Welcome to the first Bag Drop at our new Tuesday morning home. Let’s get right to the good stuff. As expected, some new products are coming to light prior to this month’s PGA Merchandise Show & Convention. Last week, two new Callaway Golf products were unveiled – one introduction was intentional, while the cat jumped out of the bag on the other.
The cat, as it were, is a new line of hybrids from Callaway. The company will soon announce a line of Fusion hybrids to match the Fusion FT-3 driver and Fusion fairway woods currently in the company’s lineup.
Wow did I get my money’s worth this past weekend at the 2006 Mercedes Championship. This was my first PGA Tour event that I attended and luck have it, I had front-row seats to two fantastic finishes at the 18th hole on the Plantation Course at Kapalua. Vijay finished the first time with a tap-in birdie to go eight under and force Appleby to also birdie the 18th hole to go eight under and force a playoff. The players were promptly shuttled back to the 18th for the first playoff hole where both players matched drives in the center of the fairway but their second and third shots are what really created the drama. Alas the playoff was won by Appleby when Vijay missed his crucial putt (again) and left Appleby with a two-footer for his third consecutive win.
Erik and Jeff tee off in the new year on players skipping the Mercedes Championship, “mandatory play,” Morgan Pressel, Annika Sorenstam, Tiger Woods (and his newly purchased fixer-upper $40M home in south Florida) in this, episode 008, of “Golf Talk Podcast.” You can subscribe to the RSS feed for our podcasts 
Well, the PGA Tour season has started, and honestly, I’m not that excited about it. Maybe I should qualify that with a “yet.” It seems like they just finished the 2005 season! And with the silly season, I didn’t even get a break. Maybe I’m one of the few who gets burned out from all the television coverage. But for me, I would rather watch golf when I can get inspired and go play right after. Am I the only one?
While Tom Lehman isn’t in the prime of his career anymore, he has kept a reasonable and steady pace for 14 years. His professional career took some turns but he’s been playing professionally since 1983. Just to give you some perspective: Tom Lehman played the first day of the Panasonic Las Vegas Pro on September 15, 1983 and it was the same day that now fellow competitor Kevin Na was brought into the world. This is completely unheard of in any other high level competitive sport and it is a primary reason why I love Golf.
For those of you who have not yet made your New Years Resolutions, here is a great opportunity to make one to improve your fitness, specifically your golf fitness. Professional golfers use physical conditioning to gain an edge on other players and now using 
We’ve seen a lot of things over the last 11 years in golf. Most notably is the emergence of Tiger Woods. But there have been technological advances, course lengthening and a fitness revolution. All of these have had an effect on golf.