Miura Golf is a small, but distinguished company known for the quality of its forged irons. Not as well known is that it has a full line of equipment, which includes its newest driver offering, the SIT-460, that it calls "the most compact 460cc [driver] in golf."

So how can a 460cc driver be anything but a 460cc driver, or more to the point, how can it be considered compact? The answer is with its shaping.

The SIT (which stands for Strong & Ideal Trajectory) has a tall face, increasing the volume verticically, rather than horizontally, giving it the appearance at address of a compact design, the company said.

It is an all-titanium head, cast in two pieces (the face is laser welded to the body), and is available in either 9 or 10.5 degrees (right-hand only). The clubhead weighs 196 grams, four grams fewer than Miura's Precious driver, which is 390cc.

The suggested retail price is $595 (though the price will vary depending on shaft option).

-- 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

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Mercedes AMG and high performance have been synonymous in the automobile world and now it will see if it can replicate the association in golf equipment.

WSH, Inc. will introduced a Mercedes AMG Formula One line of equipment at the PGA Merchandise Show here this week.

"We were granted a global sports licence license from Mercedes AMG, for doing a line of clubs, apparel and accessories under their prestigious logo," said WSH, Inc. CEO Michael Lee, the founder of Nickent Golf. "Under Mercedes, our approach is that anything associated with Formula One isn't going to be cheap. Our initial convesation with Mercedes Stuttgart is that we want to create a line that the Mercedes owner can enjoy. It doesn't necessarily have to be a $2,000 driver. But we're launching it right at $399. That's the ceiling of drivers these days."

Three sets of irons will be introduced as well, along with wedges and putters.

Its driver and fairway wood technology, developed in concert with Mercedes' aerodynamicists, feature Venturi Channels, which have been used in Formula One cars "to manipulate airflow whereby a funnel is created as air flows through the vehicle, and is constricted, and as it flows out...a jet effect is created," according to a company news release.

-- John Strege

Is there room in a weak economy and a flat sport for another equipment company, particularly one called Hello Kitty Golf, featuring the familiar white Japanese bobtail cat logo? Why not, inasmuch as its focus will be on two generally underserved constituencies, girls' and women's golf.

Hello Kitty Golf is a new venture run by Michael Lee, who founded Nickent Golf (now owned by Dick's Sporting Goods).

"This brand was conceived in June of last year," he said. "We were approached by Sanrio [Hello Kitty's parent company] USA to help them do a line of golf equipment and accessories. What we produced is a few hundred SKUs [stock keeping units, or individual products within a line], from junior sets to accessories, headcovers, divot tools, ball markers, balls and full ladies' sets. We retained most of the design staff from Nickent into this new company and it designed the entire Hello Kitty set."

Three girls' sets will be available -- a set for three to five-year olds that includes a 4-hybrid, a 7-iron, a putter, stand bag and headcover ($139.99); a set for six to eight-year olds that includes a driver, 4-hybrid, 7-iron, sand wedge, putter, standbag and headcovers ($179.99); and a set for nine to 12-year old olds, featuring a driver, 4-hybrid, 7- and 9-irons, sand wedge, putter, stand bag and headcovers ($199.99).

"I have an 11-year old daughter," Lee said. "She started golf the year before. The pro shop gave her a 7-iron. Then I tried to buy her a set at the country club. The pro said all the clubs are unisex. I saw my little girl and she said, 'What?' She couldn't believe it. Girls and boys are very distinctive at that age. When the Hello Kitty opportunity came up, I became a super hero dad."

The Hello Kitty women's set includes a driver, 4-and 7-woods, a 5-hybrid, 7-iron through pitching wedge, sand wedge, putter and mix-and-match cart bag and headcovers available in a variety of colors ($799.99).

-- John Strege

Among Feel Golf's new product introductions for 2012 are a putter grip with a reverse taper and non-conforming wedges that feature square grooves.

