Norm Alberigo, the head pro at Agawam Hunt in Rumford, R.I., is 48, has been tinkering with clubs for more than half his life, and in the process has developed ideas about putters that run counter to conventional wisdom.

Shafts generally were too long, the heads too light, their center of gravity too low, he concluded. It also occurred to him after fitting more than 1,500 putters that the offsets and lie angles of off-the-shelf putters were wildly off.

So he took to designing his own, the upshot of which is the new P2G2 TopStrike putter line being introduced.

"The idea evolved over 30 years in the trenches, watching people try to play golf and trying to help them," he said. He reduced the loft in the P2G2 putters to 2 1/2 degrees, increased their weight to about 400 grams to add stability on shorter putts, and raised the center of gravity and moved it forward.

The latter idea was for the purpose of transferring energy straight to the ball's equator, thus reducing skidding, hopping and sidespin, enabling the ball to start rolling virtually immediately.

Alberigo has tested the putters with local players, including Champions Tour player Dana Quigley, who, during the off-season (and before his son Devon was involved in a devastating automobile accident) shot a 60 at Bear Lakes Country Club in West Palm Beach, using a P2G2, Alberigo said. When the PGA Tour moves to Florida, the company will have a representative there introducing the putters to PGA Tour players.

For now, the putters are available only through the P2G2 website. Three models are offered, each in regular, belly or long and ranging in price from $250 to $295.

-- John Strege

David O'Keefe began his career as a newspaper artist, at the Tampa Tribune, working in promotions and later as a special projects illustrator in the newsroom. In 2007, he left to pursue his interest in painting and sculpting pop culture icons.

He once produced a sculpture of Bill Murray that he dressed in a tuxedo, a photo of which was featured on the cover of the Village Voice to commemmorate it having selected the Murray film, "Lost in Translation," as its film of the year in 2003. He later dressed the same sculptor as Carl Spackler, from the film "Caddyshack."

He subsequently was commissioned to do a painting featuring all the characters from the film "Caddyshack." When that was finished, he had leftover images of Murray's Spackler and decided to do a painting from the Cinderella story scene, with Spackler swinging a scythe.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, today those paintings appear on golf towels, as part of Devant Sport Towels "Tribute To Caddyshack Collection." Devant utilizes a high definition digital technology process to produce sharp images on its towels, which measure 16 by 25 inches and feature a brass lock clip for attaching to a golf bag.

The towels sell for $25.

-- John Strege

There is no resting on laurels in the competitive age of technology, which is why SkyCaddie has made improvements to the rangefinder that earned gold in Golf Digest's 2011 Hot List for GPS devices.

The SGXw has added wifi capability (hence the w) to its device, thus simplifying the process of downloading courses (and accommodating course updates), either in your home, at your business, at the golf course, or, when applicable, even utilizing a smart phone to gain Internet access.

RangeVue is another new feature, using pre-set yardage arcs (shown in the image), instantly providing yardage to various points on the course. In this regard, SkyCaddie claims an advantage over even laser rangefinders, providing "more information, faster and more reliably...without aiming or requiring line of sight."

Another relatively new feature offered by SkyCaddie is a trade-in program. Trade in any SkyCaddie or Bushnell laser rangefinder or even golf clubs to secure a discount on a new SkyCaddie.

-- John Strege

Great photography displays spectacularly on an iPad, a discovery that golf photographer Evan Schiller made soon after Apple introduced it.

"I loved it because of the screen," Schiller said. "It's a great photo album. An expensive photo album, but a great one."

Schiller is a former professional golfer turned photographer who is one of the few photographers licensed by the Pebble Beach Company. His work has appeared in the Masters Journal, the U.S. Open and Ryder Cup programs, and a variety of golf and travel books.

He decided to meld his expertise with the iPad's exceptional display. The result is his new ebook, "Golf's Unfolding Drama: Rare Interplays of Light on Form." It's available from iBooks for $9.99.

It is a collection of Schiller's finest work from golf courses around the world. Each photograph is accompanied by a hidden caption and story that drops down by tapping the words "About this photo" just beneath the image. The stories explain the circumstances under which the photograph was taken. For instance, the story accompanying his photo of the 14th hole of the Doonbeg Golf Club in County Clare, Ireland, with the Atlantic Ocean in the background, says this:

"I knew the best, and really ony time, to capture this wonderful little par 3 was just before sunset because the sun would have moved far enough to the west to cast the appropriate light on the green...With clouds sitting heavily on the horizon, I waited for the sun to break through to capture my last shot of the day."

