The last several months I’ve experimented with some different clubs in my bag. Coming from the persimmon woods, there is no doubt that the modern equipment sends the ball farther. I’ve gained distance with the metals, especially off the tee, and have dropped my index a few strokes.
I can confirm that golf is still fun with a mixed bag of modern equipment, and more importantly, each shot still requires your full attention.
Current set: Mini driver, 3 metal, 7 metal, 5 hybrid, 6 iron, 7 iron, 8 iron, 9 iron, pitching wedge, gap wedge, sand wedge, lob wedge, blade putter (wide).
New: Taylor Made mini driver, metals, and hybrid.
New: Titleist Vokey sand and lob wedges.
I do miss the sound and feel of persimmons, but the trade off has been worth it.
And I do still rock the old school style head covers.
When I think about hobbies, a sport, or a regular practice of some kind, one of the important things is a feeling of competence. There is something deeply satisfying when you’ve put in your time and effort and you can feel like “I’ve got this”. All things being relative of course – I don’t quite got it like Jeeno Thitikul, but I can handle myself just fine on the course most days. And I’d be lying if I said the extra distance and control from these changes haven’t made a positive difference.
The future is unwritten for sure, but current thinking in this head is that I’ll stick with the current set thru 2025 and see where I end up at the end of next year. Maybe the persimmons will become my short course bag. As always, looking for the balance of scoring and other ways to measure a round, like pleasure and spirit.
Happy Thanksgiving to all the yanks. Currently on the road for a family gathering and shot a tidy 73 this morning. Great fun in North San Diego county. Cheers!
Free your mind… and your ass will follow.~ Funkadelic
Why do I continue to play this ridiculous game? A fair question to ask about anything one does, I suppose. Golf, collecting stamps, line dancing, gardening – hard to see how anybody can really contend that these sorts of activities are making the world a better place, right? Well… maybe not so fast there. We should stop and listen to what a certain Chinese-American had to say about an equally dubious practice known as the martial arts.
This 1971 interview of Bruce Lee by Pierre Berton will take about twenty-five minutes of your time. What? I have stamps to collect! But if you prefer to continue reading on and migrate over to YouTube at a later date, just know that these are the two primary ideas from Mr. Lee that I want to focus on here. To paraphrase —
I do not believe in styles. I believe in honestly expressing myself as a human being.
Wait, aren’t we just talking about knocking a little white ball around a field? Yes. And no.
It seems that almost everything human beings spend their time doing is absurd on some level. With that, we can just go through the motions and pass the time – oh the masses! We can be hyper aware of the absurdity and practice a finely tuned post modern detached irony – oh the hipsters! Or we can be so dreadfully earnest – oh the annoying! But maybe there is a different way, one that recognizes all the flaws and struggles of humanity but still aims for something a bit more.
I want to approach golf like Bruce Lee approached martial arts – unconcerned by convention but aware enough to avoid simply creating a new dogma. When I started writing this blog I was playing persimmon woods and I put a bit of a stake in the ground around that. This , I came to feel, was folly. Equipment, technique, style – these are all components of the game for sure. But like the classic zen phrase says, do not confuse the finger pointing at the moon for the moon.
A quick side note on equipment. This summer I started experimenting with a modern driver and fairway metals. The experiment has been both fun and rewarding. More on those specifics in an upcoming post. Ok, back to shallow water deep thoughts.
This morning I played a round, and from the first tee I had a case of monkey mind. I couldn’t stop thinking thinking thinking and this made my actions a bit jittery. Two things I observed – I was going too fast from the moment I got out of bed and I wasn’t prepared to calm my thoughts once on the golf course. So I just let it be and tried to focus on making a score. Actually I did pretty well with that, some nice short game action holding the round together. But I was never comfortable and this gap is something I need to work on. Under slightly different conditions, a case of the unrelenting monkey mind could have disastrous results. Some thoughtful training is needed on this front, and it is probably as simple as physically slowing down and steadying the breath.
Self reflection is a tricky thing. One can end up stuck in the dreaded analysis paralysis. On the other hand, an unexamined life is a bit of a wasted opportunity. I want to be authentic to my nature but also strive to improve. Anything more or anything less would not be an honest expression of this human being.
I’ve been practicing STFU, and therefore not posting here in a while. What I will say briefly is that it is important to challenge your own dogma from time to time.
Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own.
One of my favorite rounds of golf started off as a quick 9 holes on a family holiday weekend in San Diego county. I’d sneaked off early one morning to chase the little white ball around before breakfast with 20-30 people that I am related to by way of marriage. Goat Hill is one of my favorite tracks in the area – one that deserves a blog post of its own – and so I was stoked to be teeing it up there the day after Thanksgiving.
The starter said I would be filling out a foursome. Two players walked up a few minutes later, a man and a woman. We did the intros and they said the fourth was running late and would be there in 10 minutes. The starter’s tee sheet was full so he told us to hit away and that he would run our late bird out to the second tee. The three of us split the fairway and I noted that they both had really nice swings. I was happy that it looked like a good grouping so far. Our female player stuck her approach 5 feet from the cup, but it was on a rather steep slope above the hole and her birdie putt just lipped out. Impressive start. We all made par and walked over to the #2 tee as our fourth player was being delivered as promised.
Apologies came from our late joiner – she had gone to the wrong course! There was much laughter and quick references to the post turkey day fog that many were experiencing. I then started sizing up our four ball a little more closely. The two women were friends, maybe mid-twenties. The guy was older, maybe mid-thirties, and he knew the late joiner but had only just met her friend for the first time back on the #1 tee. Something about the group felt right, and I wished that I had time to play the full 18 holes.
The second at Goat Hill is no joke – a 175 yard par 3 set straight into the prevailing ocean breeze, with a forced carry over a ravine. I’ve seen professionals struggle on this hole. Our late joiner was given the honors, and without much more than a few warm up swings she rifled a hybrid to 20 feet and warmly smiled. Damn, I thought to myself.
When someone has a certain level of competence, you can often just sense it. It isn’t always obvious. People don’t necessarily wear a I’m Good At This Shit credential, but there can be a way of carrying one’s self, a sort of quiet confidence.
As we walked towards the 3rd tee I discreetly asked the guy who are they? I immediately felt bad, because he was a fine player too – he had noted that he worked in the golf industry for a major club manufacturer. The guy laughed, and explained that we were out with two of the best Mid-Amateur players in the country.
I’ll leave the identities of these players to my own personal memory, but what I want to share here is how awesomely low key, inclusive, yet still high performance, this round of golf felt to me. These women were both +4 index golfers and casually bested my score by several strokes. But they were encouraging, rooting for my shots, and interested in hearing about my life. It was quite a different vibe than I’ve often experienced when pairing up with a group of, well, dudes.
The above captures just about everything the world of golf needs more of – minimal stuff, interesting landscapes, and a woman absolutely striping it.
Power, grace, and feel are demanded if you want to play this game well. I’m aware that men can demonstrate those attributes, but I prefer to watch and learn from women. Golf history is littered with legends and stories and books and movies and boozy 19th hole bullshit sessions about all kinds of men who have played the game. The Golf Industrial Complex needs to do a better job of recognizing and telling the stories of women who also played and helped build the game we enjoy today.
I enjoy watching a bit of pro golf, and sadly there are fewer viewing options for the women’s game. I do watch the men, but honestly, the current state of their game feels a bit foreign to me. I could be talking about all the money, the in-fighting, the jockeying for global supremacy, but really I just mean how they actually play. Hitting a 340 yard drive and a 165 yard gap wedge is just, well, weird. I suppose the weird can be fun and entertaining, like a pro wrestler diving onto his opponent from god knows how high above the ring … but where does that kind of hype end? Or, once it starts, can it end?
I much prefer the LPGA as a source of inspiration. Their yardages are much more in line with my skills. The lack of nuclear bomb options also brings a strategic vibe that makes sense. Sure, some level of power is needed when your final target is several hundred yards down the fairway – but the average player is going to benefit from equal (if not greater) parts grace and feel. Delicate chipping around the green and a deft putting touch are where my bets get placed.
Forget your speed training contraptions and just swing it like Lydia Ko.
Spirit is hard to nail down. Limitations of our individual senses can leave us confused, unsure of what we should be looking for. I don’t really have any secrets to pass on, and I sure as hell will never claim to be a spiritual person, but a bit like the old saying about obscenity goes, I know spirit when I see it. How do we find the spirit? My advice would be to stop talking, take a breath, and feel what is really happening … and hope there is at least one woman around.
