Zero Friction's Debut Golf Bag is a Clever Option for Golfers Who Love to Walk

The wheels have come off at Zero Friction, and golfers stand to benefit, as the company's new golf bag is a well-crafted addition to the market.

ORLANDO — You can run from the truth but you can’t hide. The wheels have come off at Zero Friction.

That’s not criticism, it’s a fact. Zero Friction, best known for its innovative one-size-fits-almost-all golf gloves, has a new golf bag called Wheel Pro ($349 suggested retail, and available on the company's website). It’s a golf bag on a push cart. It morphs Transformer-like into a carry bag when the wheels are removed.

That’s right, the Wheel Pro is a sneaky little multi-tasking devil.

“It’s not your typical golf bag,” said John Iacono, Zero Friction’s founder and president.

Zero Friction's Wheel Pro
Zero Friction's Wheel Pro

The Wheel Pro is a triple threat. It’s a carry stand bag with legs that spring out. It’s a push cart when the wheels are attached at the bottom. And the whole Wheel Pro can be a cart bag, too, and ride on the bag of a motorized cart. The entire bag weighs only 10 pounds.

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This bag looks like an obvious answer for college golfers, who typically carry their own bags in tournaments with 36-hole days. Sure, those guys and gals are young and strong but 36 holes is a lot of carrying. You think they wouldn’t like the option to push-cart their way around the course twice? Of course they would.

The next best thing about the Zero Friction Wheel Pro, after its RPO-like adaptability (that’s Run-Pass Option in football speak), is how easy it is to add or remove the wheels. It’s so easy a caveman could do it, no offense to any of our caveman readers. It's so easy even I can do it (and I did). Hey, it’s so easy even Iacono can do it. But he probably rehearsed first.

The Wheel Pro takes up the same amount of trunk space as a normal bag. The only addition is the two 11-inch wheels, which come in a nylon carry bag. All you do is push the wheels into place until you hear the locking sound. To remove them, just pull on a release lever and pull them out. It takes, oh, two seconds. I didn’t have to read a user’s manual or ask a sales guy at the Zero Friction booth how to do it, either. I figured it out on my own because, yes, it really is that easy.

The way it turns from stand bag into a cart is slightly counter intuitive. A push handle on the top side of the bag (where the hand hold normally is located) swings up and locks into place above the bag. You hold that handle to push. When you stop, you’ll have to get used to a new habit. Instead of simply letting go of the handle, you push the bag toward its other side, where the stand-bag legs pop out to stabilize it on the ground.

The other key details on the Wheel Pro bag: One carry strap, seven dividers, seven zippered pockets, one plastic removable umbrella holder. The Wheel Pro comes in black, gray or blue-white-and-red.

The Wheel Pro provides a great option for walking golfers. I carry my bag when I walk a hilly nine-hole public course in the Pittsburgh area, it’s no big deal. Would I use a cart if it was already built into my bag and I didn’t have to lug around a second piece of cumbersome equipment in my car’s trunk and attach the cart to my bag? You bet.

Zero Friction has come up with a very clever option for walkers. The wheels have come off at Zero Friction and it turns out, that’s a good thing.

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Gary Van Sickle
GARY VAN SICKLE

Van Sickle has covered golf since 1980, following the tours to 125 men’s major championships, 14 Ryder Cups and one sweet roundtrip flight on the late Concorde. He is likely the only active golf writer who covered Tiger Woods during his first pro victory, in Las Vegas in 1996, and his 81st, in Augusta. Van Sickle’s work appeared, in order, in The Milwaukee Journal, Golf World magazine, Sports Illustrated (20 years) and Golf.com. He is a former president of the Golf Writers Association of America. His knees are shot, but he used to be a half-decent player. He competed in two national championships (U.S. Senior Amateur, most recently in 2014); made it to U.S. Open sectional qualifying once and narrowly missed the Open by a scant 17 shots (mostly due to poor officiating); won 10 club championships; and made seven holes-in-one (though none lately). Van Sickle’s golf equipment stories usually are based on personal field-testing, not press-release rewrites. His nickname is Van Cynical. Yeah, he earned it.