Golf is Mental review of PeakVision's GX5

Despite getting emails on a daily basis with requests to write about golf gadgets or the next great golf idea, I don’t publish very many product reviews. To be blunt, there’s a lot of bad ideas out there. Since my blog will always remain an insightful and honest account of my thoughts, I don’t want to get bogged down with telling you not to bother with things you’ve probably never heard of anyway.

Having said that, when I come across something I think my readers would be interested in and may not already know about, I’m willing to give it a go.

When I found out about Peak Vision through a social media connection, I checked out their website and was very intrigued by a company dedicated to making sunglasses with golf in mind, and was keen when the opportunity arose to test out their product.

Peak Vision is a company based out of South Carolina and currently offers 10 different styles of sunglasses ranging from sporty to hipster to detective-like. The pair I tested out was their “sportiest” flagship model, the GX5. I was told that Jack Nicklaus is a big fan of Peak Vision shades, and they even offer a few models wielding the Golden Bear logo – the Jack Nicklaus Signature Model (JN 1), The Jack Nicklaus Model Five (JN 5), and the Golden Bear Model 9 (GB 9).
First Impression

When I first peeled them out of the box, I got what I hoped for, and then some, from a sporty pair of sunglasses. They were very light, durable, and flexible. While a sleek and sporty style wouldn’t be my choice for every occasion, I do like how this style fits nicely under a hat for playing golf.

The Specs

Here’s where things get fancy.

The nose piece is fully adjustable. You can pry them wider apart, closer together, closer to the lenses or further away, or adjust the angle of them, which makes it easier to get the sunglasses to sit on your face how you want. If you have an unusually large or small nose, you won’t feel discriminated by these shades. Adjusting the nose piece can change how high or low the sunglasses sit on your face, depending on your preference. This was definitely a feature that was new-to-me on a pair of sunglasses.

The lenses seem to have a lot of thought and technology put into them. They feature a “dual-zone” lens, which means the upper part of the lens is a 20% contrast neutral grey to reduce the intensity and glare of the bright sun/sky, and the lower portion is a lighter, 60% contrast amber lens designed to enhance detail, capturing about 3x as much detail as the naked eye.

Since I am not an expert in optics and lens technology, here are the lens specs as hijacked from their website:

  • Dual-Zone/Zero-Distortion™ HYBRID Optics
  • 20%t Neutral-Gray Upper Zone Manages Glare
  • 60%t Amber Lower Zone Increases Contrast
  • Optical Glass-like Clarity
  • Impact-Resistant Safety
  • 100% UV400 Protection
  • 52 abbe Value for sunglasses with Zero-Distortion clarity
Whatever that all means, it does add up to a clear, sharp lens to look through.

I have a fairly large head and they fit nicely and looked proportional. Someone with an unusually giant melon could potentially find them to look a bit small on their face. However, the frames are quite flexible which helps to fit various head widths.

Side profile of the GX5
On the Course

I had the privilege of testing these shades out over five rounds of golf down in Palm Desert. We were treated to mostly sunny skies with some brief periods of cloud cover and a 100% chance of birdies.

The color looking through the lenses is dominated by the lower amber zone, meaning, I wasn’t overly aware of the dual-zone while wearing them, it sort of just blends together. I liked the look of the amber color, but ultimately that comes down to personal preference. The lenses did do a great job of cutting out glare from the sun, while not over-darkening anything.

During times of cloud cover, I didn’t feel the need to take them off which was nice. If anything, the lenses made things look less dull while it was cloudy, and helped the terrain pop out a bit. If I did need to take them off, they sat on my hat nicely, and have rubber on the ends of each arm for grip.

They were light and comfortable to wear for four straight hours, and I didn’t feel overly stressed about getting them dirty with sweat and sunscreen once I found out that they wiped cleanly with the cloth they come with.

While a claim that these sunglasses changed my game or made me a master green-reader would be a bit over the top, I can attest to the fact that things did look sharp through them, and they definitely did not make me worse. If nothing else, they provided me with some confidence on the greens with the belief in my mind that they’re supposed to help me.

Yours truly on the lookout for birdies in the GX5

Final Thoughts

It’s hard for me to ask for much more out of a pair of sporty sunglasses for the golf course. I can’t guarantee they’ll knock tons of strokes off your game, but they certainly aren’t going to hurt your cause, and I do appreciate a company who is dedicating their craft primarily to the performance and comfort of golfers.

Protecting my eyes on the golf course has always been a high priority. Unlike sunglasses, our eyes are pretty tough to replace if we damage them, so I will rarely set foot on a golf course without sunglasses on.

The style, fit, and lens colors of sunglasses can be a very personal choice, but I can attest to the fact that Peak Vision is delivering a very high quality product. If I was granted a wish, it’d be to see that lens technology transferred to a variety of different lens colors to give more variety to an already solid product.

For more info, and to view their other styles and pricing, you can visit the Peak Vision website.
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