By John Strege

Today is College Colors Day, defined on its website as "an annual celebration dedicated to promoting the traditions and spirit that embody the college experience by encouraging fans across America to wear their favorite college or university apparel throughout the day."

TRUE linkswear has embraced College Color Days by introducing limited-edition team-themed colors in its phx golf shoes, including the colors of Tennessee and North Carolina State (shown here), which play one another in their football season openers tonight in a Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Game.

Twelve color combinations will be offered (msrp $99) and can be viewed here.

TRUE linkswear, which was among the first in golf to embrace the so-called "barefoot platform" in its shoes, typically has five color combinations in its phx shoe available throughout the year.

Follow @JohnStrege

By John Strege

The NFL and golf have a history of partnerships, the latest involving Bridgestone Golf, which has announced it has become an official licensee of NFL logo golf balls and golf bags.

Bridgestone will offer its golf balls and bags with logos of each of the 32 NFL teams, for those who wish to combine their passions for golf and a particular professional football team.

The NFL's partnerships with golf go back at least to the late Payne Stewart, who had a contract to wear NFL team colors and logos.

Follow @JohnStrege

By John Strege

September and autumn are on the horizon and with it inclement weather. Or an Indian summer. Hence the need for an all-weather golf glove.

Here's a new one from FootJoy, the GTxtreme, designed to provide a reliable grip in any weather conditions. FootJoy, an industry leader in golf gloves, uses what it calls "Advance Performance Digital Leather" played in the palm and thumb parts of the glove.

The GTxtreme complements FootJoy's line of weather specific gloves, including the RainGrip and WinterSof. Bubba Watson has been using the GTxtreme in tournament play since the British Open, according to the company.

Thge GTxtreme has a suggested retail price of $15 and will be available on Sept. 1.

Follow @JohnStrege

By John Strege

Annika might not qualify as an empire yet, but she is a brand and a continously growing one at that. There is Annika wine, the Annika Collection at Cutter & Buck, Annika Course Design, Annika Financial Group, Annika Fragrance and the Annika Academy.

Annika Sorenstam's latest venture is the Annika Academy App for iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

The free version offers five videos from her instructors at the Annika Academy at Reunion Resort outside Orlando. The $4.99 version offers 59 video lessons.

Interactive online lessons are available, too, for a fee of $59 per swing analysis in which Annika Academy instructors use state-of-the-art software to analyze the consumer's swing, while providing drills designed improve it. An annual membership of this feature goes for $499 and includes a side-by-side comparison of the consumer's swing and Sorenstam's swing.

Follow @JohnStrege

By John Strege

Instructor Sean Foley, whose clientele includes Tiger Woods and Hunter Mahan, is never without his video camera while working with them on a practice tee, for an obvious reason: It's helpful for them to view their own swings in an attempt to detect flaws.

What about the rest of us? Could we not similarly receive an assist from videotaping our swings, provided, of course, that we know what we're looking at or have a qualified teaching pro to analyze it for us?

Virtually everyone travels with a video camera these days, from tour pros to high-handicappers. It's called a smart phone. CamCaddy is a new product that will allow golfers to use their smart phones to videotape themselves.

Basically, it's an adjustable device that holds any smart phone and is attached to a stick in the ground.

It was developed by Bill Silva, an entrepeneur and member at Thornblade Club in Greenville, S.C., where Jay Haas is a founding member and the director of golf and son Bill Haas and Lucas Glover are members, as well.

"We have a lot of touring pros that use it as a home base," Silva said. "I was on the range one day and had been thinking of this idea. I'd always wanted to record my swing."

He saw Michael Maness (shown here), his business partner and a PGA Tour caddie who is working for Kevin Chappell at the Barclays this week, attempting to balance a cell phone on a golf bag for the purposes of videotaping his swing.

"I went down there and said, 'I have this idea. Everyone out here has a friend standing behind him videotaping. Why don't we create something that holds the phone?'"

Silva officially launched the CamCaddy on its website last Sunday. Meanwhile, he sent 100 units to the Wyndham Championship to have tour players test them.

"Kyle [Thompson, a tour player from Greenville] took it out to the putting green. Stuart Appleby loved it. David Duval loved it. Zach Johnson loved it. Trevor Immelman. We were able to get it in front of a lot of big-name players.

"We wanted to have a fully adjustable model for the reason that everybody has different phones. Phones change size and shape every six months. You take the alignment stick and press it into the ground. You set it 10 or 12 feet behind you, and the device snaps to the alignment stick and will hold it in place at any level. You can record your swing and send it to your coach very easily."

The CamCaddy with alignment stick can be purchased for $37.95 (plus shipping and handling) at the website and eventually will be available at retail outlets.

Follow @JohnStrege

By John Strege

We'll leave it to others to extol the benefits of egative ions, but devices that produce them, usually in bracelet form, seem to be ubiquitous in golf (and other sports), including those worn by Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler.

