There are two major changes coming to amateur golf in the Chicago area for 2013. Both involve scheduling, and both represent improvements from the way things were.

For starters, the Chicago District Golf Assn. made one major schedule change, as well as a few others. The big one has the men’s 83rd Illinois State Amateur leaving its longstanding August spot on the calendar and moving to July 16-18. It’ll be contested at Aldeen, in Rockford.

The Illinois Mid-Amateur and Illinois Public Links are also moving back in the schedule, and that’s good, too.

Secondly, on the women’s side, the 80th staging of the Illinois Women’s Amateur is getting a slightly later date and a rare appearance in the Chicago Area. It’ll be played at Cantigny, in Wheaton, from June 25-28. That puts it closer to the only other big event in women’s golf for Illinois players. The 18th Illinois Women’s Open, which will get a July 31 start at Mistwood in Romeoville, is expected to have an amateur-dominated field again.

These changes have been generally – but not universally – well-received. Let’s have a look at them both.

In moving back the State Amateur the CDGA staff felt it was easing the burden on its top players. The U.S. Amateur was in August, too, and that put two of their primary events close together. In fact, they were held on back-to-back weeks in 2012.

Now the U.S. Am is Aug. 12-18, in Brookline, Mass. – roughly a month after the Illinois Amateur champion is determined.

“It’s a good thing,’’ said Dave Ryan, the Taylorville veteran who was the CDGA’s Player-of-the-Year in 2012. “For a lot of kids (the State Am) was up against the U.S. Amateur, and it was hard for them to get to both.’’

From a non-contestant standpoint, the schedule changes are good because they create a month of golf excitement in Illinois rather than spacing out the events, as has been the case in the past. The PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic is the week before the Illinois Amateur and the Illinois Open is the week after.

Quinn Prchal, the surprise winner of last year’s State Am, isn’t quite as convinced.

“It does appear that in 2013 most of the Illinois and Amateur tournaments are concentrated within a fewer number of weeks,’’ he said. “I imagine that scheduling golf tournaments is challenging.’’

He plans on defending his Illinois Amateur title “unless I qualify for the USGA Public Links.’’ That national championship is July 14-20 at Laurel Valley, in Pennsylvania.

Prchal became one of youngest State Am champions in history when he took the title at Kokopelli, in Marion, at 18 — just a few months after his high school graduation. He’s now a freshman at Princeton. The engineering student earned a starting spot on the Princeton team and had one individual top-10 finish (the Brickyard Collegiate in Macon, Ga.) and one team win (the Ivy League Match Play Championship, held on Princeton’s course) as his collegiate golf career got off to a promising start.

Ryan, conversely, may be the oldest-ever CDGA Player-of-the-Year, having won the honor at age 58. Now a year older, he spent much of the winter playing recreational golf in Scottsdale, Ariz. The lone exception was his participation in an April two-man team event at Whisper Rock, the prestigious club that includes such pro stars as Phil Mickelson and Fred Couples (as well as Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman) among its members.

Though he will continue his busy tournament schedule within Illinois, Ryan isn’t predicting another Player-of-the-Year season.

“I’m starting to feel aches and pains I’ve never felt before,’’ said Ryan, “and last year will be a tough act to follow. I got lucky last year. It was unusual for someone my age to do that.’’

Ryan expects to play in virtually the same events he played in during the 2012 season with one exception. He’ll skip the 94th CDGA Amateur (June 24-27 at Edgewood Valley, in LaGrange) to play in a qualifying round for the U.S. Senior Open on June 24 at Ruth Lake, in Hinsdale.

But he likes the other, less-high profile schedule adjustments made by the CDGA, those involving the Illinois Mid-Amateur (now Aug. 27-28 at Flossmoor) and the Illinois Public Links (now July 8-9 at Bowes Creek in Elgin). The Mid-Am was in April and the Public Links in May in 2012.

“Those were good moves because (they avoided) the spring weather,’’ said Ryan. “We had snow one time at the Public Links.’’

