Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden!

Once upon a time, in the misty wooly mammoth era frosty Scotland, clans of kilted local hairy neanderthal types grew weary of hiding in caves from Sabre Tooth tigers and all manner of dangerous four legged beasts desiring to nourish their own bodies by snacking on said kilted neanderthal specimen caught frolicking in the heather.

So these kilted highlanders cunningly developed a game with a real long stick and some small round rocks that served to keep them fit and spry as well as land them the odd avian specimen for dinner, if they got lucky.

This long stick was fairly versatile in that it could also be used as a tool to inflict serious damages on wild creatures intent on snacking said kilted hairy Highlanders al cruda sans said pebbles and rocks.

Over time, these guttural kilted cavemen grew their long stick skills and sport into an art form of sorts that also served as dual weapons against sudden attacks that may have befallen them from said wild creatures or other kilted clans of equally hairy and violent savages.

In any event, back in said misty highlands of a bygone era, said Woolly Mammoths and Sabre tooth tigers et al became extinct and the surviving flora and fauna flourished to a state of near civilized status for humans to roam around in to a high degree of relative safety.

The kilted cavemen were soon the apex predator and many clans formed with various clan chiefs which then evolved to the chief of chiefs becoming the King and then all sorts of castles were built to defend their realms with the remaining chiefs getting titles such as Barons, Dukes, Earls and Princes and such human bureaucratic mind games as rewards for fealty and loyalty to the sitting "King" and his power base.

The politics of survival in this environment became quite tricky...

This primitive stick and round stone lark never went away, however.

In fact, said dalliance morphed into a great many variations on the sporting front thanks to the English, French and invading Viking hordes who all perfected the Roman bastardizations in various guises of this simple whack a stone with a big stick game.

Some Highland clans called it "Bandy ball" for some unfathomable reason.

Lacrosse and Hockey can be traced back to these early caveman shenanigans that stemmed from this long stick and round pebble game as well by the way.

Eventually, some bored Scottish aristocrat with way too much time on his hands grew tired of chasing well wicked Scottish wenches and started messing with said sticks and the round stones they were using as missiles instead and presently we had a bag of various types of sticks to hit a smallish rounded ball type thing with said sticks that was no longer a rounded stone and which could be whacked a fairly impressive distance with said bag of specially made sticks he had developed for various distances they desired to whack the early ball type thangs.

Other bored aristocrats joined in with their takes on the clubs and we soon had a "my clubs are better than your clubs" rivalry thing going...

Clan McGreggor clubs were most sought after in those days and the other Highland clans soon all had their own club making gigs on the go.

In around 1473 they had found that if you stuffed goose feathers compressed into a treated leathery bag you could press and squeeze it into a rough ball shape that was fairly solid and compact and also went a fairly long distance.

They called this ball thing a featherie because it was stuffed full of feathers.

The best makers of featheries were prized by these various Highland clans and quite a war ensued to ensure the most skilled artisans were employed by each clan chief.

Due to the injuries that resulted from early shenanigans on the Scottish Highlands playing this game with this early equipment it was strongly suggested that only Gentlemen should partake in what was now a fairly popular blood sport amongst the landed gentry.

It never really had a name other than the game that Only Gentlemen played.

When a couple of well stocky and fit gals from Aberdeen started knocking these featheries around a fair distance, the Gentlemen who were partaking in this dalliance got a tad upset and started posting signs by Royal Decree emphasizing the fact that the designated areas where this game was usually played were for Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden - By decree of the King - long Live the King and all that jazz....

And so the sport came to be known by the abbreviation of this long winded decree using the first letters of the salient words in said long winded royal proclamation.

This was how the sport of GOLF came into being and how the strange name for the sport was derived.

I myself once had great disdain for the old men types who partook in this sport while I was aspiring to be a serious rugby player myself.

Little was I to know.......

Life is so ironic, its just not funny..

Thus the term "Ladies Golf" is truly a contradiction in terms par excellance, as my snobby pals would quip.

So fast forward to June 22nd, 2002 at roughly 1:37 PM - which was when my life and it's then very distant relationship with Golf changed forever due to a series of most unfortunate events at roughly this point in time.

That is to say my data logger stopped recording data at the point my aircraft impacted with terrain which was at precisely 1:37 PM......

