My new golf clubs

I’m pretty sure that the only person who (semi) regularly reads my unofficial blog and who will care about this is my father, but I thought I’d post about my new golf clubs anyway.

A bit of background: when Annette and I went on the job market this year (and, it seems to me, I said something like this last year, too), I said that if she ended up with a tenure-track job here and/or we decided that we weren’t going to move, I was going to buy new golf clubs. I’m pretty sure that Annette thought that neither of these scenarios were that likely, because her response was “yeah, whatever.” Well, lo and behold, Annette got the offer for a tenure-track job here at EMU, we’re likely to be here for a long time (and quite happy about that, too), and, true to my word, I decided to buy new clubs.

Some more background: I golfed when I was a kid, but I gave it up from high school until about three or four years ago (give or take a few rounds here and there when I was in college and a few times after that). What motivated me to start playing again? Well, lots of things, but mainly because I have some friends/colleagues who also like to golf around here, and I guess I’m close enough to being middle-aged to find a new appreciation to the game.

Okay, just a little more background: I’m a pretty crappy golfer. For 18 holes on a “real” golf course, a good round for me is about 110. I’d like to get to a point where I was shooting in the low 90s on a regular basis. For the uninitiated who are still reading this message, par (what you would “ideally” score) on most golf courses is 72, and, on the courses I play, the kind of pro golfers you see on TV could probably shoot in the high to mid 60s without trying too hard. So yeah, relative to good golfers, I suck quite badly. My main goal is to get to a point where I am merely a kind of crappy golfer, and actually, I think new clubs might help me get there. Maybe.

For the last four or so years, I’ve been playing with my now deceased grandfather’s clubs. It’s a long story, but my Grandpa Krause also played golf left-handed (though he was quite a bit more ambidextrous than I am), so I inherited his clubs. They’ve served me well enough, but they were at least 10 years old, probably more. So it was time for an upgrade.

Okay, with all that, here’s what I bought:

  • A set of Powerbilt Grand Slam irons, which look like this. I bought these new with the help of my friend Joe. Interesting story: when I went to the golf store to shop for these, the guy at the store was trying to sell me on Cleveland of Callaway irons, which were literally twice as expensive as these things. Joe pointed out the Powerbilts. I spent a few minutes hitting a 7-iron of each of these three different brands of clubs, and while all of them seemed better than what I have now, I couldn’t tell that much difference between the expensive and less expensive clubs. Certainly not twice the difference. Thus my Powerbilt purchase.
  • A Powerbilt 7 wood. What can I say? I like the lower-end name-brand clubs.
  • A (slightly used) Cleveland Launcher driver, which looks like this but did not cost me near this much money. A pretty good deal.
  • An Adams Redline 3 wood, which was originally listed at $245 and which I bought for $80 (0r something like that). Also a good deal.

I’m probably going to keep carrying my grandpa’s 5 wood, at least for a while, and I might figure out a way to have his old 7 wood (a real antique, actually made out of wood and everything!) mounted or framed or something.

Sadly, the weather around here is forecasted to be pretty crappy for the next few days, so I might not be able to actually try my new clubs out on the course. Oh well. At least I had the shopping the experience.

5 Replies to “My new golf clubs”

  1. Steve here is referring to me framing/doing something with some of my grandpa’s old clubs; specifically, an old seven wood (it’s even made out of wood!) called “The Baffler.” He is not referring to sex with said golf club.

  2. Absolutely, the PowerPlay Select Utility club, 22 degrees is the best utility-hybrid club. For several reasons, the maraging face is hard and causes the ball to jump off the face, not like the dull TaylorMade feeling.

    The loft, 22 degrees is forgiving but does not balloon the ball like the 25 degree. The 19 degree Power Play Utility Club is also excellent, with a lower trajectory, slightly less forgiving. Check out http://www.moonshotgolf.com and you will see all the alternative hybrids and utility clubs with golf club reviews from golfers.

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