Brad Clifton, Editor In Chief at Australian Golf Digest, puts the Stewart Golf Q Follow electric golf trolley through its paces in his latest review.
Check out the Q Follow here: https://bit.ly/Q-Follow
If you’re in the market for an electronic buggy, this thing basically ticks all the boxes, right? You’re not there searching for something that does a specific area. You’ve got pretty much everything with this. So, in the premium category this thing falls in, I think it’s an absolute must to look at. So, I’m Brad Clifton. I am the publisher and editor-inchief of Golf Digest down here in Australia. Uh look, I started when I was about 10. My father got me in the sport at relatively young age, so about 30 odd years now. Um when I say play golf, it’s very very minimal at the moment. Working too hard, but uh I might change all that shortly. Yeah. Well, look, when I first started on the magazine, it was just that. It was just a magazine. But I suppose over the course of time, we’ve moved into the the digital age now. So, my role is quite varied. I’ll spend some time on the magazine. and I’ll spend some time out in the field doing some stuff like this or pieces the camera and uh looking after the commercial side of the business a bit. It’s it’s a it’s a range of roles I suppose social media and the digital age now there’s a new audience there that want to be on their devices and consume golf so it’s exciting it makes it very busy but um from the equipment side of things we’re very big in equipment here particularly in Australia I think we got a lot of passionate golfers now particularly on the back of uh the co pandemic we’ve got the participation rates are going through the roof so that means more equipment means more people on the fairways and uh keeps me very very active [Music] So, I’ve always been a bit of a bag carrier. Um, in the past, I’ve sort of carried a stand bag a little bit, but then generally if I have a cart bag or a bigger staff bag, I will uh always look to go and push or pull a buggy at the golf course. So, I’ve often always thought what it’d be like to be a tour pro and not have to do any of that. um and to have a product that’s going to allow me to walk between the fairways and not uh not get too tired. I do have some back issues as I’m getting older, too. So, that’s something that’s a consideration for me uh heading into the 40s now. Um that I I do think about a lot. I’ve always been intrigued by the electronic um buggy market because I can see what what they’re designed to do. Um, there are questions that I’ve always asked in terms of how practical they can be in certain areas of the golf course and how that sort of works. Um, so coming here today with the the Q follow, um, having read up a bit about it and seeing what it does, I I do it it excited me because I was like, well, this is a this is exactly the product I’ve been thinking about what would what would probably make me play golf a lot more is having a a a thing that works on its own and all you focus on is going from shot to shot, walking, strolling down the fairways. 3 m. So if you stand in front of the um stand in front of the trolley. Yep. Um and you press the follow button then you can see immediately basically is starting to go to react to where the handset is. So it follows the handset not you. So what we recommend now is if you put the put the handset on your pocket or your belt or something like that. Um basically then if if you end up with your hand in front of you then it could end up getting a little bit close. Yeah. So now if you just take a couple of steps forward now it’s going to pick you up and just start coming. But if you stop then it’ll stop with you. So basically now we can just like having your own caddy. How did that feel? I could get used to this. I might play more golf. I was pretty blown away. I got to say uh there’s an element of not trusting what it’s doing because cuz the technology is so cool and how it’s able to literally follow you behind that keeps that perfect gap behind you. But I just felt I constantly had to look over my shoulder just to make sure it was there. And sure enough, every time, every step I took, there it was. Um it was great. I was really impressed with the the ability to be able to walk up beside your ball and it intuitively knows that you’re hitting your next shot. So you step back, grab a club, stays there with you, bang, hit the shot, club back in, and away you go. I wasn’t expecting it to be that seamless, I got to admit. I’m going to be playing a lot more golf this year because of one of these things because it’s just amazing. You feel like you’ve got your own caddy and someone who suffers from a bit of a bad back now that I’m starting to get middle-aged. Uh you don’t realize how much how much you really have to put in when you’re you’re pushing and pulling and lugging, whatever it may be. Um, so to have a have something that automatically follows you like your own caddy is pretty cool. Just fits in. Doesn’t matter what color bag you have either really. Like that just looks just looks cool. And you got to turn some heads on the golf course when you’re walking around the golf course. Everyone’s going to be looking at you going, “What is that? I want one.” So 10 out of 10, guys. Well done. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s another big thing too in this this particular category of of of golf product is the is the space it takes and how easily it is to to un unpack and obviously pack up boot space is a a rare commodity for particularly for young families as well. People uh you know we don’t have a lot of room sometimes in the car and to be able to uh have a product that folds up seamlessly into a really small space. I got to say that that it took probably 3 seconds uh to do it all in one go and it it was very compact and very easy to carry. So once you take that battery out as well, that was pretty pretty easy little function there where you just click a button, pull the battery out, you got to take it home to charge anyway, and you lift the whole thing in. It was pretty pretty impressive stuff. Yeah, look, I think with the Q Follow, as I said before, I believe it actually caters for for whatever roll you need out on the golf course. If you want a remote control buggy that that goes out in front, you’ve got that. If you want to push a buggy at times with without the actual strain on you pushing up with the the motorized engine in it, you can do that. If you want something to be following you every single step and not have to worry about your clubs all day, this is this thing’s amazing for that as well. So, I think you can tick a lot of boxes. If you’re in the market for an electronic buggy, this thing basically ticks all the boxes, right? You’re not there searching for something that does a specific area. You’ve got pretty much everything with this. So, in the premium category this thing falls in, I think it’s an absolute must to look at. And the beauty about it, I’ve had the obviously, you know, being able to test it myself. It’s one of those things with any good product, right? If you can put it to the test and see for yourself, it’s pretty much a no-brainer. And that’s what I got today. To be able to go out there on the fairways and actually have a look and and I’ve heard the hype. I wanted to experience the hype. And to be able to do that today, absolute no-brainer. [Music]
