Tag Archives: golf

Kyle Groth, CEO of Whiskers

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Rick is joined this week on ‘Tech of Sports’ by Kyle Groth, CEO of Whiskers.

Whiskers’ Made-in-the-USA golf laces coordinate in style and color with the footwear and apparel brands PGA Tour players and amateur golfers’ wear. Crafted with ultra-durable poly-nylon tech weave and high-grade aglets, they are available in multiple styles, flat and oval shapes, and 30- to 45-inch lengths. Best sellers include navy and light blue, orange and white, berry and black, green and blue, and purple and pink. They also come in color palettes of college and professional sports teams.

“PGA Tour players and golfers worldwide are paying more attention to how they look. As an accent brand, Whiskers subtly adds to their unique personalities without being too loud.”

“Whiskers is reimagining a category that’s been long overlooked yet is now becoming an essential part of premium wardrobes,” says Groth. “Tour players are taking charge by personalizing and dressing up their shoes in fashionable and fun ways.”

The company plans to similarly outfit caddies, LPGA Tour players and social media influencers. Customizing laces is also on Whiskers’ roadmap.

In November, 2021 Whiskers entered the $84B annual golf economy that saw rounds climb more than 10% over 2020 with millennials – who especially relish self-expression that Whiskers laces promote – representing one of the fastest growing golf segments. Sales of golf equipment, apparel and accessories measurably rose in 2021.

In addition to golf, Whiskers designs and manufactures laces for dress and casual shoes, sneakers and boots. Overall, the company is creating a movement in becoming the world’s most iconic, inspirational, aspirational and ubiquitous premium footwear accessory.

Pete Charleston, Co- founder and President GolfLogix

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What’s new from GolfLogix?

Pete Charleston, Co-founder and President stops by ‘Tech of Sports’ this week.

Charleston co-founded Premium Cigars International and helped take the company public on the Nasdaq. Charleston served as vice president of sales for Premium Cigars International, where he successfully launched an in-store humidor program in over 10,000 retail outlets, negotiating contracts representing over 25,000 retail locations and managed 50 sales reps. Charleston now leads GolfLogix’s marketing, sales, and business development efforts and helped successfully negotiate the acquisition of GolfLogix by Emigrant Capital Corp. in 2014. Having been in the golf GPS business since its inception in 1999, Charleston is one of the most experienced executives in the Golf GPS industry.

What’s new?

GolfLogix/EZGO are providing a solution to golf course customers that will allow walkers to be tracked in their Textron Fleet Management (TFM) system along with the golf cart riders. GLX built features that show up only if they at an EZGO course.

Benefits to Course

Track walkers on their clubhouse pace management screen
Send page of play, inclement weather, and other types of messages to walkers
Walkers can use GLX App to order food/beverages
Cart riders will see GLX Approach view w/ QR code ability to purchase GLX App and/or GLX Green Books

Benefits to Golfer

Access to all existing GLX App features w/ option to upgrade to Plus
Ability for walkers to order food through the GLX App
Distance to Pin -course will set daily pin position and all walkers will see them in GLX App
Blind shot notifications – golfers will see players in fairway ahead which will add safety

 

Holly Sonders, Golf Personality, Model, Social Media

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Rick is joined this week on “Tech of Sports” by former Golf Channel and FOX Sports broadcaster, Holly Sonders. Her story is an incredible one, rising to fame through golf broadcasting and becoming one of the first “womenpreneurs” in the Sports and modeling world through social media.

Holly is candid and insightful as the former college golfer talks about NIL deals, how she is using social media as a female entrepreneur creating a multi-million dollar business online. Her new love interest with Celebrity Boxer Oscar de la Hoya and how she helped him when he had COVID and was hospitalized a few months ago.

She’s in the tech space as her new NFT just dropped is already priced at over $10k, which includes exclusive access to the NFT community and never before released photos.

That and some great Golf Channel stories. It’s great to catch up with Holly.

 

 

Dr. Stephen Liu, FORME and the Forme Tour

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Rick talks with Dr. Stephen Liu this week, the man behind FORME and the Forme Tour.

FORME is a transformative solution to daily posture training and lifestyle improvement and Dr. Liu. Additionally, Forme has created the PGA Tour sanctioned Forme Tour to help disadvantaged, minority and Canadian players boost their careers. The top 5 point earners are exempt into the Korn Ferry Tour so a good opportunity for a bunch of golfers who need it.