Last year was an unusual one, and not just because Ryan was the CDGA Player-of-the-Year. Though he won that award, he wasn’t Player-of-the-Year in the Senior ranks. That honor went to Lake Bluff’s Curtis Skinner, who accumulated enough points with his runner-up finish in the U.S. Senior Amateur.

That extraordinary tournament showing won’t lead to Skinner playing more locally, so the schedule changes “won’t affect me at all.’’

“If I had more time I would play in more of the state stuff,’’ said Skinner, “but Match Play events take up significant time, and amateur golf can be very expensive.’’

Especially if you have to travel to do it. By virtue of his showing at U.S. Senior Am, Skinner, now 55, earned spots in the U.S. Senior Open in July in Nebraska and U.S. Amateur as well as a return to U.S. Senior Amateur, in North Carolina.

His biggest focus will be on the U.S. Senior Open, where he missed the cut by one shot in 2011 when he made bogey on the last hole of the second round.

On the women’s front, the Illinois Women’s Golf Assn. could get another Northwestern vs. Illinois final again at Cantigny, assuming the college stars from both schools enter again. Elizabeth Szokol, now an NU freshman, won the 2012 title match over Michelle Mayer, now an Illini sophomore, at Ravisloe, in Homewood.

With IWGA leadership largely coming from Downstate, the Illinois Women’s Amateur was generally played away from the Chicago area. Last year was a rare exception, and in moving to Cantigny for this year the women will decide their champion on a course that has already hosted the men’s State Amateur three times.

Getting the chance to play Cantigny was a big reason for the date change, according to IWGA president Karen Tillett of Springfield. Cantigny was booked earlier in June.

“We’ve never had it this late before,’’ she said. “We were fortunate to get into Cantigny.’’

The IWGA will host its 34th Junior tournament July 30-31 at the University of Illinois’ course in Savoy and its 44th Senior tournament Sept. 17-19 at The Den at
Fox Creek in Bloomington. The Senior event will also include a Hall of Fame induction for the IWGA. Renee Sloan, the University of Illinois coach, will become on the fourth inductee into that Hall, which was created in 2008.

Luke Donald is just one of three Illinois players in their year’s Masters field. The other two – Kevin Streelman and D.A. Points – are in the field for the first time since making their tournament debuts in 2011.

Streelman (75-74) and Points (72-76) both failed to survive the 36-hole cut in their Masters debuts, and they’re coming into this one with different preparations.

Points should be tired. He qualified for the Masters by winning the Shell Houston Open two weeks ago. Rather than take a week off he opted to fulfill a commitment to play in the Valero Texas Open last week. He tied for 53rd place there – his sixth straight week of tournaments and his 11th event in the first three months of the year.

Streelman also played the week after his win, at last month’s Tampa Bay Championship, and tied for 21st at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He rested in Arizona the last two weeks while the tour was competing in Texas.

FIRST LOCAL EVENT: Donald’s coach, Pat Goss, will divide his attention between helping Donald and preparing his Northwestern men’s team for one of its biggest tournaments of the season.

On Monday, the day after the Masters, Goss’ Wildcats will host 13 other teams in the Kemper Sports Intercollegiate at The Glen Club in Glenview. It’ll be the first significant competition of the Chicago season and the Wildcats’ last tuneup for the Big Ten Championship April 26-28 at French Lick, Ind.

NU’s tournament has a big Illinois flavor, with the field also including DePaul, Loyola, Chicago State, Bradley, Northern Illinois, Illinois State and Western Illinois. Marquette, Indiana-Purdue Indianapolis, Dayton, Ohio, Ohio State and St. John’s round out the field for the event that calls for 36 holes on Monday and 18 on Tuesday.

IPGA DEBUT: First event of the Illinois PGA tournament season is Monday – the Spring Pro-Assistants team competition at Bolingbrook Golf Club.

