ORLANDO — Just like in any industry, it’s harder than ever to create a new product that impresses. Technology has advanced so rapidly in many areas of golf, it seems like most things have already been innovated. But yet every year, companies impress us as we walk the floor of the PGA Merchandise Show.

It was another optimistic week at the PGA Show as tens of thousands from the industry flooded the aisles of Orange County National Convention Center to find the products that will help elevate their game. These were the best new golf products we saw at this year’s PGA Show.

A simple flat putting mat for your home? Maybe that’s in your budget. But one where you can create different breaks and slopes within seconds? That one is probably out of reach, right? In fact, the PuttOut AirBreak is a seemingly high-tech golf training product that is actually unapologetically simple. The eight-foot putting mat is flanked by eight inflatable air bags that allow you to create a seemingly infinite assortment of different putts—right-to-left, left-to-right, up- and downhill, all of it priced at a reasonable price ($369, visit here). The device is also supported by a free app that reads the grade of putts so you can understand how a 2-percent break compares to a 4-percent one. ”How many truly flat putts do you get out there? And if you don’t have $15,000-$20,000 for a Zen Green Stage or PuttView, which don’t get me wrong, are incredible, but are slightly out of touch for people like me,” said PuttOut’s Andrew Evans. “So we wanted to make a product that, you know, was proud of the fact that there’s not much tech going on. It’s very well designed and very simple.” —Sam Weinman

MGI Ai Navigator GPS+: Smart remote-controlled carts with GPS distances https://www.golfdigest.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2025/1/MGI Navigator Ai GPS+.jpg

COVID taught a lot of golfers that walking is a great way to enjoy the game. Packing your own bag or pushing a cart, however, can be onerous for some and have a negative impact on their game. That’s what makes remote-controlled carts a boon to those who want to hoof it without lugging their sticks around. Among the many options on the market, one of the more intriguing at this year’s PGA Show is the MGI Ai Navigator GPS+. The remote-controlled cart boasts an integrated GPS system built into a high-resolution four-inch full color all-weather touchscreen display which will connect you to over 40,000 courses worldwide. The GPS system delivers fast and accurate distances to all parts of the course. This clear view of the hole will be further enhanced by the complimentary interactive MGI app. The app comes with maps, scoring and can be your MGI Sureshot handheld device which can be taken anywhere. Distances to the front, middle and back of the green are provided and golfers can move the hole location on the screen to get exact distances to the pin. There is also an option to get distances to hazards such as water and bunkers. Consider it your regular caddy except you don’t have to engage in idle chit-chat. The handheld remote can move the cart is all four directions and is controllable from more than 100 yards away, allowing you to grab your putter and send it off to the next tee. The battery is a 24-vol lithium battery than lasts 36-plus holes when fully charged. The cart, which comes with bottle holder, umbrella holder and phone holder and is easily folded and fits neatly in the trunk of any car ($1,895, us.mgigolf.com). —E. Michael Johnson

A new swing-sensor system from SkyGolf is an important step forward in the game-improvement market. Users can now capture not just shot data but 3-D views of every swing either during an actual round or on a simulator with the GameTraX 360 system. The company’s new sensors, which it calls SuperTags, are inserted into every club similar to other products on the market, but these sensors capture club data, too, and that info is sent to the company’s app. Users can overlay any swing and compare your best swings with the not-so-great ones. You can basically replay your round afterward as if you’re viewing ShotLink data with strokes-gained analysis and various other statistical measurements. SkyGolf’s new product seems like a potential game-changer for the industry. —Stephen Hennessey

Nike x Hyperice boots: “Pre-covery” tech coming to golf https://www.golfdigest.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2025/1/hyperice nike boots.jpg

