Category Archives: Accessories

Improve Your Golf Game by Using Luckier Coins

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As I remove my clubs from the trunk of my car and put on my golf shoes (while being semi-careful not to scrape the bumper), I often agonize about which ball markers to carry that day. I have a huge collection, consisting mostly of foreign coins, and I realized recently that I won’t possibly live long enough to make full use of them. During a typical round, I carry between four and six markers in my pocket, and I try to spread the selection around—although I hate to abandon a lucky marker just to be egalitarian. Coaches face this dilemma. You’d like to play everyone on the bench, but, on the other hand, you’d like to win.

The image above shows some of my current favorites. On the far left is a Moroccan 10-dirham coin. The guy in the pointed hat is King Hassan II, who was a tyrant but also a golfaholic. (He wore golf gloves on both hands, and, before swinging, gave his cigarette to a servant, who held it with silver tongs.) Next is a Colombian 200-peso piece. It’s good because it has aiming lines and round things that look like golf holes and golf balls. Then an old Mexican peso—nice because the guy looks strange but also friendly and wise. (And lucky.) Then a Norwegian 5-kroner coin, which has a golf hole in it—get it? Last, on the right, is an Indian 2-rupee coin, which I sometimes use when I absolutely have to two-putt. (There are aiming lines on the other side.)

Here are some more:

The coin on the far left is an old favorite: an Irish 20-pence piece. If I pointed the nose of the horse at my ball when I marked it, the next putt would almost always go in or come very, very close. I stopped using it, though, when I realized how many unused (and potentially even luckier) coins I had in the trunk of my car. (I keep my markers in a yellow plastic tackle box.) Next to it is an Australian 20-cent piece. The image is of a duck-billed platypus swimming around, and the curvy lines—which represent the platypus’s curvy path through the water—seem to go well with putts that break a lot. Then another Australian coin, a dodecahedral one, which I like because the many tiny athletes depicted on it don’t include a golfer. Next is a Moroccan 1-dirham coin, which is good for one-putts (because of the 1). And last is a huge, magnetic, fake-pewter Golf Digest thing, which I used for a while out of company loyalty but then abandoned because what’s with the lion?

Not all my markers are coins or coin-like objects. I also have several thousand souvenir markers—the kind with the prong thing that you stick into the ground:

Of the markers in the picture above, my least favorite is the Starr Pass one, because I have no idea what Starr Pass is and don’t care enough even to Google it. I’ve never used it. My favorite may be the impossible-to-decipher one near the lower right-hand corner. The symbol on it looks a little like the presidential seal, so maybe it belonged to an important government official, up to and possibly including the commander-in-chief. Not depicted is my all-time favorite in this category: my marker from Morefar Golf Club, which I seem to have lost. The one time I played Morefar, there was only one other foursome on the course, and my foursome was stuck behind it. But the slowpoke was the Sultan of Brunei, and, apparently, you’re not allowed to play through him. My consolation was the marker, which I now can’t find. Oh, woe is me.

Your Portal to Unlimited Golf Power

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The Big Three.

At the PGA Golf Merchandise Show, back in January, I acquired a bunch of wristbands and other accessories that are supposed to give golfers an edge by allowing them to personally harness the power of titanium, magnets, ions (or “ions”), and the kind of shimmery holographic images you see on credit cards. I made fun of all that stuff in a column and a video. Since the show, though, I’ve discovered that I kind of like wearing worthless crap on my wrist while I play golf. In the photo above are the three wristbands I’m wearing at the moment. From left to right:

  • An IonLoop, which provides “all the natural benefits of earth magnets and negative ions: quicker sports recovery, better sleep, stress management, natural energy, better concentration and focus, less stiffness and soreness.” Also rust, apparently. But I’ve started wearing it magnet-side-down, to keep the rust out of view. Besides, who says a little rust on your wrist doesn’t give you ten extra yards off the tee?
  • A barbed-wire thing, which I got in Bogota, Colombia, on a non-golf reporting assignment for The New Yorker.  A woman I interviewed was wearing about a dozen of them, and when I asked about them she gave me one. It’s meant as a protest against Venezuelan kidnappers, who sometimes hogtie their victims with barbed wire. It’s made of plastic, rather than wire, so wearing it doesn’t hurt, and it attracts a lot of attention. Plus, ten extra yards off the tee.
  • A Tri-Balance bracelet, which allows me to hedge my gullibility bet by harnessing “the power of a hologram wristband, an ionic bracelet, and magnet therapy in one easy to wear bracelet.” This, according to a website, is also known as “the power of 3.” Result? Ten extra yards off the tee.

I Bought a New Push Cart!

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Trolleys: Brendan, Tim, Tony, Rick, Hillside Golf Club, Birkdale, England, May, 2010.

