Sports - Golfing Daze

There were only a few manufacturers to choose from and your choice of a brand name was made on cosmetic appearance rather than one club being better than the other.

Life was simple then. “Gosh, that club is pretty. I think I’ll buy it,” was the refrain. Once the club was purchased, it became your constant companion for many, many years.

Today’s golfers ask about flex, torque, swing weight, degree of left, perimeter weighting, etc. The questions go on and on. You almost need a Ph.D. in physics and aerodynamics to purchase a new set of clubs. Golfers now have hundreds of companies to choose from, each with its own set of statistics to prove that you can hit the ball further and straighter.

Even the names have changed. I remember golfers using drivers, brassies and spoons. The only time they were called anything else was when the person I was caddying for missed a shot and the air turned blue.

Then for a long period of time the clubs simply became numbers. That made life somewhat less complicated for a large segment of our society when you could just ask for your 1, 2 or 3 wood. That was as far as the numbering went.

But that too has passed, as golfers now look for the degree of loft rather than a specific number. I recently purchased a new metal-headed club rated at 23 degrees. When asked what that related to in relationship to my old clubs, I was told it was between a 4 and 5 iron. The new terminology today is hybrids that replace your long irons. They have proven to be very effective.

Have you tried to buy a two wood (brassie) lately? It is no longer available. In my younger days when my driver went sour on me, I would put it aside and take out my trusty two wood and use it off the tee. The head was smaller and the loft less severe so I could use the club to groove my swing and help my tempo. It wouldn’t go quite as far, but at least I could keep it in the fairway and regain my confidence.
But that’s too simple by today’s standards. Now you have to go out and buy clubs with names. Imagine that! Clubs with names like Big Bertha, Olimar VT 830, Taylormade r7 Quad, Calloway prototype Fusion, etc. Numbers aren’t good enough anymore. These monstrosities are guaranteed to make you hit the ball further and straighter than ever before and you only have to pay $400 plus for that privilege.

And how about those shafts! I do have to admit that when metal shafts were developed they were superior to the wooden shafts. But now metal isn’t good enough. By today’s standards if you don’t have graphite or boron or who knows what next, you’re out of sync with the rest of the world. But remember again, they are guaranteed to make you hit the ball further and straighter than you ever anticipated doing.

Golfers as a whole seem to be a gullible lot. They read about the new innovations and in hopes of “buying a swing” they will feed the coffers of the manufacturers to the tune of billions of dollars. They read the literature, internalize the information and hope their game improves.

There are no set standards within the golf industry itself. When a manufacturer claims you can hit his irons further, all he must do is change the loft of the club. For example, your basic five iron is approximately a 28 degree lofted slub. Change that loft to 23 degrees and you are really hitting a four iron labeled a five iron.

An interesting comparison is to compare today’s superstars with the Hogans, Sneads, Sarazens and Nelsons of yesteryear. Are golfers of that era that much better? It doesn’t appear so, for the oldsters also shot low scores, set course records and humbled golf courses all over the world. And remember, they did it with drivers, brassies, spoons, niblicks, mid-irons, etc.

I’m sure the equipment of today is better. How much? That will always be a debatable issue. But if you’re in the market for some new equipment, do yourself a favor: have someone determine your clubhead speed. Once that is established, you can select a shaft and flex that matches your power at impact with the ball. Everything else that is developed for your club is dictated by that one characteristic – your clubhead speed.

It would also be wise to spend your money on golf lessons rather than on new gimmicky equipment. If your swing is faulty, there is no club in the world that will change that.