Thoughts on golf equipment.
Everywhere that I look in golf, there appears universal, unified messaging on only a single point: I need to hit the ball further. It’s a golf-centric spin on a tale as old as time, increasingly woven into the fabric of the consciousness of any middle-aged man quickly moving closer to his athletic mortality, with his…
This is the fourth in a series, a back nine of thoughts cultivated from a recent fall golf trip to the Pinehurst and Southern Pines areas of North Carolina. What started as bullet points grew into substantial realizations. I hope you enjoy reading them. Headcovers are a myth. A grift. A pure canard. The byproduct…
How much are a good pair of golf shoes worth? Not how much do they cost, that’s easy to calculate, depending on one’s fashion and functionality preferences and an Amazon Prime account. Rather, how valuable are golf shoes in the grand scheme of a round of golf? A recent unfortunate experience leads me to conclude…
Admission: I take a little too much pride in being a contrarian. Whatever the new, popular, hot trend is, I’m almost guaranteed to scoff at it and move in the opposite direction. To wit: I have an Amazon account and password, but Mr. Bezos doesn’t have my name or address. I think I downloaded…
The SILO Club Carrier from Rival + Revel is my favorite new golf gadget of 2016. I use “gadget” intentionally because the SILO isn’t a training aid, it’s not a piece of competitive golf equipment, and it’s not a toy or a souvenir. The SILO is a handy gadget that almost every golfer could use…
I’ve never been particularly good at answering these questions, “What do you want for (Christmas/Your Birthday/Anniversary/Father’s Day)?” I’m not much of a gadget guy: until this spring, I was still rocking a BlackBerry phone. If people want to buy me clothes, I usually ask for things that are tried and true and don’t require much…
What if I told you that there was a golf practice aid that would provide entertainment for your entire family AND seriously help you improve your golf game? Sounds like something Billy Mays would have tried to sell you. Crazy, right? Well, not exactly. Birdie Balls are a product that I have come to swear…
I enjoy wearing sunglasses on the golf course. I don’t “need” them, in the sense of either I wear them or I don’t go outside during daylight hours, but I appreciate that they make life in the sun a bit more pleasant. I play a lot of late afternoon and twilight golf rounds, when the…
Between welcoming a new son, a long, cold winter, and an exceptionally wet spring, I’ve managed to get out for a 18 golf games this year, including ten 9-hole rounds. Almost all of the 9-hole rounds were walked, which is part of my renewed emphasis on my physical fitness and enjoyment of the entire golf…
At my lesson earlier this week, my pro and I got to talking about my impending (read: wish list) future equipment upgrades. I trust Mike, so I was genuinely interested in his opinion of my current clubs, in the context of how they fit and work for me, and more importantly, what I should be…
I admit it, I was ignorant and arrogant last year when I penned a column ranting and bemoaning the overwhelming number of putter options available for sale and the supposed self-serving overkill of actually going through the process of getting fitted for a putter. The whole concept of getting fitted for a putter seemed absurd. …
For the second time in two seasons, out of the blue clear sky, I’ve received a single white sleeve of unlabeled golf balls from Titleist in a plain, nondescript envelope in my mailbox. Disclaimer: I am not a golf brand loyalist, and certainly not paid to shill or endorse any particular equipment maker. In my…
I enjoy perusing the Golf Digest Hot List each winter, but I don’t know that it’s ever sparked a burning desire in me to purchase new golf clubs. I’m not much of a gadget guy or technology-head. I rarely like, much less need, the next latest, greatest technology (2004 called yesterday and asked for my…