My friends gave me a golf shirt for my birthday.  Not just any golf shirt, but an “energy enhancing” shirt that employs “intelligent fabric powered by IonX,” providing increased power, thus presumably promoting a better score when playing golf.  Here’s your first hint that we’re dealing with a market that flirts with the irrational, leaning towards the paranormal.

Woven into the fabric of this shirt is a diagonal pattern of ribbing that contains the special energy IonX activation stuff.  I kid you not.  When I clicked on the video on the website, there was a man, identified as a “Dr.” wearing a white lab coat, in a laboratory.  Dr. Extra Energy is surrounded by high-tech gizmo-ology.  Dr. E2 holds said energy shirt in one hand and a wand kind-of-thing in the other, connected to a meter with a needle, like a Geiger counter.  I’m paraphrasing him here…“Allow me to call your attention to this sensor that will measure the energy activation in the shirt.”  He waves the wand over the shirt and the needle jumps way to the right, signifying that the shirt is emitting extra energy.  Undeniable!  Fantastic!!!

The idea is that the energy activation shirt infuses extra energy to the wearer resulting in longer drives, and a generally more energetic round of golf, and hopefully, a new personal best score. Cost of the shirt: $59.95.  I can hear you breathing hard, wanting to know where to get one.  God Bless Golf and America.  This is precisely what the Founding Fathers had in mind.  In addition to, of course, a dozen or so more Republican candidates for President.

Wearables in Your Future

Two guys on the subway…

 “Hey Dude, whassup?”
“Took 12,573 steps yesterday. Close to 6,000 steps already today. Long walk with the dog this morning. You?”
“So far I’m at 7,889 steps, treadmill.”
“Gotcha. Check this out. I’m wearing my Apple Watch at tennis and in the middle of the match Siri sweetly tells me I have a wimpy second serve and a junk backhand.”
“She say anything else?”
“After I double faulted to lose the set, she said I was a loser’s loser.”
“She said that?”
“Plus, that her dead grandmother could move on the court better than me.”
“I didn’t know Siri had a grandmother. What was her grandmother’s name?
“Siri.”

And this recent conversation overheard between two female fitness buffs at a high tech workout gear store…

 “Get outta here, $69 for these shorts? Does it send international wire transfers or what?”
“Ma’am, this workout pant has fluent silver halide interior adherent technology that not only has wicking capability, but replaces your vital fluids spent during your workout.”
“Really? I don’t work out that hard and I prefer to retain my vital fluids.”
“It also calculates calories burned, is equipped with lavender infused odor resistors and charges your Fitbit, iPhone, and Tesla.”
“Ok, I’ll take the grey-green and the dusky violet.”
Just then Siri on the woman’s Apple Watch weighed in, “Good choice, Dude.”
“I’m not a Dude, Siri, I’m a woman.”
“Whatever…”

Wearables+

Golf shoes. I recently traveled to visit prospective clients. As soon as I arrived, the conversation turned to golf, and before I could say, “Mulligan,” I was tossed a golf shirt, and rushed into the car for the 10-minute ride to the course. I did not have golf shoes. The truth is, you don’t really need golf shoes, or most of the gear sold in the universe of golf, but, when at the bullfights, wear red.

We hustled into the pro shop, and within seconds I chose a pair of very cool- looking blue Foot Joys: $159 + tax. I dropped $159+tax without even thinking. It turned out those cool blues had absolutely no positive impact on my game. Any pursuit generating such irrational customer purchasing behavior is a good business to be in. I could have played in my walk-around Asics, as I have many times. But no, I wanted to look cool and not be that guy they talk about afterwards.

 “Wow, Steve really stinks at golf, and he wore those jerkamiah sneakers.”

Totally unprompted, Siri piped up on the way home,

 “Hey Dude, you sure stunk up the joint today.”
“Yeah, Siri, but how’d you like my new shoes, pretty cool huh?”
“You could have worn your walk-around Asics and played just as badly.”

Back to Dr. Extra Energy and his wand. He is very persuasive about that energy shirt, opining that it has an “IonX negatively charged ion field.” I’ve been searching for this negatively charged ion field since I played Pop Warner football. And truth to tell, I did wear the energy IonX shirt in a little season-ending tournament last summer. Surrounded in a haze of negatively charged IonX’s, I posted best score, and won.

Footnote.

After the round, as I went to my car, the engines of three Audi’s, two BMW’s and a ’63 Chevy C-10 short bed pick-up truck all started up as I walked by. And when I got home, that shirt caused a major thunderstorm in the iCloud causing my big boy yellow Lab, Ray, to glow like Caitlin Jenner at her first fashion shoot. Take note America, if Caitlin gets a hold of some negative IonX’ energy shirts she might just charge up her old javelins, declare her candidacy for President, and blow out Hillary and The Donald in one supercharged campaign of negative ionX energy.