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Surfing to a course near you

By |  July 8, 2014

GolfBoardBubba Watson has his hovercraft, but surfing legend Laird Hamilton thinks the GolfBoard is the next big mode of transportation on the golf course.

Voted Best New Product at the 2014 PGA Merchandise Show, the GolfBoard takes the idea of a skateboard or a snowboard and applies it to the golf course. Details on the product can be found at GolfBoard.com.

For superintendents who wonder what the aftermath of a foursome “surfing” down a steep, wet fairway would look like, former superintendent Jim Black assures them that they have nothing to worry about. The boards have 4-wheel-drive positraction, 9-inch turf tires and apply a quarter of the pressure of a normal golf cart.

“The GolfBoard was on the drawing board for two years, and they always kept the superintendent involved,” says Black, media director for GolfBoard and a former contributing editor for Golfdom. “It’s built with turf tires. Any superintendent who sees it is just going to say, ‘Wow.’”

Production of the GolfBoard began last month with an initial run of 500 boards retailing at $3,995. That run was sold out before they even came off the line.

Black believes that the GolfBoard could be a product that would draw a new crowd to the golf course.

“It has a ‘wow’ factor. And the pro shop can charge $10 to $15 more per rental,” he says.

The GolfBoard can travel 15 miles on one charge, or 36 holes with a 180-pound passenger on a normal golf course. Black believes that one day, superintendents might even look into getting their own GolfBoard.

“I could see, as a superintendent, going on my morning run, searching for disease, checking irrigation,” Black says.

This is posted in Online Exclusive

About the Author: Seth Jones

Seth Jones, a 18-year veteran of the golf industry media, is Editor-in-Chief of Golfdom magazine and Athletic Turf. A graduate of the University of Kansas School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Jones began working for Golf Course Management in 1999 as an intern. In his professional career he has won numerous awards, including a Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association (TOCA) first place general feature writing award for his profile of World Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman and a TOCA first place photography award for his work covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In his career, Jones has accumulated an impressive list of interviews, including such names as George H.W. Bush, Samuel L. Jackson, Lance Armstrong and Charles Barkley. Jones has also done in-depth interviews with such golfing luminaries as Norman, Gary Player, Nick Price and Lorena Ochoa, to name only a few. Jones is a member of both the Golf Writers Association of America and the Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association. Jones can be reached at sjones@northcoastmedia.net.


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