2009 PGA Show Report Part 3
New Products (continued)

The were a couple of new things in tees. One was the offset tee from Pride. http://www.pridegolftee.com/ It seems like an interesting concept.

Another was the flexible golf tee from Royal. http://www.royalteesgolf.com/why.html For some reason, not necessarily a logical reason, I kind of liked these. I got a couple of sample and I'll try them out as soon as the weather warms a bit. One thing I liked is that these tees came in hot pink. Now I'm not normally a hot pink type of guys but with unbreakable tees hot pinks gives you a much better chance of finding them after the shot.

I also watched a presentation on the Evolve Epoch golf tee http://www.evolvegolf.com/ . I told the fellow upfront I was skeptical of his marketing claims about extra distance. He enthusiastically went through a very impressive heavy duty explanation of the physics of the Evolve Epoch tee. It was impressive enough for me to at least give this tee a second look. Evolve tees do have 34 tour wins. Evolve is also coming out with a biodegradable tee.

I'm always amazed and the number of types of tees people come up with. I'm sure I have seen samples of at least a hundred designs at the PGA Show over the years. Most worked, some were spectacularly bad. Few have stood the economic test of time like the wooden tees.

Range Finders and GPS's.
Bushnell, the big gun in laser rangefinders, has bought up a GPS company so now Bushnell is offering their brand of GPS unit. Go to Bushnell and you'll see the GPS featured on the front page. http://www.bushnellgolf.com/index2.htm  I believe that shows the consumer has picked the GPS over the Range Finder as the best choice for golfers.

The Putting Game https://theputtinggame.com/ drew big crowds at the show. They had a big booth with 8 units set up with a "caddy" in a white suit at each unit to help out and keep track of scores. High scores qualified for a tournament with prizes. There was a lot of hoopla and the machine was interesting but at $299 I figured it going to be a tough sell. They called this a virtual cup so the ball doesn't actually drop into a hole. See a video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1GJUO8mT1k

I'm not commenting on the major brands of clubs this time. You can easily find information on the manufacturers website. I will say the trends continued for more square drivers, more hybrids and more mallet putters.

Prices and Inventory
Overall prices were softer and it seems everyone is sitting on a bunch of inventory so prices are going to be softer for quite a while. MacGregor Golf is gone and it's looking like a good number of other small and medium sized golf companies may not be with us much longer. Most companies were hunkering down for a tough year.

Golf companies are always looking for a "marketable difference". That's means anything different from last year that can lead in their marketing. With cars in years past marketable difference meant new fins, more chrome, different headlights, etc. In golf it's pretty much the same. They change the shape of something then come up with some fantastic physics explanation of why they did it. Occasionally what they say is true but more often it not. My father sometimes described this situation as "a difference without a distinction" and all too often in golf products today that's the case.

 Joe Davidson - Publisher of the Different Strokes Golf Newsletter