RoboCup Ball Return Robot

This is a neat idea. It’s a ball return device that works on any practice green.  When the ball drops into the hole, the RoboCaddy shoots it back to you up to 14 feet. If you use the Caddy Cord, it also will return missed putts. (Assuming you don’t miss by too much).

My car GPS is the single most useful gadget I have ever bought—and I have purchased a lot of gadgets over the years. It’s completely replaced glovebox maps, and I think it’s made my driving safer. No longer do I have to try to follow a map while going to unfamiliar places. The GPS warns me of upcoming turns well before I arrive at the spot, giving me time to get into the correct lane, and prepare for the change.

There’s also a golf application for this. The units show golf courses. Sometimes during the summer, I just get into my car and drive in a random direction. Then, after thirty or forty miles, I stop at the first course that shows up on my GPS that I don’t recognize. I’ve discovered a lot of really neat courses this way.

The new ones have a feature that allows the unit to wirelessly receive data on traffic jams and route you around them.

Amazon is having a big sale on GPS Units

BUSHNELL GolfFXI Wireless Weather Forecaster

I saw this at my local GolfSmith the other day and said “that’s ridiculous.”

Then I decided that I wanted one.

It’s a small screen device—about the size of a large automobile GPS unit that automatically downloads and updates weather conditions from a wireless transmitter attached to your PC. For your five favorite courses, it gives the current, RealFeel and forecasted high and low temperatures, morning, afternoon and evening temperatures for today and next three days, UV index, chance of precipitation and wind speed and direction, weather message display for up-to-date conditions, and lightening alerts.

Yes, I know that I can get all of the same by just looking it up on my PC—but this would look really neat sitting on my desk at school.

It is, however, not nearly as cool as the ScoreCast Baseball Gadget, which shows you current baseball scores—inning by inning—without any internet connection.
. There’s also an Ambient Football ScoreCast that does the same for football.

I’d like to see one that gives the current leaderboards for the PGA, LPGA and EPGA tours.

Gentleman’s Vice
Grade: B+
Teachers’ Comments: Nice enough, but I would have made a couple of design changes.

Golf and cigar smoking seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly. In my Friday golf league, I’m the only one who doesn’t smoke (I have no objections to cigar smoking, I just never took it up—even though as a teen, I worked on a Maryland tobacco plantation.)

So it’s only natural that some enterprising entrepreneur would come up with a handy swiss army knife tool for cigar smoking golfers: The Gentlemans’ Vice. It’s a combination ball marker-ball mark repair tool-cigar holder-club holder-cigar cutter.

About the size of a small Leatherman tool, the Gentleman’s Vice is constructed of metal and heavy duty plastic. The body is plastic; the cigar cutter and mark repair tines are metal. The Vice feels very solid and substantial. If anything, I found it too large and heavy to fit comfortably in my pocket. But that’s ok because it also comes with a heavy duty fabric holster that you can clip to your bag.

I tested it for a couple of rounds and find that it works very well as a club holder to keeps your grips off the wet grass around the greens. As you can see from the photo, it sticks very well into the turf. I assume that it also works well to hold cigars. The rounded indention as the top is wide enough to balance the stogie of your choice.

To use the cigar cutter, you release the catch, extending a pair of “wings” and revealing the hole in the center for clipping. Pushing the wings back to the Vice’s body looks as thought it would provide adequate force to cut through the leaves.

The ball marker is typical of a lot of ball mark repair tools, attaching to the tool magnetically.

The mark repair function of the Vice, however, is not quite as well done. For my tastes, the tines on the Vice are a little short. I had some trouble getting under the crater my balls sometimes leave on soft putting surfaces.

Another thought. This tool also needs a bottle top opener. Beer is as ubiquitous on golf courses as cigars (I don’t drink beer either, but like cigars, don’t object).

All that said, I think that the Gentleman’s Vice would be a great giveaway for a high-end golf outing. The company can personalize the ball markers, which would be great for corporate branding.

PRO ACTIVE SPORTS G-Stamp

The G Stamp is a sensitive spot ... no, wait. The G Stamp is a monogrammer with a dial control that prints up to four letters on your ball.

I can think of all sorts of four letter words I want to print on my golf balls.