Nike Inc. will launch new golf clubs this month without the promotional muscle of golfing great Tiger Woods.

That will be a challenge for the sporting-goods giant, which was largely a nonentity in golf before it built a sizable business around the superstar’s image.

Nike says that its Victory Red STR8-FIT Tour fairway woods, which will go on sale Jan. 28 for $299, were designed with input from all 13 U.S. golf stars who promote Nike’s golf products. But the promotional materials make no mention of Mr. Woods, whose tradition of wearing red shirts on the final day of golf tournaments inspired the Victory Red name.

Instead, the materials trumpet that the clubs were tested in tournament play by a respected but lesser-known golf pro, Lucas Glover, who claimed his first major victory last year when he won the U.S. Open Championship.

Nike’s inability to bank on Mr. Woods — who remains a Nike-sponsored athlete but is postponing his career as he deals with the fallout from his alleged extramarital affairs — comes at a problematic time. The Beaverton, Ore., company has faced deteriorating golf sales because of the recession. Annual revenue at the Nike Golf division fell 11% last year to $648 million after peaking at $725 million the year before.

Still, some of Nike’s retail partners said they expect the company’s clubs to sell well in 2010, with or without Mr. Woods to champion them.

“They have certainly established themselves as a very successful golf manufacturer over the past 10-plus years, and we believe we will have a very solid year with them,” said Matt Corey, senior vice president of marketing at Golfsmith International Holdings Inc., the nation’s largest specialty golf retailer.

Nike declined to discuss the effect of Mr. Woods’s problems on its business, where overall revenue grew 3% to $19.2 billion in fiscal 2009. But in a conference call with investors last month, Chief Executive Mark Parker played down the ramifications, even as he acknowledged that larger economic factors were hurting golf sales.

“We feel very good about how we are managing our golf business through this period and our position in the broader golf market,” Mr. Parker said, adding, “We’ll continue to support Tiger and his family as we, of course, look forward to his return.”

Nike’s golf slump mirrors a wider plunge in the market for golf apparel and gear, as consumers put off discretionary purchases. Sales of clubs and other hard equipment fell 11.9% in the first 11 months of 2009 at golf-course shops and specialty stores, according to Golf Datatech LLC, a market research firm. Retail experts estimate that such locations make up roughly three-fourths of total golf sales.

While Mr. Woods’s alleged peccadilloes have forced him out of the limelight for at least part of this year, some golf-industry experts say Nike has a larger set of options because of the recent emergence of other stars.

Like Mr. Glover, Stewart Cink, also a Nike-sponsored athlete, captured his first major title last year when he won the British Open. .

“Nike golfers won two major tournaments last year, and neither guy was named Tiger Woods,” said Tom Stine, co-founder of Golf Datatech. “What Tiger gave Nike is credibility. When you have the top guy out there winning with your stuff, it tells the public that you have top-line equipment. But they have plenty of other golfers doing that now.”

Michelle Wie, also under contract with Nike, won her first professional women’s tournament last year, one of the first signs that the 20-year-old phenom could yet fulfill her potential to become the female version of Mr. Woods.

Nike first dabbled in golf in 1985 with a shoe called the Air Linkster, and pro Curtis Strange donned its gear while winning U.S. Open championships in 1988 and 1989. But it was not until Nike signed a huge endorsement deal with a 20-year-old Mr. Woods in 1996 that the swoosh became an upstart in the business side of the sport.

The golfer draped himself in Nike apparel as he won a dizzying succession of major titles, and the company blanketed the airwaves with emotional ads playing up his historic ascent, notably a landmark spot called “I am Tiger Woods” that showed children of numerous races playing the game.

Mr. Woods started using Nike golf balls rather than the Titleist balls favored by other stars, and later picked up Nike clubs, moves that experts say greatly helped the company win over skeptical golfers raised on such brands as Callaway Golf Co. and TaylorMade Golf Co, a subsidiary of Adidas. Titleist is part of Acushnet Co., a subsidiary of Fortune Brands Inc. that also includes Cobra golf clubs and FootJoy golf shoes and generates annual revenue of more than $1 billion.

Mr. Woods has also helped Nike craft new clubs, boosting the company’s reputation for cutting-edge sports-gear design. “This is my iron. This is what I created. This is what I’ve been playing,” Mr. Woods said in a promotional video for a Victory Red line of golf irons two years ago. “Now that consumers get to feel and play what I’ve been playing, they’ll understand why I love it so much.”

