2008 PGA Show: Zombies, three-piece studs and Adidas jokesters

ORLANDO - Weird and not-so-weird news and notes from the 2008 PGA Show:

— Adidas Golf has taken the current golf club fad, lowering the moment of inertia (MOI), to a new low.

It’s building its new SHOES with a low MOI. Adidas’ Tour360 LTD shoes have a low center of gravity (“CG” in golfer terminology– another current fad) “to help golfers hit the ball more solidly.”

The company takes about three thousand words to explain that, in the end, what it did was stick a thinner sole in the shoe.

Thus, the golfer stands a whopping 2.5 millimeters closer to the ground. I can personally guarantee Adidas engineers were sitting around with their slide rules laughing their asses off.

— Real people aren’t enough anymore. Why is it people will completely ignore another human being, standing there giving all sorts of social signals they want to talk, but will crowd around video monitors? They could be playing slide shows of grass growing, people would still gape like zombies.

— I’m one of those who argue that golf is not only a sport, it’s the hardest sport. But, it’s hard to justify that this sport is played by “athletes.” Come to the PGA Show and see for yourself: there is nothing funnier than a businessmen in a three-piece suits, fresh off eating 10 pounds of beef at lunch, flailing away in a swing analysis booth, trying to impress his buddies.

Or a petite woman in giant, cumbersome, cartoonish, red boots wired to some gizmo that’s supposed to somehow help her golf swing.

Or a man writhing on the floor of the Orange County Convention Center, pulling at various isometric tubes in the name of total golf fitness.

— PrideSports has come out with soft spikes in different colors – a “limited-edition line” – so golfers can “accessorize their shoes with their favorite pro, college or high school sports team colors.”

I hope the earthworms enjoy all the pretty colors.

— Thank god for Bag Boy, one of my favorite travel bag companies. Bag Boy is one of those companies that makes golf club travel bags you can take straight from the airport to the course.

The company has come out with its new T-1000, including two accessory pockets, two shoe pockets and a detachable laundry bag. However, I like their smaller, slimmer models. Dragging an overpacked golf travel bag through airports, parking lots, bars and hotels is one of the biggest drags in golf travel. The smaller and lighter the better, even if I have to scratch a club or two.