70 http://www.popularmechanics.co.za _ AUGUST 2017
putters. CaddyTalk. GPSQuickClip. GelTees.
Certifresh Cigars. Real Jerky. GolfSmash.
Zero Friction GPS DistancePro. These names
either explain the product in its essence –
the Iceblock putter is a putter made with a
clear acrylic head – or obscure meaning a
little, so you have to stop and ask. Zero
Friction GPS DistancePro is GPS technology
built into a glove.
The price you pay for the ball markers
and the energy bars, the tees and belt
buckles? More golf talk with the tribe of
talkers. All manner of commerce – multi-
national corporations, family-owned busi-
nesses, threadbare LLCs, overseas venture-
capital projects – stand on alert as stories
are traded. And everybody is ready, most
of all, to act like golfers. Golfers talking,
without apology, about golf. Aisle after
aisle and aisle. I’m not judging. I like golf.
I’m just saying the game is ancient. Oldest
sport there is. And yet the PGA
Merchandise Show buzzes like these guys
invented it five days before.
t night, in the hotel bar, I
realize that, like the fact
that golfers always want,
this is another great truth
of golf: golfers talk. They
love to talk about their game,
their shortcomings, their
new club, their old putter, their
last round, their next round. In clubhouses
and golf carts and pubs and, here in
Orlando this week, in Hiltons and Hyatts:
happiness. New ideas. Drinks.
I find myself sitting with a golf pro from
Salinas, California, an accounts manager
from Kaiser Permanente and a sales rep
for a golf umbrella outfit.
“Sure,” the golf pro says, “it’s the happi-
est moment of the golf year. Why wouldn’t
people be happy? Everything is out in
front of you.”
“Do you make good money? Like on the
tour?” the Kaiser Permanente woman asks.
The golf pro, who bought the drinks,
shoots her a withering look. He’s a teach-
ing pro. He’s already told her that much.
She is not a golfer, so she couldn’t listen.
“It all seems fine now. Everybody’s pumped
up,” he says. “Sometimes you get stuck. I
bought all these one-pocket pants one
year. No one liked them. I dumped them at
Goodwill.”
“You gotta have two pockets,” the
umbrella guy says.
“Four,” the pro says. “That’s all you need
to know. Four pockets is an idea you can’t
improve on.”
“Here’s a new idea,” the umbrella guy
says, whipping his foot up on the bar stool,
gently taking off his bright yellow shoe.
“This is a golf shoe,” he says, danglingthe shoe from his finger.
“Ew,” the Kaiser woman says.
“It only weighs four ounces. It’s rubber.
I bought this at the show. You can wear it
anywhere, but it works as a golf shoe.”
“Nobody wears yellow shoes,” she says.
“People will wear yellow shoes.”
“Bright colours are very popular these
days. People wear bright orange.”
There is a silence then. They drink.
“What about umbrellas?” the woman asks.
The umbrella guy hmpfs. “What about
them?”
“Do golfers buy yellow umbrellas?”
He slips on his shoe. “It’d be a special
order,” he says. “But I bet they would.”
“You gotta have an umbrella,” the golf
pro says.
“That’s why they sell,” the woman says.
“Maybe not in Salinas,” says the umbrella
guy.
I tell them about the portable shade-
generator I’d seen that day, made for driving
ranges in desert areas. “It was just an
umbrella on a pole,” I tell them.
The pro tilts his head. “An umbrella is
always a good idea.”
Everybody agrees.econd day, busier than the
first. People huddle up.
Mechanical engineers stand
with driving-range owners,
travel agents meet with
PowerPoint experts, metal-
lurgists crowd in to look at new
indoor golf simulators. Software
analysts gas on with club pros.
At the edges of the floor, the inventors
make their stand. These are people who
have quit better jobs, staked their retire-
ment, gone out and raised capital develop-
ing a product they designed, prototyped
and often patented, using ideas they had
during their Tuesday-night league. They
want the talk, too.
Near the Papa John’s cart, on the far
side of the show, I meet Dave Crivelli of
Phoenix, a former Los Angeles homicide
detective and celebrity bodyguard. He’s
hawking a product he calls the Bugle Tee.
His flyer says it’s revolutionary. By this
time, I have 40 sample tees laid out on the
queen bed in my hotel room. I am sceptical.“Everybody is pumped up,”
the rickshaw driver says.
“Golf makes people happy.Gadgets be
damned.
Sometimes the
sharpest golfer
has the best pants.
On the Putter
Buddy, we’re not
ready to comment.
S
A