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Golf Genie – Tee to green pocket guide is a nifty little book that made it’s debut at the 2010 PGA Merchandise Show.

The concept is great, it’s a quick reference guide to whole slew of things that sometimes slip your mind when on the golf course.

For example,  and I swear this happens every time I play, whenever I’m in a green side bunker, I ALWAYS forget where the ball should be in your stance (trivia question: Where SHOULD the ball go?).

I used to ask my playing partners, but I quickly learned that some folks have no idea and just give you the ball placement they use.. which isn’t always correct.

Golf Genie is broken down into three different sections, the basics, advanced shots and Quick Fixes.

Under basics there’s pages of information on tee to green fundamentals. Some of the topics covered are; selecting the right club,  average club distances, common ball flights, grip and pre-shot preparation, straight, draw, fade shots, and  short game basics.

It’s good and easily digestible stuff. They illustrate and briefly describe what they’re discussing. The Pitching section, for example has five steps:

1. The “pitch shot” spends more time in the air than on ground. Use lofted club-sand wedge or lob wedge
2. Grip firmer
3. Slightly open stance
4. Ball position slightly forward from middle
5. Weight on left side 60/40

Advanced shots are the next segment of the Golf Genie and it covers six different shots as well as pointers on how to achieve more distance from your clubs. The shots discussed are:

• Up/Down & Sidehill
• Lob Shot
• Plugged Lie
• Trees, Rough
• Wind, Hardpan
• Advanced Bunker

Similar to the basics there’s corresponding illustrations and some have numbered steps.

Quick fixes cover the major issues one can stumble on during a round of golf. They are:

• Pull Hook
• Hook
• Pull
• Push
• Slice
• Push Slice
• Thin/Fat
• Shank

Each errant shot in the Golf Genie is broken down into two sections. The first section is called the fault and it explains the reason(s) why the shot is occurring. The second section is the Fix section that gives you pointers, complete with simple steps and illustrations on how to correct the shot. But, as you are aware, knowing and doing are two totally different beasts…

The Golf Genie booklet retails for $14.99 and they’ve recently released an Iphone app for $4.99. In my opinion, either option is worth the investment. Having instant access to game improvement tips and pointers while on the golf course is invaluable, you never know when it might salvage a round or shave off a few extra strokes.

David Leadbetter’s My Personal Golf Trainer for the Nintendo Wii was unveiled in the U.S. at the 2010 PGA Merchandise Show.

It looks like a very cool and very useful tool for golfers who are looking to improve their game without having to brave the elements or find time to head to the range.

Incorporating David Leadbetter’s Seven Steps to a Better Golf Swing, “My Personal Golf Trainer” analyzes: grip, posture, alignment, ball position, coil, swing shape, and tempo. Offering instructional videos and drills within each of these seven basics, players can improve their swing step-by-step and then graduate from training mode to the practice range and onto a full 18-hole game where after each shot the golfer has the option to get feedback from David Leadbetter and suggested drills for improvement.

Taking advantage of the new gyroscopically controlled MotionPlus controller, introduced in June 2009, David Leadbetter’s “My Personal Golf Trainer” is the first home golf product to record and analyze a full golf swing from address to backswing, impact to follow through, in three dimensions and over time. It then offers the opportunity to compare the users own swing with an ideal swing to identify areas for improvement. Swings can then be replayed in 3D so the user can view his/her swing from any angle for detailed analysis.

This trainer then goes further and provides step by step corrective drills which it guides you through in an interactive process. To date, a few golf training devices have been available for the home, but have only given basic feedback limited to just the impact portion of a swing. “My Personal Golf Trainer” is comparable with professional golf trainers costing thousands of dollars and similarly provides complete analysis of clubhead speed, angle and force through the entire swing process, and includes weight transfer, swing plane and tempo.

My Personal Golf Trainer features an hour worth of golf video featuring David Leadbetter demonstrating a series of swing drills and fourteen interactive drills designed to correct various aspects of your golf swing.

Every swing you take is analyzed and gives you immediate feedback on what you’re doing wrong and how to improve it. Once swing faults are identified, David Leadbetter’s My Personal Golf Trainer suggests drills that will improve the particular fault that’s been identified in your golf swing.

According to the gents at the booth, it is incredibly accurate, the Wii Motion Plus is a gyroscope designed to give you one to one feedback capturing a detailed swing that some of the big dogs in the space cannot duplicate.

As you play and get some swings logged, the software will customize for you a series of golf drills for you to follow to aid in improvement.

Presently the software only offers full swing golf tips, evaluation and drills and no short game or shot shaping drills or training are included.

That is something that they’re going to be implementing in the next iteration of the software.

Something else that broke my heart, this release of the David Leadbetter’s My Personal Golf Trainer is for right handed golfers only, there’s been no functionality built into it for us southpaws.. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? First club manufacturers and now software companies! Curses on you all!

