The Foremost Golf Suppliers Conference 

I have just returned from a two day golf industry conference held at the Milton Keynes Dons football stadium. The venue is a conference centre ,hotel and football stadium all rolled into one, making it a very interesting and inspiring place for such an event. 

Many of the leading suppliers including PING, Callaway, TaylorMade and Titleist were all exhibiting and sharing the technical knowledge behind many of their products. For their equipment to work effectively in the hands of golfers it needs to be fitted correctly and from the manufacturers there is a realisation that the golf pro is ideally positioned to make sure this happens. 

One area that really stood out this week was how technology is driving the game forwards in all areas. Club fitting for irons and woods, as many of you already know, is essential in helping you maximise your potential and fun. 

The GC2 launch monitor, which we have the Links Pro Shop, can now also be used to help when fitting putters and wedges. The GC2 gives precise information of the club head at impact. If we know what your angle of attack, swing path and club head are all doing at impact then we can best advice on putter types and wedge loft and bounces that will best suit your game. Regardless of your age or ability, sport science is definitely able to help you.

   

Customer Survey 

I was really proud this week when I was given the full report on information gathered through my recent customer survey. This was a survey rolled out by Foremost Golf across 270 golf pros and their memberships from all over the country. Over 30,000 responses were received across the group highlighting trends and my newsletter readership response was amongst one of the highest. Thank you very much for your support.

Just a reminder that the expiry date on your vouchers is 30th November 2016. 

Some facts from our golfing community 

1: PING and TaylorMade are the iron manufacturers of choice of The Links membership. 

2: Nearly 70% of respondents had been custom fitted for their irons. This is higher than the national average. 

3: Odyssey and PINGare the putter brands of choice, no real surprise there. 

4: As a percentage of the overall membership at The Links the 60+age group is higher than the national average (NA) with numbers for our age category of 39 and below being lower than the NA. This might mean though that the youngsters couldn't be bothered filling in the survey or that our older readers are more technology savvy.

Titleist /FootJoy 2017 

This Wednesday I was invited by Titleist and FootJoy to view their new ranges for next season. FootJoy are noted as the number 1 shoe in golf and judging by their range for 2017 they are certainly not being complacent. 

The new styles and colours in both the mens and ladies ranges are outstanding and of course everything they do is built around performance.

Once again they will be focusing, and you might think this obvious, on making sure when you buy a FootJoy shoe it fits you correctly. 

A FootJoy survey revealed that 70% of all golfers are wearing incorrect size golf shoes.

 

Are your clubs the correct length for you? 

This week we have fitted two golfers in the Pro Shop who were playing with incorrect length clubs. As a result they were finding it difficult to hit shots from the centre of the clubface at impact. One players club was too short for him which caused a toe impact whilst the other was playing with clubs far too long causing the opposite problem, a heel impact. In both cases the result was loss of distance. If you don't have centre impact, ball speeds are greatly reduced. The analogy of hitting a tennis ball from the centre of a racket as opposed to the rim will give you an idea of the importance of strike. Hit it Better Not Harder!