Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Feeding golf's hungry ghosts

I bought a Cleveland Launcher 4 wood at Roger Dunn golf, home of the famous 90-day exchange policy. I had been hitting some snap hooks with it, so decided a different club might be in order. I wanted exchange it for a PING HL 4 iron but didn't want the store to put my 4 wood on the sales floor. In response to my request, the salesguy offered this, "We can't do that, so you haver two options: be patient with your current club, or be sure you want to get rid of it, because you won't be getting it back." After my initial peevishness, I took the 4 wood to the range and hit snap hooks until... I didn't. I figured-out what was causing my hooks, straightened out my shots, and was hitting it better than ever. So why is it that most golfers--myself included--automatically put the blame on their gear and not their swing when they're game goes sour? There are many superficial advantages and God knows I love superficiality. Firstly, who doesn't like to shop for new clubs? Each new purchase is another fresh, steaming hope thrown onto the dung heap of hopes that we will, at last, be the golfers we know we can be. Secondly, it's a lot easier to say your clubs suck and not your swing which has 12 swing thoughts, 8 waggles, and 5 excuses why it hit a worm-burning slice, yet again. If statistics are to be believed, only about 10 percent of guys in the pro shop will actually benefit from better-matched clubs; the rest of us are just kidding ourselves. Even if you're loaded with cash and don't mind spending the money on a continual flow of new equipment, you're, at best, treading water with your swing and game--why would you want to do that? A beautiful swing and great score are more satisfying than any new club. That' not to say today's clubs, especially drivers, aren't going to help; they're ridiculously more forgiving than their presimmon predecessors, but this year's model isn't going to improve your score any more than using last year's model. Show a little patience and work on your swing. If you suck at golf, admit it, get some lessons, and instead of spending thousands of dollars on golf clubs, buy art instead.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Does that red tower of art mean anything in particular? You from SLC?