Mike Pedersen Golf Blog

You’ll quickly note that I’m on a golf fitness binge. Being 3 months from reaching 70 years will do that to you.

After a great deal of research, I’ve elevated the Mike Pedersen Golf Blog and his other site, Perform Better Golf, to the top of the list of golf fitness websites. They are truly outstanding sites that offer the type of instruction that you need to get into a state of good physical conditioning, and keep it.

His blog offers some good articles on stretching, excercises, the swing and more. Be sure to not miss the opportunity to get his free ebook, that is downloadable in .pdf format.

On the Perform Better Golf site you will find training aids that will improve your golf swing power, and good swing training DVDs that are very reasonably priced.

Golf Fitness Magazine

If you really want to play good golf, you can’t deny fitness efforts….it’s absolutely essential. To play any sport well, you’ll have to give some effort to getting that old flabby frame in better condition, and keep it that way.

Take the time to look around at your golf buddies. Then, ask your self, which of them plays consistently good golf? Then, compare the physical condition of those who play the best golf to those who don’t play well. Who do you want to emulate? You already know the answers to these questions without any extensive thought.

If you seriously want help with a conditioning program, there’s a ton of it on the internet……for free! I recommend that you start with Golf Fitness Magazine. You will find help of all sorts. You’ll find:
1. Videos
2. Articles
3. Blogs
4. News
5. Surveys
…and more

Make 2010 the year that you begin a sincere effort at golf fitness.

Rio de Janeiro

String Bikinis in Rio

Little do I know about the International Olympic Committee and how they do what they do. I’m still scratching my head in wonderment over their decision to choose the least prepared of the 4 competing cities.

Rio has the least-prepared infrastructure of any of the four cities that competed for the hosting opportunity.

Nearly half the stadium capacity it needs will have to be built and additional renovations will be necessary to provide another 24 percent of the minimum required seating.

Rio’s metro system does not link the city center and most of its hotels to the outskirts of Barra da Tijuca, where most of the venues are concentrated.

It’s a beautiful setting, but it’s also notorious for violent crime in its shantytowns, or ‘favelas’, ruled largely by warring drug gangs. However, Rio says it will spend heavily on its infrastructure, and hopefully they will find a way to contain the drug lords.

I can’t imagine where the golf events will be played. The courses that I saw there did not appear to me to up to the standards for Olympic competition. But, there’s plenty of time to construct a course that will be a good test.

Me, I think I’ll just hang around the beaches of Ipanema, Copacabana, or  Angra dos Reis and look at the girls in their string bikinis.

Jeff Ogilvy

Jeff Ogilvy sure likes that golf course at Kapalua. This time he let his competitors get ahead of him, then made a dashing comeback to take the tourney by one stroke over Rory Sabbatini. He was a picture of confidence as he made up a two-shot deficit over his final 10 holes with good decisions and perfect golf for a 6-under 67.

This year he had to do it alone, as his wife stayed at home, in the final month of pregnancy with their third child.

Ogilvy posted his eighth consecutive round in the 60s at Kapalua. “I like the golf course, I think it’s fair to say,” Ogilvy said.

With so much talk about the V-shaped grooves required this year, Ogilvy said that helped him on the 14th, where it’s easy to spin the ball off the front of the green and back into the fairway. “I was happy with the smart play, and it paid off,” he said.

Sabbatini, who started the final round six shots behind, ran off five straight birdies on the back nine to seize the lead. He couldn’t reach the green on the 663-yard 18th in two, however, and missed a 10-foot birdie putt that ultimately cost him.

“I said to my caddie, ‘We need to birdie the last two holes to have a chance,”‘ Sabbatini said. “The situation was you had to keep moving forward to put pressure on him. I had my opportunity, and unfortunately, it didn’t pan out.”

Ogilvy finished at 22-under 270 and moved back into the top 10 in the world with his seventh career PGA Tour victory.

Charles Barkley Golf Swing

Although none of the skits on Saturday Night Live were outstanding, Charlies Barkley did a good job last night……mostly at making fun of himself. He’s a funny man and he playfully poked fun at himself about his gambling and being arrested in his opening monologue. Then, he did a skit about his terrible golf swing.

If you’ve never seen how bad his golf swing is, click on this link to see a YouTube video: Video

It’s an old video, done before Hank Haney took on the project of making Charles’ swing better. The swing is better but it’s still bad. It makes you wonder how much he hurts physically the day after he plays 18 holes…..makes me hurt just watching him.

