PRESS ROOM

Try Before You Buy

 Reprinted from Golf Digest

This tour trailer caters to regular golfers.

Golfers in the Mid-Atlantic region this past summer got a taste of the custom-fitting services long available only to tour pros: They got their very own "tour trailer." Founded by fitting veteran Jerry Donahue and partner Larry Bleich, The Golf Tour Trailer and Performance Studios is a "pro shop on wheels" that travels to golf facilities in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina, conducting demo days and providing full-service custom-fitting. Stocked with more than 500 demo woods and nearly 1,000 sample "fitting irons" from 20 major golf-club makers, the van is staffed by five professional club fitters.

"The golfers we see are dying to compare Titleist's 975J driver vs. the Ping TiSI, to hit Orlimar's hipTi against TaylorMade's 360," says Donahue. "We can clock their swing and tell them exactly what shaft and loft they need." For $30 to $60 (a fee that's waived if you purchase clubs), golfers can hit them all during a one-hour fitting analysis, often with the head club pro working the tee line and providing tips. Want to keep your old Ti club head but like how that Fujikura shaft performs? Inside the big rig is a full repair shop: "We can re-shaft a club and have the guy hitting it on course in 15 minutes," says Donahue.

In late January the Tour Trailer will set up shop for about six weeks in the Myrtle Beach area, with franchises likely to come in the Southeast and Rocky Mountain regions next year. (For details, phone 866-TOURFIT or go to http://www.golftourtrailer.com/.)

Golfers in other parts of the country can take their own test-drives at one of the many "mega demo days" conducted by leading golf facilities. Haggin Oaks Golf Course in Sacramento, Calif., holds two of these events a year, each attended by up to 8,000 golfers and more than 60 golf companies. With free buckets of range balls and each manufacturer set up in its own booth, Haggin Oaks does more business in one weekend than most golf shops do in a year. The spring event is usually held on Masters weekend, with a fall demo day in October. Phone 916-481-4653.

Last summer, several golf facilities around the country hosted Golf-Fest 2001. These hands-on events feature demos, a golf-fashion show, a learning center for instruction, even a kids area with activities, games and contests. For news about Golf-Fest's 2002 schedule, visit http://www.golf-fest.com/ early next year.
Mega demo days are held at private clubs as well. The Desert Mountain Club in Scottsdale conducts two a year in conjunction with member tournaments in November and May. Forty different vendors are on hand, including several tour vans that can build custom-fit sets in a day. Envious? Buttonhole your club president or head pro for your club's demo-day options for 2002.

Off-course retailers also conduct mega demo days. Among the biggest are the events held at Carl's Golfland in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. On six consecutive Saturdays starting in late February, six to eight golf manufacturers offer test drives and new-product introductions at Golfland's two locations. For details, phone 877-412-2757. Other major golf retailers -- from Edwin Watts to Golfsmith to Golf & Ski Warehouse -- host their own demo extravaganzas; check with your local golf shop to find out if and when you can test-drive new clubs and avail yourself of special custom-fitting services.

Most of the major golf manufacturers are stepping up their own demo-day programs. In addition to its snazzy new club fitting cart and launch monitor and some 1,500 demo days held across the country each year, in December Callaway Golf is opening an exclusive fitting center at the Golf Resort at Indian Wells in the Palm Springs area. The club fitting center is modeled on the equipment used to fit Callaway's staff tour pros at its state-of-the-art test facility in Carlsbad, Calif. (There's also an outpost in Las Vegas.) Regular golfers can have their swings analyzed by high-speed cameras and other cutting-edge technology, with fully customized clubs ready within days. Phone 888-223-7842 or go to http://www.callawaygolf.com/.

Virtually every major golf-club manufacturer holds hundreds of demo days each year. TaylorMade has a fleet of four custom-fitting trailers that spend up to three weeks each in about 40 markets. The campaign begins in January in the Sunbelt states, then heads north as the season progresses. Orlimar has three mobilized tech vans -- one each for the West Coast, Midwest and East Coast -- staffed by fitting pros that custom-build clubs on site. Titleist and Cobra also do demo days and custom-fitting on the road all year long; a demo-day locator is continually updated at http://www.titleist.com. For a comprehensive listing of demo-day programs of the major club companies, click here.

--Compiled by Barry Salberg and Scott Smith