With athletes in mind, Forme, founded by orthopedic surgeon Dr. Liu, created the Core Tee and sports bra designed to correct and train alignment of the spine/neck/shoulder/hip and increase joint movement, reduce injuries, boost recovery and provide better breathing for increased oxygenation intake. It is a sports and lifestyle wearable therapeutic. While Whoop is a wearable, it is purely a diagnostic; Forme is a wearable therapeutic.

The Forme shirt instantly pulls your shoulders down and back, correcting posture and stance for optimal form, comfort and breathing. You don’t have to do anything but put it on. No stretching, no exercising, no charging. Forme trains and nurtures your body’s alignment, giving you posture that allows you to perform, think and live at your highest level while enhancing the fundamental basics of your biomechanics so that you can make the most use of your body.

It quickly became a hit with U.S. Olympic teams, NBA, MLB, and NHL athletes and both the men’s and women’s U.S. national rugby teams. Now dozens of PGA pros, their caddies and trainers are using it including Harold Varner III, Ben Han, Jared Wolfe (exempt on the PGA tour in 2022), Rohan Ramnath and Adam Scott’s caddie John Limonti and leading trainers and instructors. Images of HV3, (including one of him stretching with Forme under his Nike gear) Ben and John are attached. Data from Sheldon Roberts, HV3’s trainer, showing improvement from his clients are also attached.

While created for athletes, Forme has benefits for non-athletes as well as 70% of the population sits at least 6 hours a day in front of a computer or TV or traveling on a plane. Bad posture has become public enemy #1 for both golfers and non-golfers. The shirt is designed as a natural and sustainable solution for anyone with back and neck issues as the wearable therapeutic naturally trains your muscles to always be in correct posture. “I wear the shirt when I’m flying from event to event and when I am training. Sometimes I even sleep in it. The biggest difference I see in my body is good posture from wearing the shirt”-HV3.

Great to talk with Dr. Liu.

 

Bob Gillespie, Co-Author, ‘South Carolina Golf’

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Rick talks to his friend, Bob Gillespie, former sportswriter and now co-author of South Carolina Golf.

For nearly three hundred years, South Carolina has played a vital role in American golf. The first golf clubs in America came from Scotland to Charleston in 1739. Myrtle Beach is sometimes called the “Golf Capital of the World,” with more than eighty golf courses. The Country Club of Charleston produced World Golf Hall of Fame members Henry Picard and Beth Daniel. The 1991 Ryder Cup matches, the “War by the Shore,” took place at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course, also the site of the 2012 and 2021 PGA Championships. Hilton Head’s Harbour Town Golf Links has hosted the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage for more than fifty years. Bob Gillespie and Tommy Braswell detail the history of the game in the Palmetto State.

Bob Gillespie was a senior sportswriter, columnist and golf writer for The State newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, from 1979 to 2010. He won The State’s Ambrose E. Gonzales Award for distinguished journalism in 1988, was Associated Press Sports Editors’ national runner-up in features (2001) and explanatory stories (2009) and was named the Herman Helms Excellence in Media Award winner by the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame in 2019. He and his wife, Jane, live in Columbia.

If you like golf, if you like South Carolina… get this book!

Publisher link: https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9781467145497

Charles Cox, CEO of SwingU

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A golf app, that really gives you a chance at improving your game.

Can a golf app really help improve your game? Charles Cox thinks so. Cox is the CEO of SwingU, an app that features real time feedback, information, and even lessons, all designed to help shave strokes off your game. Cox has blended a perfect mix of golf and technology into one of the most downloaded golf apps on the planet.

Cox joins Rick this week on Tech of Sports.

Golfers who download the app will experience:

GPS and scorecard tracking
A monthly lesson that breaks down your statistics
A golf newsletter in your inbox with the latest news
Free lessons from golf instructors
A chance to sign up for instructional videos and drills/lessons from SwingU approved teachers
A chance to sign up for one-on-one coaching
A platform for coaches to create their own branded app to charge (or not charge) anything for instructional videos for current and future clients

Have a listen and see what SwingU can do for you.

Headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, SwingU is a sports technology and media company focused on golf game improvement. The company owns and operates top-rated smartphone apps across GPS, scorecard, statistics, instruction, social & ball tracing. SwingU Clubhouse publishes an email newsletter reaching hundreds of thousands of golfers daily. Lastly, SwingU Academies develops personalized, branded instruction & training apps for clubs, teachers and academies. For more company information, please visit www.swingu.com.