” (http://www.thegolfmat.net/home_consumers/ ) I like the golf mat also and at $229 it’s probably a reasonable value. It’s a little pricey for home use but it’s a better value that most other golf product you could spend your money on.  

Sorry for the short report. I'll do some more products next week.  

Joe Davidson, Publisher of Different Strokes Golf Newsletter