In recent years, the concept of athletic recovery has gained mainstream attention, in part fueled by the popularity of massage guns and high-tech compression boots. But have you considered the concept of “pre-covery,” when you warm up your body for activity? That’s the term used by Tobie Hatfield, Nike’s Senior Director of Athlete Innovation, to describe The Nike x Hyperice boot, which is scheduled to launch later in 2025. On display at the PGA Show, the boot is a wearable shoe that uses dynamic air compression, similar to the tech found in the popular Normatec leg sleeves, which helps prime your feet and ankles for activity. Additionally, the shoe has a warming element, which drives heat into your foot and ankle, helping it feel lighter and looser. In testing the shoe, it was this heat—intense at times when at the highest setting—that seemed to prime the feet for movement. After a short five-minute session, my ankles and Achilles, in particular, felt noticeably lighter and more mobile. Tom Kim agrees. “I could tell the difference immediately, I’m so much lighter on my feet after wearing the Nike x Hyperice boot in the morning,” he says. Hyperice has not yet announced a price for the boot. —Drew Powell

Two years ago lifelong friends from Chicago, Zach Haber and Aaron Goldschmidt, combined very different careers to come up with one of the more innovative products you’ll see. The lowercase golf bag is a briefcase meets a golf bag meets a backpack—with eight modular dividers and a secure system that locks each club into place. The duo took the past two years to iterate on the design and added a number of ergonomic improvements and practical features like zippers for your laptop and water bottle, etc. Really cool additions are also a pocket that fits your phone so you can take videos of yourself on the range or in the simulator. Perhaps the coolest thing is a hidden pannier system pocket that allows you to strap your bag onto the side of a bicycle, and after a number of prototypes, the designers insured there is minimal interference with pedaling. For urban golfers riding a bike around their city, lugging golf clubs is now possible, thanks to lowercase golf bags. The company launched their Kickstarter last week and is already 70 percent to their goal. You can contribute and order your bags now for summer delivery ($160). –SH

Pure Drive Practice Glove: A simple way to fix your grip once and for all https://www.golfdigest.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2025/1/Pure Drive Practice Glove JD-Cuban.JPG

JD Cuban

One of the last things any golfer wants to hear is that it’s time to make a grip change. Adam Kolloff, one of Golf Digest’s Best Teachers in Massachusetts, found a way to do the dirty work without involving, well, you. His new training aid, the Pure Drive Practice Glove ($50, puredriveproducts.com), features a couple of straps and one wrap that puts your hands in the right place on the handle without any conscious thought. The straps set the shaft more in the fingers of the gloved hand, and the wrap sets the wrist of the dominant hand in a cupped position. The adjustments make it easy to hold the club correctly and swing it freely, Kolloff says. The cabretta-leather glove comes in a variety of hand sizes including junior models. Order one before the end of January and get $10 off. –Ron Kaspriske

Tee Time Trainer: Gamifying practice with a simple app https://www.golfdigest.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2025/1/tee time trainer app.jpg

Practice isn’t generally regarded as ‘fun.’ On top of being labor-intensive, if you’re practicing without a plan, you may not see—or understand—the payoff. Tee Time Trainer is a free mobile app that gamifies practice, prompting the user with drills to practice one skill at a time with mini game-like challenges. The app can make use of rangefinders and launch monitors, but also explains how to measure accuracy with your fingers—a key feature for beginners who might not have any technology beyond the clubs in their bag. With input from instruction author Jon Sherman, TTT makes practice fun without sacrificing purpose. —Jared Goldstein

It’s difficult to pass on any golf-bag introduction by Sun Mountain, but the new E-Series is particularly noteworthy if for no other reason than the E stands for Eclipse, a nod to a bag model Sun Mountain first introduced in the mid 1980s.The latest stand bag line encompasses three models: the E-2.5, E-3.5 and E-3.5 14-way. Each feature an internal compression bottom—another step in Sun Mountain’s continual improvement on the patented technology they first brought to market nearly 40 years ago. This new bottom eliminates the standard foot mechanism that activates stand bag legs and uses a two-piece hinged bottom in its place. It’s also more cart-friendly when the bag is used on riding carts or push carts. The E-Series will be available Jan. 31 with retail prices of $249.99, $269.99, and $279.99, respectively. Colors available include black and navy, navy/white/red, snow camo, and the limited-edition forest/sport navy/red as a tribute to the original Eclipse golf bag. –EMJ

