Tour 780 Titanium Driver

With its Tour 780 Titanium Driver, PineMeadow offers a 460cc titanium driver with movable weights at a fraction of the price of the big name manufacturers.

The driver features a movable weight system, and includes two (2) six gram tungsten weights and two (2) two gram aluminum weights preinstalled. To encourage a draw, install the heavier weight in the heel of the club; a fade is encouraged by placing a heavier weights toward the toel. Heavier weights toward teh front produce a lower ball flight; moving the heavier weights to the rear encourage a higher flight.

How do they do it? Pinemeadow explains that they are “smart follower,” a company that doesn’t spend money on original research and development, but is rather content to replicate others’ designs. That means that you don’t get the latest design concepts. but Pinemeadow swears that you do get a quality club.

Before you look askance at the idea, consider this: Dell, Gateway and other major computer manufacturers essentially do the same thing.

As with all Pinemeadow clubs, this one comes with a 30 day playability guarantee.

Like a Soviet Commissar of old, Adam Scott has a five year plan. The difference is that Scott’s plan is actually realistic. He wants to be the best in golf. And I think he could be. In five years, Tiger will be 37 and probably on the downside of his career (if he’s even still playing). Scott will be 31. He also seems to have ability and temperment.

Of course, as I’ve noted before, the fairways are littered with the bodies of young guns who tried to take Tiger’s title.

Scott’s comments are printed in articles in Australia’s Courier Mail and The Age.

The PGA Tour has modified its original format for next year’s FedEx Cup playoffs. To make the mega event more like a traditional sports playoff, the Tour will reduce the number of players in the field each week.

Here’s the plan:

Barclays Classic—144 players
Deutsche Bank Championship—120 players
BMW Championship—70 players
THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola—30 players

What they’re betting, of course, is that by the time it reaches the field of 30, the most popular players will still be in the mix. The biggest disaster for the Tour would be for Woods or Mickelson or Furyk (or any of the other “names”) to have a bad early showing and miss the final match.

NIKE Juice 312

Nike’s new Juice 312 ball is a two piece distance ball aimed at people with mid to low swing speeds. The name, obviously, comes from the fact that the ball has 312 dimples. (that’s on the low side—balls most commonly have 336.)

And the rest of the name?

It has “juice”, get it?

Nike’s sense of humor has never been subtle.

Nike says that the low dimple count, combined with the soft core offer good distance with “adequate” spin.

The “adequate” worries me.

When I read golf business stories these days, I am reminded of that image of several fish in a line, each about to be eaten by a still larger fish.

This time, it’s Golf Galaxy.

Golf Galaxy, if you will remember recently bought out component part designer and manufacturer GolfWorks.  They then embarked on a relatively ambitions program of retail store expansion.

Now Golf Galaxy has been bought by a still larger fish—Dick’s Sporting Goods, which apparently will pay $225 million for Golf Galaxy.

It’s just a matter of time until they’re all bought out by the biggest fish in the pond—Greg Norman. 

Here’s an interesting way to get into the golf business.

A company called Sonic Golf offers a golf club cleaning franchise. For your franchise fee of 15,000 pounds sterling (about $28,000), you get a set of sonic golf cleaning machines, which you place and staff at local golf clubs.

The machines use sonic vibrations in a liquid solution to clean a full set of clubs in just two minutes. The machines will clean the heads as well as the grips. I’m sure that my wife has a similar device for cleaning jewelry.

Unfortunately, the opportunity appears to be available only in the UK. I’d think that it would be a huge hit in places like Myrtle Beach that have a huge concentration of courses in a small area.

TEAM EFFORT College 3 PK Headcover

The BIG GAME is Saturday, and what cold be more appropriate than these headcovers.