It is the dead of winter and I haven’t played golf in so long that I’m sure I don’t remember how to swing a club. I am even more positive that I couldn’t hit a chip anywhere near the hole. Every spring, it is like starting over. But that is golf in New England.
I miss our in-season Friday outings. Life feels out of sync without golf to play and our threesome feels scattered without the routine of our weekly round. On a recent frigid snowy evening, to help ease the pain of our golflessness, one of my regular group stopped by to visit. “Wow, that’s a lot of golf bags!” she said, her eyes popping at the bevy of bags in my garage. When I stopped to think about it, my third garage bay really did look like a blowout sale at Edwin Watts.
In my defense, only two of the eight bags are mine. The other six belong to my husband, who could probably single handedly restore the economy if the new administration establishes tax credits for purchasing golf equipment; anything you can do for your country, right?
In a prominent place of honor you can find my green and black hoofer. My poor hoofer has definitely seen better days. It sports pills on its sides, the dividers are worn and torn, and its once vivid colors are a little faded – but she’s still beautiful to me. The hoofer was purchased with the best skin money I ever won; $240 cash money. It was at a pro-ladies golf event, one of only three surviving skins that day. Not only did I cash big with a skin, but my pro did as well, plus our foursome won the whole flippin’ tournament. I am, therefore, rather attached to my hoofer. In fact, when the time comes, I might like it if she is cremated along with me, that’s how much I love that golf bag. These days, she makes a fine looking umbrella holder. The umbrella is currently in the company of a pretty bronze headed Ping Zing 2 wedge of undetermined loft and the Big Bertha three wood I bought myself for my birthday last year. Easiest three wood to hit, I had read. It has now spent more time in the garage than it did in my golf bag. Does that answer all your questions?
Snuggled up next to my hoofer is a really sharp looking black and green Burton golf bag with a great logo. On the surface, the hoofer and the Burton make a nice looking couple but those Burton good looks, I find, is often only skin deep. The last one I had wasn’t worth the effort to carry it. It pains me to leave my hoofer girl in such company. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Burton never sees any real action. It, too, holds an umbrella, along with a Calloway forged 56 degree wedge, a 50 degree Vokey Titliest wedge. Hanging from one of the wedges is a nasty looking black Cleveland golf hat, swathed with dog fur. Rather fitting, I think, for the Burton.
Then there is my husband’s Patriots logo bag; handsome, sturdy and rugged, just a bit weary from the last football season. The Pats bag is currently my husband’s golf bag of choice. It is ready and able, filled with his clubs, hoping for some time down south in the sun during this off season. His Border Collie head cover stands like a sentinel on his driver. He’s a little bedraggled, but hey, it was a tough season.
Before the Patriots golf bag took over, my husband used the huge black leather Calloway cart bag that now stands abandoned. It is so monstrous it has a presence all its own. I am sure this bag came in handy on the last golf trip when the guys smuggled 50 dozen Cuban cigars into Ireland. You could hide a foursome of illegal aliens in the thing, for crying out loud. It has somehow has lost its majesty, now, what with an assortment of clubs stuck in it haphazardly, many covered with very strange little white covers that look just like pressure bandage stockings.
Stuck in the middle of the pack, hoping to see a fairway soon, is my pretty little Sun Mountain ultra light beige golf bag. I was forced to purchase a new bag for several reasons. The first was that one of those oh-so-lovely-but-useless Burton bags had crapped out on me. Only a season old, the legs, crooked from the get-go, had finally refused to open without major finagling, during which I often suffered serious injury. The club dividers had ripped in numerous ways and a zipper pocket had decided to forgo the use of the zipper itself, and to just detach itself from the side of the bag, providing a grand hole where all my personal items could escape to nowhere. I sure don’t care for those Burtons. You can make note of the fact that I didn’t keep it around after its retirement; I just trashed the thing, which is somewhat abnormal, as you might notice from the host of golf bags we are now discussing. The second reason I bought my new Sun Mountain golf bag was because my old bag had gained an enormous amount of very mysterious weight. No matter how often I cleaned out my bag, removed all the scuffed and dinged balls, unloaded six changes of clothes, three pairs of winter gloves and $743 in change from its bottom, my bag just weighed too much. Big, strong, macho men would pick it up and wince. “How in the world do you carry that?” they’d wonder, dialing 911 for the paramedics as they bent over in agony. I dunno, I just do. My husband once slipped a seven-plus pound rock in my bag and I didn’t notice. That’s heavy.
So, I purchased a super-duper-ultra-light Sun Mountain bag. I love it. It has enough pockets to hold, well, it can hold everything… which then leads back to that problem of excess weight. I just like to have all my stuff near me.
Toward the back of the pack stands a brand new black Calloway cart bag, quite striking in all its big, bold styling. I can’t say that I recognize it but if the economy gets any worse we can rent it out as a small apartment. Quite peculiar is the fact that it is completely and entirely empty – devoid of any clubs whatsoever. Obviously a new acquisition, possibly a raffle prize at one of the ten-gazillion end of season golf tournaments in which my husband played. Its good to win stuff.
In the far back corner is a gorgeous black and bronze god of a golf bag. This bag, like the last, is one I have never seen before, but it is love at first sight. It is emblazoned with the word “hot,” and oh, baby, is it ever! I’d go away for the weekend with this golf bag in a heartbeat! I have never seen it before but it has a familiarity about it. It could be because it is brimming with an assortment of much loved, though long discarded, golf clubs. It holds no less than eight woods and a rash of other odds and ends of clubs. Nestled in the mix is my old Burner Bubble. I could really smoke that club; two forty off the tee, not bad for a girl who had only played golf for a couple of years. Oh, to be so young and strong again. If I could only find those thirty of forty yards somewhere in the damn garage…
[...] I miss our in-season Friday outings. Life feels out of sync without golf to play and our threesome feels scattered without the routine of our weekly round. On a recent frigid snowy evening, to help ease the pain of our golflessness, one of my regular group stopped by to visit. “Wow, that’s a lot of golf bags!” she said, her eyes popping at the bevy of bags in my garage. When I stopped to think about it, my third garage bay really did look like a blowout sale at Edwin Watts. (more…) [...]