Hold your horses… As we get closer to product launching in 2025, I will continue this with 2025 products. You have to wait to see me before you learn too much more.

From a 2024 Product standpoint, Big Bertha and Big Bertha REVA are retired. You MAY be able to order limited pieces, but I would remove these from your arsenal ASAP. There will be no further net down. For men and women, we have product in the Ai Smoke family that will more than make up for this loss. There will be plenty of new stuff launching in early, 2025 to fill this void as well.

In the meantime, people sometimes ask where do I get my information. For Callaway product info, it’s pretty obvious. However, I monitor what’s going on and what people are saying in product reviews, some blogs, etc. I want to see the good and the bad (and so should you). When I see a bad review, it helps me to be prepared for what a consumer or an account holder might say to me. I don’t want to think that all is sunshine and rainbows because that’s what Callaway says. I want to know what people really think and say. I don’t want to be inundated with information, and spend hours reading blogs and articles, but I want to be informed. I’m not interested in funny or things like Good,Good… I want business news, product news, or industry trends. Personally, I may read some instructional stuff too – just because it interests me. These are my top favorites right now. Please reply and share yours with me.

Take this one, for example. I like these guys. They are from Club Champion. The fella with the accent is a very good fitter, and I will share one of his fittings in the Fitters Corner later today. Here, they review the top 3 things they liked best about the club industry in 2024, and the three they thought were the biggest flops. Quite an interesting take. A great listen. Interesting hearing their take on several things, but on the idea of shafts being high or low kick or spin vs. doing it with the golf ball is spot on. Accurate and perceptive. I hope you take the time to listen…

Best and worst of 2024

On the overall industry information, I subscribe to several daily or weekly emails, and I use Linkedin of all places.

I skim “The Golf Wire”. If you don’t subscribe to this one, you should. This is a daily email, and they condense all of the golf in the news into one daily email. This is super convenient. I scroll through it every day and might read an article every few days. Articles are broken down by category, so it’s easy for you to find what is pertinent to you.

I read the weekly column by Lou Stagner. Lou is a data junkie. His weekly is short. It makes my Fitters corner look like a novel. He starts off each week with a multiple-choice question. This week, it was What are the chances the typical tour pro gets it up and down from 20 yards from the rough? (The answer is 47%). His columns are something data driven – backed by a study, or data gathered somewhere. This week it was about grip pressure in various player profile groups. He referenced a study done where they monitored grip pressure throughout the swing. Interesting that tour players grips get lighter as they come into the golf ball – the higher the handicap, the tighter the grip gets throughout the swing… Every week is something different and rarely something I would search for on my own, but always a good read.

I read The Perfect Putt. This is an email every Monday. Not as the name would imply, this is not an email about putting. It’s more about the business (money) side of golf. Where does money come from to fuel the Ryder Cup, or how much does a Touring Pro really make. He talked about the Callaway/ Top Golf split. He’s got a good head for business, and gets some interesting data to support his claims & opinions. Worth the read each week…

On Linkedin, I follow golf business pages. The PGA, USGA, R&A, club and shaft companies – anything golf. I have to scroll through content from 1500 connections to get what I want, but this is the ONLY “Social Media” that I follow. If I can’t learn from it, I’m not interested. Ironically, most companies will post anything that they put on their websites on Linkedin (saves me from having to go to each site to look for it). There are also blogs that I look for on LinkedIn that have great (and pertinent content for me). Take this one, for example:

The History of the Country Club

This one looks at the history of the Country Club in the US starting in about 1880. It chronicles how they have changed and evolved over the years, and then predicts where they will trend going forward into the future. A GREAT read for anyone in the golf business.

On a related note… Take a guess how many golf instructional videos are watched on YouTube every 90 days. I guessed 100 million. The answer – 4.3 billion. That’s 1.1 billion every month. Perhaps not the greatest information for your students and members, but they are looking at this. Do you know how you can combat this?? If not, you should start making a plan before you finish reading this email (that means now – there are only 2 lines left). 😉

Please, tell me what you read. Do you have instructors you follow? Industry news? Equipment sites? Let me know and I’ll post them here.