My Smyk PW-5 after impact with Terra

So shortly before said time the data logger stopped recording data, the PZL-PW5 glider I was piloting had its tail removed by a nasty Redwood tree with plenty of bad attitude and I promptly nosedived into terra-firma right next to some CDF firefighters who had very considerately made a very wet spot on the grass for my aircraft to impact nose first into - sans tail of course.

This made me notice aircraft lose all properties of flight sans a tail control surface.

This was to prove itself rather quite impactful mere milliseconds later!

The resulting injuries to my person were best described as a tad on the horrendous side of the equation.

I lost the sixth nerve on my left eye which snapped like a tight violin string on impact as the left side of my body took most of the force that impact with terrain distributes across an aircraft frame and my body was crushed in alignment with the distribution of said forces at the behest of the gravitational fields acting on the aircraft and the mass of all who were in it (moi).

It was a rather emphatic and impressive living example of Newtons third law of motion actually.

I did learn rather succinctly that Force = Mass (x) Acceleration in a very demonstrable way that at least impressed the first responders who arrived on the scene, who fortunately had been playing pyromaniac and fireman in the immediate vicinity that I impacted old terra.

The instrument panel of my PW5 decided my chest was a great place to nest in the face of such gravitational forces it was reckoning with and demonstrated the reason why we humans have a rib cage while it was at it.

My ribs all snapped off rather neatly around the sternum. Miraculously they did their job and my heart was somehow just bruised but mostly protected.

Both of my feet snapped in half and the left leg lost 5 inches of tibia microseconds after impact and the top right femur took the shockwave right above the knee and snapped like a twig. The left Fibula was rendered into a shattered state of some 17 fragments.

My right hand holding the right air brake paddle was shortened considerably with a ton of broken fingers thrown into the bargain whilst dealing with the shock wave that gravity shared with it on that side of my body.

The final act was the First Aid box, which in this aircraft is directly behind the pilots head and which took a massive impact from my cranium which was what severed one sixth nerve and stressed the other considerably.

It also wiped my memory completely clean while it was at it but did mercifully rob me of my consciousness which was probably fortunate given the wave of pain that my sole surviving synapse would have had to cope with.

The left leg, which had bits of said tibia on display at the top and bottom of said ex bone, 17 assorted fragments of fibula and a new bright red gaping 7 inch hole from which that red stuff bearing oxygen and said bone fragments decided to vacate the scene of the trauma from was no longer a pretty sight to behold...

Had I not been upside down as my final resting position post impact with terra this wound would have killed me within a scant few minutes.

Fortunately my sole surviving synapse did not require an abundance of O2 to keep me from expiring on the spot.

The Sacramento Bee reported my demise as the Lake county Police Officer who was first on the scene moments later took one look at me being scraped up, bundled into a sheet and then shoved sans ceremony into the Red Reach helicopter that had arrived on a long shot mission of mercy that he was fairly certain that calling my demise as a foregone conclusion of fact based on what his visual sensors were telling him was the sum of things as he saw it - he shared such with the reporter in a convincing manner at any rate.

How I did in fact not expire in this one is still quite the miracle in fact!

On the very short helicopter ride from Loch Lomand in Lake county where this Redwood tree had done its dastardly deed to the Santa Rosa Hospital helipad, they had given me several transfusions.

They poured it in and via my mangled left leg holey shrine, it promptly poured right out again.

I am told I died 8 times on that short flight but the Reach Rescue crew were not taking my demise as a foregone conclusion like the Lake County Sheriff had done.

Later I was told "do not die again, nine is the max!" What humor.......

I believe the chopper was quite a mess by the time they landed it and I had used the last drop they had 1 minute before landing.

So neways, you may be idly asking yourself, what has this gory tale got to do with Golf?

Well, everything, actually!

So fast forward to 2 years later, I am out of my various 18 months induced comas, I have had over 48 surgeries to piece me back together again with Ilizarov fixators and the like, had the exotic left eye Jensen procedure to make up for the severed sixth nerve situation and even climbed back into a cockpit to go fly again and all and I even get a job again once I can "lurch" walk.

Chiron Corp in Emeryville had a South African exec who came from Glaxo Welcome Plc and who also captained several provincial rugby teams in South Africa in his youth and due to my own rugby network connections with Northern Transvaal (Blue Bulls) Rugby I found myself given the opportunity to get back into the workforce with what was left of me at any rate for my contribution to the game of rugby in South Africa, at Chiron Corp in Emeryville, California.

Who would ever have called that one?

