Uther Supply is a fashionable golf towel brand that is taking courses by storm nationwide.
Uther Supply is a golf towel brand that is helping golfers differentiate their bags from opponents and friends.
Uther’s founder, Dan Erdman, dropped out of university at 21 years old to start the company with only a couple small grants from the Canadian government. His family was concerned about his decision, but as the company began to grow in popularity, their worries began to fade.
Uther is now a leading golf towel supplier.
Two years later after Uther’s founding, Dan Erdman was exclusively working on the business, Erdman was contacted by Dick’s Sporting Goods, Golf Galaxy and Golf Town to sell Uther towels in locations nationwide.
The towels come in an assortment of unique prints and colors. This high fashion towel is three times more absorbent than cotton and dries five times faster.
Uther Supply “Azaleas of Augusta Tour” towel. (Uther Supply)
Pronounced “other,” Uther is still the leading golf towel supplier for major retailers, even amid the pandemic. The towels have a waffle texture that helps wick away grime and dirt on the course while remaining fun and fashionable.
Uther has grown to have five full-time members this year and they have plans of new items to launch in the near future.
Uther represents the brand’s core belief to be unique. Uther leads, other’s follow.
To help professional women golfers track their fitness and monitor potential COVID-19 risks, the LPGA Tour is partnering with Whoop.
The LPGA tour announced on Friday that several partners are assisting the tour with its plans to restart professional women’s golf in the United States. Cambia Health Solutions is providing masks to players, caddies and staff members, and Global Rescue is providing medical advisory support to players who are competing in tournaments. Among the other brands mentioned is a new partner, Whoop, a Boston-based company that has become a major presence in the world of golf over the past year.
Whoop is providing LPGA and Symetra Tour players, caddies and staffers with Whoop 3.0 straps. The PGA Tour partnered with Whoop in June to get straps for its players, caddies and staff members, as well as individuals on the Korn Ferry Tour.
I’m proud to support @lpga and the best women’s golfers in the world. If you can help the men, help the women! 🏌️🏌🏼♀️
Whoop’s 3.0 strap can be worn on a person’s wrist or biceps and it holds a small electronic sensor. The waterproof sensor measures your heart rate over 100 times per second and the amount of strain that your body endures throughout the day. It also measures the quality of your sleep, and over time, Whoop’s algorithms reveal how efficiently your heart and body are working using a free smartphone app. It also measures how much rest you need to recover from the previous day and more.
After studying user-submitted data during the COVID-19 pandemic, Whoop researchers learned that a person’s respiratory rate (how often they breathe as they sleep) often spikes if they become infected with the virus.
Nick Watney saw his Whoop indicated an elevated respiratory rate on the Friday morning of the RBC Heritage and while he felt only mild symptoms, seeing that number encouraged him to get tested before the tournament’s second round. Watney tested positive and withdrew from the event.
On the LPGA tour, Jessica Korda, Nelly Korda and Christina Kim are among the players who already wear a Whoop strap. On the men’s side, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele, Billy Horschel and Rickie Fowler were among the players who wore a Whoop strap before the company partnered with the PGA Tour.
Wearing a Whoop 3.0 strap will not stop someone from contracting COVID-19. But, if it can alert golfers and other people who are asymptomatic but still carrying the virus, golf’s governing bodies want athletes and the people around them to wear the device.
This small devise clips to your belt and tracks every shot you hit, letting Arccos reveals statistics that can help you lower your scores.
Gear: Arccos Caddie Link wearable Price: $99.99
Since the release of its first shot-tracking system in 2014, Arccos has aspired to collect data on every shot golfers hit and then use it to help them play better. Along the way, the screw-in sensors that attached to each club got smaller, and now you can buy grips with the sensors already built into them. Arccos-powered grips became available in Cobra clubs starting in 2017, and Ping made Arccos-enabled grips available starting in 2019.
The user interface and the smartphone app that collects the data have improved too, and the addition of the Arccos Caddie feature was also a massive step forward. Using artificial intelligence, Arccos Caddie 2.0 can make club recommendations based on your tendencies and how the hole lays out, just like seasoned human caddie would.
