Thursday, February 4, 2016

The Best New Products in the Golf Industry: Tony's Top Ten from PGA Merchandise Show

(PHILADELPHIA, Pa.) - The ballots are in. The much-anticipated results are ready for distribution.
   
For the 13th year veteran golf writer/broadcaster Tony Leodora has returned from the annual PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando with a mountain of information about the new products on display at the massive exhibition. He has tested, analyzed and scrutinized. And, now, he has put together his list of the 10 products that caught his eye - a list known nationally and internationally as "Tony's Top Ten."
   
In addition, this year, he has added a new award - "Busiest Booth at the Show."
   
This category is in recognition of an exhibitor whose products, some old and some new, attracted the most attention at the PGA Show. So much attention, that they had the busiest booth - per square foot - of any booth at the Show.
   
This year, the Busiest Booth at the Show award went to Nexbelt, the company that took the golf industry by storm in 2014 with its "belt with no holes." Nexbelt made Tony's Top Ten at the Show in its inaugural year. This year, after introducing a few new models and styles, the company experienced another bump in interest, as well as continued success throughout the line.
   
"It has been an amazing ride for us," commented Eddie Rowland, one of the owners of Nexbelt. "We could hardly handle all of the visitors at our booth this year. We were slammed from start to finish."
   
In addition to the innovative technology and eye-catching styling of the Nexbelt, the company's success has been fueled by the endorsement of a number of popular PGA Tour professionals - including Jim Furyk, Kevin Na, Jason Bohn and Marc Leishman.
Hoping to follow in the successful footsteps of Nexbelt are this year's products in Tony's Top Ten.
   
"We always look for a variety of product categories," explains Leodora, who hosts the award-winning Traveling Golfer television show and the award-winning GolfTalk Live radio show, as well as serving as Philadelphia editor of GolfStyles magazine. "We don't want to come out with a list of 10 hot drivers, which is where so much of the hype exists. We want a variety of products ... and we definitely achieved that goal again this year."
   
The list of "Tony's Top Ten" for 2016 includes the new "Heather" line of golf shirts and wind shirts from Antigua, creating a new look in high fashion; the EX-9 driver from Tour Edge with the highest MOI on the market, the new B330RX golf balls from Bridgestone with its SlipRes cover; the new line of hot-face fairway woods and hybrids from High Heat, the Survivor tee from the Philadelphia-based Greenkeepers company; the Cleveland TFI 2135 putter and its innovative alignment guide; the new line of golf clubs from Golphin, specifically designed for kids; the new Cure Classic series of putters from the Cure Putter company; the GX2i2 point-and-shoot range finder from Leupold; and the product that could inject the most fun into the game of golf, the Golf Skate Caddy.
   
The list will debut on the GolfTalk Live radio show on February 6 and still can be heard any time after the original broadcast via podcast at www.golftalklive.net. It also appears in the Blog section of the www.golftalklive.net website, with further explanations of each product.
   
The story will be released throughout the month to a number of regional publications and websites.
   
The Traveling Golfer television show will feature "Tony's Top Ten" later in the month of February on a number of stations, including Comcast SportsNet and The Comcast Network, as well as on a long list of websites. For the full list, go to www.travelinggolfervideo.com after February 15.
   
Finally, the most extensive review will come when the Spring issue of GolfStyles magazine is published in March. It will contain full product reviews of each of the 10 products that made the list, plus a review of the latest belt model from Nexbelt - the Busiest Booth at the PGA Show. To receive a copy of that issue, go to www.golfstylesonline.com.

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