http://www.fortune.com/adsectionsCONTENT FROM THE PGA TOUR
routine. As our athletes have changed, their demands have
changed, and we thought it was time to revise and upgrade
the facilities to give them something befi tting that.”
To that end, Technogym became an Offi cial Supplier to
the PGA TOUR Player Performance Centers as part of an agreement
that will also see its products at the TOUR’s Tournament Players Club
facilities. The company, based in Cesena, Italy, has been the Offi cial
Equipment Supplier to the past seven Olympic Games and will provide
TOUR-licensed Tournament Players Club facilities with ultra-high-end
sports performance equipment, including treadmills that
give real-time feedback on running effi ciency and have
a “sled push” feature that helps develop lower-body
strength. Technogym’s SKILLTOOLS “performance
tools”—medicine balls and stability balls, mobility sticks
and balance pads, foam rollers and power bands—offer
a wide range of training modalities for fl exibility, stability,
and power development and can be used for a pre-round
warm-up or for post-round recovery.
Many players were already familiar with Technogym’s
offerings from visits to the gyms at the elite hotels they
frequent. In fact, they lobbied for the company’s involve-
ment in the fi tness centers and were involved in all
aspects of planning the new facilities; the TOUR’s Player
Fitness Council members and other players provided
detailed input. But in addition to the best in equipment,
added space was a top priority.
“The reason for more size wasn’t just because we
have more people in there or because we wanted to
cram more equipment in,” Levinson says. “All the players
we had discussions with said, ‘We need more open
space.’”
Open space is necessary for the free motion exercise and band
work that are among the current workout trends on TOUR. Because it’s
not just the players’ drives that are getting longer—their wingspans
are too.
“In our old facility, if you put a Dustin Johnson and a Tony Finau
[both 6-foot-4] together in the open space, there wouldn’t be space for
anybody else,” says Levinson, laughing. “We wanted to create a space
where more players could work out simultaneously doing the types of
workouts that are increasingly popular.”
“Increasingly popular” is exactly how the trailers
themselves might best be described, as approximately 80%
of the players in a given tournament fi eld use the Player
Performance Center during the event. It’s a number that should only rise
in the coming years.
“You look at these athletes that are coming out now, they’re actu-
ally athletes,” says Brooks Koepka, the TOUR’s reigning Player of the
Year and three-time major champion, including victories in the last twoU.S. Opens. “Everybody is working out. Everybody is trying to become
as fi t as possible to make sure they’re fl exible, they’re stronger, and in
good shape to play all year round.”
It’s worth noting that Koepka’s great-uncle Dick Groat was
baseball’s 1960 National League Most Valuable player and a 1952
fi rst-team All-American in basketball at Duke University. Which is to
say, he was the kind of kid who, today, might well pick up a golf club
instead of a bat or ball. —EVAN ROTHMAN