If it ain't broke...

Remember these?

These are the crappy clubs I mention in an earlier post with the wild-and-crazy idea that I would play them, expressing the quaint notion that, with their whippy, 40-year-old shafts, it's the swing, not the stick. Well, was I ever WRONG! Sure, I could hit them, but only after making swing adjustments that I just know will have put me out of sync with my current gear. Every iron shot was pulled, and the driver... I don't even want to talk about the driver. So, having learned the hard way that technology is my friend, I shall not ever abandon it again.

However, my foray into the unplayability of older clubs has led me to wonder if the idiosyncratic swings of older pros--Trevino, Palmer, even Nicklaus--weren't a result of the crude shafts which were available when they learned the game. Conversely, could the cookie cutter pro swings--so named and criticized by Hal Sutton in a Golf Magazine article--be a result of the consistent quality of golf equipment in the modern era? I have neither the billions of dollars nor the top-notch research team to put that question to the scientific test, but the golf swing has adapted as technology changed: hickory to steel, steel to graphite, etc. Who knows--if we're all playing the same shafts, maybe our swings should look similar, too.

Flight to Ohio: $500. Greens fees: $35. Playing with a set of clubs that cost you $8: priceless.

I'm out of town, visiting my clan in our ancestral homeland, better known as Northeastern Ohio, and, of course, it's Spring here, so golf is in season. I didn't dare schlep my clubs all the way from the City of Bulimic Angels, so I went shopping at a quality golf retail outlet. Here are some pics of my new acquisitions:





(The retail outlet is Salvation Army.) The grips are leather circa Eisenhower. I took them to a driving range, made my way amongst the guys playing with new shiny, grain-flow forged, titanium clubs and let 'er rip. I would guess they play nearly two clubs less than modern clubs (because of increased lofts and reduced shaft length) and the shafts were super-soft, which caused a fierce-some draw on every shot. With the driver, as long as you hit up on the ball like every pro says you should, you can get 200+ yards out of it. There's only one thing left for me to do: buy a worm-eaten bag for another $5, and hit the links.

And I'm not taking the price stickers off.

"Please repair your ballmarks..."

If you ever play on public courses, especially in big cities like Los Angeles, the conditions of the greens are often appalling. Not because the greenskeeper is asleep at the wheel, but because there are golfers--whole hordes of unwashed masses--who never fix their pitch marks. I've played with groups who never fix a single mark during an entire round, so I end up fixing 5 or 6 myself. Worse yet, when most golfers do attempt to fix their pitch mark, they do so incorrectly, and actually make the mark worse. In the below "diagram", the improper method--and how most golfers repair marks--is on the left: they dig below the mark and lift it. Not only does this tear the grass's roots, but lifts up the underlying soil, creating a patch of nude earth which will takes weeks to regrow. The correct technique, on the right, is to use your divot tool to push the edges of the hole into the hole itself.







This misunderstanding of correct technique probably came about because a) divot tools are so long the natural inclination is to use them as gardening tools, and b) no one is ever shown the proper technique. As to why people don't fix their marks at all, you'd have to chalk that one up to inexperience--they probably don't know they're responsible for repair of their ball marks, i.e., they're ingnoramuses..

Enter the Green Fix ball mark elimination tool.


This tool has shorter prongs and a video on the website shows its creator using the tool push the mark's edges in around itself (sound familiar?) These tools should be air dropped from C-130s over Los Angeles golf courses for all to use, and maybe, just maybe, golfers will finally show a little gratitude for hitting a green by fixing their mark (though I would like to believe any hacker that uses one will finally learn to fix ball marks properly, I have no doubt there will be doofusses who try to use it the wrong way.) Even if you don't buy a Green Fix, using proper ball mark repair technique will make all us golfers a lot happier.

Stop the insanity!

There is a certain kind of golf madness. A madness that is born of equipment. Much equipment. Choices of equipment.

For instance--which irons do you want? Game-improvement, or ultra-game-improvement? Semi-stiff, high-torque, or low kick point with high torque? Do you need a 350cc driver, 400cc or 460cc? How about hybrids vs. fairway woods?

Yes, this is insanity, and, what's worse, it can infect other aspects of your life. For instance, electric guitars offer as much choice wackiness at golf, if not more. Of late, my golf setup has been quite settled, but I've taken up the guitar, and have worn myself down to the nub looking at used guitars. A pox on eBay!

To forgive or not to forgive

There have been times in my golf life upon which I have looked back and wondered, "What in happy horseshit was I thinking?!" Case-in-point, my dabbling in the world of forged blades.
Blades are not impossible to hit. If you're swinging well, you can play just as well with them as with any other club. The problem was when I was swinging well, it was usually on the range. And range performance doesn't translate to the course. Actual golf, when played for score, is a much more random and unruly beast than swinging on the range. I made the switch back to uber-forgiving clubs (Ping Zings) a couple of years back and don't regret it a bit. I've recently been looking at an even more forgiving set, '94 Callaway Big Berthas.
I'm a solid 12 handicap, but I feel the more forgiving club I can play, the better. Actually, when talking about forgiveness, we're only really talking about long and mid-irons. Short irons, be they cavity back or blade, play about the same, because in both types, the club's face is so much closer to horizontal that the center of gravity ends up being in about the same spot.
I had the rare gift of taking a novice golfer through the paces of buying a complete set of used clubs at Roger Dunn. When I saw a used set of '94 Berthas, I told my friend (as I wiped the drool from my face) "Buy those." He hit them, I hit them, and they really are super forgiving, even more so than my Pings. Of course, they were regular flex, so the soft tip wasn't as precise as a stiffer shaft, but all-in-all, I was very happy that my friend lucked out and found those clubs. He tried putters, woods, wedges and bought a full set of everything. When we got to putters, we went straight to the "used" bin, and found some incredible deals. We both thought the Baby Ben Bettinardi putter (marked down from $200 to $50!) was quite the deal. He agreed and even paid me for my troubles with a Baby Ben Bettinardi putter. As for the '94 Callaways, they can be had for a song on eBay, so as soon as I get a job, I'm picking up a set, ooky stares from my wife be damned!