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It's hard to believe how fast time flies. Today is Valentine's day which signifies that it is yet again Japan Golf Fair time! It's interesting to note that Valentine's Day is different in Japan from the Western world. In Japan, on Valentine's day, you don't find the guys scrambling for that last second gift whether it be chocolate or flowers, or something to impress their significant other or a girl they have interest in or any girl for that matter.

In Japanese its called "giri choco" which literally means 'obligation chocolate'. Giri choco is probably the biggest part of Japanese Valentine's Day customs. Usually girls give giri choco to male classmates, casual friends, co-workers, bosses, etc. Typcially giri choco is is not expensive chocolate. A box of chocolates, designated as giri choco, could be purchased from $2 up to $10. Japanese girls sometimes buy and and end up giving out 5, maybe 10, and sometimes even 20  boxes of giri choco to all the guys in their lives.

On the more extreme side, "honmei", which means 'sweetheart chocolate' in Japanese, is usually much more expensive chocolate. Honmei is given to the men who are special in a girl's life ie boyfriends or husbands or that guy they have always admired or wanted to be closer too.

Valentine's day is a huge for businesses in Japan and right after New Years in January, you already begin seeing all the ads for Valentine's Day. I was in Shinjuku yesterday and you can imagine the lineups at the department stores and candy stores of girls to get their last sec0nd chocolate. It's crazy as apparently half the chocolate sold in a year in Japan is all sold for Valentine's! In high school it's quite easy to tell who the most popular boys are by the amount of giri choco or even honmei that they get. On a personal note I received 4 boxes today, homei from my wife and 3 boxes of giri choco from girls in the neighborhood which I sometimes golf with.

So for the guys, this all sounds way to awesome but there is a catch and we don't get away unscathed. One month later on March 14th, Japan has White Day where the opposite supposed to happen. Guys are supposed to give back what they got (though I'm sure this does not always happen). In the case of honmei they have received, returning the favor with honmei can be like saying "I like you too".  White Day actually began in the 1980's and was started by the JNCIA (Japanese National Confectionery Industry Association) as an answer to Valentine's day but truly a call for more business and sales.

Alright enough though about Valentine's day as the real hot topic is the Japan Golf Fair which begins this Friday at Tokyo Big Sight in Odaiba!! Yah! The entire TSG crew will be in Japan for a couple of weeks to cover the event and bring you the best reports, photos and videos right from Big Sight. We' ll be utilizing the blog more this year round and twitter as well. We've even got some forum members and customers joining us at the show for some club testing and just to hang out.

There will be lots of new clubs to see including:

Titleist new VG3 clubs and new wedges.
Taylormade new Japan only Ghost putters and Japan only Burner lineup.
Callaway's new Legacy Apex line.
Tourstage's limited 905 X-Series clubs.
Honma's completely revamped Beres Evolution lineup.
Mizuno's Japan only JPX models.
Fourteen's new Tour Wedges and forged irons.
Yonex new E-Zone line.

JUST TO NAME A FEW! We're also looking forward to what surprises the manufacturers may have in store for us as well as discovering new products and brands! So make sure starting this Friday you check out the blog frequently for updates and reports directly from the Japan Golf Fair!

Tario (aka gocchin) joined Tourspecgolf back in 2008 after spending over a decade in technology and business operation roles at a major Canadian financial institution. Before joining TSG and following his dream of moving to Japan, Tario and Chris (aka Tourspecgolfer) hit it off though their similar passions for Japanese culture. Chris hired Tario to manage TSG online operations, sales and marketing. While those are Tario's primary responsibilities, he has also taken up the role of blogger and custom club tester and fitter along the way. Tario's hobbies include golf (of course), gadgets and technology, cars, Japanese pop culture and idols, photography, sweets and walking the dog.

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So the Japan Golf Fair 2010 is officially over. There were some great previews at the show including the Ping Anser Forged Irons, the Taylormade Superdeep TP driver, the Titleist Japan VG3 Driver, Fourteen's MT-28 V5 Wedge and Mizuno's MP Craft Forged Putters were among some of the highlights.

We've got lots of pictures, videos and reports for you to check out. Here is a breakdown of where you can find everything:

All the pictures we took including, venue pics, clubs and girls of the show which total over 1200+ pics are in the gallery here:

http://www.tourspecgolf.com/gallery/main.php/v/GolfFair2010/

You can find brief reports on each manufacturer in the forum here:

http://www.tourspecgolf.com/forum/f80.html

And of course right here on the blog you'll find our High Definition videos of the show and hottest clubs as well as our more in depth reports on top products we saw.

2010 should be a great year for fans of Japanese golf and golf enthusiasts in general!

Tario (aka gocchin) joined Tourspecgolf back in 2008 after spending over a decade in technology and business operation roles at a major Canadian financial institution. Before joining TSG and following his dream of moving to Japan, Tario and Chris (aka Tourspecgolfer) hit it off though their similar passions for Japanese culture. Chris hired Tario to manage TSG online operations, sales and marketing. While those are Tario's primary responsibilities, he has also taken up the role of blogger and custom club tester and fitter along the way. Tario's hobbies include golf (of course), gadgets and technology, cars, Japanese pop culture and idols, photography, sweets and walking the dog.

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New PRGR 505 Driver, Fairway Woods, and Irons are scheduled to hit the Japanese market this march with their official announcement at the 2010 Tokyo Golf Show late this month. PRGR also known as ProGear is owned by the Yokohama Rubber Co. yup that's right the same company that produces tires globally.

