THE SHOP WINDOW EL ESCAPARATE
BIG MAX GOLF
25 YEARS OF SUCCESS WITH GOLF TROLLEYS A quarter of a century ago, while tinkering with an old two-wheel pull trolley, Thomas Reiter had a great idea. A few hours later, with a third wheel fixed to the front of the trolley, the first three-wheel push trolley prototype had been created, taking the first step in the evolution of the Nº1 European brand, and continental Europe’s Nº1 golf bag brand. “I had set up my company, Golftech, in 1088, while I was studying at Vienna University.” said Thomas Reiter. “In 1994 we decided to make our own pull trolleys, as there was a clear gap in the European market. The initial BIG MAX models sold well, but it was while I was playing around with an old two-wheel pull trolley that the business changed forever. I figured that it would be less stressful on the body to push the trolley, and that you could direct it more easily if it was in front of you. So I fixed an extra wheel to the front of one and tried it out”. The first BIG MAX three-wheel trolley, the BM 500, went into production in 1997 and immediately changed the way that the Austrian and German market thought about push trolleys. But it was in the year 2000 that the brand became the dominant force in the market. “In 2000 we introduced the Ti 1000. I have always thought that there are really only two spaces in the golf market, the cheapest and the best, and everything we do at BIG MAX is focused on being the best. So we invested heavily in the Ti 1000, coming up with the straight-axle design that brought a huge amount of stability to the trolley and allowed it to fold to a compact size”, he adds.The impact was immediate, and the Ti 1000 was a huge success, expanding the brand to the whole of Europe, and becoming the best selling push trolley. Innovation and heavy investment in R+D remain fundamental to the success of the company. That approach has placed the brand in the forefront with the first ultra-compact folding trolleys for both push and electric models (IQ and Nano), waterproof golf bags (Aqua line) and latterly, the unique, multiaward winning Fold Flat design of the Blade Series. Congratulations! On its 25th anniversary, it is clear that BIG MAX is always in front of its imitators, and gets its products right, designing them to make golfer’s lives easier and help them have fun with their game.
125