golf clubs Archives • Page 4 of 6 • GolfStinks

My Balls are Freezing

April 13, 2011 | By Greg D'Andrea | 5 Comments

Will icing your golf balls add distance to your drives? (Photo by Greg D’Andrea)

So my father-in-law was visiting from out of state a couple of weeks ago. One of the days during his stay, I began explaining some of the things I do to prepare for the start of the golf season (keep in mind this is a man who’s never played golf in his life).

In the middle of this conversation, he walked over to my refrigerator, opened the freezer and began looking inside. After staring at him for a few moments (wondering if my golf talk was boring him), I asked if he needed something. Here was his reply:

“No, I was just looking for your golf balls.”

WTF?

Me: “Pop, why would I keep my golf balls in the freezer?”

Him: “Well, I’ve always heard if you freeze your golf balls, they go farther. So I assumed all golfers froze their balls.”

Just then my wife came in the kitchen and our conversation about frozen balls ended. But for the rest of the day, I couldn’t shake the notion of golfers everywhere (save for me) having an unfair advantage all these years because they’ve been freezing their balls.

That night, I decided to do a little research on this frozen ball theory. Turns out, my father-in-law isn’t the only one who had heard of this little trick. A Google search returned many people asking the same question: “Does freezing your golf balls make them go farther?”

Man, what people will go through to add a few extra yards to their drives. And with such an easy solution (after all, most of us have freezers), it’s no wonder so many were interested in if this trick was fact or fiction.

I’m not sure how many of you have heard about freezing golf balls, but my research has led me to believe this is pure fantasy. In fact, studies have shown the exact opposite is true: Cold balls will actually travel a shorter distance (on average) than warm balls!

So I guess freezing your golf balls isn’t a good idea. But what about freezing your golf clubs? Sound ridiculous? Well, don’t say that to cryogenic expert and founder of the Cryogenic Institute of New England, Robin A. Rhodes:

Using a process called Nitrofreeze Cryogenic Tempering, Rhodes deep-freezes golf clubs at 300 degrees below zero inside a 24-cubic foot chamber in his Cryogenic Institute of New England office at 60 Prescott St. Deep-freezing of metals, a process first used by NASA in the 1960s, changes their microstructure, relieving stresses and producing a more consistent and uniform material, Rhodes said. As a result, the company claims that golfers get a better feel, less shaft twist for improved accuracy, a larger sweet spot and more distance.

The price tag to give your set of clubs a deep freeze? $230. Hey, it’s a small price to pay for adding some distance and feel (I just don’t want to know what late, great actor my clubs were cryogenically frozen next to)! You can read the full article HERE.

Counterfeiting Golf Clubs (Follow-Up)

February 18, 2011 | By Pete Girotto | 2 Comments

A little over a year ago, I posted about the growing problem of counterfeit golf clubs. But recently, Callaway has come forth with a new innovation to help combat this problem.

According to a company press release, its new labeling system (which has been rolled-out only in Australia and New Zealand thus far) will require a polarized film to view the authentic label (see picture at left). Callaway says this safeguard will provide consumers a guarantee of authenticity (I hear you, it would suck to buy a set of clubs for $500-plus and find out they are fugazi’s).

Apparently, club counterfeiting at this level is something that has been going on for a few years now. Back in 2007, the folks at globalgolf.com, along with WRAL, did a story on phony clubs (check it out HERE). And then there’s this great video from last year explaining how to spot a counterfeit (will the beginning golfer be able to tell?):

This makes me wonder; if these counterfeiters put the same effort they exerted in counterfeiting into something legit, they would probably be doing just as well. Needless to say, they also wouldn’t have the stress or fear of getting caught lurking over them. But, I guess if this world didn’t have counterfeiters, we wouldn’t know what’s real.

Hit’em long…yell FORE!!! Use a real club…

Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgolfing

November 22, 2010 | By Chris Chirico | 2 Comments

I love Thanksgiving. I love spending time with the family. I love stuffing my face so much that I struggle to keep my eyes open at the dinner table. I love no longer struggling to keep my eyes open on the couch after dinner. I love having turkey sandwiches for the next couple of days. It’s an all around great time of year. The time of year to give thanks and appreciation to your friends and family.

But today I want to take the time to give more specific thanks. I want to take a moment to give thanks to everyone in my golfing life. I’ll start with my wife.

I have many things for which I should give thanks to my wife. First off, thanks for using your work hook-ups to get me my new golf clubs! I’m looking forward to the chance to use them more often than I did this year.

Second, thanks again for using your hook-ups to get me and my buddies on to a few courses for some sweet discounts! There’s nothing like playing a nice course for less than half price!

And third, thanks for not busting my stones when I golf rather than clean out the garage, mow the lawn or any other household chore that I should get done.

Thanks to Josh, my oldest, for using his birthday money to purchase his own set of clubs. By doing this, it gave me the chance to take him out for his first round. I hope it’s the first of many.

A long overdue thanks to stinky golfers Greg and Tom for introducing me to this game all those years ago. If it wasn’t for you guys, I may have never taken up golf and consequently, I would never have known what I was missing!

And last but not least, thanks to everyone who takes the time to read the ramblings we post here. Whether it’s serious, comical or just downright nonsense, we thank you for appreciating and/or understanding exactly what we here at golfstinks are trying to do. Without you, there is no us.

This will be my last post before the holiday, so Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and thanks again for your much appreciated support.

In Case Of Emergency, Pop Trunk

September 20, 2010 | By Chris Chirico | 2 Comments

So if you’re like me and you drive a smaller sports car, you understand trunk space is at a premium. I remember one occasion when I was picking my wife up from the airport. She had two bags with her (Insert your favorite mother-in-law joke here).