The new Red 505 series is geared for senior players yet can also be used by women.  PRGR  analyzed the swing type of 3757 amateur golfers monitoring head movement, grip speed, swing speed and multiple other categories and what was found is that 67% of these golfers had a difficult time squaring the club head at impact  thus producing slices and strong fades.  As a result PRGR created dozens of prototypes with different weighting ratio's and technologies to find what would help these players produce straighter shots.  In the end the Red 505 Driver was finalized and created and PRGR claims this is the ultimate driver for seniors and women who have a slice issue and desire an extremely forgiving, high launching straight flying driver.

The new Red 505 Fairway wood was created using the same technology and geared toward the same type of player. Many TSG members have been impressed to say the least about PRGR's EGG and Spoon fairway woods and the new 505 FW appears to build on some of those technologies. Manufactured using a Titanium body and steel high rebound face  PRGR made the profile shallow making it easy to lift the ball off the ground while the V shaped sole ensures that the least amount of drag occurs during the shot.  Another very important aspect for PRGR was that the fairway wood flows seamlessly with the 505 driver in terms style but most importantly  it's performance.

The last part of the line up is the new 505 Iron produced in 4-PW , AW, & SW. PRGR designed this set to have even stronger lofts than last years premium red  series for maximum distance as well as technology to aid in getting the ball up quickly by using large tungsten inserts in the sole. It's face is made of maraging steel which raises the ball velocity at impact. Overall it's specifications and design will help even the slowest swingers improve their game from jacked strong lofts to D0-D1 swing weights. The new PRGR 505 iron is definitely  considered a game improvement improvement iron and were guessing it will be a very good one at that.

We will have live images in about a week live from the Tokyo Golf Show for those interested!

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" It morphs to the shot that you want "

The New Callaway TOURi (S) ball was just revealed at the HSBC Champions event in Shanghai.  Two of the top 3 players put it into play for the first time,  Ernie Els & Ryan Moore.  Golf.com's David Dusek recently broke the story. The early skinny on this ball is that it's the softest ball Callaway has ever produced. That's pretty cool but Soft Balls are not the friendliest right?  Well Callaway has taken that problem into account and made this new 4 piece ball with a different compression on the inner than the outer core what Callaway claims this does sounds like music to my ears. The ball in theory is supposed to put a lot of spin on iron and wedge shots while putting very little spin on drives. 

Key Points:
1. Callaway's Softest Golf Ball
2. Callaway's Softest Spinning Golf Ball Around the Green
3. Spin Separation
( low spin in longer shots, high spin & excellent touch for shorter shots )

Steve Ogg, Callaway's vice president of ball R&D claims this to be " The most highly-engineered golf ball product we have ever come out with. " Can this be? The Ball's of all Ball's or is Mr. Ogg just doing his job? Normally I would say its the latter but what are the odds that 2 of the top 3 guys in the ball's inaugural event claim its superior to anything else out there. 

"I started playing a new golf ball that Callaway made," Els said. "This is what I've been looking forward to, is this golf ball. It would have been unbelievable if I could have won with this ball. It would have been great for Callaway and myself. I'm looking forward to the future now, and I think my equipment is now spot on."

Pretty interesting and I personally can't wait to give this ball a try, I am a big fan of softer covered balls because I like the way they react with the scoring clubs but I do drive the ball much better with harder low spin balls. The real question is can this ball do everything they say it will.  More info to come...

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Nike Method Putter Official Release.  It's been a full year since it first made it's mysterious debut, a full year since Paul Casey had to fight for it and convince officials at the 2008 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational to let him play with the prototype, but the year is up and the waiting is over.  Nike has officially announced the entire Method line of putters and by the looks of things, they are looking to shake things up and prove once again that they are at the head of the class with their putters.

Five Method Putters Make Up The Line

Word on the block is that there will be five different Method Putters that constitute the new line and all of them will hover around the $250 range when they are released, albeit in limited numbers and small releases, later on in 2009.  Worry not, for all of us that aren't connected and tapped into the "limited release" type crowd, they will be coming out to the general public and all of us sad, sad amateurs in February of 2010.

Method 1 + Two Other Blades & Two Other Mallets

The photo above, from golf.com, is the Method 1, which is "an Anser-style, heel-toe weighted blade with a plumber's neck and side dot."  In addition to the one above, there are going to be two other blade putters and two heel-shafted mallets that fill up the line as well.  No matter what option you choose, they are going to be all lofted at 2° and available in three different lengths, ranging from 33 inches to 35 inches.  Many have mentioned, and we're inclined to agree that while the designs and head shapes are not exactly revolutionary, it's the technology being employed inside the putter that is noteworthy and pushing the putter into the spotlight.

Some Specs...

Check it out:

"The grooves in the face of the Method putters are what Nike calls Polymer Groove Technology. A channel is cut in the sole of the club and behind the face. A soft polymer material is then forced into the channel and allowed to seep out of slots cut into the putter's face (right). A portion of the polymer is then cut out, leaving a tiny gap between the soft material and the sharp stainless steel grooves."

What Does It All Mean?

Great, but does this all mean?  It means, according to Tom Stites, Nike's director of product innovation:

"As the putter is coming up and through the ball, these tiny little knife edges of steel will actually dig into the ball, and the polymer will dampen the feel..."

Now We Wait...

So basically it softens the feel, dampens vibrations and puts the ball spinning forward, rather than backspinning and skidding first.  Sounds great to us, and it's apparently also sounding great to the select few pro's that have had advanced access to these new Method putters like Paul Casey and Lucas Glover.  Once again it shows just how genius Nike is, releasing these putters as prototypes to pro's in high profile events to help generate buzz.  Well, consider the buzz generated, because people everywhere are frothing at the mouth about the entire line.  The question is, can we all wait until February to get our hands on them?  I guess we'll have to.

( images via golf.com & SandBox8.com )