News
2021 Virtual PGA Show: More things we loved
As promised, we’re checking out all the digital booths at the 2021 Virtual PGA Show for items of intrigue and note, and we’ve found no shortage of interesting items.
Check out a few notable items below—and you can find our first-day favorites here, and our second-day favorites here.
(More on the 2021 Virtual PGA Show here)
Colour Path Golf
Sometimes, the best ideas are the simplest.
Product description: Colour Path “provides visual training aids complimented by online coaching programs to ultimately simplify the learning process of golf. The unique learning process takes the form of following an easy to understand colour-coded system to influence the sequence of movement in the golf swing.”
“What the team at Colour Path Golf have developed is essentially a concept, which at its heart allows the coach and student to communicate through an externally focused learning environment, that has been proven in over 80 studies worldwide to outperform the more traditionally internally focused teaching methods.”
Website: www.colourpathgolf.com
Johnston & Murphy: XC4 shoes
When a major dress shoe manufacturer steps into the golf footwear space, we take notice.
Product description: “Heritage craftsmanship meets modern technology designed to perform on and off the course with our waterproof, XC4® golf shoes. Advanced cushioning and J&M Smart Degree Technology® that delivers effective temperature control (cooling when hot, warming when cold) ensures ideal comfort all day long. A hybrid lug sole provides excellent stability on the greens and comfort on the street.”
U.S. Kids: Ultralight
Something new from the leader in kids clubs.
Product description: “Ultralight is engineered to develop a proper and lifelong golf swing. It is a progressive system spanning nine height ranges. Each size has a unique length, weight, shaft flex, lie angle, and grip size.”
Altwell: CBD Gummies
If you’re taking the CBD plunge, this is a good way to go.
Product description: “Meet your new morning routine must-have. These delicious gummies deliver 25 mg of broad spectrum hemp extract to soothe stress and bring peace and calm to your body and mind.”
Percentage Play Golf
An interesting application of analytics!
Product description: “Gambling on golf is now legal and is being embraced by the PGA Tour and Television Networks that cover golf tournaments! Our proprietary PercentageGolf Prediction Model™ is able to statistically calculate the likely result of any shot and is able to run a simulation on every tournament to pick the likely winner (or players who should perform better than their odds). PercentageGolf will add excitement, drama, and suspense for all telecasts!”
Areso
60,000 custom putter combinations?
Product description:
ARESO Golf is the custom-fit putter company focusing on science fitting combined with putter engineering.
ARESO Golf putters are milled with high precision with specifications from the fitting protocol.
1. Head Type – blade, mallet, square to hyper.
2. Loft angle – 1.5d, 2.5d, 3.5d (also offers 0.5d, 5.5d for some models).
3. Lie angle – 68d, 70d, 72d (also offer 65d and 75d for some models).
4. Hosel type – center shaft, plumber,, slant neck and double bend.
5. Weighting – min 4g up to 60g of adjustability.
6. Balance (Toe-hang) – 0d to 70d
7. Length option
7. Shaft option & weighting
8. Grip option & weighting
Shinola Watches: Detrola collection
As a company from the Detroit area, we were thrilled to see Detroit-based watchmaker Shinola exhibiting at this year’s show!
Product description: “Detrola, a new watch collection from Shinola, brings to the table what the world needs a little more of these days. Fun. It’s for the ones who live freely, laugh often and eat dessert first. These watches strike the perfect balance between strength and style–engineered with durable TR90 resin, a stainless steel core and laid-back attitude. Each watch adds its own personality to the mix. Many styles are produced in extremely limited numbers and may not be around for long.”
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Equipment
Did Rory McIlroy inspire Shane Lowry’s putter switch?
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article.
The timing of Lowry’s putter changeup was curious: Was he just using a Spider putter because he was paired with McIlroy, who’s been using a Spider Tour X head throughout 2024? Was Lowry just being festive because it’s the Zurich Classic, and he wanted to match his teammate? Did McIlroy let Lowry try his putter, and he liked it so much he actually switched into it?
Well, as it turns out, McIlroy’s only influence was inspiring Lowry to make more putts.
When asked if McIlroy had an influence on the putter switch, Lowry had this to say: “No, it’s actually a different putter than what he uses. Maybe there was more pressure there because I needed to hole some more putts if we wanted to win,” he said with a laugh.
To Lowry’s point, McIlroy plays the Tour X model, whereas Lowry switched into the Tour Z model, which has a sleeker shape in comparison, and the two sole weights of the club are more towards the face.
