Toyo Tires will sponsor four major tournaments of the LPGA (Ladies Professional Golf Tour organized by the Ladies Professional Golf Association of America): the Chevron Championship, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, the Amundi Evian Championship, and the AIG British Women’s Open. LPGA Major Tournament is the collective name for five prestigious tournaments that are positioned as the pinnacle of women’s...
golf
Sumitomo Rubber Develops Japan’s First Voicebot on Golf Advice
Sumitomo Rubber has newly developed Japan’s first voicebot on golf advice, introducing a conversational AI platform provided by Enoki. The system has been released free of charge on Oct. 6 as a new feature of D-Golf, the company’s smartphone application to support golf life. A voicebot is a system that uses conversational AI, voice recognition, natural language processing, and other...

Bridgestone Set to Launch Water-Repellent Golf Balls
Bridgestone Corp.’s (TYO:5108) golf business is planning an April 15 launch for the Tour B JGR Splash, a golf ball with new functionality. The ball takes the design of the existing Tour B JGR – which has met with good reviews for its role in maximizing the carry of amateur golfers – and adds the benefit of water repellency. While...

Bridgestone Sees Success With Spikeless Golf Shoes Employing Tire Technologies
Bridgestone Sports Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Bridgestone Corp. (TYO:5108), has announced that a line of spikeless golf shoes under its Tour B series achieved a major sales landmark over Sept. 10–16, becoming the week’s top-selling over-the-counter line of spikeless golf shoes in Japan. This comes as Bridgestone has applied technologies from its tires to the new line of shoes,...

Kasco to Sell Golf Balls with Jointly Developed Eucommia Elastomer Covers
Golf equipment maker Kasco Corp. has announced that it will next April release a new golf ball made using eucommia elastomer. The ball, branded the Biospin, will be a high-end product with a suggested retail price of 1,000 yen ($8.88) per ball. The cover material is made with trans-1,4-polyisoprene, an inedible biomass produced by the Eucommia ulmoides tree – also...
Dunlop Sports’ Strong Global Sales Push up Revenue and Profit
Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd.’s (TYO:5110) group company Dunlop Sports Co. Ltd. (TYO:7825) has released consolidated financial results showing an increase in both revenue and profit for the combined first three quarters (January–September) of the fiscal year ending December 2017. For this period, the company reported 55.76 billion yen ($488.91 million) in sales, up 1.8 percent from the same period a...