REVIEW: IZZO Pilot Cart Bag

Even Room for the Kitchen Sink

You may have made heard the question asked when packing up a bunch of gear, “Did you brought along the kitchen sink?”  When you start loading up your IZZO Pilot bag, you might get asked the same thing if you fill all 14 pockets, but you can let them know that there is still room left in your bag for the kitchen sink.

IZZO has always been an innovator when it comes to golf bags.  They were the first company to patent the dual shoulder straps for stand bags.  The new cart bag carries on that wonderful tradition of innovation with a number of great ideas in a golf bag. 

 

We’ll start at the top and work our way down the bag.  It has a unique rain cover.  The size, shape, and function are the same as any other, but instead of plain black, it is mostly clear heavy plastic.  It seems to be holding up very well and looks great. (I wonder if in the years to come if it will get brittle, dry and crack?)


The top has a nice big 14way divided club top.  Unfortunately, they are not 14 full length dividers, there are only 3 full length dividers keeping the grips and shaft from running into each other.  The top does most of the work of keeping them separate but every once and while they still get tangled.


Below the top you find the first ring of pockets and accessory holders.  The most unique and well thought out holder is a little clip for attaching the IZZO SWAMI 1500 GPS right to the bag.  It is in perfect position when you go to your bag to grab clubs.  It felt like the SWAMI was very secure. I never felt worried about losing it.  This clip is attached to an accessory pocket.  This is where I keep the SWAMI on the way to and from the course.   Around the sides there is a bungee strap for a towel, brush, wrench or anything else you might need.  It could really hold a large number of items.  On the other side was a nice little hole for a sharpie.  The only problem was, mine happened to be sown shut.


The next tier had numerous pockets.  The most important one was the ball pocket.  It was not as big as on some bags, but easily held a dozen balls and some tees.  That was about it.  On both sides there were 3 pockets.  A big one to hold rain gear or warm weather gear.  Then a short valuables pocket, for keys or wallet, and then a thin long pocket I used to hold paper stuff, like pin placements sheets or extra score cards.  One final little touch was a glove bar.  It was on the outside and allowed you to Velcro a couple of gloves to the bag so they could dry out for the next use.


The final pocket near the bottom was a big one.  The cooler pocket on this bag was more like a full size cooler.  From my testing you could get a 6 pack of cans in there or at least 4 to 5 bottles of water or other adult beverages.  There would still be room left for plenty of ice to keep it all cold.  On the front of this pocket was a nice grip handle that worked well with the two that were up near the top of the bag. 


The very bottom was nicely molded with little stabilization feet, allowing you to stand the bag in the parking lot and not worry about it falling down.  It also had a nice putter well down the one side with a grip catch at the bottom.  It allowed for the grip to be exposed during the round, which means your grip was never damp from sweat because it always dried off between holes.


I only used the bag a little on a power cart.  It worked very well for that.  The top pocket is designed in a way that you can slide the strap under it so that you can secure it nicely to the cart.  I used it most with my two push carts.  A Sun Mountain Micro Cart and a Clic Gear 1.0 cart.  Because the Sun Mountain has the bag clamps and no straps it worked out just fine and rode very nicely in the push cart.  The Clic Gear uses straps to secure a bag, which I love, but sliding those bungee straps under that  pocket was extremely difficult.  The pocket was too tight to the bag to slide a hand under it to push through.  It can be done, but it was a considerable amount of work, even a little painful on the hands.

All in all, I was very impressed with the IZZO Pilot Bag.  It had many of the innovations I have come to expect from IZZO and allowed me to carry everything I could ever want in my bag, and even the kitchen sink.

For more information: www.izzo.com