David Leadbetter’s My Personal Golf Trainer release date is sometime in March, 2010 with a suggested retail price of $99 and they’ll be available in golf shops and sporting goods retailers throughout the country.

Something that shocked me and something, from a business standpoint, I disagree with, they’re not going to be selling them in electronic retailer or gaming stores. They’re very adamant that David Leadbetter’s My Personal Golf Trainer is NOT a game, but a training tool for golfers who are looking to improve their game.

Does this look like something you’d be interested in using and if so, do you think it’s worth the $99 SRP?

Here’s more 2010 PGA Merchandise Show posts.

Sumi-G was the recipient of five different “Best of 2009″ awards, so naturally I needed to visit the booth during the 2010 PGA Merchandise Show (Well that and my blogger buddy Tony Korologos was manning the booth ).

I met up with Tony and decided to interview him blogger ‘a blogger and get the low down on Sumi-G

OGB: So, Tony, tell me about Sumi-G.
Sumi-G: My first exposure to Sumi-G was at the 2009 Pga Merchandise Show when I met the owner of the company, Marius Kvinge. He’s a Norwegian guy with a very dry sense of humor.

I had had an appointment with these guys last year to talk to them and I blew them off to play golf.  So on the way out of the show, I saw the booth and thought  “oh man, I’ve gotta go see these guys.” So, I stopped by and started talking to them and it turns out they had launched the entire product line at the show. The company didn’t exist six months prior.

During the conversation, I asked Marius where he was from and he said “Salt Lake City.” To which I said “I’m from Salt Lake City.”  I mentioned that he and I should play golf together sometime and asked him where he played and he said “I play Bonneville every Thursday.” To which I responded “I play Bonneville every Thursday, when is your tee time?” He said “8:30am.” Well, I play 9:16am and I was shocked that we’ve been playing the same course on the same day only 46 minutes apart and we’ve never met each other.

So he got me some products and I blogged about it and I became a big supporter of their product line because it’s so cool. Over the last year, the owner and I became golf buddies and eventually he said why don’t you just join the company… so I did!

OGB:Where did the idea from the headcovers come from?
Sumi-G: The headcovers came as a result of the frustration of dealing with crappy head covers. You have the sock kind and the big fat 460cc driver and you try to get the sock over it and you cant, you put the driver between your legs and try to pull it over and it doesn’t work. Then you have the pom pom ones that go through and come out the other side leaving a big hole and there’s a lot of klunky, bulky, ugly headcover designs, so these came as a result of wanting to have a better, easier to use headcover.

Neat thing about this is that it’s a one handed operation, you scoop it up and put it on with one hand and you don’t have to go through the hassle that you do with other headcovers.

OGB: Are there different models of headcovers?
Sumi-G: No, not exactly, there are headcovers for drivers, fairway woods and hybrids, this year we’re introducing a white version of the headcover whereas last year we only offered the black.

OGB: I noticed there’s different logos on the headcovers, what’s the story with that?
Sumi-G: One of our big initiatives for 2010 is custom logoing on our head covers for higher end golf courses, country clubs and other green grass establishments. Minimum order will be 30.

OGB: What other Sumi-G products are there?
Sumi-G: There’s our fine leather scorecard wallet with the custom logoing, there’s our forged stainless steel divot tool with a magnetic ball marker that’s interchangeable with the belts. Back to the custom logoing, you can get your logo put on the ball marker and since it’s interchangeable, all of the sudden you have a logo belt and divot tool. There’s also the Sumi-G money clip with custom logoing.

We have a line of Sumi-G shoe, shag and hold-all bags. There’s also a Sumi-G club brush that’s similar to a nautical choke cleat that you can affix to your towel when you’re not using it and the Sumi-G logo hat.

OGB: Anything big happening this year regarding new products coming out?
Sumi-G: Well, when we got here and started setting up, Wednesday night at about 5pm, we drove to the airport to pick up a shipment of the new belts, all of these belts are new as of two days ago. None of them have ever been offered before, they’re all brand new.

OGB: Could I purchase one of the belts now?
Sumi-G: We’re taking orders now and shipping in about six weeks, some of these are still prototypes and we’re in the process of tweaking a few of the designs.

OGB: Lastly, what does Sumi-G stand for?
Sumi-G: Well, Sumi-E is Japanese Romanji for for East Asian Ink and Wash Painting. Sumi-E is associated with Zen practice and is considered some of the highest quality art where the goal is to capture the essence or soul of the object. We dropped the E and replaced it with G. The name is meant to convey the quality of our products.

Tony Korologos writes HookedOnGolfBlog and was a participant in the 2010 Battle of the Golf Blogs

Our friends over at Growing Bolder posted up a pretty cool video about the REAL J. Peterman. He stated a golf apparel company with $500 and grew it to $75 million and then lost it all. At the 2010 PGA Merchandise Show, he and John O’Hurley who plays J. Peterman on Seinfeld announced the rebirth of the clothing line. Check out the video.