New glove uses agnets instead of Velcro
HUNTSVILLE – The annual summer sweat has arrived in Alabama.
With temperatures well into the 90s and high humidity to boot, it’s not uncommon for golfers to use two, three and even four gloves during one sweltering round.
Play a couple of holes, change gloves. Play a couple more holes, change gloves. Rinse, repeat. The tricky part is finding a way to let the used gloves air dry for re-use and not lose them.
Florence native and University of Alabama graduate Chase Puryear is confident he has the solution, and it’s all about magnets.
Yep, magnets. We attach our rangefinders to the golf cart’s post near the windshield with the help of a magnet. There are magnetized towels on the market. And some headcovers even have magnets that stick to the irons in your bag.
Puryear, who majored in operations management and minored in cyber security at the Capstone, set about designing a golf glove that features a magnetic insert in the flap instead of a Velcro fastener.
He got the idea of designing a magnetic golf glove while working as a cart boy at Turtle Point Yacht and Country Club.
“Working at Turtle Point sparked my love of golf,” Puryear said recently. “I was always losing gloves. I’d throw one in the cart, drive off, and it would fall out. With the heat and humidity in Alabama, I often noticed members using multiple gloves during a round, that’s where I discovered the problem – I started thinking about how to fix that.”
Finding a market niche
About that time, Puryear found out about the Ghost towel that features a magnet that allows it to attach to anything made with ferrous metal.
“That gave me the idea of using a magnet system to hang the glove on the golf cart,” he said. “We also discovered that added another feature allowing you to easily pick up the glove with any club in your bag – except the driver.”
Puryear and two college buddies – Logan Harris and Ethan Brinley – founded Mirage Golf Company (www.mirage.golf, Instagram: @miragegolf_co) and during Puryear’s junior year at Alabama, and they went to work on a glove with a magnetic strap instead of the usual Velcro strap.
Puryear said a patent search revealed no similar products, so they filed for a utility patent for the glove’s design and mechanism and expect a favorable decision from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by November.
Within eight months, Puryear had the first version of the glove ready for distribution. As with any new product, changes were needed. Version 1.0 had a small magnet and testing revealed that the flap would not stay tight when a golfer hit their driver or irons. Those results sent Puryear back into development mode.
Puryear admits they likely rushed the product to market.
Learning from mistakes
“We learned from those early mistakes,” he said. “I didn’t have any experience with product development and just wanted to get to market quickly. Looking back, I would have spent more time refining the design. But we’ve spent the last eight months fixing those issues, and we’re getting a lot of repeat customers.”
The key to the new, improved second version of the Magnetic Golf Glove was nearly tripling the size of the magnetic system on the flap. The magnet now is slightly bigger than a quarter.
“My goal was to make the glove feel as secure as Velcro,” he said. “We achieved that by using a larger magnet. It’s a little wider and thicker, but there’s no noticeable weight difference. The issue wasn’t weight; it was that the strap would pop off during a swing. Finding a magnet that was strong enough, but not too strong, took 45 different samples – it was a frustrating but valuable process.”
Puryear moved production from China to Pakistan and the gloves are made of Cabretta leather similar to what the popular brand FootJoy uses.
Now that Puryear is satisfied with the product, the next step is to get the gloves into golf shops and big box retailers. The magnetic golf glove currently is available at Colonial Golf Course in Meridianville and the Links at Redstone.
It’s also available at www.mirage.golf. It retails for $19.99. There also are plans to ramp up the company’s social media presence to drive sales. “The best part so far has been showing the product to pro shops,” he said. “Their reactions are hilarious. It’s been neat to see how open the golf community is to new products”
Gregg Dewalt is the editor of Alabama Golf News
Featured image of the Magnetic Golf Glove 2.0 courtesy of Chase Puryear
Have a story idea or a news item to report to Alabama Golf News? Email editor Gregg Dewalt at bamagolfnews@gmail.com
