{"id":755,"date":"2012-02-11T14:31:33","date_gmt":"2012-02-11T19:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnstrawn.com\/?p=755"},"modified":"2012-02-17T12:13:11","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T17:13:11","slug":"the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-at-the-pga-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/golf\/equipment\/755\/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-at-the-pga-show","title":{"rendered":"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at the PGA Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

The PGA Show in Orlando last month illuminated what\u2019s good as well as what\u2019s troublesome in the golf industry.\u00a0\u00a0 The big players in equipment and clothing and shoes\u2014Callaway<\/a>, Ping, Titleist, Nike, FootJoy and so on\u2014occupied prominent spots on the convention floor, sort of like anchor tenants at a mall.\u00a0 \u00a0There\u2019s no question that the technological innovations the equipment makers are offering to the average golfer today make the game a little bit easier and a whole lot more enjoyable to play. \u00a0America’s genius for building great brands and managing their customers’ hopes was abundantly on display.<\/p>\n

I have proof the new technology works. \u00a0 \u00a0I started using a Callaway RAZR Fit driver the week after the PGA Show. \u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe OptiFit Hosel allows players to adjust the face angle for improved accuracy and trajectory,\u201d as Callaway\u2019s website explains, \u201cwhile the OptiFit Weights can be adjusted to promote either Draw or Neutral ball flights. Golfers can dial in their ideal settings and hit drives like never before with simple adjustability that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

RAZR Fit Driver. Discovering My Factory Setting Swing.<\/p><\/div>\n

I discovered with the RAZR Fit that I have a factory setting swing.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have to adjust anything\u2014the first drive I hit on the range with the RAZR Fit was long and straight, and that was good enough for me.\u00a0\u00a0 I have played two rounds since then and the driver was the best club in my bag.<\/p>\n

STREET READY GOLF SHOES<\/p>\n

Another product category that really impressed me at the PGA Show was the comfortable, street-legal style of golf shoes that ECCO pioneered with the \u201cStreet Premier,\u201d made instantly famous when seen ambling along the fairways on the feet of Fred Couples.\u00a0\u00a0 Now Callaway has the \u201cDel Mar,\u201d \u00a0Ashworth has the \u201cCardiff\u201d (which most closely resembles the ECCO original) and Footjoy both the \u201cContour Casual\u201d and the \u201cFJ Street,\u201d which looks a lot like the original 1950s basketball low top. \u00a0\u00a0Crocs, which started as a boat shoe company in Colorado, has created the \u201cCrocsGolf with Hank Haney\u201d line, which will be available this spring.\u00a0\u00a0 Crocs could be strong competitors in this category, because the emphasis of their shoes has always been comfort rather than style.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Callaway's Del Mar Street Ready Golf Shoe.<\/p><\/div>\n

Footjoy also has had a line of spikeless shoes for years, sold as \u201cteaching shoes\u201d but perfectly fine for playing in, especially in the summer.\u00a0 But those styles echoed the standard spiked golf shoe of years gone by, rather than the sport-shoe look of this latest wave of comfortable spikeless shoes.<\/p>\n

I well remember seeing a small booth at the GCSAA Show (now the GIS) back in the 90s where a new company called Softspikes was introducing its product, pitching it to superintendents because \u00a0it was much kinder to the green surface than what David Faherty calls \u201cnails\u201d\u2014that is, the old-time spikes.\u00a0 Softspikes was offering samples from a fishbowl, and I remember examining that odd looking cleat and hoping it would catch on.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, of course, not only is the notion of a softer cleat ubiquitous, the next step has been taken \u00a0toward the ultimate spikeless shoe, the hybrid golf\/street shoe.<\/p>\n

INNOVATIONS<\/p>\n

Because they\u2019re looking for ways to promote their products and let consumers know about their new offerings, most vendors at the PGA Show welcome the press (although I discovered one notable exception\u2014see below).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The new product area especially features enthusiastic representatives, often the product\u2019s inventor or developer, who may have dipped into his 401K to launch his new company.<\/p>\n

There were two vendors of slip-on spikes\u2014that is, a product that slips over your regular shoe to turn it into a \u201cgolf shoe.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Quick Spikes<\/a>, was very simple, a kind of rubber trellis with spikes attached to the bottom that will retail for $25.00.\u00a0\u00a0 The other product does the same thing but is a little grander, with a heel and toe, so it looks more like a galosh, and it costs twice as much.\u00a0\u00a0 I think the slip-on is a great idea, but it has to compete with the street-ready spikeless shoes, which can accomplish the same thing that the slipover offers\u2014a shoe that works both on and off the course.<\/p>\n

Steve Bolt is a product developer from California who has put together a package of ball markers with faces resembling a compass that can be used to help practice your alignment on the putting green.\u00a0\u00a0 I heard Nick Faldo say on a recent broadcast that the single biggest problem for high handicappers is getting aligned properly, so the Birdie Marker system has a large potential market.\u00a0\u00a0 Steve has the markers made by a colleague in China, Terry Lu, whose Hold Tight Development Company has been making a variety of promotional items in its Guangdong province \u00a0factory for the last fifteen years, including prints and posters to decorate clubhouses.<\/p>\n