However, for some golfers, there was a catch: Arccos required golfers to keep their smartphone in their pocket as they played. Using your smartphone’s microphone and gyroscopes, along with its GPS, allowed Arccos to detect when you hit the ball and record the location of that shot. Unfortunately, while many golfers keep their phones handy in their carts or golf bags, many do not like carrying their phones in their pockets. But with the release of the new Arccos Caddie Link, the company is eliminating that problem.
Arccos Caddie Link was first announced in February 2019, and consumers have been able to pre-order it for several months. With it available starting today, those pre-orders will be fulfilled in the order in which they were received.
Arccos Caddie Link clips to your belt, waistband or a pocket. (Arccos)
The unit itself is a black device that is about the same size as a matchbook: 2.5 inches tall, 1.25 inches wide and 0.75 inches thick. It weighs 25 grams and clips onto a belt, a pocket or a waistband.
Before the start of a round, golfers press a button on the Arccos Caddie Link and start the app on their smartphone. Using Bluetooth, the two devices link. At that point, you can put your phone anywhere you like while you play. Arccos Caddie Link detects the clubs you use and your location for each shot. Pressing the button as you stand over the hole records the flag’s position on that hole for the system, allowing it to create more accurate approach and proximity statistics later.
Arccos said the Caddie Link device’s battery lasts for 10 hours. It recharges using a standard micro USB cable.
When your round is complete, Caddie Link sends all of the collected data to the app. The system can show golfers how far they typically hit each club in their bag, where they tend to miss with each club and how different aspects of their game compare to players at various levels. Arccos said that in 2019, the average Arccos Caddie user who played at least five rounds lowered his or her handicap by 4.2 shots.
Every week on the PGA Tour, golfers have their shots tracked by ShotLink, a network that involves scores of volunteers, laser-guided tracking systems and a lot of computer power. It’s state of the art and provides the game’s best players with a detailed look at every aspect of their games, from their average proximity to the hole from specific distances to their percentage of putts made from various ranges.
Recreational golfers do not have access to ShotLink, but a growing number are learning more about their strengths, weaknesses and tendencies thanks to shot-tracking systems. Shot Scope, which is among the most popular in Europe, just released the V3 GPS watch, and it is powerful, easy to use and among the most affordable.
While the previous version of the Shot Scope watch was large and somewhat rigid, the V3 watch looks more like an Apple Watch. While the screen size is 2 millimeters larger (diagonally), the watch itself is 20 millimeters smaller in length and 5 millimeters smaller in width. It is also 4 millimeters thinner. The color screen is easy to read in bright sunlight, and the watch does not inhibit a golf swing. The battery will last 10 hours in the golf mode and more than 10 days when used only as a timepiece.
For golfers who want to be stylish, five band colors are available.
On the course, the Shot Scope V3 show distances to the front, middle and back of the green, as well as distances to hazards. (Shot Scope)
A player does not need to carry a smartphone or have one nearby to use the Shot Scope V3. The watch has its own GPS, and according to Shot Scope, it can accurately determine a player’s position within 30 centimeters on any of the 35,000 courses that come preloaded.
The V3 comes with 16 pre-labeled, screw-in tags that golfers can easily attach to the top of any club. The addition of two extra tags means players who swap out a fairway wood for a driving iron or add an extra wedge depending on the course won’t have to swap out the tags before they play.
There is no syncing of the tags required because each tag uses a unique radio frequency (RFID), so the watch can determine which club is used to play every shot. That information, combined with the GPS location, allows Shot Scope to track a round without a player having to do anything.
The watch provides yardages to the front, middle and back of the green on the hole being played, along with distances to hazards.
Combining GPS and club data allows Shot Scope to create in-depth stats to help golfers improve. (Shot Scope)
After a round is complete, a player can see every shot played on a computer, tablet or a free smartphone app. The system reveals average distance with each club, and thanks to the Pin Collect feature, Shot Scope can determine where the hole is on the green, so it can also reveal things like average proximity to the hole with each club and make-percentage on short, medium and long putts.
