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.

Choose your weapons wisely...

I would imagine the golf club industry is like any other, where those with the lion's share or the market do their best to limit the success of small upstarts who, in any miniscule way, threaten their dominance. For instance, Nike, Titleist, Taylor Made and Callaway would probably like for nothing better than lesser-known club companies to die or, at least, sell themselves to them. That's why companies like SMT Golf intrigue me. They appear to make drivers (and it looks like they're tangentializing into irons and fairway woods, too) that seem to have the edge on the designs of bigger companies. I'm no engineer and have no objective means to judge the claims SMT makes, but the fact that a pro (330--seriously?) played their gear without remuneration--or at least, considerably less than a big company could have offered--suggests that either Schwarmkrug is possibly sitting in a motel somewhere crying into his beer, "I'm so stupid! Why didn't I take [Ping's, Titleist's, TaylorMade's] money? Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Or, alternatively, believes in SMT. This also brings to mind another small club company in souther California, KZ Golf. (Disclaimer: I interviewed with them in sales, but decided against it when I came to understand than I would a lousy salesman.) They only sell clubs that are custom fitted to the prospective buyer, which is, after all, what most golfers should be doing. Not only does the fitting process match club to a golfer's physique, but the tester can also point out any egregious swing errors the fittee may be exhibiting. If you see a set of KZG clubs on ebay, don't waste your time buying them because they were fitted to someone else who is not you. Speaking of fitting, Maxout Golf, also here in southern California, does custom fitting, but they don't sell proprietary clubs. Like KZ Golf, they'll fit you, point out your swing flaws, and most likely give you enough improvement that you'll be grateful for the rest of your life.

All these companies--SMT, KZ Golf, and Maxout--offer services that the big golf manufacturers would be happier if you didn't know about, and that if you use them, you'll be better off than buying off the rack.