The putter grip, called the SBST (Straight Back Straight Through), is an offshoot of its Pro Release and Full Release grips and their reverse taper technology in which the thicker part of the grip accomodates the lower hand. Think turning the grip upside down.

"That reverse grip (on the SBST) allows the right-hand, the palm, to stay on line," Feel Golf CEO Lee Miller said. "It keeps the right hand in motion without it breaking down the left hand. In 2010, when Jim Furyk was winning, his dad had taken the putter grip and cut the end off and turned it upside down. He proceeded to putt well. In 2011, he went back to a traditional grip and nothing happened until he went back to his dad's grip in the Presidents Cup."

Miller said that the company sent out the prototype putter grip to as many as 40 players of varying handicaps, and that "60, 70 percent of them said 'we think you have something here.'"

The new SG wedges (for square grooves) feature grooves that don't conform to the new USGA groove rules.

"We decided a couple of years ago to keep some nonconforming wedges for recreational players, saying, 'hey, we're not tour players,'" Miller said. The company decided to manufacture noncomforming wedgeds after receiving the results of a survey of 200 or so of its individual customers, taken in early 2011. "Only a few said that if it's not conforming we won't buy it," Miller said. "Overall, they said we need all the help we can get. Our (groove) edges are going to be sharp with the surface roughness on the face as as max as we can get it."

The wedges will be available in lofts of 52, 56, 60, 64 and 73 degrees.

-- John Strege

The name that TaylorMade Golf assigned to its new line of clubs, RocketBallz, already is creating an Internet buzz and no doubt will be a popular topic of conversation for some time.

"They look pretty good, but the name," a commenter on GolfWrx.com wrote without completing the thought.

"I really like the look of these woods," another wrote. "I don't care what they call it, if it performs I will game it!"

Here is the genesis of the name: When Dustin Johnson began hitting the prototype that became the RockeBallz 3-wood, according to TaylorMade, he said on several occasions, "It's like a rocket."

TaylorMade engineers subsequently applied the name to the club both in the CAD model and on the sole of the prototype clubhead.

Related: TaylorMade debuts RocketBallz, R11-S lines of clubs

"I never thought RocketBallz would actually show up on the prototype," Todd Beach, Senior Director of Product Engineering, Metalwoods, said in a news release. But the name stuck.

"Product names come from all over the place, but typically they'll come from marketing, product marketing and sales," Executive Vice President Sean Toulon said in the release. "Never before has one come from R&D."

The club will also be called RBZ, for short.

-- John Strege

The new Renegar Golf wedges have been 18 years in the making, but 80 years overdue, the company founder said.

Bob Renegar, a former director of research and development for the Ben Hogan Company and Pro Group (Arnold Palmer's former equipment company), said he conceived of the idea at his mother-in-law's kitchen table nearly two decades ago. He developed a prototype in 1995 that went through various iterations, including the Solus wedge.

The new Renegar Rx12 wedges evolved from those earlier models, Renegar said, and have achieved what once was thought impossible -- lowering the leading edge, while increasing the bounce on the sole.

"The product itself is a complete rethinking of what a wedge product ought to be, from the sole contour to the butt end of the grip," Renegar said. "After 80 years of the Gene Sarazen sole contour, we're opening the door to the next generation of wedge category."

The bounce that makes a wedge so effective from a bunker, developed by Gene Sarazen in the '30s, raises the leading edge, which complicates shots around the green. Renegar's mandate was to "think outside the bunker," he said.

"The Sarazen-based offerings in the marketplace right now are perfectly acceptable for bunker play," Renegar said. "There's nothing wrong with them. But the problem is that that's only about 20 percent of your short-game play."

The sole contour of the Rx12 wedges has been designed in a way that lowers the leading edge to less than half the height of traditional soles, the company claims, while actually increasing the bounce and the versatility.

The shafts were developed in collaboration with Aldila and feature a firmer tip and higher flex point. "It's a fairly heavy composite shaft [105 grams]," Renegar said. "It gives you the ability to control the trajectory."