Problem was, I forgot to take my golf clubs out of the trunk. Uh-oh. There’s no way the larger of the two bags (Insert your second favorite mother-in-law joke here) was going to fit. Luckily, I do have a backseat. It’s a bit of a tight squeeze, but it is a backseat nonetheless. So after a bit of a fight with the larger of the two bags (again…joke) we were on our way home; disaster averted.

My wife doesn’t understand why my clubs were in the trunk anyway, considering I hadn’t played recently and had no plans to play again soon. I try to explain to her that you never know where you’re going to be when a round of golf breaks out. So it’s best to be prepared. She thinks I’m an idiot. She’s probably right.

Now when I say my trunk is small, I mean it’s small. It’s so small in fact, there is actually a diagram on the underside of the trunk lid showing how to fit two golf bags in there! I guess somehow the great minds at Infiniti must have know this car would eventually find it’s way into a golfers driveway!

But the fact that a diagram showing golf bags in my trunk exists at all is what I find astonishing. The diagram does not explain how to fit luggage in the trunk, although I wish it did. Instead, it shows two golf bags. So obviously, some research went into finding out how many people travel with golf clubs in the trunk. And considering the diagram found its way into my car…I guess it was a relatively high number.

Now it’s not just the clubs themselves that take up the space – it’s the shoes, the umbrella, a couple of boxes of balls and whatever other random things are in there. Throw all of that crap into one small space, and you can see how disorganized it can get. Anyone else have this problem? Well how about this for a solution – don’t pick your wife up from the airport!

Sorry honey; just kidding. Seriously though, finding a solution to this problem would be pretty great, right? Finding it cheaply would be even better. But finding it on a website better known for selling dining tables would be completely unexpected! But sure enough, here it is:

Pretty sweet, eh? I can squeeze just about every golf accessory I have, short of my clubs, into that one convenient package. And no kidding…it’s just a click away while surfing http://www.diningroomsdirect.com/.

See, that site is a branch of http://www.csnstores.com/. They have just about everything you can shop for on that site – furniture, household goods, clothing and yes, golf accessories. If you’re on the dining room site, you just click the tab at the top that says “view all 200 csn stores” and then search “golf trunk” on that page. I’ve done it for you HERE.

Not bad for under $60! But you know what could make it better? What if it was free?! Well, for one lucky Golfstinks reader, it can be. As with all of our great Golf Stinks blog giveaways, simply head over to our Facebook page and “like” us. That’s it! That’s all you have to do to enter! We’ll then randomly choose one lucky winner, and we’ll be in touch!

One warning though – once you have this thing, you no longer have any excuses for allowing your trunk to look as bad as it does. You no longer have the ability to say “I’m sorry honey, there’s no way that will fit in my trunk. We’ll have to take your car.” And you will certainly have no excuse for leaving any bags (you know what to do here) sitting on the airport curb.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

*Update – In response to the comment asking if the diagram on the inside of my trunk actually exists, here you go! I couldn’t believe it when I saw it either…

Judging My Custom-Fit Clubs

September 7, 2010 | By Chris Chirico | 2 Comments

Finally. For the first time since I received my new custom-fit clubs, I actually got out and played a round of 18! So now the new clubs have 27 holes, plus some range time, logged on them. I still don’t think it’s quite enough, but I’m going to try to make a fair judgement as to the added value of a custom fitting. You asked for it, so here it is.

Firstly, in fairness to my clubs, I stink at golf. I understand there are many golfers who are worse-off then me, but I’m still pretty freakin’ bad. No club is going to make a real significant impact on my game. Stinky Golfer Greg has pointed out previously that the way to get better at golf is to play…constantly. Well, I don’t have that kind of time. So I play as often as I can, which is not nearly as much as I would like, and nowhere near enough to show any real improvement. The point I’m trying to make here is, I don’t get to use the clubs as much as I should.

That being said, let’s move along to the clubs themselves. Obviously being custom-fit, the clubs are tailored around my swing. So one would have to imagine there would be immediate benefits to having a club built to strike the ball where it should be struck and hit the ground where it should be hit…And one would be correct. Thing is though, I didn’t realize how much it would affect the result of the swing. Due to the new found distance these clubs seem to provide, it looks like I’m going to need a bit more range time. After overshooting a couple of greens which I had no business overshooting, along with reaching a few traps I had no business reaching…this became quite clear.

So I need to work on my distances. But what about accuracy? Well, that’s another thing I’m going to need to get used to. I’ve spent the past twelve or so years with a swing that, I didn’t realize at the time, was compensating for my clubs. But now that the clubs are in order…my swing isn’t. I can feel when I hit the ball correctly. And when I do, the shots are great. However, right now, those don’t come as often as I would like. But once I get used to the clubs and stop swinging like it was my cheap, old, off-the-shelf set, I think I’ll be fine. But in the meantime…it looks like I’ll be spending a little while at the range working on that also.

In the end, I can tell the idea and the process of custom-fitting will be time and money well spent. Obviously I have some work to do and adjustments to make. But I know once I work out the kinks and get used to them, the new clubs will make a noticeable difference in my game – even though this past weekend produced one of the worst golf scores I have posted in my life, there were upsides and, even better…legitimate excuses!

So if you’re in the market for new clubs, I definitely recommend the custom-fitting process. I already can’t wait until next year when I can spend an entire golf season with the new sticks! If you’ve never done it before, but you’re going to spend the money on a new set, then you might as well spend the extra time (and cash if necessary) to make sure the clubs you’re getting will be of some benefit to you rather than just some shiny new showpieces. Just be prepared for the adjustments you’ll have to make.