In all, there are more than 100 stats available to peruse, and the company said golfers who use the system have reduced their handicap by an average of three shots.
Garmin has been one of the most popular makers of GPS devices for cars, boats and aircraft for years. Using satellites orbiting the Earth that power the Global Positioning System, the company’s devices can pinpoint your location and overlay it on maps, provide you with directions and more.
The company has also made several GPS-enabled watches and devices for golfers too, like the new Approach G62. Two years ago, Garmin ventured into the laser rangefinder category with the Z80. That unit relied on a laser to reveal how far you are from the hole, but then provided extra information based on an internal GPS system.
Today, Garmin has launched the Approach Z82, an updated model that is more accurate and offers more game-enhancing features.
According to Garmin, the Z82’s laser and internal systems can now measure a flag’s distance to within 10 inches from up to 450 yards away. You will see your targets more clearly in the Approach Z82 because the high-resolution OLED display has been improved and colors are more vivid.
To help make hitting the flag with the laser easier, Garmin has improved the ranging function, which means when you press the button on the top of the device and slowly pan from side to side in the direction of the hole, the Approach Z82 does a better (and faster) job of distinguishing the flag from trees and other objects in the background. When you hit the flag, the unit buzzes in your hands and the distances you see in the viewfinder blink.
What really sets the Approach Z82 apart from nearly every other distance measuring device, however, is how it blends the laser and GPS data together.
The Garmin Approach Z82 shows a laser-measured distance to the hole plus GPS-gathered distances to other areas. (Garmin)
After turning it on, the Approach Z82 determines your location using GPS and lists which of its 41,000 pre-loaded courses you are near. After selecting the course and starting your round, when you look inside the viewfinder and hit the flag with the laser, you see the hole you are playing and the yardage to the flag. At the same time, using GPS, the Z82 also displays the distance to the front, center and back of the green. To the left of that information, you can also see an illustrated overhead view of the hole, complete with views of bunkers and hazards, and a yellow arc that shows the distance to the flag.
If you link the Approach Z82 with your smartphone, it can also show wind speed and direction. The unit also has a slope function that determines if your target is uphill or downhill, then provides a PlaysLike distance. In Tournament mode, slope function and PlaysLike are disabled, but the laser still works.
Wearables like Apple Watch are popular, but the Whoop 3.0 strap can help you track exertion, recovery and sleep for better performance.
After Rory McIlroy defeated Xander Schauffele at the WGC-HSBC Champions in November, the two exchanged high-fives and a few words on the green. Rory’s white Nike shirt had a black swoosh on it and Schauffele’s blue shirt was adorned with a black Adidas logo, but each player also wore a black, logo-free band around his right wrist.
Back in April, during the final match of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, Maria Fassi had worn a similar-looking white band. Justin Thomas wore a blue one when he won the CJ Cup in October, and Scott McCarron had one on when he captured the Charles Schwab Cup in November.
The device is a Whoop 3.0 strap, and while none of those stars are paid to use it, Whoop is gaining in popularity and has become the fitness tracker of choice for elite golfers. With lots of people making New Year’s resolutions to improve their fitness and play better golf in 2020, is Whoop right for you?
Wearable devices have been around for years and lots of people like wearing Apple watches, Samsung watches and FitBits because they count your steps, track the calories you burn, measure your heart rate and notify you when your smartphone receives a text message. Using third-party apps, some wearables can provide yardages to the hole and hazards on the course, keep score and track golf stats.
Whoop was founded in 2012 by Will Ahmed, a former captain of the Harvard University squash team, because he was interested in learning more about how hard athletes should train, how they can effectively recover after practices and competitions and how much sleep they needed.
As a result, Whoop takes a different approach than other wearables. It does not have a screen, does not show the time and does not vibrate. Looking at it will not tell you a thing. However, pairing it with your smartphone and opening the Whoop app can reveal highly detailed information about how hard your body is working, the quality of your sleep and how recovered you are from the previous day.
