ORLANDO - I finally got into the 2008 PGA Show alive and intact, despite security. When I tried to enter the indoor demo range, an elderly security man pounced on me, thrusting a hand-held machine directly at my chest. I thought I was about to get tasered, and readied a round-house right. I specialize in knocking out old men and the infirm.

Turns out, he was scanning the bar code on my I.D. badge.

Spared from an assault charge, I started the first leg of the 10-mile – literally, it’s 10 miles! – journey through every sort of golf gadget and gizmo made. The first leg was made up mostly of those companies you sometimes see in very tiny print at the back of second-tier golf magazines.

Exit polling is in and I’m ready to call some early conclusions.

The good:

— The Ego Pocket Device from EGO (Electronic Golf Organizer) is for the anal golfer, which means about 90 percent of the golfing population. The device collects shot-by-shot data which is uploaded to a Web site. You can check out the site and see stats about your game, where you went wrong and where you went wrong. It’s a comprehensive, post-round report.

— Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest. The speed stik (pink speed stik for women) The speed stik has a speed gauge on it so you can measure swing speed. It has a variety of drills, some of them baseball swings. This is the club Vijay Singh practices with. At least he says so on TV.

— The aero spark tee is supposed to stay in the ground no matter how hard you blast your driver. No more looking for lost tees. The theory is that you can add 5-10 yards because the ball “almost sits on thin air,” minimizing drag effect of a conventional tee.

Of course, there is no grass inside the Orange County Convention Center to test it.

— Of all the hundreds of mistakes I see on the golf course, including my own, many of them involve swing plane. I’ve seen swing planes that would make Charles Barkley look good.

The Explanar is basically an oval, steel ring that simulates the perfect swing plane. You swing a specially-made club around it a few hundred times to learn muscle-memory. It has some fancy technology that supposedly lets you set your optimum swing plane.

You can also practice draws and fades. It isn’t just another swing hoop, as evidenced by its $800 price tag on Amazon. This is one of the swing aids Butch Harmon endorses.

Permalink Leave a comment

Bookmark/Search this post with: