55th incarnation has something for just about everyone
Story and photos by Jack Berry
With 1,250 booths covering 10 square miles of aisle in a hall that stretched three-quarters of a mile from end to end, the 55th annual PGA Merchandise Show at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando had something for everyone in golf.
The shoe started with equipment reps working out of their car trunks, graduated to a tent shoe and then to a building that seems as though it could house a couple of 747s.
Chicago was well represented with Tour Edge, Wilson and Wittek in prominent positions. Tour Edge featured its Exotics driver with a suggested retail price of $399 for the XCG “Absolute Longest” driver and $299 for the XLD “Longest Driver,” the lowest price of the big sticks featured around the show.
Some of the bigs, notably Callaway, featured their mix-and-match drivers which reminded me of the razor commercial – click-click, change blades that quick. Only, thanks to the USGA lightening up, you can match your shaft to the playing condition – soft or hard fairway, strong wind or mild. You get a head, four shafts and a wrench. However, no fair switching during the round!
Wilson had the clubs Padraig Harrington won the 2007 British Open with, but neither Harrington nor the claret jug were present. The jug was expected – after all, Wales had the Ryder Cup on display, promoting the 2010 Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor, but apparently the jug didn’t make it through customs.
The new Wilson Fifty ball promises a super soft core, explosive distance, long carry, high greenside spin and quick stopping…and it’s 50 compression.
Wittek is celebrating its 60th year in golf and no company has picked, cleaned and dispensed more range balls than the family-owned Northbrook company.
Nike is out with square-head hybrids to go with the big head Sumo drivers introduced a year ago and Nike's engineers have quieted the contact sound of the Sumo. Truthfully, it sounded as though you'd hit a pile of tin cans.
Jesse Ortiz, who father founded Orlimar and its great fairway woods, moved to Bobby Jones several years ago and the company isn’t just for the high-end apparel anymore.
Ortiz is a premier club designer, learning the trade in the days of persimmon. He scoffs at today’s designers who do it by computer. Ortiz showed his new hybrid which looks like a work of art with the heel and toe rounded instead of a flat sole. Ortiz said it sweeps through rough better. And he said no hybrid will replace a 3-wood.
"The 3-wood is for distance, the hybrid for accuracy,” Ortiz said.
Getting hot on the shaft market is scandium, stronger than steel or graphite, and swinging it “is like swinging through butter,” said 1980 National Club Pro champion John Traub, always a long hitter.
The Russians put scandium, a rare metal, in the nose cone of the ballistic missiles they fired from submarines below the polar ice cap because it penetrated the ice and the payload wasn’t damaged.
On the softer side is Sweet Lies Golf, a feel- and look-good apparel line owned by Chicagoans Cathy Arslanian and Marianne Durham. The company consists of women who know how to play the game and look good and feel comfortable at the time.
Legendary club designer Jesse Ortiz demonstrating his rounded-bottom hybrid (his family owned Orlimar, now he's with Bobby Jones).
Jay Hubbard of St. Charles-based Tour Edge Golf with their new $299 XLD “Longest Driver,” the lowest price of the big sticks featured around the show.
On the softer side is Sweet Lies Golf, a feel and look good apparel line owned by Chicagoans Cathy Arslanian and Marianne Durham.
“This is the third
year we’ve imported fabric from Milan,” Durham said. “It feels like
silk and the woman just feels good when she puts it on.”
And
most important is the fit of the bottom, Durham acknowledged, “100
percent.” It’s the first thing women check when they look in a mirror.
Men too?
There’s hardly a golfer alive who doesn’t own an
Ashworth shirt, or 10 or 20, and since John Ashworth returned after a
10-year absence to the company he founded, and the whole staff has been
energized.
“He’s the heart and
soul of the brand,” said Jim Dougherty, director of Green Grass Sales.
“We were like vanilla and we’ve got a better focus on golf with new
fabrics, lightweight cotton-poly blends, wick moisture, twist and
stretch and they’re wash and wear.”
LPGA star Meg Mallon, one of
the most likeable people in golf, was at the ProQuip booth trying on
rainwear and she isn’t a paid endorser like Jim Furyk, who recently
signed on. The ProQuip line has a soft feel, is whisper-quiet when you
swing and walk. It’s been the team rainwear choice of 17 of the last 26
Ryder Cup captains on both sides of the Atlantic.
Puma’s been
making athletic shoes for 60 years. After all the company was founded
by Rudolph Dassler and you know his brother, of course, Adolph – that’s
Adi, as in Adidas. This is just Puma’s third year in golf and it’s
concentrated on shoes and distinctive apparel. The new Swing GTX shoe
has 38 “quills,” cleats arranged in all directions for maximum grip.
Geoff
Ogilvy, a longtime metal spike wearer, told the company he wanted a
shoe as light as his sneakers but with grip as good as his metal
spikes. So the Smart Quill shoe was born. As a Michigan State alumnus I
must point out a study was conducted at MSU on “friendliness” to turf
and the Puma was No. 1 among six top soft spike shoes for traction.
Also distinctive is the company’s leaping puma logo and none bigger
than the one on its military style caps as worn by Swedish stylist
Johan Edfors.
Edfors left the frozen north when he joined the
European Tour which happens to have a tournament in Dubai and he likes
the dazzling city so much that he’s moved there. It gets even hotter in
that part of the world than Phoenix in the summer – 125 degrees and 80
percent humidity during the Dubai summer and Club Car, the Cadillac of
golf cars, has 800 units there complete with air conditioning units
behind the driver and passenger.
That was the golf show,
something for everyone, from scandium-nosed missiles shredding the ice
cap to the suffocating heat of the Middle East.