Two years ago, during a buddies trip to England, I became a convert to what the British call trolleys. My first was a Sun Mountain Micro-Cart, which I gradually customized:

This is my old push cart. If my wife played golf, I’d give it to her.

I ran it pretty hard, for more than a thousand miles, and a couple of months ago a friend commented that it had started to look like a farm vehicle. That’s not manure in the photo below, but I see his point:

Not manure, but almost.

Anyway, a couple of days ago I did something I’d kind of been hoping I’d do: I busted it beyond repair. I was pushing it up the fourth fairway, and suddenly it started wobbling and making a funny noise. Eventually, I realized that a spoke in one of the wheels had broken.

Busted Micro-Cart wheel–at last!

Replacing the wheel probably wouldn’t be expensive, and I’ve been very happy with my Micro-Cart, but I was itching to try something new. So as soon as I got home I ordered a Clicgear 3.0, from Amazon, for a little less than $200. Unfolding and folding it is tricky, but I got the hang of it out after a couple of tries. I’ll be pimping it a bit in the coming weeks, of course. And there are lots of official accessories, several of which I want to buy. More about that later.

My new ride.

My Clicgear 3.0 weighs more than my Micro-Cart, but it actually folds down slightly smaller. That’s important because this year I also bought a new car, which is slightly smaller than my old car. At the moment, I’m dealing with that by throwing all my extra golf junk into the back seat, along with all my other extra junk. Eventually, though, I’ll have to get the trunk organized. So, really, I had no choice but to buy a new cart.

My new cart is heavier than my old cart, but it’s a teensy bit more compact when folded up. Or so I claim.

 

Sharpiegate Redux

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It’s dumb to get worked up about dumb things, but, ever since I complained about golf bags that have pen holders (good idea) which aren’t deep enough to securely engage the pocket clip of the one kind of pen that all golfers use (idiotic idea), I keep noticing other golf bags with the same problem. Here’s one from Founders Club:

Callaway makes a bag with the same defect, and somewhere I have a photograph to prove it, but I can’t find it at the moment so you’re just going to have to take my word for it. People who say these slots are intended for golf pencils rather than permanent markers are wrong, because if you put a golf pencil in one of them you’ll need a surgical clamp to get it out again.

While we wait for the world to come to its senses, here’s a related question: Why doesn’t Sharpie sell its non-black markers one pen or one color at a time? If you want to mark your golf balls with, let’s say, a purple marker, you can’t buy just one, or even just three of the same color; you have to buy something like this:

Come on, Sharpie! You invented this market. Show some ball-marking leadership!

 

Beef Box*: Golf Shirt + Golf Glove = Trouble

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One of the most surprising features of modern life, to someone who went to high school in the early 1970s, is the renewed popularity of clothing made of synthetic fibers. Not that long ago, a clear indication that someone was completely out of it was that they still made jokes about golfers wearing “polyester pants.” But golfers are again wearing polyester pants.

Actually, polyester pants are great for golf trips, because they’re somewhat rain-resistant and they don’t wrinkle when you wad them up and throw them on the floor. But I would never wear mine anyplace where a non-golf-playing friend, such as my wife, might see me. I’ve also got a few polyester golf shirts. They’re supposedly better than cotton at keeping you cool, but they feel like they’re made of pantyhose.

And now I have a new reason to complain. Today, I noticed a growing constellation of snags on the front of a brand-new Ashworth polyester golf shirt, and after about fourteen holes I realized what the problem was: every time my glove brushed against the fabric, the bristly part of the Velcro closure yanked some of the threads. Photographing snags in golf-shirt fabric turns out to be really difficult, but the picture at the top of this post should give you the idea.

*With apologies to Joe Pyne.

News From the 2012 Member-Guest

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Amazing member-guest discovery: golf-cart Surround Sound.

My brother, John, and I played in my club’s member-guest tournament this past weekend. One of our five matches was against Fritz and Klinger, whose golf cart you see in the photograph above. That’s Klinger’s iPhone, in the one cup holder that isn’t holding a beer. It’s playing “Send Her My Love,” by Journey, and If you could hear the music you’d be blown away, because Fritz and Klinger have discovered that a golf cart cup holder acts like both an amplifier and a Surround Sound speaker system. Try it with your own iPhone or iPod if you don’t believe me.

Three golfers, nine drivers.

The golf bags in the photo above belong to (from left to right) me, Tim-o, and Tony.  You will notice that the three of us, in addition to apparently being infatuated with obsolete Nike products, carry three drivers each. The lofts are 10.5, 13, and 16 degrees. I’ll have more to say about this club selection in a week or two. (Full disclosure: after the 9-hole stroke-play opener, on Friday—which John and I won, at 7 under—I removed my 13-degree driver, which I’d bought on eBay the week before, to make room for a second 6-hybrid.

Rob and miscellaneous member-guest stuff.