The Chicago District Golf Assn. opens its season on April 23 with the Better Ball of Pairs event at The Glen Club.

Winfield’s Kevin Streelman wasn’t the only Illinois golfer earning a trip to the Masters in March. D.A. Points, the former University of Illinois golfer, also did it by winning the Shell Houston Open last Sunday.

Like Streelman, Points will be making his second Masters appearance next week; both missed the cut in 2011. Unlike Streelman, his recent victory wasn’t his first on the PGA Tour. He won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 2011.

Since that win, though, Points had missed 17 of 25 cuts, including seven of nine this year. When he did survive the 36-hole cuts this season he finished just tied for 63rd and tied for 68th. At Houston, though, he birdied the first five holes en route to a first-round 64, then finished off the win with up-and-down pars on the last two holes on Sunday after enduring a three-hour rain delay.

The clincher was a 13-foot par-putt on the last hole, the last of many he made after putting a 25-year old Ping putter that his mother once used in his bag.

COG SETS THE PACE: First competitive events of the Chicago season will be Saturday and Sunday when Cog Hill conducts Spring Scrambles. They’ll be held on the Nos. 1 and 2 courses on Saturday and the Nos. 2 and 3 courses on Sunday. Entry fee is $60 per team.

The Lemont facility has three of its four courses open. No. 4, Dubsdread – long-time site of the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship, will open on April 13 with a $155 greens fee, cart included. The other Jemsek Golf facility, Pine Meadow in Mundelein, opens on Thursday.

READY TO GO: Course operators have been stymied by fluctuating temperatures this spring, but the following courses have announced their openings: Oak Meadows, Maple Meadows and Green Meadows, in WHERE; Settler’s Hill and Tanna Farms, in Geneva; Foxford Hills and Cary Country Club, in Cary; Zigfield Troy, in Woodridge; Chevy Chase, in Wheeling; Arlington Lakes, in Arlington Heights; Ravisloe, in Homewood; and Schaumburg Golf Club.

Cantigny, in Wheaton, is to open on Friday. Fox Run, in Elk Grove, has nine holes open and the back nine – renovated by Aurora architect Greg Martin, will hold a grand re-opening on April 21. Most courses will base their openings on the weather, so a call ahead is advised.

COMING SOON: Eagle Ridge, Illinois’ premier golf resort in Galena, will open its South course next Monday (APRIL 8), The General on April 15 and the East course on April 22. The North layout is open year-around.

French Lick Resort, in Indiana, will open its Golf Academy on Friday.

You might notice there’s a new, old golf publication making its debut at the 30th Chicago Golf Show. Sound confusing? Let me explain.

Chicago Area Golf was the publication that provided coverage of the Chicago golf scene the last three years. Starting with this issue the publication that will do the same job will be called Chicagoland Golf.

It’s not a big name change, but it’s a meaningful one. Publisher Val Russell, who started Chicago Area Golf in May of 2010, thinks the name change will eliminate some confusion.

“It’s pretty simple,’’ said Russell. “Chicagoland Golf is a name that’s been around for quite some period of time because Phil Kosin published under that name for 20 years.’’

When Kosin succumbed to cancer in 2009 Chicagoland Golf ceased publication.

“When Phil passed I wanted to continue something similar to it,’’ said Russell. “Phil’s wife wasn’t interested in selling the name, so I started a new product. The long and short of it is that I still get checks and emails referring to us as Chicagoland Golf. It’s the name people refer to as our product. It just made sense to use a name that people recognized.’’

The confusion carried over to the Chicago Area Golf website.

“Somebody had that website name, so we had to go with www.chicagogolfonline, which didn’t match our publishing name,’’ said Russell. “We were able to pick www.chicagolandgolf.net as our website name. That’s important from a business standpoint as we go into 2013.’’

Russell doesn’t expect resistance to the name change.

“It’s really not a trademark or copyright,’’ he said. “Chicagoland Golf’s name is too common. In the publishing world you either use it or lose it. Part of my decision to use it is that I wanted to do it before someone else does.’’