Greg Freuler is another product developer who lives in Oregon. \u00a0 He had prototypes of a towel with what looks like a large button hole on top so it can slip over a club. \u00a0 Great idea–simple and efficient. \u00a0It’s called the Looper<\/a> (a name that caught my eye because it’s also my best friend’s nickname.) \u00a0 Look for it later this spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Little One\u201d is a clever training aid\u2014sorry, \u201cgame improvement club\u201d\u2014introduced at last year’s show that its developers say will \u201cimprove your tempo, concentration, ball striking and overall confidence.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 That should do!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Little One Compared to a Standard Six Iron<\/p><\/div>\n

The Little One<\/a> has a standard shaft, but the club head looks as if it went through the dryer on hot when it was supposed to be on tumble.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The idea, of course, is that if you can groove your swing to hit flawless shots on this tiny face, when you grab that big boy club the\u00a0 ball is going to look like a pellet.\u00a0 Makes sense to me.\u00a0 Brothers and Little One developers Jim and Dan Bonomo told me to start with chips and pitches and slowly work my way up to full swings.\u00a0\u00a0 At the rate I practice it may be 2014 before the results are in, but I am confident that the Little One will work.\u00a0\u00a0 When I was kid growing up in the Midwest \u00a0and dreaming of the major leagues, we spent endless hours playing cork ball\u2014wielding a broomstick sized bat trying to hit a ping-pong ball sized baseball that zipped and curved like an offering from Bobby Schantz.\u00a0\u00a0 When you looked at a real baseball, it seemed to drift toward you like a balloon.<\/p>\n

THE UGLY<\/p>\n

Bugatchi is a men\u2019s clothing line with a name that sounds like a cross between a vintage Italian race car and a wine bottle wrapped in a straw basket.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to tell you more about what they actually sell, but I was denied entry into their rather elaborate stand by a little grey man with a sour expression, who asked me if I was a buyer and if I had an account.\u00a0 I told him in a friendly way that, no, I was there as a writer, just looking to see what new products were being introduced at the show.\u00a0\u00a0 He said I would need to leave as they were busy.<\/p>\n

I looked around and saw only a couple of “buyers” eyeing the goods.\u00a0\u00a0 Didn\u2019t look as if it was a real popular brand to me\u2014lots of brown and grey wool sweaters as far as I could tell.\u00a0 Maybe they\u2019re shooting for the elderly country club demographic.\u00a0Bugatchi claims its clothing is \u201cItalian inspired,\u201d as opposed to actually being designed by someone who knows what Italian style is\u2014like, say, someone from Italy.\u00a0 There was nothing there I could take in with such a quick glance that I would have any interest in wearing, and the styles didn\u2019t so much say \u201cItaly\u201d to me as they whispered \u201cNew Jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n

So as an American journalist with an interest in free expression, I am urging a boycott of Bugatchi apparel. \u00a0I don\u2019t think any of my crowd frequents the sort of shop that would carry Bugatchi \u201cgoods,\u201d but if you ever see a dull brown or grey sweater on a remaindered rack somewhere, let the next guy buy it. \u00a0 Claiming clothes designed in Boca Raton are \u201cItalian inspired\u201d takes some chutzpah, but if we\u2019re good at anything in America, it\u2019s mythmaking.<\/p>\n

The Italian director Sergio Leone helped Clint Eastwood perfect the persona that established him as a great star in the series of movies known as \u201cspaghetti westerns.\u201d\u00a0 The Eastwood persona was used to perfection by Chrysler in a Super Bowl ad celebrating the resurrection of Detroit.<\/p>\n

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How the West was Done.<\/p><\/div>\n

The NY Times reported that when Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne gave 700 Chrysler dealers a preview of the ad in Las Vegas on Super Bowl weekend, they gave it a standing ovation while Marchionne wept on stage.\u00a0\u00a0 Like the dealers\u2014and apparently unlike Karl Rove\u2014we believe in that Eastwood persona, because it has shown us repeatedly how righteous virtue can triumph over evil.\u00a0\u00a0 We like the good guys to win, especially when they\u2019re tough.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The irony, of course, is that Leone filmed his \u201cwesterns\u201d in Spain, and the \u201cwest\u201d they evoked was the Hollywood myth rather than America\u2019s authentic, historical western experience.\u00a0\u00a0 Most cowboys in the heyday of the cattle drives were in fact Mexican or black.\u00a0 A cowboy was a proletarian on horseback, working from sunup to sundown every day and then not guaranteed to collect his wages.\u00a0\u00a0 Justice was elusive, and the law less in the hands of upright sheriffs than bigoted lynch mobs.<\/p>\n

The golf industry too often relies on its own myths rather than facing the reality that the game is stagnating, and the crisis is not attributable solely to the lousy economy. \u00a0\u00a0We have unbelievably great courses in America that we can play at accessible prices, and we have access to the best equipment and teachers, too.\u00a0\u00a0 But we have not found ways to halt the game\u2019s popular decline, and faux Italian clothing lines don\u2019t point to the path forward.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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