The title of the book derives from his experiences photographing courses at dawn and dusk, "when the sun peaks over the horizon or just before it dips below it...During these transitions between night and day, nature offers me some of her most dramatic performances: brief and rare interplays of light on form. Those fleeting moments are of breaktaking beauty and I am often left brimming with inspiration and awe."

In this book, he shares the results of that inspiration and awe.

-- John Strege

There are GPS rangefinders and GPS vehicle navigation devices, but there is only one that conveniently combines the two: the new Expresso AG50s from Expresso Satellite Navigation, Inc.

"It's perfect for the snowbirds," company president Mike Aroney said. Or any other traveling golfer, for matter, providing them the means to find the golf course and to navigate their way around it once they've arrived.

"It comes pre-loaded with 26,000 courses," Aroney said. "We license the software from iGolf, so we use its database. It's perfect for a golf cart. It unfolds and fits into the cupholder. It's got a 3.75-inch bright screen with large callouts. It's got an incredible battery life, well over eight hours."

On the vehicle navigation side, it is pre-loaded with U.S. and Canadian maps provided by Map Tech, which is used as well by Garmin. It features text-to-speech, multiple destination route planning and more than six million points of interest.

The successor to the Expresso AG1, the AG50s cost is $199.

-- John Strege

It isn't often that a unique product comes along, but we came across one at the blog, Golf Stuff We Like, that, for those who take buddies trips, might prove indispensable.

It's called GolfTripGenius.com, and the emphasis, perhaps, belongs on genius. There was no shortage of brainpower used in developing this product. The founder is Mike Zisman, who has a degree in chemical engineering from Lehigh, a Masters in systems engineering from Penn, and a PhD in decision sciences from Penn's Wharton School. He's also a member at Merion Golf Club and Saucon Valley Country Club.

GolfTripGenius.com is described this way at its website: "An easy-to-use, online toolkit that helps you take care of all the details (like pairings, tournaments, the trip book, expenses) so you can have more fun planning your trip and more time playing golf once you're underway."

"I enjoy golf trips and spent many years organizing them," Zisman said. "But it was frustrating putting together a schedule. I thought, 'you know what? I know how to do this, to make golf trips a lot easier.' We started with mathematical optimization for the scheduling, then added tournament software and trip accounting software.

"You'll spend, honest to God, 30 to 40 hours planning a trip for eight or 10 people, from organizaing pairings, tournaments, tracking group expenses. With our software it takes a couple of hours."

Zisman used an example of a trip involving 16 players, playing five rounds. "Ideally, you should play with everyone once," he said. "If all 16 play with everyone once, we call that the perfect pairing." The software will deliver the perfect pairing for you (a sample tee sheet is shown above).

It has a Tournament Manager, too, to accommodate any kind of competition, including multiple Nassaus, skins games, even Ryder Cup-type formats, and will accommodate betting, providing instantly a payout summary at the end of the round.

Another feature is its Trip Logistics, which contain the golfers' travel arrangements, cell phone numbers, handicaps, emergency contact information, a group message board, and access to housing arrangements.

GolfTripGenius offers two levels of service. The cheaper one, $1 per player, per round to a group maximum of $49, offers Perfect Pairings and Trip Logistics. The other, called the Genius Trip, includes the Perfect Pairings, Trip Logistics, Trip Tournament Manager, Trip Accountant (to track expenses and allocate them accordingly), and a Trip Book (a personal album that provides details and photos from the trip). The cost of the Genius Trip is $3 per person per round up to a group maximum of $249.

Zisman also has developed, but not yet released to the public, a product to handle golf leagues. "There the scheduling is unbelievable," he said. "Its 100 guys playing over 25 weeks. The guy who has been using our product the longest, Thursday is the 14th week. He still has not had a single case of a guy playing with the same player twice.

"[GolfTripGenius.com] is a unique product. There truly is no product in the world that does the kind of scheduling we do with our breadth of tournaments."

-- John Strege

Plucking your golf ball from the bottom of the cup has never been easier than it is with the Eagle Grasp putter, which also was designed with the idea that you might have a need to retrieve it from the hole more often.

The clubhead of the Eagle Grasp fits into a golf hole and features a hole the size of a golf ball, with two rubber rings inside that enable the golfer to pick his ball out of the hole without bending over, preventing unnecessary strain and helping those with back issues

"Our owner [John Smith] had a little bit of a hard time bending and grabbing the ball out of the hole," company vice president Nicholas Costa said. "He's an avid golfer. He had an idea. Why can't you get a performance club that also gives the golfer the ability to extract the ball out of the hole, but not make it gimmicky."

