ORLANDO, Florida — Golf nuts gather a lot of issues, similar to emblem balls, pencils from numerous courses and even scorecards from layouts they’ve performed through the years.
There’s no higher company to address the evolution of the golf scorecard than Golf Associates, an Asheville, North Carolina-based company that bills itself as “The Original Scorecard Company.”
Golf Associates has been attending the PGA Show since 1972 and so they had been available once more this week at the Orange County Convention Center to speak up the newest tendencies in golf scorecards, with dozens upon dozens to view.
“The hottest thing going can be our specialty papers, something like a linen weave with a foil logo,” says Loo Loosier, the company’s sales consultant. “Whistling Straits puts that foil emblem on its scorecard with the good paper so it looks more like a marriage invitation than a scorecard.
“If you play Whistling Straits you will wish to take that house with you. If you play Asheville muni, then you don’t really care about that card as much. To get one thing in a gold foil is completely stunning.”
The company was established in 1970, and presents turnkey service, down to the designing and mapping of a course format. Most programs do a mean print run of 10,000 cards, Loosier says. A high-end design like Whistling Straits would price round $2,500-$3,000 per 10,000 cards as opposed to $800-$1,200.
“Because we focus on [making scorecards], we all know somewhat extra on the method to customise the grid for golf programs, what they are speaking about when they need their ratings and slope placed on there, which sets us apart from a local printer,” Loosier says. “And when our designers draw the maps, they’re unparalleled. Golf professionals at all times inform us our map design is way past what anyone else does.”
A BYGONE ERA RETURNS … SORT OF
Have you seen a lack of ball washers on many golf programs these days? Some of it was COVID-19 associated, but some not as the usual ball washer on each gap appears to be disappearing.
There is a solution though for these of us who prefer to play with a clean ball on every shot.
Clean Flight Golf, an upstart Canadian-based company, has invented a personal golf ball washer that can hook onto a bag or match into a drink cup on a golf cart. Fill it halfway with water, add some cleansing cleaning soap to the combination and it is ready to scrub away.
“This came out of COVID,” Clean Flight president Peter Bohlender says. “We thought if there was a time to reinvent the golf ball washing wheel we knew this was the time. We got from concept-to-market in about six months.”
The concept was hatched a few years ago when a foursome, which included Bohlender, who has a finance background, a manufacturer, an engineer and a graphics designer, have been taking half in a spherical of golf in Canada.
“We were on a hole the place they had been excavating and there were lots of golf balls sitting in the muck and they looked like Easter eggs and we were scooping them up,” he says. “We thought ‘Hey we don’t have something to wash these with.'”
Bohlender, carrying a shirt that reads “Clean Balls Matter,” says the group started plotting strategy during the round.
“The wheels had been spinning. We received busy with some engineers and we wanted it to be built very ruggedly and to work. It does,” he says. “I assume we’ve struck a twine and lots of people are thinking about it once they see it. They don’t all the time get it at first, however it is smart after they use it.”
The product retails for $37.99 and is now offered in 12 international locations.
“Japan is next,” Bohlender says. “They love their golf.”
THE BEST OF …
Technology was entrance and center during the PGA Show’s Best New Products awards, an annual thrilling moment for all of those within the golf trade who’ve spent hours growing or designing new items for the game.
That was no exception Thursday for Brian Heaton, inventor of Alabama-based PuttLink, a sensible golf ball that connects wirelessly to your mobile units, offering amateurs a smarter approach to practice putting.
Heaton cuts golf balls in half, places a pc chip with Bluetooth inside, then seals the ball to be used on the greens. It will provide real-time knowledge such as true roll distance, velocity and Stimpmeter through an app. All the info is then stored on-line for future reference.
Those who have purchased the balls can join up with different gamers who own the product for placing competitions and the sharing of knowledge.
“You can go back and look at your stats and monitor it, and see how you’re improving over time,” Heaton says. “It is information we’ve by no means had earlier than for novice players, and we need to link players along with this product.”
The balls aren’t legal for match play.
“My son is a junior golfer and when he was 10-years-old he by no means wished to practice placing, so I started thinking about what would make it extra thrilling,” Heaton says. “I invented a ball that if you made the putt it would actually cheer or clap, so it kept him engaged. He needed that suggestions. That became this product 4 years later.”
Other winners of the Best New Product Award included South Carolina-based Skoni Footwear and Massachusetts-based DottyGreen Golf, which showcased its new Closest to the Pine Rangefinder.