Following the fantastic duffed putt video this week (see below), I HAD to come up with a new award to recognize the most entertaining golfer of the year.
Hands down the inaugural winner of the Hooked On Golf Blog Most Entertaining Golfer of the Year award is Jason Dufner. NOBODY can come close to the entertainment value Jason provided this season. Here are the three biggest highlights:
DUFNERING
First we had “Dufnering.” This photo below of Dufner at a school became legendary, and everyone on the planet got in on Dufnering.
Go to Google and type in “Dufnering” and click images. There are 100’s if not 1000’s!
GRAB ASS
After winning his first major at the PGA Championship Dufner was greeted by his lovely wife. On national television in front of millions of viewers, Jason grabbed his wife’s ass.
Classic…
DUFFED PUTT
Not like Dufner needed to do anything else to win MEGOTY after the grab-ass gig, but for good measure we had this video gem last week, courtesy of the PGA Tour:
Jason Duffs a putt. Amazing. PGA Tour players are human.
In fact, that’s one of the things we all love about Jason Dufner. He’s not a swing robot. He’s human, likable and not phony at all. We can relate.
Lost in all of these funny things are the fact that Jason Dufner is one hell of a golfer and has had a great run the last couple of years. The sky is the limit. Can’t wait to see what’s next.
Clue #2 with regards the “new FootJoy innovation” arrived at my door this morning. This is box number two of five. Inside was an interesting object, made from a couple of different materials.
I love picture books. They’re perfect books for my reading level…
I’ve been enjoying a great book called “Green Glory: A Visual Tribute to the Courses of the Majors – Golf’s Renowned Venues.” This book shows vibrant and panoramic photos of golf’s major venues since 1950, along with paintings of them as well. Of course the major tournaments are the Masters Tournament, U.S. Open, Open Championship (British Open), and the PGA Championship.
The photographer for the book was Patrick Drickey, a world renowned photog licensed by the PGA of America. How do I get that gig?
The artist is Linda Hartough, from Harbor Town, SC.
Naturally the first page out of the 250 I opened to was the Old Course at St. Andrews. What are the odds. No really. What are the odds? One in 250 and I turn to THE Old Course.
Green Glory – click to zoom
The 2nd page I managed to randomly find was the photo below of the 13th hole at Carnoustie, a beautiful par-3. See the image below. What a great thought, knowing I’d played both of those courses about five months ago. Seems like years. I miss that place…
Carnoustie hole #13 – click to zoom
Green Glory is full of some great imagery, and a little bit of useful information regarding each venue. This is a great coffee table book for days like today (12/19/13), where it has been snowing for 10 hours. I can thumb through it and reminisce about the rounds I’ve played on some of the courses within. I can dream of playing rest.
To pick up a copy of “Green Glory: A Visual Tribute to the Courses of the Majors – Golf’s Renowned Venues,” visit www.stonehousegolf.com. Retail is $75 for an autographed first edition and $55 for the book unsigned.
Addendum
This is crazy. I just opened the book again, to look for Chambers Bay. Chambers Bay is the host of the 2015 U.S. Open, the first venue in the northwest to host a major. I turned to the Carnoustie page again! What are the odds?
I receive hundreds of products per year and I do my best to review the ones I feel are worthy of some airtime. Rather than posting negative reviews of the not-so good products, I choose radio silence. I received such a product last week.
A few days after I received the product I got an email from the inventor, excitedly asking me if I received it yet. At that point I did something I’ve never done before. I sent a come-to-Jesus-moment letter to the inventor. I held no punches and gave my honest and critical opinion of the product (which I will not name) in the hopes that I might keep someone I’ve never met from blowing his life savings on patent attorneys and making 50,000 units in China, only to end up years later bankrupt with 49,995 units in his garage.
What’s this product? It is one of which I’ve seen countless versions. I’ve got around eight of them. Make it nine now. This invention is a “club stand.” It is made typically from one piece of metal, bent so that a club can lean against it. See the photos.
My only use for something like this is to give it to the wife and let her use it to hold up her tomato plants in the garden. No serious golfer will ever use this and I’d bet a round of golf and drinks at Pebble Beach that none of the big box golf chain stores like Dicks or Golf Galaxy would carry one.
Golf Entrepreneur 101
I hate to be such a party-pooper, but before you golf inventors invent the next club stand, a.k.a. piece of bent metal, look on ebay. There are dozens of them and they’re selling for as little as five bucks. If you want to compete with five dollar products on ebay, be my guest. I bet jabbing yourself in the eye with your invention would be more fun though.
The first thing you should do as a golf inventor or product entrepreneur is determine if there’s a demand for the product. And don’t ask your friends. They’ll all tell you how great it is, the same way they’ll say your ugly baby with the three eyes and warts is the most beautiful baby in the world.
Do real research. Do some blind product polling and testing. It will cost money. It will be worth it.
Then you should see if there are other products like it in the market. The golf market is flooded with bent pieces of metal which nobody will use for standing up clubs. Just look at the pictures I found of said bent pieces of metal after browsing the interwebs for about 10 minutes.
Why?
Why am I being so harsh right now? I personally know golf entrepreneurs who have lost their entire life savings and even lost their families because they sank all their dough into their products. Some of these are actually very good and high quality products.
The golf industry is tough. Even the good inventions seldom break through to the big time. I have firsthand experience in trying to get the Dicks Sporting Goods of the world to carry a great golf product and it is quite difficult and discouraging.
Please golf entrepreneurs, before you spend years of your life developing your product, then dump thousands of dollars into patent research and prototyping, then blow money on crappy Chinese manufacturing, step back and look what you’re doing. I want to make sure you’ve done your homework and are sure this will succeed. Then you can send me one for review. If it is useful, I’ll write about it.
Tony Finau with Bud Cauley in the background – 2011 Web.com Utah Championship
The Web.com Tour Qualifying Tournament finished today. Six grueling rounds of high pressure golf at PGA West Stadium Course to see who gets their 2014 tour cards for the Web.com.
I’m happy to report that a local named Tony (not me unfortunately) finished T3 and has earned an exemption, good until the third reshuffle of the 2014 season, which occurs after 12th event. You may recognize Tony Finau from an appearance on Golf Channel’s Big Break Disney or a couple of Tour events.
This is a huge deal for him. It will be fun to see how Tony does. Looking forward to watching his (hopeful) progression onto the PGA Tour.
HOGWire – Golf Industry News
