A Quick 18 With… PeakVision Sports President Scott D. Berg

We here at SirShanksAlot.com are happy to debut a new section on the website. Our “A Quick 18 With…” category will feature interviews with various people in the golf business. We hope to interview different people from all areas of the business… from company presidents to master clubmakers… from Head Professionals to folks at your …

We here at SirShanksAlot.com are happy to debut a new section on the website. Our “A Quick 18 With…” category will feature interviews with various people in the golf business. We hope to interview different people from all areas of the business… from company presidents to master clubmakers… from Head Professionals to folks at your local shop.

Our first Quick 18 is with PeakVision Sports President Scott D. Berg. PeakVision Sports have developed a new line of eyewear geared towards the golfer and currently have PGA players like Billy Andrade and Scott McCarron using their products. We will have a full review of these sunglasses on Monday. Check out www.peakvisionsports.com for more information. So let’s tee off on our Quick 18 With Scott D. Berg!

1. What is your handicap?

Current GHIN index is 6.5

2. What’s in your bag?

Titleist 975J 8.5 Driver with a Penley TourLite shaft

Callaway Big Bertha 3+

Callaway Steelhead 5 and 7 woods

Callaway Big Bertha 1H Hybrid

Titleist DCI 762 4 iron through Pitching Wedge with GAT shafts

Cleveland 56 sand wedge

Callaway White Hot Steel #5

3. If you could pick any foursome in the world to golf with who would it be?

(4 guys not around any more that I'd love to talk to)

Bobby Jones

Dwight Eisenhower

Bill Donovan (founder of OSS/CIA)

My father

Or

(4 of the nicest players on any tour)

Billy Andrade

Scott McCarron

Davis Love III

Bruce Fleisher

4. What is your favorite course?

Pacific Dunes, Bandon, OR

5. Who is your favorite player of all time?

Jack Nicklaus

6. What is your favorite band or musical artist?

Stevie Ray Vaughn

7. Favorite Movie?

Field of Dreams

8. If you were stranded on a desert island and could only take one item with you what would it be?

PeakVision Sports Performance Eyewear

9. What is your favorite sport other than golf?

Whatever sport my daughter is playing! So, outside of Cross-Country, Basketball, and Track. I have to admit to being a College basketball addict, men's and women's.

10. Who is your dream date?

My wife, of course!

11. Who has been the most influential person in your career?

Oddly enough, it is a man I've never met. However, his books have had a profound influence on me. Stephen Covey.

12. If you had to pick one person to make a 20 foot putt to win you $1,000,000 who would it be?

Billy Andrade. He is putting great this year! Because of his Peaks, of course!

13. Who is your favorite actor/actress?

Sean Connery. He's a golfer and he has a great voice.

14. We loved your glasses… how did you come up with such an interesting design?

We asked ourselves a simple question: Why do golfers spend $200 on a pair of sunglasses and put them on their hats when they want to hit a shot, read a green or roll a putt? I did it, as do most guys out there.

We discovered there were really three primary reasons:

First, no single color lens can address the multiple light conditions a golfer encounters during a single round. You always have a bright sky (of varying intensity) condition to manage, and green grass surfaces only reflect about 4% of ambient light. So, a dark lens manages the glare from the sky, but makes it difficult to read the green surfaces. An amber/yellow lens highlights green contours, but does nothing to manage glare.

Second, the most common material used to make impact resistant sunglass lenses is polycarbonate. It is melted and injected into a mold. The lenses cool from the outside in, and the cooling process introduces distortion into the lens. This distortion can change over the life of a pair of sunglasses as they are heated and cooled (sitting on the dashboard in the hot sun, walking into an air-conditioned environment). All of the major sunglass manufacturers use this material because it is inexpensive and impact resistant despite the inferior optical properties.

Third, many people believe that polarization is required in order to have UV protection. While the UV protection varies from lens to lens, any lens offers some UV protection irrespective of polarization. Unfortunately for golfers and others who stand sideways to hit a ball, polarization tends to inhibit depth perception and reduces peripheral vision. A polarized lens contains microscopic vertical lines (usually vertical, although there are horizontal lenses out there as well as lenses in which the microscopic lines could be a random angles depending on how they are inserted into the frame). These microscopic vertical lines block out light that is not coming directly between the lines. This works great for water where you have multiple light sources to manage, however for a golfer the lines introduce slight monovision affecting depth perception, and the lines on the side of a wrap lens will limit light coming from the side, effectively blocking peripheral vision.

Our solution:

We created and patented a dual-zone lens for golf with neutral density gray at the top and amber at the bottom. The neutral density gray manages glare while retaining distance perception. The amber dramatically highlights the contours on a green grass putting surface.

We found a brand new material, originally developed for the military, that offers optical glass clarity in a shatterproof lens.

Our golf lens is not polarized, so it offers perfect optics that a golfer can wear from the 1st tee through the 18th green. Optics that will help a golfer to See Better and Play Better.

15. You are also starting to build a list of celebrity endorsers. Any plans on adding more names?

We are very proud to be associated with players and personalities like Billy Andrade, David Feherty, Scott McCarron, Bruce Fleisher, and Dr Craig Farnsworth (aka The Putt Doctor). Our PGA Tour Rep has been very successful this year in getting other PGA Tour Players to try our sunglasses and we expect to announce additional endorsement relationships later this year.

16. How has consumer response been? Which styles have been your most popular?

Visit our website and take a look at the commercial called "First Look" These are actual consumer reactions as they try our sunglasses for the first time. The most common response we get is "Wow!" Our biggest sales challenge has been trying to figure out how to get them on faces, since once golfers try them, they buy them. We offer a no-risk 30-day money back guarantee so that golfers can get a pair and see for themselves. Our return rate is extremely low, by the way!

Our most popular styles have been the Classic and Chip models, however a recent model, Shot is quickly gaining ground and we expect our newest model, Slam, to be the most popular frame we've ever designed. Look for it on our website after July 20.

17. Your website lists Peak Vision glasses for sports other than golf. What can you tell us about those?

Our belief is that there are specific filter combinations that will help athletes in sports other than golf. We have patents and designs for a number of other sport specific lenses that we will be releasing over the next 24 months.

We offer a ski lens that is vermillion at the bottom (rather than amber) which actually helps to prevent night blindness. Exposure to light reflected off of snow depletes an enzyme found in the cones and rods of the retin
a called rhodopsin which is the primary cause of night blindness. A vermillion (pink) lens actually reduces rhodopsin depletion. Plus, vermillion tends to highlight the contours of a ski run in bright conditions. For flat lighting conditions, our gray/amber lens works extremely well.

Currently, the umpires for Major League Baseball are wearing our sunglasses on the field because their eye doctor, Dr. Burt Worrell of UC Berkely, evaluated our lenses and confirmed that we reduce eye fatigue, enhance visual acuity, and improve speed of perception. A number of Major League players are wearing our current golf lens and giving us feedback for the development of our baseball lens due out for next season.

We have lenses in development for over 18 other activities and we will start to market them as they become available.

18. What advances and trends in sports sunglasses do you see on the horizon?

For the last 40 years, the only real innovations in sunglasses have been in frame design and the shape or wrap of the lenses. Manufacturers settled for the poor optics of polycarbonate because it offered them an impact resistant lens.

Just as we have applied technology to the most important part of the sunglass, the lenses, we expect others to develop lenses that address specific visual needs of different activities (unless we beat them to it!).

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