A view of the floor at the PGA Merchandise ShowMontana Pritchard
(Jeff Brooke and Lorne Rubenstein are at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Florida, where some 1,000 top golf companies and brands and more than 40,000 industry professionals have gathered for an advanced look at some of the latest products. Over the course of the next few days, they'll provide their take on what they've seen, tried and heard.)
GRIP IT RIGHT: If it's true that 90 per cent of all golfers have incorrect grips, it's no wonder so many have trouble mastering the game. A proper grip is essential to making good swings and shots.
"It's the foundation," said Henry Brunton, the coach of Canada's national men's amateur team. "It's the most fundamental part of golf."
Brunton and a Toronto-area company have come up with a simple solution - a plastic guide that clips onto the grip of any club. The guide puts hands and fingers in the correct positions. The product is called GripIt Rite.
There's always been instructional clubs with grips that have hard, moulded slots for hands. But since Brunton's device clips on, it can be used on a player's real clubs and feels more natural.
The grips are especially useful for beginners and juniors - an improper grip once it sets in is difficult to change - and Brunton is taking to children's club maker U.S. Golf Kids about including GripIt Rites in its sets.
"They're like a training wheel for a children's bike," Brunton said at the PGA Merchandise Show. "Once they've got it [proper grip] they can take it off."
HEAVY DUTY: The company that introduced the Heavy Putter has expanded its offerings to include irons and drivers.
The Heavy Driver, in particular, garnered a lot of interest at the Merchandise Show, even with most of the attention to woods going to TaylorMade's new white R11 and Burner clubs and Titleist's 910 line.
Boccieri, an established player in the putter market because of its heavier-than-normal flatsticks, has added an extra 60 grams to the butt of their drivers and eight grams to the head.
This makes the balance point of the club move closer to grip and, the company says, produces a smoother swing.
The club is not noticeably heavier than regular drivers - it's not like one of the Momentus heavy training aid drivers, for example. "People think Heavy Driver, it's going to be too heavy," Tom Byrne of U.S.-based Boccieri said. "But it's not."
SIZE MATTERS: JumboMax Golf might not be the biggest name in the grip market, but it has the biggest product. The new U.S. company has created an soft, rubbery, oversized grip that it thinks is far easier to use for the average player than the standard sizes.
The grips, which can go on any club and are legal for competitive play, feel more like a tennis racquet's handle.
Corey Rehus of JumboMax said the grips make players hold their clubs softer and with less tension in their hands and forearms. "If you can relax your hands with a golf shot, that's where you can make gains in distance," he said.
Rehus added that JumboMax grips don't require technically perfect hand position the way traditional grips do.
HEY, HEY, IT'S THE SWINKEY: Canadian Tour player Brian Benedictson used to need three hands to carry all his practice aids to the range. He'd have a heavy club to warm up with, rods to put on the ground to align his stance, a camera and tripod to film his swing and a bunch of other gizmos.
He couldn't help but think how convenient it would be to have one, easy-to-carry product that could meet all these various practice needs. Since he couldn't find anything like it on the market, he invited one with fellow CanTour player Todd Halpen.
They created the Swinkey, what they call the "golfer's toolbox."
"I had all these tools that I used to want to take with me on tour, but I couldn't travel with them all," Benedictson of Courtenay, B.C., said at the PGA Merchandise Show.
The Swinkey is essentially a hollow 48-inch hollow tube that contains foldable alignment rods and putting guide wires. It has a grip and is heavy enough to serve as a warm-up club or stretch bar. Its cap has a digital camera mount. And its length - longer than a driver - acts as a buffer or protector when a golf bag is put in a travel case.
Its outer surface can be painted and include logos, flags and school colours.
Benedictson and Halpen made some prototypes, shared them with other tour players and now the invention has turned into a business. They drew a lot of interest at their tiny booth at the Merchandise Show as they officially launched the Swinkey.
Beyond the Orange County Convention Centre, the tool already has momentum. Benedictson said fellow tour player Brent Schwarzrock passed some along to the PGA Tour players he knows in coastal Georgia, including Davis Love III and Zach Johnson.
Love loves the Swinkey and has offered to serve as company spokesman, Benedictson said.
Because the recreational player who doesn't take practice so seriously might not need so many tools, Benedictson and Halpen think their market will be elite players and instructors.
"The better the player, the more value they see in it," Benedictson said.
BOO KNOWS: Ian Poulter showed off his new clothing line, which he had a hands-on roll in designing, in a swanky penthouse room at the Peabody Hotel, across the road from the Orange County Convention Centre.
Boo Weekley showed off his in a six-by-six-foot booth in a remote corner of the convention centre.
But this isn't a shot at Boo. The folksy good old boy from Florida does his own thing and doesn't need haute couture trappings.
For Weekley, his style is all-American camouflage. Hunting. Fishing. Southern simplicity. Far from golf's country club image.
The Boo line launched in 2009. Montreal-based Mark Segal designs and distributes the clothes, which so far are mostly shirts, jackets and caps.
"I was there at the Masters in 2009 when Boo wore the clothes for the first time," Segal said Saturday at the PGA Merchandise Show. "I said to myself, he's wearing camo at Augusta National!"
"He finally looked like he had his own uniform. He's addressing his lifestyle, his choices."
Segal said the clothes have done well in Florida and the Southern United States. Canada could be the next frontier.
Pretty much all of the clothes have some sort of camouflage - either dominantly or as an accent.
"It is nature," Segal said of the beige, brown and khaki colour schemes. "You play golf where most people hit their shots - in the woods."