Blog Description

You are likely to find everything golf here. Product reviews, course reviews, tournament commentary, and of course reports on my on-course travails. I hope you find it enhancing.

Note: The way the editor works, the appearance of the blog is different depending on the laptop/pc/smartphone that you are using and the screen resolution. It may look great on one and very different on another. Sorry, but I can't control that. Hopefully you get the gist and won't be too put off if it doesn't look the way it does on my monitor...which of course is fantastic :)!

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

KEEPING AN EYE ON VISION GOLF

It’s the summer time in southwest Florida and for me that means golf! As a tennis professional, from October to May, my life is consumed by tennis, and there just isn’t time, energy, nor available tee times for me to indulge in my other passion. Ah, but when the snowbirds flock northward, and the heat of the day chases the locals indoors, I can answer the irresistible call of the fairways and greens.

The Boz & Dad Bosley
As the tennis season ended and I prepared to take up the clubs again, I rekindled an old acquaintance with Wayne (Boz) Bosley of Vision Golf in Australia. Ever heard of Vision Golf? Well if you have aging eyes like I do, you will want to become familiar with one of the pioneers in colored, ultraviolet (practically fluorescent) golf balls.

Original UV Gel
In addition to being well-constructed, durable golf balls- which you can find just about anywhere for a decent price- the Vision Gel Series and X Series UV balls are easy for a blind hacker like me to follow in the air and to find in the grass. This is a huge benefit if you struggle in this department like I do. But that’s just what got me started with Vision Golf. 

The Magic Three-Round Ball
When I contacted Boz this spring, he generously sent me some samples of balls not yet in production to test. I won’t name the ball, but I fell in love with one of those samples, actually playing almost three full rounds with the same ball! Now I have only been playing for 26 years, but in those 26 years, I have never played with a single ball for even two full rounds. I did acknowledge being a hacker, right?

Anyway, not only did I feel more in control of my ball than I’ve ever felt, whether I was playing Taylormade, Titleist, Volvik, or any other ball I’ve played, but after two rounds, other than a little wear on the identification markings, you wouldn’t have been able to tell that the ball had been played six holes! The bad news? The balls aren’t in production and I can’t take them with me to the World Amateur Handicap Championship in Myrtle Beach in August.

Vision Golf 
If it were just the balls, perhaps I wouldn’t quite as high as I am on Vision Golf, but they have an entire line of products that are challenging conventional offerings. For those who prioritize convention, perhaps Vision Golf isn’t for you, but if you value performance and practicality, I suggest you give Vision a look see.

Super Glove Took a Beating
Among the items Boz sent me were some UV tees, which are practically indestructible (I’ve broken two in two months!), and the best golf glove I have worn to date. Now tees are no big deal obviously, but I just put two in my pocket (long one for driver, and short for all other tee shots) and forget about em. A good glove is another story.

The fit of this glove (see video review here) really is pretty amazing. You don't even know you are wearing a glove. I'm used to fiddling with my glove even when they fit well. With this glove, I just put it on and forget about it. I play a lot of golf in the hot humid southwest Florida weather, and a glove that can hold its own in the heat, humidity, sweat, and rain is worth its weight in $5 golf balls! The trial pair that I had been using over the past month or so (about 12 rounds), withstood one wash cycle before the stitching gave out on me. Definitely worth trying if you can get your hands on them.

My bottom line is that I can’t wait for Vision Golf products to become a staple of the golf landscape in the States. Given the quality of the merchandise they are designing and manufacturing, I think it is only a matter of time before some visionary of a CEO leading a US company decides that Vision Golf belongs in the US and seeks to make that happen. "You're still away"...T. A.