Bushnell ProX3+ Link: A rangefinder and caddie in one https://www.golfdigest.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2025/1/Bushnell ProX3+ LINK_hero.jpg

This rangefinder might save you from yourself. The new Bushnell ProX3+ Link rangefinder will sync with data from any ForeSight launch monitor or the Bushnell Launch Pro to not just give you a yardage—but a calculated recommendation on which club you should pull. Based on all the data from the shots you’ve taken on the launch monitor and input into your MyBag profile, the ProX3+ Link factors in the elements like elevation and wind direction/speed to suggest the right club for you. Yes, rangefinders are getting smarter than us ($599). —SH

Blue Delta Jeans: Custom-fitting comes to apparel https://www.golfdigest.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2025/1/blue delta jeans.jpeg

With custom fittings on the rise in the equipment space, the soft-goods side of the golf industry remains a one-size-fits-most business. Blue Delta Jeans is trying to flip the script with an intriguing business model that began more than a decade ago when NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) moved countless seamstress jobs in northern Mississippi to Mexico. The move suddenly forced 3,000 unemployed seamstresses within a 50-mile radius to reconsider their options. “What a lot of people don’t know about northern Mississippi is it’s one of the seamstress capitals of the world,” said Noah Richardson, Blue Delta’s director of sales. “There’s a good chance some of the items in your house came out of this area.” Co-founders Josh West and Nick Weaver weren’t even in the textile business, but they saw an opportunity to create seamstress jobs in Tupelo, Miss. Their options? Custom jeans or wedding dresses. Thankfully for us, the pair chose bespoke raw denim. The custom raw denim brand, originally created in a junkyard with a lone seamstress, has grown from a small operation to 85 employees and counting. What separates Blue Delta from the competition is a thorough custom-fitting blueprint that begins by taking 16 measurements from the waist up. Once the measurements are logged into their system, everything from the denim color, cut and stitching can be selected to create a personal pattern. Each pair is hand cut and sewn in Blue Delta’s Tupelo factory and takes about 2 hours to make. The brand guarantees the fit on everything leaving the factory for a full year, in the event something doesn’t fit just right. Over the years, the jeans have become the go-to for country music stars, SEC coaches, celebrities and pro athletes. In fact, two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning—who went to school at Ole Miss—gave the gift of custom jeans to his offensive lineman one season. Even the PGA of America has embraced Blue Delta as the official jeans of the U.S. Ryder Cup team. Yes, that’s a thing. In recent years, the brand has expanded beyond jeans to include custom cotton chinos, pants made from stretchy performance materials and belts for the golf course. Pro golfers on the PGA Tour and LPGA have taken to the brand as well and regularly rely on Blue Delta on and off the course. Considering how much time they spend in a nice pair of shorts or pants, it pays to have something that’s a true one-of-one ($450/pair). —Jonathan Wall

Garmin CT10 Approach: Another ‘approach’ to sensors https://www.golfdigest.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2025/1/garmin_ApproachCT1_Social_ROD_2844.jpg

Garmin now has its own version of shot-tracking technology. Similar to other companies, the Garmin CT10 Approach kit comes with sensors that you insert into the butt end of the grip of your clubs. But the Garmin product is designed to be tagged to a Garmin smartwatch—which has all your GPS distances—to track each shot. After your round, the Garmin golf app will provide a detailed stat breakdown of your performance. Stat-tracking sensors are becoming more and more popular, and Garmin has distinguished itself by leaning into the devices it has already mastered ($299 full set, $80 starter pack of three sensors). —SH

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com