Kosin started his publication in 1989, but it had a predecessor with a very similar name. Charles Chudek, who died in December, published Chicagoland Golfer in the 1960s.

“Some might be offended,’’ said Russell, “but the name has been around a long time in the Chicago marketplace. We’re not trying to undermine what Phil had done, but rather align our publication with what people related to. And our corporate name has always been Chicagoland Golf Media Inc.’’

Russell’s first issue came out in May, 2010. It was the first of six issues published that year. There were seven in both 2011 and 2012. The first each year is published to coincide with the Chicago Golf Show, then there are issues on a monthly basis from May through September and a fall issue that comes out in late October.

Coinciding with the name change is Russell’s decision to finally run his own picture in the publication.

“I’ve been asked why my picture isn’t in the paper,’’ he said, “but I’ve always been in the background side of publishing and didn’t feel the need to see a picture of me. Now there’s no reason not to.’’

Russell’s professional background has been in publishing. He grew up in Wyoming, where his father worked for a variety of small newspapers.

“I grew up in publishing, and I followed in his footsteps,’’ Russell said.

Eventually he took a job with the Audit Bureau of Circulation, where his focus was magazines. During his 17-year stint in that role he settled in Chicago. A Hampshire resident, he’s lived in the area since 1983.

From 2000-2010 he had his own consulting practice and he also taught a course called The Magazine Project at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism for eight years.

“My name has been printed in the mastheads of 200 million magazines over the years – and that number might be conservative,’’ said Russell. “I’ve worked for a lot of publishers over the years.’’

He opted for his own publication when his consulting practice was winding down, the result of the magazine industry declining to about one-third of what it was in its heyday. His first venture was Rockford Life, which was published in 2006 and 2007.

“It died a miserable death. We weren’t welcomed by the local newspaper,’’ said Russell.

Chicago Area Golf came next, a venture spurred in part by his interest in the game. He has been a member of the Northern Illinois Men’s Amateur Golf Assn. since 1988 and was on that group’s board from 19996-2007. Now he plays in a group called the Cog Hill 18. His handicap, once a 5, is now an 11.

“I like to play tournament golf, and I like to play social golf when I can,’’ he said. “Once you’re in this industry you don’t have as much time.’’

In addition to Chicagoland Golf Russell works as client services director for Omeda, a Northbrook-based firm that manages subscriber files for publishers.

He entered the golf publishing world at a difficult economic time, with both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times in bankruptcy. Chicago Area Golf, though, withstood the struggles. With the name change the new Chicagoland Golf will sport a spiffy new logo and Jason Clary, who had been at Century Publishing in Evanston, has come aboard as art director.

“We’ll have a new name, but be the same great paper,’’ said Russell. “We’ll continue what we’ve been doing. Our focus has always been golf in Chicago – be it a professional tournament or the junior game. That’s all we’re about. You won’t see articles on event the Masters or U.S. Open unless someone from Chicago does something spectacular.’’

The Chicago Golf Show celebrates its 30th anniversary beginning on Friday, and some significance announcements will be made as part of the festivities.

For one thing, the Chicago Open will be revived again, this time as a fundraiser for the Illinois Junior Golf Association. And Val Russell, publisher of the golf newspaper called Chicago Area Golf the past three years, will announce a name change for his publication.

The Show begins at noon on Friday at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont and runs through Sunday. The first 200 visitors each day will receive practice round tickets to September’s BMW Championship at Conway Farms. Each visitor can also claim a coupon for one free round of golf at one of the many area courses managed by Golf Visions. Wilson Sporting Goods is also having a golf ball give-away as part of the Show.

Featured celebrity will be World Golf Hall of Famer Lanny Wadkins, who will take center stage at noon on Saturday. Recently named Golf Channel’s analyst for the Champions Tour, Wadkins will be on hand to promote Chicago’s return to the circuit at June’s Encompass Championship at North Shore.