Justin Thomas wearing a Whoop 3.0 strap during the 2019 Presidents Cup. (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
Why Whoop appeals to pro golfers
The Whoop strap holds a small electronic sensor that measures your heart rate over 100 times per second. Instead of tracking steps, it measures the amount of strain that your body endures throughout the day from things like exercise, stress and anxiety. Using sophisticated algorithms, it learns how efficiently your heart and body are working and how much strain you should take on based on how recovered you are after resting.
Whoop’s performance marketing manager, A.J. Baker, feels that the information Whoop collects can be especially useful to plane-hopping, fitness-minded athletes like McIlroy, Schauffele, Thomas and Scott Stallings, who has used a Whoop for over two years. Golf requires a combination of physical skills, mental focus and concentration. There is pressure to practice and grind away on the range, and while practice is necessary, golfers, like other athletes, sometimes don’t listen to what their bodies are telling them.
“Think about a professional golfer’s week. Starting on Sunday, after finishing a round, a pro has got to get somewhere else on either a red-eye flight or early the next morning so he can play in practice rounds and pro-ams,” Baker said. “A lot of guys who wear Whoop are seeing the (recovery) effects of taking a red-eye flight, and now most of them won’t take that flight. You might feel a difference that you can push through, but the system really highlights how bad those things are for you.”
Aside from adjusting their travel habits, Baker said a lot of players have tailored their off-course training plans and workloads based on Whoop findings to ensure they are rested and fresh for Thursdays, Fridays and the weekend. Golfers are using Whoop straps to learn how hard they can push themselves and discover their ideal combination of activity, nutrition and rest.
Sliding the battery pack over the strap charges the device while you wear it. (Whoop)
The strap is waterproof and a fully-charged battery lasts about four to five days. However, because the strap is meant to be worn 24 hours a day, Whoop developed a very clever system to recharge the unit. Instead of taking it off and plugging in the strap to a charger, you plug in a small battery pack, charge the pack, and then slide it over the strap to add power while it’s on your wrist.
The elastic band that holds the unit in place is very thin and has a texture on the inside to help reduce sliding. Worn about an inch above your wrist, it does not impede your golf swing. There are also bicep straps available if you don’t want to wear Whoop on your wrist.
What I learned that could help you
It takes about a week for Whoop to start giving your meaningful data. Once it has learned how your heart and body handle exercise, the stress of your day and your sleep patterns, it starts to make recommendations. Here’s what I learned:
My average daily Strain in December was 9.1, so after a strong Recovery percentage on the 14th, I was ready to take on more Strain. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
What time is it? Whoop does not have a display, so if you wear the strap instead of your watch, as I did for a month, you will need to look at your phone or find clocks to tell the time. Wearing my watch on one hand and the Whoop strap on the other felt odd at first, but after about a week I got used to it.
Just one or two drinks can ruin your recovery. After recording good recovery scores for several days, I had two drinks at a holiday party in late December. The following day my recovery score was 29 percent. I wasn’t hungover and felt fine, but the system revealed that my body was not ready for a big workout or excessive strain.
Not all sleep is the same. Getting enough sleep is important, but the quality of my sleep was just as important. I recorded my highest recovery scores, 97 percent, twice, when I slept an hour less than Whoop recommended. On each night, however, I slept deeply. I had taken Melatonin on each of those nights, so I learned that when I really needed rest, popping a Melatonin tablet helped me.
Soreness from working out is avoidable. From mid-November through December I avoided exercising significantly over the Strain Coach feature’s recommendations. I lifted weights, took a few Spinning classes and spent time on the elliptical trainer and never woke up feeling overly tired or sore. I never overdid it, I consciously tried to improve my recovery by getting more sleep and felt better.
The device is free, but you still pay for it. Whoop gives users a strap for free when they commit to paying for a six-month membership to the mobile app at $30 per month. That’s $180, and if you don’t extend the membership to the app, the strap is worthless. Twelve and 18-month membership commitments can reduce your monthly costs, but this level of sophistication is not free.
So can wearing a Whoop 3.0 strap help your performance on the course? Maybe. It will not help you fade a 6-iron over a bunker to a tucked hole location, but if you take tournament season seriously and want to be physically at your best on specific days, Whoop can teach you how hard to train and how to recover wisely, and that might help you save a few strokes.
