Golf Wipes
With a 23 month old toddler in the house my best friend is baby wipes. They’re like miracle cloths that clean up milk, food, fingerprints, barf. You know, the crucial stuff.
Golf Wipes by LaGila Sports are the golf equivalent to baby wipes. They’re moist and clean debris, dirt, grass out off of golf club faces and out of the grooves. The product can also be used on golf balls.
These wipes come in the same type of portable package as baby wipes, and dispense one at a time as needed. The package contains 18 wipes and runs about $9.00 with shipping. Assuming one wipe per hole, that’s 50 cents per hole.
Product Features (courtesy of product website)
- Each package is re-sealable and contains 18 pre-moistened golf wipes
- Pre-moistened and skin safe to clean golf balls and club faces where and when needed…while you are playing
- Double sided wipe for greatest effectiveness; textured side for deep cleaning, soft side for surface cleaning
- Sandalwood Fragrance
- Eliminate dirty and dry towels from the cart and the laundry
- Great for players at all levels; Great gifts for all golfers
- Christmas stocking stuffers, birthdays, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day and holidays
On the Course
I used the product for a few rounds and it worked fine. In the photo below you can see a before and after example.
Left: notice dirt in grooves – Right: clean!
Honestly though, I saw no difference in results between the wipes and a moist golf towel. I always soak my towel before heading the to the first tee.
That said, golf towels can get pretty dirty and I’m sure they’re a candidate for bacteria where a disposable wipe is thrown away after use.
Conclusion
LaGila Sports Golf Wipes deliver as promised. Clubs are clean and shiny. At an additional cost of 50 cents per wipe, I still would opt to use a towel rather than buy this product. In fact, golf towels can be less than $10 so if one had a $9 “cleaning budget” per round, he/she could just buy a new towel every time.
Related Links
Back on October 13, 2006 I reviewed Velocity Wipes, a similar product which is dispensed out of a canister.
I wish I had the Weather Flow Wind Meter unit the last time I golfed in Scotland. Those numbers would have been crazy. The Weather Flow Wind Meter is a very small portable turbine which plugs into your smartphone or tablet (iPhone, iPad, Android) and via several different free applications can show you all sorts of data regarding the wind in your location.
Data
The Wind Meter shows some great data which can be very useful on the golf course or doing other outdoor activities. I use the unit for golf, and for checking current wind conditions when flying my remote control aerial photo/video helicopters. Other applications might include flying, sailing, fishing, windsurfing, and more.
Here are the primary data values shown:
- Average wind speed
- Max wind gusts
- Wind direction
The data can then be processed by the user, or even shared with other users.
The unit can read in meters/second, miles/hour, knots, kilometers/hour, & beaufort scale.
On The Course
This device is great for information gathering before a stipulated round or tournament round. It is not legal to use such a device during said rounds. Knowing wind speed and one’s one game allows the golfer to compensate and choose the proper club when hitting against or with the wind.
After feeling the winds and seeing the actual numbers, a golfer can get a much better idea of wind speed without having to use the unit all the time, therefore having a better idea how to play shots in stipulated rounds or tournaments.
Conclusion
The Weather Flow Wind Meter is a fun and useful $34.95 investment which can help golfers or those who need to know wind conditions in order to perform their best, and be armed with the most complete information they can.
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.
Until then, stick with the day job.
Golf Buddy WT3 Golf GPS Wristwatch
Remember how big golf GPS’s were a couple of short years ago? Now they’re in your wristwatch…
In for review here at Hooked On Golf Blog is the cool new Golf Buddy WT3 golf GPS watch. The battery is charged and weather permitting I’ll begin testing of this unit this week. Stay tuned.
Until then, check out the HOG gallery where I’ve posted a couple of photos of the Golf Buddy WT3 golf GPS watch.
How cool is this? Below is a photo of the new Hooked On Golf Blog headcovers, made by Ecktron Performance.
Ecktron Performance Putter & Driver Cover
Ecktron Performance makes custom head covers and score card wallets, embroidered with custom text or logos. I’ve got a putter cover, driver cover and scorecard wallet I’m reviewing now. Stay tuned for my full review. Until then click the image above or the image below to enjoy more shots of these fantastic golf accessories.
Ecktron Performance custom score card wallet – click to zoom
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