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Latest News - Revolutionary New Tee
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April 8, 2003; Source: AnyoneForTee.com Dental inspiration helps root golfers to the spot |
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UK. One of the country’s most eccentric inventors has developed a
revolutionary new golf tee that was inspired by a visit to his dentist. Willy Johnson, who at 63, is worth an estimated £495million and ranked the 60th wealthiest person in Britain, has unveiled the Willit (pronounced Willy-Tee) peg, a two-legged tee that he claims doesn’t break or come out of the ground like a conventional tee.  The idea, which could eliminate a lot of tee-thing problems for beginners,
came to him while he was sitting in the dentist's chair. "I saw this gigantic
poster of a molar," he said. "It had great anchors going into the gums to
keep the tooth in place. I thought, what a remarkable thing nature is, that
something can be made so secure it will last a lifetime. That's nature's way
of anchoring.”Golfers around the world use between 10 and 15 billion golf tees a year, all based on a single point that sticks in the ground. Many snap and many are lost (some when they are driven further than the ball). By staying in the ground, the Willit gives the golfer something to focus on, curbing the tendency to top the ball or miss it altogether, Johnson claims. The inventor is not a golfer, having played only once, though he admits to having a regular dental check-up. A week after his last visit, he noticed the similarity between a golfing friend’s pitch mark repairer and the molar. "I remembered my friends saying, 'Oh Willy, you'll never play golf, you're too keen to see where the ball has gone'. I started thinking about how, if the tee had stayed in the ground, I could have concentrated on it and forgotten about the ball." The result was the Willit, which can also be used to repair pitch marks. At £2.95 for 10, it will cost more than the original tee but will last a lot longer.  The dental arguments have been supported by Dr Anousheh Alavi, a specialist
periodontist and clinical lecturer at London’s GKT Dental Hospital.“Mr Johnson is right,” Dr Alavi, a non-golfer, told AnyoneForTee. “The molars on the lower jaw have to withstand considerable forces generated during mastication. Their two-rooted morphology is ideally suited for this purpose. Teeth placed further forward in the jaw have single roots as they are not used in grinding food.” Mr Johnson’s idea, now patented, has received the approval of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrew's, the body that governs golf. He has formed Guernsey Willit Corporation, a subsidiary of his Swindon-based group Durand Technology to manufacture the tee and adopt the slogan: "Watch the Willit." His other brainchilds include hack-proof computer software (perfect for the ordinary golfer) and Schnore-no-more, which claims to eradicate snoring. Full details about the Willit and its inventor can be found at the Willit website. |
| To read today's other breaking news from AnyoneforTee, follow these links: - That was no triple bogey - you just shot a grouse! - Protection order slapped on "endangered" Alliss - The other top stories from the world's press |
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