Lowry’s Spider Tour Z has a white True Path Alignment channel on the crown of his putter, which is reminiscent of Lowry’s former 2-ball designs, thus helping to provide a comfort factor despite the departure from his norm. Instead of a double-bend hosel, which Lowry used in his 2-ball putters, his new Spider Tour Z is designed with a short slant neck.
“I’ve been struggling on the greens, and I just needed something with a fresh look,” Lowry told GolfWRX.com on Wednesday at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship. “It has a different neck on it, as well, so it moves a bit differently, but it’s similar. It has a white line on the back of it [like my 2-ball], and it’s a mallet style. So it’s not too drastic of a change.
“I just picked it up on the putting green and I liked the look of it, so I was like, ‘Let’s give it a go.’”
Read the rest of the piece over at PGATour.com.
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Equipment
Spotted: Tommy Fleetwood’s TaylorMade Spider Tour X Prototype putter
Tommy Fleetwood has been attached to his Odyssey White Hot Pro #3 putter for years now. However, this week at the Wells Fargo Championship, we did spot him testing a new putter that is very different, yet somewhat similar, to his current gamer.
This new putter is a TaylorMade Spider Tour X head but with a brand new neck we haven’t seen on a Spider before. A flow neck is attached to the Spider head and gives the putter about a 1/2 shaft offset. This style neck will usually increase the toe hang of the putter and we can guess it gets the putter close to his White Hot Pro #3.
Another interesting design is that lack of TaylorMade’s True Path alignment on the top of the putter. Instead of the large white center stripe, Tommy’s Spider just has a very short white site line milled into it. As with his Odyssey, Tommy seems to be a fan of soft inserts and this Spider prototype looks to have the TPU Pure Roll insert with 45° grooves for immediate topspin and less hopping and skidding.
The sole is interesting as well in that the rear weights don’t look to be interchangeable and are recessed deep into the ports. This setup could be used to push the CG forward in the putter for a more blade-like feel during the stroke, like TaylorMade did with the Spider X Proto Scottie Scheffler tested out.
Tommy’s putter is finished off with an older Super Stroke Mid Slim 2.0 grip in blue and white. The Mid Slim was designed to fit in between the Ultra Slim 1.0 and the Slim 3.0 that was a popular grip on tour.
- Check out the rest of our photos from the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship
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Equipment
Rickie Fowler’s new putter: Standard-length Odyssey Jailbird 380 in custom orange
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article.
…The Jailbird craze hasn’t really slowed down in 2024, either. According to Odyssey rep Joe Toulon, there are about 18-20 Jailbird putter users on the PGA TOUR.
Most recently, Akshay Bhatia won the 2024 Valero Texas Open using a broomstick-style Odyssey Jailbird 380 putter and Webb Simpson is switching into a replica of that putter at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.
Now, Fowler, who essentially started the whole Jailbird craze, is making a significant change to his putter setup.
Fowler, who has had a couple weeks off since the 2024 RBC Heritage, started experimenting with a new, custom-orange Jailbird 380 head that’s equipped with a standard 35-inch putter build, rather than his previous 38-inch counter-balanced setup.
According to Fowler, while he still likes the look and forgiveness of his Jailbird putter head, he’s looking to re-incorporate more feel into his hands during the putting stroke.
He told GolfWRX.com on Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Championship that the 38-inch counterbalanced setup “served its purpose” by helping him to neutralize his hands during the stroke, but now it’s time to try the standard-length putter with a standard-size SuperStroke Pistol Tour grip to help with his feel and speed control.
Although Fowler was also spotted testing standard-length mallets from L.A.B. Golf and Axis1 on Tuesday, he confirmed that the custom Odyssey Jailbird 380 is the putter he’ll use this week at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.
Head over to PGATour.com for the full article.
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Ardbegger
Jan 31, 2021 at 8:04 am
Went to the Areso golf site. Pretty interesting to have look-see around at the different combination. The plug-and play concept (sort of) reminds me of those old Machine putters.
Maskz Dontwerk
Jan 30, 2021 at 3:28 pm
They invented something near about the time fire was discovered. I think they called it patience. So put your masks on Jordy and relax. Facebook and Netflix will be there when you get home.
Jordan
Jan 30, 2021 at 2:33 pm
Can someone invent something for all these new people playing golf because of COVID that makes them play faster?
kevin
Jan 30, 2021 at 3:02 pm
Blow?