Usually, the so-called gifts you get at a member-guest are pretty crummy, but this year the ones at my club were great: a golf hat, a golf towel with a zipper pocket and a semi-mysterious Velcro strip, and a belt with a buckle that’s also a beer opener. In the photo above, Rob is wearing his belt on the outside, for easier access (although he’s got it upside down). He’s also wearing his give-’em-a-brake safety-yellow golf shirt and carrying a beer, two putters, and a portable cooler.

Jaws, lighting the putting-contest qualifier.

On Friday night, after the stag dinner, so many guys wanted to keep trying to qualify for the putting contest that Jaws drove home and brought back his big workshop lights. That’s him in the photo above, setting up one of the units. My brother and I qualified but were eliminated the next evening, in a four-hole playoff for the last three spots in the final.

Putting-contest qualifier, under the lights.

On Saturday night, after Fritz and Klinger had won the putting contest and a dozen of us had played a five-hole one-club tournament in a race with the setting sun, we held an unofficial supplemental putting contest, using glowing balls and glowing cup inserts—items about which I’ll have more to say in a week or two. The winners were Tim and Chick. Here’s what the putting green looked like in the dark:

Glowing ball, glowing hole.

Also here:

Doc, Jr.

There were thunderstorms in the forecast all weekend, but the rain and lightning held off until halfway through the final shoot-out, on Sunday afternoon. Here’s what the rain looked like when it was coming down:

The gutter in that photo has been clogged for ten or fifteen years, but when it’s raining no one wants to go up on a ladder to unclog it and when it isn’t raining it doesn’t overflow. During most of the rest of the weekend, though, the weather looked like this:

Chick, Rob, putting-contest qualifier.

The overall winners of the member-guest were Ray and Mike. My brother and I beat them, one-up, in our final match of the weekend, but that wasn’t enough to knock them out of first place in our flight. Here’s Ray resting during the lightning delay. (Mike was on the phone apologizing to his wife for already being several hours later than he had said he was going to be.)

Ray, resting in the clubhouse during the lightning delay.

And here’s what the shoot-out field looked like on the first tee. We determined honors by using the Sunday Morning Group’s limited-edition collection of numbered poker chips. Art and Scribby (on the right, with the white hair and the no hair) were the first to be eliminated, when they bogeyed the first hole.

Golf in the (United) Kingdom: No Need to Pack Shorts

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Lower right: the shorts rule at Hillside Golf Club, May, 2010.

When I played Royal Lytham & St. Annes in 2008, on assignment for Golf Digest, a local man in the group ahead of mine was wearing shorts—a great rarity on golf courses almost anywhere in the British Isles. A sign at Hillside Golf Club (a fantastic non-Open course, next door to Birkdale, where I’d played the afternoon before) warns golfers that shorts are permitted only if they are “tailored” and worn with “tall hose”—a requirement that neatly defeats the purpose of wearing shorts. Lytham used to have a similar rule, but relaxed it after a busload of barelegged Americans exhausted the golf shop’s supply of tall hose.

Tony at Hillside, properly attired, on a later trip, May, 2010.

The first hole at Hillside doesn’t look like much, but the course gets better and better from there, and the second nine is really terrific. (Greg Norman once called it the greatest second nine in Britain.)  The tenth is a “short” par 3, which plays uphill and into the prevailing wind to a seemingly sheltered but impossible green. You watch the group ahead of you nosing around for lost balls on every side. They wave your group up, and then you lose all your balls, too.

Tenth hole, Hillside.

Toward the end of my round in 2008, I got stuck behind four bad golfers, one of whom was constantly throwing up grass to gauge the direction of wind that was so strong it was knocking over his golf bag. I passed the time by chatting with four visitors from the Isle of Man, who had caught up to me from behind. They gave me a British 10-pence coin with the Manx triskelion—the symbol of the Isle of Man—on the reverse. It was my favorite ball marker until I lost it.

The three legs of Man: my favorite ball marker until I lost it.

 

Memory Aid: You Moved Your Ball Marker?

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Foolproof aide-mémoire, patent pending.

You mark your ball on a putting green. Your coin is in another player’s line, so he asks you to move it one putter-head length to the side. When it’s your turn to putt, you have to remember to move your coin back before replacing your ball and making your own putt, because if you don’t you incur a penalty of two strokes (in stroke play) or loss of hole (in match play).  (See Rule 20-7.)

This actually happens. At the Crowne Plaza Invitational, back in May, Zach Johnson forgot to replace his coin on the final green and incurred a two-stroke penalty for putting from the wrong place. Luckily, he had a three-stroke lead, and someone noticed the mistake before he’d signed an incorrect card.

In a local tournament many years ago, an opponent of mine moved his marker at my request, then forgot to move it back. I noticed and reminded him before he putted—and he was as astonished as if I had handed him a thousand dollars. “You’d have won the hole if you’d let me putt,” he said, suggesting that he wouldn’t have done the same for me. Who would want to win a hole that way? Him, I guess.

