Dave Hicks Putting’s latest product, the ‘Lightweight VIBE’ for wedges and irons, has won GBD magazine’s Innovation Award for 2012.
Golf Business Development (GBD) magazine has been running the innovation prize event through its pages with support from Brand Events, organisers of the ‘Golf Live’ public golf show at London Golf Club (18-20 May).
The GBD team received plenty of strong nominations for the new award, which has been created to give credit for an excellent piece of engineering or design innovation from a growing company.
GBD editor Ben Evans said: “As both Golf Live and GBD have been championing innovation in 2012, the recent Golf Live event was the perfect venue to reward a piece of brilliant design innovation. Engineer Dave Hicks has taken his ‘Got the VIBE’ putter insert and developed this principle further to create a ‘Lightweight Vibe’ vibration damping system for irons and wedges, seen for the first time in public at Golf Live.
“The Lightweight Vibe has been through a rigorous series of tests and the team at Dave Hicks Putting say they are delighted with the results, both in terms of improved feel and distance as well as greater accuracy with dispersion. The device is already creating significant interest from within the trade and from a broad range of amateurs and professionals. Placed in the shaft, the device is designed to dampen the vibrations in the head and shaft, leading effectively to what designers say is an increased sweet spot. Huge congratulations from GBD to Dave and the team for all their hard work.”
Dave Hicks said: “We are delighted to win the GBD magazine award for innovation. Our Lightweight Vibe has been a really exciting product to develop because we feel it can give a major boost to all golfers, helping them to hit cleaner and better shots. From improving players to the very best, the reaction and feedback we have received has blown us away. Golf Live was a really good event for us with so many visitors present, and we are now taking our Vibe to European Tour events to demonstrate to leading players.”
Golf Live managing director James Goode said: “Dave Hicks Putting really embraced Golf Live this year and with the introduction of the Vibe for wedges and irons delivered a new experience to visitors previously unseen. We have received some fantastic feedback regarding the Putting Clinics that Dave performed each day, which emphasises the importance of the hands-on interaction between manufacturers and the public. This was backed up by impressive sales made over the three days. We look forward to seeing what DHP will do in 2013.”
GBD magazine is a keen supporter of innovation across the industry, something recognised by its readership of more than 3,000 management decision-makers in golf.
* www.golfbusinessdevelopment.com
GBD magazine www.golfbusinessdevelopment.com