The Lamkin grips, too, were designed specifically for the wedges. They're an inch longer with a larger right-hand diameter to allow for choking down on the club.

Renegar received a utility patent on the sole design in 2009. "That utility patent is the basis on which we're launching this company," Renegar said. The wedges are available on the company's website at renegargolf.com. They sell for $195 each and come in lofts of 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58 and 60 degrees.

The website features a video library with live shot demonstrations, among other features.

-- John Strege

TaylorMade's success with its R11 driver that features a white crown inevitably would inspire others to follow suit. Boccieri Golf is among them, with the introduction of its DFT Driver in white.

"White drivers offer an optical option that some golfers prefer," Boccieri president and CEO Stephen Boccieri said in a news release. "So we're combining this with our unique technology to create the game's most attractive high-performance driver."

The Heavy Driver in white or black features its Dimple Face Technology (DFT), designed to maximize coefficient of restitution, while allowing the clubhead to retain its structural integrity. Meanwhile, the club was engineered with a 50-gram backweight in the butt end of the shaft, moving the club's balance point farther from the clubhead. This, the company claims, helps with "plane, tempo, transition, impact and balance."

-- John Strege

Here is the question around which Terry Koehler, president of Eidolon Brands, built his new SCOR4161 scoring clubs system:

"'When you have a 9-iron or PW in your hands, is that more like a wedge shot or a 4-iron shot?' The answer is always, logically, 'more like a wedge.' So we then asked the critcial question, 'So why does your 9-iron and [PW] match your 4-iron and not your wedges?'

"Answer: Because no one has ever given golfers the option to do it any other way."

Koehler has set out to do it another way, building a set of matching scoring irons from 41 to 61 degrees (hence SCOR4161), basically 9-iron through lob wedge, that will flow naturally from your existing middle irons.

"If anything should match it should be these money clubs, over 40 degrees," Koehler said. SCOR4161 has 21 different loft options, allowing for consistent distance gaps, he said. "Right now you have short irons and wedge -- 8, 9 and [PW] -- that match with the middle irons and then you have three wedges that you've bought that have totally different heads, feel and shafts that are right in the money range."

The SCOR4161 irons are blades, which Koehler argues should not be an issue, even for those who hit cavity-back irons. "I grew up in the 50s and 60s playing blades," he said. "The middle irons and long irons were hard to hit, but I loved getting into the 7-iron range.

"One of the casualties of the technology boom is that we dragged blades to cavity back and didn't have to. We dragged them along with this notion of a matched set. If you go and borrow an 8, 9 and [PW] from a golf professional and put them in your bag and played these blade short irons you'll be surprised."

The irons are designed to modify ball flight, producing a lower, tighter trajectory," Koehler said, for "distance consistency, which is the key to scoring."

The SCOR4161 irons come with a fitting system, SCORFit, designed to take into account your irons by identifying your shortest iron under 40 degrees of loft, usually the 8. From there, it recommends proper gapping for four SCOR4161 irons with five degrees of loft separting them or five irons in four degree increments.

A set of five SCOR4161 start at $639, while a set of four go for $519. Individual clubs are $149.

-- John Strege

The quest for more distance from drivers that are tightly regulated by the USGA has gone in a variety of directions, among them lightweight drivers. Hireko is the latest to embrace this with its Acer XF Leggera driver.

The head weight is 190 grams, Jeff Summitt, technical director for Hireko Golf, said. That would bring it in under the weight of the clubhead on Cleveland's lightest driver, the Launcher XL270 (192 grams).

Summitt said that through a propietary process weight is removed from the crown area. "Instead of chemically milling the head, we do another process where we remove weight," Summitt said. The head is made from commercial grade titanium.

Complete the club with a lightweight shaft and grip and, "you can get it down in the 260 range," Summitt said. That would make it 10 grams lighter than the Launcher XL270.

The Acer XF Leggera coms in 9.5, 10.5 and 12 degree models (10.5 degrees only for the left-handed model) and has a price of $104.95.

-- John Strege