When the subject of style comes up in golf, the direction is almost always towards fashion. Sepia toned photographs from the late 19th century, with gentlemen in tweed jackets and ladies in hats and ankle length skirts – all looking very Victorian and uncomfortable. Dapper mid-century professionals sporting two toned shoes and cashmere sweaters. Those crazy plaid and wild patterned Sansabelt pants of the 1970’s. Loose fitting early Tiger and Phil era, with baseball hats slowly supplanting both the golf visor and full brimmed hat as go-to head ware. Queue up today for endless cycles of retro fashion, a bit of the modern mixing with the old. And don’t sleep on the occasional new entry – jogger pants, anyone?
But true style transcends clothing and accessories – speaking more to the spirit of the action than merely the look of it all. While I concede that there isn’t an obvious connection, I draw a lot of inspiration from the world of climbing – and particularly when it comes to questions of style – from those who go big, literally.
Alpine Style refers to the fashion of alpine climbing to be in small lightly-equipped teams who carry all of their own equipment (e.g. no porters), and do all of the climbing (e.g. no sherpas or reserve teams).
Walking the course, keeping a brisk pace without hurrying, traveling light … not dropping any trash – including the absent-minded-broken-tee-toss to the other end of the tee box, repairing your divots and pitch marks … this is all part and parcel of style. I especially tune into this ethos on days when I carry a half bag and play 9 holes. Like some kind of golfing monk, I’ll psych myself up by stringing a few words together into a mantra of sorts – strong, light,alpine … strong, light, alpine … strong, light, alpine. Lets go!
One of these days, if I’m lucky, I’ll take this mindset to a place where the surrounding terrain actually reflects the origins of the terminology. Alpine style in an alpine setting. Maybe somewhere like Chamonix-Mont-Blanc. Or in my wilder dreams, Jack’s Point, with the Remarkables as the course backdrop.
I play golf for the feeling. The salmon pink sky of a dawn patrol tee time. Dewy morning greens. Late summer fairways, sun burned firm and fast. As an antidote to the climate controlled boxes we move between each day, a regular game lends meaning when checking the weather forecast. Heat, wind, cold, rain, clouds – consequence! Oh, and while we walk this earth, it is also worth paying attention to the things we carry with us.
I play persimmon woods and muscle back irons. No hollow bodied hybrids. No titanium driver. No graphite shafts. The persimmons are hand made in Kentucky and the MB irons are from a small company out of Vancouver, BC. I chose my clubs based on factors such as feel, sound, and look – as in how they look to my eye as I prepare to hit a shot, not how others see them. Performance isn’t forgotten – these aren’t museum artifacts to hang on the wall, at least not yet. It has taken me many years and much experimentation to end up here. Like most things with this insidious game, it didn’t come easy.
Before we go any further, let me clearly say that I am not one of those people wearing a straw hat and a pocket watch, with a smug look on their face that says this is how things should be. If that is the vibe you are looking for, what follows here may be a disappointment. In my mind, declaring your independence doesn’t require anyone else to follow. But friends and like minded acquaintances are always welcome.
“Throughout history, tools that tribal people used, samurai swords, and everything down the line to fictional stuff like Harry Potter’s wand and light sabers – everything is so much more magical when its built for you and you have a special connection to it. So we would decorate our tools and make sure that they came from the soul, that they came fromsomebody.”
It is true enough that a game of golf is intended to capture results. Par, bogies, and birdies – all your strokes are real. Write ’em down, add ’em up. But an out-sized emphasis on the what, coupled with little consideration for the how leaves me, well, a little meh. Math and art shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.
I use a modern blade putter and I play the modern golf ball. I have no desire to be considered a purist, or dismissive of technology out of hand. I simply want to play the game in a way that I find interesting and satisfying. I want my clubs to be unique, something that fits my game, a little less off-the-shelf. And I reserve the right to evolve and change my mind. But if one day you find me sporting a handlebar mustache, hickory shafts, and suspenders, please proceed to stage an intervention at once. Same goes if I’m ever found on the range with a huge bucket of balls, endlessly gripping and ripping the latest Epic-TSR-Rouge-PXG-Fargiveness-Whatever monstrosity.
To further prove I’m not immune to a bit of internet driven modernism, below is my what’s in the bag (sans bag) as of January 2024.
Iron Wood Spirit 