Last year the Show had a record 16,000 visitors. This year’s gathering will check out 400 booths, each offering information about destination resorts, courses, tournaments and equipment. The Shannon Rovers will open the show each day.

Show hours are noon-7 p.m. on Friday, 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. on Saturday and 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Adult admission is $5 on Friday and $10 on Saturday and Sunday. Youngsters 12-18 will be admitted for $4 and those 11 and under are free.

Illini add assistant coach

University of Illinois men’s coach Mike Small has a new assistant. Eldorado, IL., native Justin Fetcho has replaced Zach Guthrie. Guthrie left the Illini to work as caddie for his brother and former Illinois golfer Luke – a rookie on the PGA Tour.

Fetcho was assistant men’s coach at South Florida from 2009-11 and assistant women’s coach at Oregon from 2011 until joining Small’s staff.

The Illini, ranked 19th nationally, are coming off their first victory in the Big Ten Match Play tournament. Thomas Detry, a freshman from Belgium, was named the league’s player-of-the-week for his showing in that event. Detry never needed to play beyond the 15th hole en route to winning all three of his matches.

Did you know?

X — KemperSports has added still another Illinois club to its growing portfolio. Rockford Country Club, one of the state’s most prestigious private facilities dating back to 1899, will now be managed by the Northbrook-based firm.

X – CareerBuilder has been named presenting sponsor the the Encompass Championship — the first Chicago stop on the Champions Tour since 2002. It’ll be held at North Shore from June 17-23. It’ll feature a Wednesday-Thursday celebrity pro-am before the 54-hole main event that has already attracted Ben Crenshaw, Hale Irwin, Tom Kite, Bernhard Langer, Nick Price and Tom Watson.

X – Fyre Lake, a course under new ownership in Sherrard, IL., near the Quad Cities, is now managed by GolfVisions.

A golf professional’s job was much different when Bill Ogden ran the shop at North Shore Country Club. Ogden not only could compete at the highest level, but he also was a master at handling the detail work that was required on the job.

The Chicago area never has had a club pro as widely successful as Ogden, and his myriad of accomplishments were recognized this week when he was named among eight inductees into the PGA Golf Professionals Hall of Fame. He’ll be inducted posthumously at PGA Village in Port St. Lucie, FL., on March 12.

As a competitor Ogden was the Illinois PGA Player-of-the-Year a record six times and the only golfer to win the Illinois Open, Illinois PGA Championship, IPGA Match Play title and IPGA Assistants crown.

From 1953-72 Ogden won 31 of the section’s major titles and also competed effectively in PGA Tour events, gaining a tie for third in the 1956 Bing Crosby National Pro-Am and a tie for fourth in the 1968 Tucson Open.

Ogden was much more than a player, though. In his 40 years in charge at North Shore he became well known for grooming his assistants. Forty-three of them went on to land head jobs.

In 1970 Ogden was not only the IPGA president, he was also the section’s Professional-of-the-Year – and North Shore wasn’t exactly a full-time job for him. In the winters he was head professional at five different clubs in Palm Springs, Calif., between 1970 and 1980.

Ogden was the man among Illinois pros when I came on the golf-writing scene here in 1971. He retired from North Shore shortly after that and lived in California until his death at age 78 in 2005.

NU goes for a four-peat

Illinois, ranked 17th in the national collegiate polls, is the top-seeded team for the fifth straight year in the Big Ten Match Play Championships, which begin Friday at the Jack Nicklaus-designed Concession course in Bradenton, FL.

The Illini, though, have never won the league’s Match Play event. Northwestern has dominated, winning the last three titles. The Wildcats are the second-best Big Ten team in the national rankings, standing 29th.

KemperSports adds Harborside

KemperSports manages a wide variety of golf facilities in 26 states as well as internationally. Now the Northbrook-based firm will take on one of Chicago’s premier public facilities, 36-hole Harborside International.