ScoreBand, a new Charleston, S.C., company, has entered the negative ion competition, but is doing so with a twist: Its principal feature, hence its name, is the ability to keep score and statistics, for either golf or tennis, while reaping whatever benefits come from negative ions (improved balance, coordination, and concentration, according to a company news release).

"I came about the idea after years of playing golf and tennis and other sports where people forget the score and it disrupts the flow of the game," said Jody Murdough, who developed the ScoreBand. "I was thinking, 'wouldn't it be great to tak your mind off the score and not worry about it and just play.'"

The silicone band enables the user to keep hole and round scores and two additional statistics of choice. It also functions as a watch.

Murdough introduced the product at the PGA Merchandise Show in January and launched it in June. At the PGA Merchandise Show, the ScoreBand earned Best Product Concept, as chosen by the United Inventors Association.

The ScoreBand comes in white or black, with four button colors, and in four sizes. It sells for $29.99.

Follow @JohnStrege

By John Strege

It is an article of faith in golf that a single swing thought is better than two or more swing thoughts, given the inability of the mind to process more than one in the split second in which the swing is started.

"Have one swing thought and make it a simple one," Kevin Hinton, Director of Instruction at Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley, N.Y., told Golf Digest's Roger Schiffman.

"Whatever I'm working on, I like to keep one swing thought in my head when I'm on the course," Adam Scott said in this Golf Digest instruction story.

Hence 1SwingThought.com, a new enterprise that sells vinyl stickers containing swing thoughts that affix to the top of a driver or fairway wood.

1SwingThought.com is the brainchild of Bryon K. Smith, an avid golfer and marketing professional who came up with the idea when TaylorMade Golf introduced its first white driver.

"When they came out with white clubs, to me as a marketer, it looked like a giant billboard," Smith said. "I thought, 'what could we put on there?' That was the genesis of it. I worked with my teacher to come up with swing thoughts."

Smith has broken up the swing thoughts into three categories -- those attempting to break 100, 90 or 80. The stickers come with either black lettering for a white clubhead or white lettering for a dark clubhead.

The cost is $7.99 and includes three stickers. They are available at the website, 1SwingThought.com, which also features video instruction to accompany the swing thoughts.

Follow @JohnStrege

By John Strege

Recent rules kerfuffles in both the British Open (see here) and the PGA Championship (see here) suggests that two issues: The rules are complicated and many likely could user refresher courses.

This brings us to a Golf Rules Made Easy and its Golf Rules Quick Reference app, version 2012-2015 ($9.99 in the iTunes store). It promises "answers to your rules questions in a matter of seconds," though you'll have to buy it to find out if it would have done so for Adam Scott in the British Open and Carl Pettersson in te PGA Championship (see links above).

It features rules for medal and match play and provides an interactive tool called Relief Finder that will inform you immediately whether you are entitled to free relief. It comes with graphics, animated illustrations and videos.

The app is based on the book, "Golf Rules Quick Reference."

Follow @JohnStrege

By John Strege

Bolle is a French company that opened for business in 1888 and added sunglasses to its line of products in 1956, but is a relative newcomer to golf-specific eyewear.

Its new Photo V3 Golf lenses marks the second generation of golf-specific sunglasses. The difference between it and the first generation is that the tint of the lenses was engineered specifically for golf and "really highlights the greens very well," company spokesman Jim Katz said, enhancing a golfer's abilitiy to see subtle their subtle contours.

Moreover the photochromic properties allow the lenses to change with the light, from bright to shady areas, to maximize visibility in any light condition.

The nine golf models range in price from $99.99 to $149.99. The Bounty Photo V3 shown above is priced at $139.99.

Follow @JohnStrege

(Getty Images)

By John Strege

Those watching the PGA Championship on TNT on Sunday morning might have seen a close-up of a cigar in some sort of golf ball cigar holder staked in the ground. When the camera zoomed out, there was its owner, Miguel Angel Jimenez, warming up on the practice tee.

"That explains my order line exploding yesterday [Sunday]," Hole-In-One Cigar Holder designer Steve Naples said, heretofore puzzled by the sudden burst of interest in his product.

Jimenez, of course, has been dubbed in golf circles the most interesting man in the world. "I look at him and I think, 'wine, Ferraris, cigars.' That's it," CBS' Gary McCord said earlier in the week.

The Hole-In-One Cigar Holder technically does not qualify as New Stuff, given that it's been around since the '90s. But Jimenez has given it new life, beginning with his using it on the practice tee at the British Open last month (where the photo above was taken).

"When he used it at the British Open, my order line started going at 1 a.m. and exploded," Naples said. "I called my web guy and said, 'I think someone is hacking my system.'"

The product can be purchased through the Hole-In-One Cigar Holder website here and sells for $3.95.

Follow @JohnStrege