Last week, it wasn’t just at the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship where newer equipment companies were on parade. Brian Gay, winner of the Mayakoba Golf Classic at Riviera Maya-Cancun in Mexico played a Tour Edge Exotics fairway wood (CB2 #3) to win his first PGA Tour event. Tour Edge, HQ’ed in Batavia, Illinois, has moved from being a low-priced budget-golf equipment company to being a genuine leader in equipment innovation, especially with respect to the materials it uses. A Tour Edge Exotics fairway wood is also getting some serious bag time from Zach Johnson, last year’s Master’s champ. What does this mean ... full post »

Something just occurred to me as I tuned into the WGC Accenture World Match Play Championship quarterfinals. Where are the traditional equipment giants, like Titleist and TaylorMade? The quarterfinals feature three Nike (Tiger Woods, Stewart Cink, Justin Leonard) and one Srixon (Henrik Stenson) staff players. Although many of the old-old-line companies have experienced recent major success (Angel Cabrera/ Ping, Padraig Harrington/Wilson), they are far less visible on the Tour these days. And now, it seems, these upstart companies are taking over. Remember, Nike has been making golf equipment for less than a decade. And Srixon, although it holds a multitude of ... full post »

This is my favorite time of year, which is odd, really, considering I’m a snowed-in golf fanatic who is jonesing for a round so badly that Britney Spears called me the other day to tell me she was worried about my state of mind. However, as Equipment Editor for the WorldGolf.com kingdom of golf publications (i.e., Court Jester), it is that time of year – after the PGA Show in Orlando and before most pro shops receive their first big orders of the season’s newest gear – when boxes start showing up at my door. Lovely long, graceful, rectangular and sometimes ... full post »

Do you think you’ve come up with the next hot driver? The next infallible putter? The next GPS-guided, rolling travel bag that serves as both a swing coach and inflatable “travel companion?” Congratulations! But before you run off to open a new bank account, consider first the words of my grandma Elsie, who told me long ago: “Chances are, if you’ve got a good idea, someone else has the exact same idea. No one’s as original as they think they are.” Grandma may have been a bit of a buzzkill, but she was terribly wise. And, it turns out, she was right. What to ... full post »

Last year, I related rather disturbing story about my first encounter with the then-new SQ SUMO2 driver. That was the big square-headed, loud-as-a-car-wreck driver just released by Nike. That blog announced the 2007 “Nike SUMO Saturday.” In case you missed that event, Nike has proclaimed tomorrow, February 2, 2008, to be the second “SUMO Saturday.” It’s your chance to hit the new versions of the SQ SUMO and SUMO2 – models of which have already won events on the PGA Tour this year (K.J. Choi, Tiger). The buzz is that the new breed features all the distance with less of the ... full post »