Harborside, designed by Dick Nugent, was one of the first golf facilities created on what had been a landfill. Its development was a big boost for the far South Side, and now it’ll get the Kemper touch.

“We plan to introduce a variety of new programs at Harborside to cater to the residents of Chicago and surrounding areas,’’ said Kemper chief executive officer Steve Skinner. “We look forward to elevating the service, playing conditions and guest experience to make Harborside a must-play for Chicago golfers and visitors to the city.’’

Wadkins featured at Chicago Golf Show

World Golf Hall of Famer Lanny Wadkins will take over center stage on the second day of the 30th Chicago Golf Show, which comes to the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont from Feb. 22-24.

Wadkins was just named as lead analyst for Champions Tour telecasts on The Golf Channel and he’ll be in Chicago to promote the new Encompass Championship, which comes to North Shore June 21-23. That event will mark the first Champions Tour stop in Chicago since 2002 when Harborside hosted.

ORLANDO, FL. – The Ladies PGA Tour is returning to Chicago – but it won’t be until 2016. And then it will be for the staging of an extraordinary new team event.

Mike Whan, the LPGA commissioner, highlighted the first day of the 60th PGA Merchandise Show by announcing the arrival of the International Crown event. It’ll make its debut July 21-27 at Caves Valley, a Tom Fazio design in Owings Mills, Md., and the second staging will be in the summer of 2016 at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove.

Jerry Rich, owner and designer of the Rich Harvest private facility that hosted the 2009 Solheim Cup matches, was a leader in making the new event happen.

“Three days after Mike became commissioner (in 2010)_ I brought him to Chicago and said we’ve got to do something special,’’ said Rich. “The greatest players aren’t just from America. They’re from Asia and around the world.’’

That started the planning process that led to Thursday’s announcement before a standing-room-only press conference at the Orange County Convention Center.

Rich Harvest’s Solheim Cup was a rousing success, but didn’t lead to the return of an LPGA annual stop to Chicago. The LPGA has only sporadically staged tournaments on Chicago courses, the last being the Kellogg-Keebler Classic at Stonebridge, in Aurora, in 2004.

That tourney had a three-year run in the aftermath of the U.S. Women’s Open being played at Merit Club in Libertyville in 2000. Karrie Webb won at Merit Club and at the last Kellogg-Keebler with Annika Sorenstam dominating at Stonebridge in 2002 and 2003.

The International Crown, though, will top all those and might well rival the success of the Solheim with the top players world-wide guaranteed to compete.

“At the Solheim Cup (of 2009) we had the largest event (the LPGA) ever had,’’ said Rich. “We had 120,000 people in Chicago – the greatest golf city in the world. Maybe this (new) event won’t approach the Ryder Cup that we just had at Medinah, but it will be huge.’’

Rich probably could have hosted the 2014 International Crown, but decided against it.

“I needed four years to wait because of our junior programs,’’ said Rich. His staff has studied the nearly 2,000 high school girls programs in five states. Those players, along with college players, will be invited to the International Crown with lodging already being arranged at Northern Illinois University and Aurora College.

The International Crown will present a different type of competition and have a broader world-wide appeal than the LPGA’s previous tries at one-week individual championships here. Whan predicted the event will “take women’s golf to the next level and allow fans to rally behind their homelands.’’

The International Crown will be held in even-numbered years to avoid conflict with the Solheim Cup. It’ll feature 32 players from eight countries battling to determine, according to the LPGA, “the world’s best golf nation.’’

Competition will be over four days, three for best-ball matches and one for singles matches. Teams will be determined by the top four players on the Rolex World Rankings after the 2013 CME Group Titleholders event, the last tourney of the LPGA season. If the International Crown were to be held now the eight teams participating would be South Korea, the U.S., Japan, Sweden, Australia, Taiwan, Spain and England.

The four players who will compete for each country when the competition begins will be determined at a later date.

