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Last Minute Golf Gift Ideas

December 22, 2014 | By Chris Chirico | Leave a Comment

Green present
Last minute golf gifts! (image courtesy of openclipart.org)

The holidays are always a wonderful time of year.  Family and friends gathering for holiday parties.  Giving and receiving gifts.  Spending time with loved ones.  The food.  It’s all great…except for one thing – the shopping.  There is nothing worse than holiday shopping.  Granted, it doesn’t help that I always wait until the last minute.  But still…it seems no matter what time of day, or what day of the week, the stores are packed, and sometimes with relatively unpleasant people.  But hey, what can you do?  The shopping must be done and there’s only so much you can do online.

Many of you probably have a golfer on your list.  And many of us can be tough to shop for.  We can be a funny bunch – we could be very picky or very specific in the equipment we use.  You can’t buy most of us the wrong golf balls.  Certain golf equipment or clothing just doesn’t fit right.  But don’t let that stop you.  Even though we’re picky, we do want some golf-related gifts.

Well, for the golfer in your life, we at Golfstinks can offer you a few options.  See, from time to time we do some product reviews.  Why not use these to help find something for the golfer on your list?  Maybe your golfer is also a reader?  Or maybe they are a fan of movies?  You could take a look at some of the movie and book reviews we’ve done for ideas.  Maybe golf gadgets are their thing.  If that’s the case, then maybe you want to take a look at some of our experiences with a number of items we’ve been lucky enough to toy around with here and there.

And of course, there are a couple choice items in our own GolfStinks Shop too!

As I said, golfers can be a funny bunch.  We can be picky with our golf stuff.  So if you’re struggling for ideas for the golfers in your life, who better to get it from than a few other golfers, albeit stinky ones?  We still know what we want for the holidays.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

Filed Under: Golf Life Tagged With: golf gifts, holidays

Do All Of Your Golf Clubs Have To Match?

December 15, 2014 | By Chris Chirico | 3 Comments

Golf Bag Mismatch
Does your golf bag look like this? (photo by North Charleston via Flickr)

So last season, I was playing nine holes after work one evening with a co-worker.  Last hole of the round and I’m taking my approach shot with the old pitching wedge.  I swing, then watch in horror as the head of my club sails down the fairway.  Are you kidding?  These clubs are only three years old and one of them snapped already?  They cost four times as much as my original set that lasted me twelve years and have since been passed down to my kids!  Tip: You don’t always get what you pay for.

Maybe I was just angry and being irrational, but I refused to spend the money on a new wedge.  I borrowed one from another stinky golfer, but I just couldn’t hit it right.  I tried going back and forth between my nine iron and another wedge, but quickly realized that was also not going to work.  However, it was late enough in the year that the season was winding down and I could just wait until the off season to pick one up.  Well, it’s the off-season.

Now, as I prepare to bring myself out to a golf shop to pickup a new wedge, I wonder how I should decide to buy one.  What I mean is, do I look for one from the same brand as I currently have?  Do I get more specific and look for not just the same manufacturer, but also from the same line?  Or do I ignore that entirely and just buy the one that feels best to me after trying them out?

In my own opinion, the latter option makes the most sense – just buy the one that feels best.  However, is that the right thing to do?  Would it make more sense to buy the one that matches the rest of the set and therefore feels the same as all of the other clubs in your bag?  Would I rather hit a club that feels better, but at the same time feels different than all of my other clubs?  Would I mess up every time I hit it because I’m trying to compensate in some way?  But in the same sense, do I purchase the one I may like less simply because there will be no difference between all of my clubs and, therefore, no compensation necessary?

You know what…this is way too much to comprehend and consider in order to purchase just one club.  I plan on doing this after the new year, but honestly, I’m getting such a headache just thinking about it!  Maybe I can just make the nine iron work…

Swing ’til you’re happy!

Filed Under: Golf Life Tagged With: broken golf club, golf clubs

Has Tiger Fallen To “What Could’ve Been” Status?

December 8, 2014 | By Chris Chirico | Leave a Comment

Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods (photo by Keith Allison via Flickr)

How many great sports careers have been cut short by injuries?  How many players can you look at and say “If only he could stay healthy?”  Some players may have already established a hall of fame career when the injuries began to pile up – players such as Ken Griffey Jr., Sandy Koufax or Gale Sayers.  Others land on the list of “What could’ve been.”  That list includes players such as Ralph Sampson, Tony Conigliario or Maurice Stokes (look him up if you don’t know who he is).  So the question is, is this how Tiger Woods will be remembered?

Tiger was dominant without question through most of his career.  You can present the argument that he may have been the greatest of all time.  But over the past few years, the injury bug has struck him in several different ways.  From his back to his knee to his Achilles, Tiger could be well on his way to a “What could’ve been” status.

It seems strange that, just a few short years ago, we all expected Tiger to own just about every significant record in golf there is to own.  Now, many of us would not be surprised if he never wins another major.  Actually, there are probably a few of us who don’t see him winning any tournament for that matter.  While that may be a stretch, the history of some other great athletes suffering significant injuries does not bode well for Tiger.