There’s a foolproof way to remember that you, a partner, or an opponent has moved a marker: stick a tee in your nose and leave it there until the marker is back where it began. That’s what I do, anyway. (See photo above.)

Recently, my friend Rick and I played in a state senior tournament, and my tee-in-nose trick kept us out of trouble with Rule 20-7. The course was nice, too, although its address was even better. Here’s a picture of the street sign on the corner nearest the clubhouse:

Actually, it’s kind of amazing that the sign was still there. If I’d been forty years younger, I might have swiped it myself. (No penalty under the Rules of Golf, in either stroke play or match play.) My home club is on Golf Course Rd. Here’s what our street sign looks like:

I swear I’m not the one who took it.

Sharpiegate: An Update

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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about two beefs I have with my golf bag, here and here. Yesterday, I received a response from Steve Snyders, who handles public relations for Sun Mountain. (I’m delighted to learn that the Sharpie problem I complained about was solved not just quickly but, apparently, retroactively.) Here’s what Snyders wrote:

With regards to your concern about the depth of the pen holder pocket on Sun Mountain golf bags, I think you will be pleased to learn that as of 2012 all pen holder pockets on all of our bags are at a standard depth that will allow a full size Sharpie marker to be inserted and for the clip on the lid to be clipped to the bag. For bags older than 2012, depending upon the exact model of the bag, some of the pockets may be deep enough for the clip to reach and some may not. In all instances, the pocket is deep enough that the majority of the pen fits within the pocket while allowing enough of the pen to stick out so can be easily grabbed for removal. If owners of a bag that is older than 2012 are having issues with their pens falling out of the pockets when their bag is inverted, some of the comments on your post offer good suggestions to include: using a mini-Sharpie or inserting the pen upside down so the fit is tighter and the pen will not slide out.

Sun Mountain does not make public, information about other brands for whom it manufacturers products, but as of 2012, any bag designed and manufactured by Sun Mountain that incorporates a pen holder pocket has this standardized depth pocket.

Also, as some of your astute readers pointed out, the 2012 Three 5 stand bag has two pockets, one for a scorecard pencil and one for permanent marker. And, Sun Mountain carts bags have two pen holder pockets, one of each side of the bag, so easily accessible regardless of which side of the cart your bag is placed.

Regarding the legs on Sun Mountain stand bags, all decisions with regards to materials used on Sun Mountain products are strongly scrutinized within the company. All parts used are judged first for function and durability and then for weight with a goal of finding the perfect balance. A number of years ago the decision was made to switch from a harder, more brittle, heavier plastic on the stand bag leg joints, to a softer, more flexible, lighter material.

The older, harder plastic kept its shape forever but it was prone to breakage due to its rigidity. And, it was heavier. The newer plastic parts are more flexible so less prone to breaking and are significantly lighter. The company made the determination that the benefits of the lighter more flexible leg joints outweighed the benefits of the harder, more rigid, heavier joints.

If you were to call Sun Mountain customer service with the issue you describe in your blog, the representative would suggest a replacement leg set and talk you through the simple process of replacement. If within the one year warranty, the leg set would be no charge. Outside of the warranty period, a replacement leg set is $9 plus shipping.

For any issues with Sun Mountain products – legs, zippers, etc —  please call Sun Mountain customer service at 800-227-9224.

Thanks again for using Sun Mountain products and for caring enough to try to help us continually improve to meet your needs.

 

Invention Needed: Pocket Protector for Golf Pants

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Cotton golf shorts with incipient pocket-grunge problem.

Anyone who has played golf in warm weather while wearing light-colored cotton pants or shorts knows that after eighteen holes the area around the pocket opening becomes gross-looking and hard to clean. What golfers need is some kind of pants-pocket protector or pocket alternative—maybe a pocket-shaped insert (with a stabilizing external flap), which could be laundered separately or thrown away, or maybe a holster-like pouch that would attach to your belt and hang at your side (but not interfere with your swing). Or how about a miraculous spray that would prevent golf-related grime from adhering to pants fabric? Get to work, inventors!

While we’re on the subject of pants, I’d like to complain about something else. I own several pairs that are supposedly designed for golfers. One of their supposedly golf-friendly features is extra pockets, for scorecards and tees. That may sound like a good idea, but it’s not. The scorecard pocket and the tee pocket are right on top of regular pockets (one front, one back), and that means that every time you reach for either your scorecard or a tee you have a fifty percent chance of sliding your hand into the wrong opening. Anyway, why isolate tees from the other stuff you carry around? I keep meaning to sew those extra pockets shut, and someday I will.

Stupid Pants: PGA Tour Ultimate Performance golf pants, with annoying extra pockets for tees and a scorecard.