“Our tour is so global, we need this type of an event,’’ said Stacey Lewis, the top-ranked American player. “People always want to know why golfers from Asia are so good. Now we can see how all the countries stack up.’’

Taiwan’s long-time world No. 1 player, Yani Tseng, likened the lead-in to the International Crown to “preparing for the Olympics.’’ The Rich Harvest version of the International Crown will about a month before the Olympics in Brazil, when golf will make its return to the Games.

The first International Crown event will offer a $1.6 million purse with each member of the winning team receiving $100,000. Ambassadors and financial supporters will be announced at a later date as will the nature of the trophy going to the winning nation

ORLANDO, FL. – The 60th annual PGA Merchandise Show teed off with a massive Demo Day on Wednesday but Chicago club manufacturer Tour Edge got a jump on the opposition a day early.

The Batavia-based company, in its eighth annual Multi-Manufacturers Media Day outing at the Legacy Club, introduced its first variable-fit driver. It was just one in a line of new products unveiled by Tour Edge president David Glod, but it drew the most attention.

Tour Edge isn’t the first company to test variable-fit clubs. Putter manufacturers were the first to do it, and now it’s spreading throughout the industry.

With Tour Edge’s Exotic line of clubs (shown above) a players can change the loft, face angle and shaft.

“You have options at your fingertips,’’ said Glod, who founded his company in 1986. “We’re planning on having an adjustable fairway wood, too, but it’s too net yet. It makes more sense with the driver.’’

Glod accepts the trend toward such state-of-the-art equipment and believes it’ll be around for awhile.

“It’s a great technology,’’ he said, “but it depends on the consumer. The guy who studies the game gets it. That’s why it’s been sticking around.’’

Training devices are also getting increasingly high-tech. Sky Golf, a pioneer in developing electronic yardage books with its Sky Caddie, now also offers Sky Pro – a swing analyzer that the company bills as “one of the most exciting products in golf today.’’ Many more were on display, in a series of colorful displays (pictured above), at the Demo Day lead-in to the PGA Merchandise show.

Swing Jacket, which isn’t so high-tech, is back on the market after a fire burned down its production facility in China. A player wears the tight-fitting jacket on the practice range and instructor Dave Brisbee says that player’s swing “can’t get out of position….It constrains range of motion to affect a better swing.’’

And then there’s Polara, a company not reluctant to admit that it’s equipment is usually “non-conforming’’ with the rules of the U.S. Golf Assn.

Polara drew plenty of attention with its no-slice golf balls. Now president David Felker said Polara is going into wedges, the first of which will be on the market before the year it out. Polara says its wedges “will help the ball spin more,’’ and Felker admits “it’s very unlikely’’ that they will conform to USGA specifications.

Still, the company believes it’s helping golf grow by making it an easier game for the estimated 85 percent of players who don’t carry USGA handicaps. To that end Polara is joining forces with the new Recreational Golf Assn. of America to push its products with more casual golfers.

The big show has plenty of golfers of all shades of interest. Over 40,000 will attend the three days of exhibits at the orange County Convention Center. Attendees will come from about 75 countries and walk down 10 miles of show alleys to check out the products of more than 1,000 manufacturers and brands.

Wednesday’s Demo Day, held at the Orange County National Golf Center in Winter Garden, drew out over 100 manufacturers. The Center has a circular range with 200 hitting bays spread over a 42-acre practice facility.

All the top manufacturers, including Chicago-based Wilson Sporting Good and Tour Edge, had the wares on display at Demo Day. So did other major manufacturers Bridgestone, Callaway Cleveland/Srixon, Cobra Puma, Mizuno, Nike, Ping, TaylorMade and Titleist.

Stars players past and president will also be making appearances, among them Davis Love III, Annika Sorenstam, Ian Poulter, Luke Donald, Lexi Thompson, Lee Trevino and Nancy Lopez. Ricky Fowler had a big presence — or at least his hat did. An enlarged replica of Fowler’s orange headgear enticed lots of picture takers — even though Fowler wasn’t there.