The putter is milled and face-balanced and customizable; it comes with an optional weight kit ($29.95) that inlcudes five weights from 72 to 116 grams that can replace the 46-gram weight already on the putter.

"We tried to make it as universal as possible," Costa said. "We're targeting something professional, not gimmicky."

The putter is available for a promotional price of $149.95.

-- John Strege

Hank Haney's entrepeneurial spirit does not end with the March release of his book, "The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods," or his golf academies. Haney is now in the golf shoe business.

Crocs Golf with Hank Haney will begin its rollout on March 15. The Haney collection with feature three men's shoes -- the Preston (shown above, in charcoal), the Bradyn and the Drayden -- and one women's shoe, the Bradyn.

"The brand has undergone kind of a renaissance the last few years," Doug Hayes, vice president and general manager Americas, said. "Hank is friends with our CEO [John McCarvel], his contract was up with Nike and he wanted to take on a little more entrepreneurial role. He wanted to be more of a lead guy on the brand. He was involved every step of the way. He came up to Boulder [Colo., headquarters] a couple of times. He got involved with the design team. He's been testing them, wearing them."

The Crocs Golf with Hank Haney collection features the same Croslite material found in the original Crocs that become so popular. It is said to form to the wearer's foot. The shoes are spikeless and fit into the hybrid category of golf shoes, designed to be more of a casual brand, worn to, on and from the golf course.

-- John Strege

Ecco continues to chase the success that Fred Couples helped deliver by his wearing Ecco's hybrid shoe, the Street Premier, at the 2010 Masters. At the recent PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Fla., the company introduced the Street Premier in a lizard print.

"What we've done is taken the Street Premier, which everybody calls the Freddie Sneaker, obviously, and we've just extended it with print leather," David Helter of Ecco said. "This is not lizard, it's just printed to look like lizard.

"We're finding a lot of these [Street Premier's] aren't being worn on the golf course. People like them as casual shoes. So we wanted something a little bit dressier."

The lizard print do not have a colorful bottom as other Street Premier shoes do. "It looks pretty tame," Helter said.

Since the 2010 Masters, Ecco's golf shoe business has continued to grow. "We almost doubled our business in 2011," Helter said, "and we've already exceeded our first six-month plan in 2012. This is going on two years, this whole hybrid thing. We were alone doing it. Now everybody is doing it."

-- John Strege

ORLANDO, Fla. -- When Boccieri Golf developed its Secret Grip it did so principally to provide golfers an easier way to back weight a club. What it discovered, company president and CEO Stephen Boccieri said, was that it actually improved performance.

"From a performance standpoint, I never thought there could be a grip that would enhance the capabilities of a golfer," Boccieri said. "What we found was that players were picking up four miles an hour on ball speed by using this grip."

The Secret Grip was officially introduced at the PGA Merchandise Show here and is the latest offering from the company that has the Heavy Putter in its line of clubs.

The grip weighs in at 92 grams, 40 grams more than a traditional grip. A tungsten button on the butt end of the grip accounts for the additional weight.

"We have a full line of back-weighted golf clubs," Boccieri said. "What a lot of customers said to me last year is that they like the driver, they like the irons, but if they buy any one of my components they have to buy a complete set. The economy is saying I don't want to spend $300."

The grips, which will retail for $18.99, can be installed on any brand of club.

Back-weighting clubs is not knew. Jack Nicklaus back-weighted clubs, as do a number of tour players. The process of back-weighting clubs has been somewhat cumbersome, requiring drilling through the end of the grip. The Secret Grip accomplishes the same thing simply by changing the grip.

"None of the average golfers know anything about back-weighting," Boccieri said. "Jack Nicklaus used it in his day and people throughout the tour do it, but it's kind of behind closed doors, basically. We think the Secret Grip is going to enhance the back-weighting technology that Boccieri Golf has developed with its putters and now its swing clubs."

What is Boccieri's theory as to why the Secret Grip increases ball speed?

"At the top of the swing, when you have more mass in your hands, you have a better transition with that momentary pause at the top," he said. "The first move that the average golfer makes with a high swing weight, they cast from the top. With more mass in the left hand, like everybody says, it's like dropping into the slot. So what's happening is they're creating more lag and holding onto the angle of retention longer into impact."

-- John Strege