Take Griffey for example.  During his time in Seattle he, along with Barry Bonds, could be considered the top two players in baseball.  But after injuries to his knee, hamstring and wrist, he was a mere shell of himelf for the second half of his career, several seasons failing to play in even half of his teams games.

Basketball fans also remember Penny Hardaway.  For the first six or seven years of his career, Penny was compared to the great Magic Johnson.  However, five knee surgeries later, his all-star and possible hall of fame career became that of a part-time starter and decent bench player.

So has Tiger already begun walking down the same path?  With back problems over the past two seasons and four or five knee surgeries throughout his career, one could imagine that Tiger’s best days are well behind him.  The only thing left to see would be if Tiger can buck the trend and avoid becoming the next Grant Hill.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

Filed Under: The Pro Tours Tagged With: Gale Sayers, hall of fame, Ken Griffey Jr., Sandy Koufax, sports injuries, tiger woods

Swing Like A Boss

December 1, 2014 | By Chris Chirico | Leave a Comment

the swing boss
The Swing Boss training aid

It’s no secret that golf training aids are not really our thing here at GolfStinks.  Most of the products we see are more or less laughed off.  Let’s be honest, there are some absolutely ridiculous things out there that are passed off as “training aids.”  Things that attach to your body to make you look like some type of a cyborg.  Products that are so big that they are almost impossible to use indoors, even though that’s their intended use.  Or some products that you can see almost no benefit whatsoever.  We’ve seen it all at this point.

Some of the products we do appreciate though are along the lines of the simple stuff.  Products that aren’t confusing.  Things that are easy to use and don’t include an instruction book the size of your new car’s owners manual.  Contraptions that don’t require me to sign up for a yoga class in order to use.  Simple, easy to use and somewhat helpful is what we’re looking for.  One such product is The Swing Boss.  The Swing Boss fits all of the above criteria.  It’s essentially a miniature driving range mat, a couple of foam golf balls and some Velcro.  You can’t get much simpler than that, right?

In effect, The Swing Boss’ main purpose is to help you hit the sweet spot on your club and let you know when you’ve done so.  Everything else touted, to me anyway, is up for interpretation.  But it’s main purpose is executed very well.  By simply sticking one side of the Velcro to your club face and swinging at the foam ball with the other side of the Velcro already attached, the ball sticks to the face telling you exactly where your club struck the ball.  Hit it too close to the heel or toe of the club, it’ll tell you.  Hit it dead center, that’s where it sticks.  Mis-hit it, the ball doesn’t stick and instead slices off to harmlessly ricochet off your kitchen counter – no harm done.

All around, The Swing Boss is a useful tool for the sweet spot finder as noted above.  However, it’s also an ideal tool for working on your swing, particularly indoors during the off-season – like now.  It’s an alternative to spending the money at the driving range or indoor range, and being able to use it indoors during the cold winter months is just an added bonus.

You can purchase The Swing Boss HERE. But as always, GolfStinks doesn’t keep all the good stuff to ourselves…It’s the holidays after all!  So once again we have a product for one lucky winner to receive.  Just head on over to our Facebook page around 3pm EST today and like this post.  We’ll choose a random winner to receive their own Swing Boss – a $50 value.  Hey, who says it isn’t better to give than to receive?

Swing ’til you’re happy!

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: driving range, golf training aids, indoor driving range, Swing Boss

Do We Need The Winter As A Break From Golf?

November 24, 2014 | By Chris Chirico | Leave a Comment

thLUKU0BZXToo much of a good thing.  We’ve all heard that expression.  But can golf be too much of a good thing?  Do we need that break from golf that the winter brings to us northern golfers?  I’m sure most of us would say no.  Most of us golfers would probably argue that they would prefer to golf year round with no break.  But for those of us who live up north, we are probably used to the time off and may use it productively or as that “break” we need from the sport we love.  Almost as if we need the time to miss it.

For instance, the idea of too much of a good thing can certainly mean that when you do something too often, it becomes more routine than enjoyable.  Is it possible to get golfed out?  Can you reach the point where you play golf too often that it could come to the point of no longer being as enjoyable as it once was?  Is it like having too much pizza?  Enter the golf off-season.  Take some time off.  Use the winter to work on a few things.  Give yourself something to look forward to…the next season.

Also, playing golf year round can get quite expensive.  The off-season break is also a break on your wallet.  Here in CT, you’re talking a good $45 or so on average for a round of golf.  Do that once a week and you’re shelling out roughly $900, give or take depending upon how long you can stretch the season based on the weather.  Now, for us golfers who are on somewhat of a budget (not all of us are rich, you know) $900 is not pocket change.  That $900 can be saved and in place, a few $10-$15 trips to the indoor range during the offseason can be had.

Look, I know I’m not fooling anyone.  If I could play golf more, I would.  We all probably would.  But I live in the northeast, and the reality here is there are four seasons – one of them is winter.  It can be brutally cold and the weather can be downright nasty.  There will be no golf at these times, no matter how bad we may want to play.  So I have to try to find the silver lining, right?

Swing ’til you’re happy!

Filed Under: Golf Life, Stinky Golfer Paradise Tagged With: driving range, golf off season, golf weather, indoor golf facility

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