A brief walk through of the Japan golf show.
Posted by TourSpecGolf on Friday, February 14, 2014
This past weekend, we attended the 2014 Vancouver Golf Show, but half way across the world in Japan, the Japan Golf Fair was also being held at the Tokyo Big Site! We’ve featured Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 of the Japan Golf Fair last year as well as some Japanese Market only equipment including the Taylormade New Distance Gloire, Yonex EZONE XP, Callaway Legacy Black irons and Dunlop XXIO 8. This year, we also saw a bunch of Japanese brand manufacturers which we’ll highlight below as well as the big North American manufacturers, which we’ll start with! Above, you’ll see a walkthrough of the 2014 Japan Golf Fair from TourSpecGolf!
Callaway Golf Japan was there with one of the larger booths at the Japan Golf Fair promoting the Big Bertha and Big Bertha Alpha drivers. They even had a Sir Isaac Newton mascot around the area! In addition to that, the X2 Hot, or “300 Yard Spoon” as it is known in Japan and the new Speed Regime golf balls were also featured products. No news on any new Legacy Black irons from the show though!
Odyssey Golf Japan was also at a part of the Callaway Golf Japan booth and offered a very rare and limited edition (only 350 pieces available) for the Japanese market putter – the Damascus Grand Limited Putter. This is suppose to be true damascus steel, which in modern days, is extremely rare and expensive (at least a few thousand dollars!). Damascus steel putters provide an extremely soft feel and is very accurate. We’ll have more on this in the future when we find more information!
Nike Golf Japan also had a very well designed, clean looking both. Guests were greeted with an oversized Covert 2.0 driver centrepiece which led to all of the new 2014 Nike Golf equipment, including the new MOD putters. We’ve seen many of equipment released at the Nike Innovation Summit, but the Nike Apparel and golf shoes were also featured at their booth.
Taylormade Golf Japan was also at the Japan Golf Fair and promoting their Loft Up campaign! Not only did they have all of the latest equipment at the booth, but they also offered guests a full driving range simulator to see the differences when they Loft Up and get instant feedback on all the distances, spin rates and more with all the latest Taylormade Equipment. Although some lines of equipment might be the same among both the Japanese and North American golf markets, their look is definitely a little difference – just take a look at the Japanese Market SLDR 430 Tour Preferred driver! The Jetspeed line of woods is also offered in black in Japan as well, instead of the matte grey crown/silver heel in North America.
In addition to golf equipment, golf fashion was also a huge part of the Japan Golf Fair. Nike Golf Japan had their apparel collection on display and so did Adidas Golf Style Japan, which we’ve featured earlier in the week! During the Golf Fair, they held a fashion show with a full catwalk to show their latest spring and summer 2014 collection.
Adidas Golf Japan also introduced their interpretation of the new AdiZero One golf shoe. The BOA technology has been VERY popular in Japan and in the Japanese golf shoe market and it has been utilized in the Japanese Market AdiZero One. Instead of tying shoe laces, all you have to do is wind up the BOA wheel and it will tighten up your golf shoe! The BOA wheel is located on the top of the tongue – we first saw this technology used in snowboarding boots and in some pairs of golf shoes offered by Footjoy last year.
As a golf shoe that prides itself on being lightweight, we’re not sure how much weight this will add to the AdiZero One! It shouldn’t be too much though because they’ve even taken the BOA technology and placed it into golf gloves – no more velcro in this line of golf gloves offered by Adidas! Check out the photo above!
We also got a chance to get a sneak peek at the Titleist Japan VG3 set of irons as well as the brand new 2014 Vokey Cold Forged Wedges – we’ll have more details on these wedges in a future post, but they look great! Take a look at the photo below. There were so many more cool items at the Japan Golf Fair that we can talk about, but we’ll just let the photos do the talking from now on. Take a look at the other cool things we found at the Japan Golf Fair below and make sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think! And be sure to visit TourSpecGolf for even more on the Japan Golf Fair like Romaro and ModArt!
Asics and Dunlop collaborated together to create a line of golf shoes
Mizuno Golf Japan also uses BOA Technology in their new GENEM XLITE golf shoe.
This is the driver that Hideki Matsuyama uses – a Srixon 725!
Some very colourful golf bags and grips seen at the Japan Golf Fair!
Equipment by Buchi, RoMaRo and Ryoma
And finally, some Mizuno Golf Japan equipment featuring the JPX EIII and MP-Craft drivers!
Source: Japan Golf Fair, TourSpecGolf