The Other Stuff In Your Bag

After a couple decades of using nothing but a carry bag, I succumbed to the reality that I was riding more than walking. So I added a staff bag to my arsenal of equipment. It’s great. It’s much easier to pull and replace clubs and best of all it holds a ton of stuff. But I still use my Hoofer when I do walk, when I have a caddie, and when I’m playing in a competition (the staff bag just makes too much of a commercial statement in an amateur event to my way of thinking).

I quickly grew tired of transferring stuff back and forth between the bags so I resolved to stock each one independently. In the process I realized that my carry bag was not as lean and mean as it could have been. I also realized that the cart bag would allow me to hold some things that could occasionally come in quite handy. Here’s what I finally decided on…

The Basics
Obviously, both bags are stocked with balls, tees and at least a couple of gloves. I generally carry a half dozen balls in the carry bag, a dozen or more in the staff bag.

Using a 460cc driver and longer tees, I find I’m going through a lot more tees than I used to in a round so I’m packing a good handful of tees in both bags that I replenish regularly.

Thanks to genetics, like my father, I have very sweaty hands. While I limit myself to two gloves in the carry bag that I rotate every three holes or so in hot weather, the staff bag has four regular gloves as well as two rain gloves.

Carry/Stand Bag: Bare Necessities
Because I use the carry bag in competition, it’s equipped with a few more things than I’d lug were it just a Sunday bag. Here’s the list:

• USGA Rule Book, a must have.
• Two pencils, because a backup is very handy.
• Sharpie for marking balls, giving autographs.
• Pennies and nickels for ball marks. Dimes are too shiny and too unlucky.
• Scotty Cameron pivot tool, the best ball mark fixer ever.
• A real, white bath towel – no wimpy clip-on for me.
• USGA member bag tag. Only one tag per bag, please.
• Advil because I’m old. I need three before I tee off and three more at the turn, especially walking.
• Water bottle for staying hydrated.
• A banana. I haven’t found an energy bar yet I can bear to choke down.
• SkyCaddie, when legal and when the course is available to download.
• Yardage book if there is one for the course and if I’m not using the SkyCaddie.

What I don’t carry is a cell phone. I hate them on a golf course. I leave mine in the car. If I can’t be unreachable for four hours I shouldn’t be playing. I suppose I could turn it off and carry it for an emergency but I guess I like living dangerously. Most of the private courses I’ve played lately restrict them to the parking lot or locker room. Bravo.

Cart Bag: Living Large
With a big, commodious staff or cart bag, you can be ready for anything. In addition to all the things I have in the carry bag, here are the extra goodies that have a permanent home in my big bag:

• Rain pants and shirt, and not just for rain. They are good for those heroic shots from water hazards, too.
• Extra pair of socks (see above).
• Extra towel (ditto).
• Umbrella. Why not?… and it makes a great hook to hold the towel.
• Sunscreen for hot days, especially as it’s best to re-coat during the round.
• Insect repellent. Bugs aren’t too bad here in the Northeast, but there is a season for them.
• Small notebook for making swing and course notes and charting greens.
• Spike wrench and extra spikes, as it’s always best to replace a lost cleat before grass and dirt clog up the hole.
• Bandages can help to repair the uncommon blister.
• Adhesive tape for a callus on my finger that sometimes gets pretty sore.
• Small bottle of contact lens solution. If you wear contacts and have hit a bunker shot into the wind, you know why.
• A tiny point-and-shoot digital camera works great for me.
• A clip-on bag watch.
• The little nylon scrubby pads are great for attacking clogged grooves on your irons.
• Back up lighter and cigs. Not proud to be a smoker, but that’s reality and this is a full disclosure column.
• Business cards, because sometimes you meet somebody you’d like to play with again… also to leave a note on the windshield of the car your skulled bunker shot victimized.

In the End…
A golfer does not live by clubs and balls alone. An assessment of the things that could make your round more comfortable, enjoyable, or even safer might be worth a few minutes before you head out to the course again. Then again, maybe you’ll find some dried up gloves, empty ball boxes, and moldy banana peels that you can jettison to lighten your load.

So, what’s in your bag?