Category: Bag Drop

Back in the days before steel shafts and matched sets, Bobby Jones put together a set of clubs one by one over the course of his career based solely on feel. Toward the end of his time as a competitor – once swing weighting was invented – someone measured them and found them all identical, save one iron. Jones’ response? He’d never trusted that club.

Today it’s a whole other ball game. Club manufacturers, teaching professionals, and independent clubmakers and fitters all recognize the importance of fitting clubs to players to help them make the most of their abilities.

Continue reading “Fit Factors: Club Fitting, Part One”

My father didn’t just teach me to play golf, he taught me to be a golfer. And in the olden days – his and mine – that meant learning some basic skills to take care of your equipment.

Golf grips are certainly one of the easiest things to work on. Regripping, building up grips, making them thinner, and swapping out putter grips are all easy tasks that can be accomplished with simple tools and a little patience.

When it comes to saving grips so they can be reused, there are three primary methods, each with their own camp of proponents. Here’s a look at the choices and a run down on the method I use and recommend…

Continue reading “How to Remove and Save Grips”

As sports go, golf seems to be one of the more benign. After all, nobody’s throwing a ball 100 miles per hour at you; no 350-pound lineman is trying to dismember you; nobody in the cart next to yours is rubbing paint at 200 miles an hour.

When it comes to the lethal dangers in our game most people think of lightning or cart accidents. But that’s not true. The dangers of prolonged UV exposure from the sun are greater than ever. More than 60,000 people a year are diagnosed with malignant melanoma – the deadly kind of skin cancer. Here are some things you can do to protect yourself.

Continue reading “Sun Protection for Golfers”

Club manufacturers aren’t shy about jumping on a bandwagon. Witness the recent explosion of 460cc drivers, moveable weights, and high MOI (moment of inertia) putters. But no other recent development in equipment has had such an impact on the makeup of clubs in a bag as have hybrids.

Over the last few years, hybrid woods and irons have gone from crutches for senior hackers like me to standard issue in the bags of many PGA Tour pros. Todd Hamilton wielding his Sonartec hybrid to win the British Open at Royal Troon in 2004 underscored their versatility and acceptance.

What’s interesting is that club manufacturers large and small have had considerable success in pursuing this niche. And more models keep coming. Here’s a look at some of the latest offerings that have caught my eye…

Continue reading “Hybrid Clubs Continue to Proliferate”

Giant club heads, exotic shafts, and weird-looking putters have become staples in the bags of players today. In fact, it seems every year brings a new twist on technology that prods players to keep pace.

Yet it remains to be seen whether recent novelties like the moveable weights in the TaylorMade R7, the curious shapes of the Cleveland Hi-Bore and Nike SasQuatch drivers, and ever-stranger putters like the Hammy leave a lasting mark on the game.

Looking back, however, there have been clubs through the years that have had a seminal impact. Here’s a look at some of them whose influence is still seen today.

Continue reading “Golf Clubs that Changed the Game”

I carried my own bag for years – lightweight canvas bags, then nylon bags that I dropped to the ground and stooped to pick up. Then came stand bags and then double straps, and my definition of a great carry bag was changed forever.

Now Ogio, the innovative bag maker based in Salt Lake City, has finally launched their much-anticipated Shling-equipped stand bags. It remains to be seen whether this is as big a revolution as legs and double straps. Here’s the story along with some of my initial impressions.

Continue reading “Ogio Shling Golf Bags Finally Launched”

There are many variables in a golf shaft. Some are designed and engineered by the manufacturer – stiffness, flex point, and weight. Other factors, however, become the province of aftermarket clubmakers and fitters who can adjust length, trim tips, and match frequency to suit your swing speed, tempo, and ball flight.

Over the last six or seven years, another way to tune shafts has emerged that proponents say best matches feel across a set, tightens shot dispersion patterns, and optimizes performance. Detractors, on the other hand, say it’s unnecessary and expensive. Most manufacturers say their shafts don’t need it.

Complicating the picture, it’s a practice that goes by several names and actually can be performed in a number of ways. In this week’s Bag Drop we’ll try to shed some light on shaft spining, splining, and PUREing.

Continue reading “Shaft Spining, Splining, and PUREing: Black Art or the Ultimate Tweak?”

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…

Continue reading “The Other Stuff In Your Bag”