Courtesy www.redenvelope.com

Nothing could be more important for a guy……a fancy, expensive beer bottle opener made from a used golf club or broken major league ball bat. RedEnvelope.com has answered your prayers.

Here’s a clip from their product page:

gift description:

Here’s to your love of the game. Handcrafted from salvaged clubs, our golf club bottle openers memorialize the honored game. Made from assorted wood or iron heads, they’re bestowed with unique character by years of Saturdays on the links. For the baseball fan, you’re sure to score big points with our baseball bat opener, crafted from a game-used, big-league bat, complete with a certificate of authenticity. The diamond-shaped, solid maple handle shows the nicks and scratches earned in pursuit of the Great American Pastime. Both openers feature a nickel-plated brass head. Approximately 6 ½”-7” L.

So hurry to RedEnvelope.com to get yours. Prices start at only $64.95 each.

Perry does not agree that the new grooves will be a huge problem. “It will cause some problems but I don’t think it’s going to be a real big issue,” Perry (49) said.

“I think guys will adjust pretty quickly and you will still see good scores. I have struggled a little bit with my wedges. My sand wedges and stuff don’t bite like they used to bite, they want to release on out. But out of the fairway with my irons I haven’t noticed much difference at all.”

As of January 1st, new rules for club-face grooves were implemented at the top level after research found modern configurations could allow players to generate almost as much spin with irons from the rough as from the fairway. All clubs, with the exception of drivers and putters, have been affected by the change which limits groove volume and groove-edge sharpness, effectively replacing U-grooves with V-grooves.

Larger volume grooves can help channel away more material such as water or grass while sharper groove edges allow better contact between club and ball, thereby increasing the chance of backspin. “Chipping the ball is a big difference but even from the rough I have been hitting little jumpers, not big jumpers,” added Perry, a 14-times winner on the PGA Tour. “They are all great players out here and I think guys will adjust in a hurry.”

South Korean Yang Yong-eun, who won his first major title at last year’s PGA Championship after overhauling Tiger Woods in the final round, agreed. “I think it will be no problem,” Yang said. “Maybe this week, the first tournament of the year, there will be some problem but after three or four months of the players using these V-grooves they will be getting better.”

While most top players began experimenting with the new grooves toward the end of last year, it had been widely predicted that flyers from tangly rough would become a much more common occurrence on the leading tours around the world. “Previously with the squaregrooves, you’d get these certain lies in the intermediate cut (of rough) or in the rough where it’s questionable whether it was going to jump,” former Masters champion Zach Johnson said.

“Now it’s not questionable; you know it’s going to jump. It’s just a matter of how much it’s going to jump. It’s not an advantage. It’s just the way it is.”

Yang felt next week’s Sony Open could present a stiffer test for the players because of the harder, smaller greens at Waialae Country Club. “This week we have big fairways and therefore it’s easier to avoid the rough,” Yang said of the PGA Tour’s season-opening event being held on the Plantation Course. “And with 100 (yard) shots, 150 shots there is a lot of spin because the greens here are a little bit soft. The loft may be a little bit different but the ball is still spinning.

“But next week, at the Sony Open on hard greens, maybe it will be very different.”

PING Mens i15 Irons

Bridgestone e6+ Ball

Last season, while doing some golf equipment research on the internet, I discovered the Bridgestone e6+ ball. So, I toddled off to the closest sporting goods store and purchased 2 dozen, to give them a try. Being a senior and needing extra distance, I was pleasantly surprised. They added about 15 much needed yards to my drives.

Of course, as with every golf ball, there are performance PROs and CONs that need to be considered. For this ball:

PRO: Extra distance, straightness (due to reduced spin) and softness.

CON: Lack of short game spin

I really enjoy the soft feel on a well struck hit with this ball, and the extra roll on the drives. However, adjustments were required around the green because of the lack of spin. I don’t spin the ball much, so I had to change one club in additional loft for all the various distances of short approach shots. Without the additional loft, the ball was running well past the pin. Now I play more “pitch and run” shots.

It will continue to be my ball for 2010.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention, they’re about half the price of the Titleist Pro V1.

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callaway golf clubs prices
Callaway Golf Clubs UK Buyers Guide: Callaway Fusion, Callaway Big Bertha, Callaway Big Bertha Diablo and Callaway X-Series Golf Clubs. Find the best UK prices on Callaway Drivers, Fairways, Hybrids, Irons and Wedges.