We all love the beautiful fall foliage New England is known for. But there is one problem for golfers.
Leaves.
They are the enemy of golfers. They make finding a ball more difficult and if a green is covered with leaves, they make putting somewhere between lousy and impossible.
Golfers have a new weapon to fight the War of the Leaves. It is the Zoom Broom Golf Breeze, a golf-club-sized leafblower that fits in a golf bag so players clear a green themselves. Or use it to find their ball in a pile of scattered leaves in the fairway or rough. Zoom Broom is sleek, high-powered and battery-operated.
Randy Kuckuck, founder of Zoom Broom, got the idea when he tried to play golf a few years ago at Monroe Country Club in Michigan, about halfway between Toledo and Detroit, and the greens were covered with leaves and other tree debris.
Someone in the group joked it was too bad they hadn’t brought a leafblower. Enter inspiration.
Kuckuck took the idea a week later to his engineer friend, Kevin Newcomer, who went to work on the project. Eighteen prototypes later, they had their product.
They weren’t able to find a manufacturer, however, and then Covid hit, followed by the supply-chain crisis. Zoom Brown was displayed at Chicago’s International Housewares Show and won the award as Best New Cleansing Product. Zoom Brown has a home model with an added shaft handle for easier use around the house.
A Chinese company representative liked the product and offered a deal to manufacture the Zoom Brooms. It was an ideal offer for Kuckuck and Newcomer.
““Almost every vacuum on the market comes from China,” Newcomer said. “They are the only ones who can make these very small, high-tech parts efficiently. The Zoom Broom is really a small jet engine in a blower with high-power batteries in a stick.”
While complicated to make, the Zoom Broom is easy to operate. Simply press a button on the shaft and it starts blowing.
The first shipment of product finally arrived June 1 at the company’s warehouse in Temperance, Mich., near Monroe.
“When the truck got here, we all gathered around to watch them unload it,” Kuckuck said. “Pulling that first one out of the box and seeing it, we said, ‘OK, it’s real now.’ It’s not up there with the birth of my daughter but it’s pretty close.”
Zoom Broom is available at the company’s website, www.ZoomBroom.com, and at Amazon. Kuckuck is having conversations with big box golf stores and home products stores about stocking it.
The golf version sells for $179, the home version is $189.
“I saw some pictures last year where a few courses were hanging leafblowers on shepherds’ hooks by the greens so members could use them to clear the greens,” Kuckuck said. “So we’ve created a greenside stand to hold a Zoom Broom for private clubs who are interested.
“It’s going well. We’re getting a lot of attention. The biggest thing is, people get the product and love it. They can’t believe how light and how powerful it is. Those are the two comments we keep hearing.”
Autumn is fast approaching so Kuckuck hopes this will be a big selling season for the new company. It’s been a four-year journey so far and Zoom Broom is just getting started.
“I thought I was retired,” Kuckuck joked.
Not yet. Leaves are the enemies of all golfers. Now, Zoom Broom has to blow them away.
Leave a Reply