Sean Lance himself got ousted shortly after I joined but I only needed 18 months or so to get it back together again and I was there about that length of time before I too got ousted, learning invaluable lessons of diplomacy when working with modern Viking like corporate invaders like IBM GIS.

Chiron corp were a Flu Vaccines and blood testing outfit and the opportunity to build their new Global Data Center environment was a miraculous Godsend.

So anyways, about a year of Windows Domain tinkering and prep goes by and I start to wonder one day why all my work colleagues are disappearing for 3 hours around lunchtime every single day.

Eventually, one of them tells me its to go play a "quick" nine hole round near a golf driving range down highway 13 that also had this micro 9 hole setup.

In Golf "quick" is a relative term only.

So another 6 months goes by and by now I am getting pretty irked that I am doing all the work on these NT 4.0 to Windows 2003 Global Domain upgrade projects.

Well, Jerry Wang was doing most of the Windows based work, but I was orchestrating the global when and how rollout shenanigans in concert with ol Jerry.

After I had done my piece successfully it was all down to Jerry to do his magic and I had time on my paws.

So I decided to join these miscreants on their daily lunch time plus jolly down Highway 13 out of sheer curiosity one day as I had been riding my mountain bike then a road bike 30 miles every day to get back to full fitness levels and I needed a new challenge.

While doing this Golf lark with the team and chatting between whacking golf balls, I learnt they had resorted to this antic because Jerry and I were doing all the work and they were not happy about it.

However, I impressed on them in the idle chatter between holes that they lacked the experience and were supposed to follow along and learn so that they could go forth and repeat what they had learnt elsewhere and asked why they had not got the balls to confront me with it.

One of the team members who joined us was an actual Microsoft employee so we had a lot of skills and experience with Microsoft, routing, storage and Networking and he pointed out the team feared me as a Tyrannosaurus Rex type character.

I never laughed so much in my life at the very notion, but it was useful feedback.

I set about teaching said young pups about the psychology of dancing on a timeline and the no prisoners MO one needed to deliver a global project like ours on time.

They were all mostly young junior contractors. Some stayed and became IT directors and others left to go do great things elsewhere.

I took the opportunity to explain the plot realizing the actual Chiron IT Manager was not doing this task and I had just assumed that he was.

I learnt a lot of things at this stage from them and they learnt a lot from me.

It was truly Wunderbar!

So I used these golfing sessions to smooth feathers, illuminate their paths forward and hear what they wanted to do and accommodate their desires as far as I could accommodate them on a regular basis on said golf course.

I had also initially hired them all so I knew what traits they had which I wanted in the team and explained the everyone in the team has a role to play concept while I was imparting many strategically chosen pearls of wisdom.

Here I was tackling what I had shunned my entire career and some people started to notice and play the usual corporate games in defense of what they were not contributing themselves for some bizarre reason.

I was considered a polarizing force, some were rabidly liking my approach and others had dark forebodings about the imagined threat I was presenting for them as they saw it.

I did not lose much sleep over their feelings by the way. People who think like that have other issues they need to sort out IMHO.

I have always been a get the job done now, deal with the fallout later type guy because political corporate games take time and time I usually do not have on these projects.

I am also from a Military Family and was in the Military myself. Short, sharp, shock has been my MO my entire life, no time for PC BS there but one had to be diplomatic to a fine degree.

So anyways, I also started to hit a gazillion balls at the range with some clubs I had bought second hand from the nice Korean chaps who ran this 9 hole short course and range business at the advice of my colleagues with the golfing experience.

$20 to $30 a club is chump change was my thinking then.

I was totally horrible at Golf but she who must be obeyed saw it as a way for me to self recuperate from my many injuries and bought me my first set of clubs from Overstock dot com.

She thought she was being sneaky and cunning about my path to fitness..

Those AMF clubs she bought me for cheep were thoroughly horrendous by the way.

The Worst Golf clubs ever made

I used the sand wedge for all shots and then the pitching wedge a short while after that to mix it up a tad but I essentially played with three clubs (Sand wedge, Pitching wedge and a putter).

None of the other clubs in that set were workable. I was later to find this was probably due to the exceedingly poor grips they were shod with.

I also started to hit a gazillion balls at the range with said AMF horror club thangs.

After 3 months of 5 buckets a day it started to pay off somewhat.

I was still terrible but the ball flight was awesome on the odd occasion I got it right and I was hooked on pulling off a grand old shot.

I then decided to get some Ping G5 clubs in a whole set form from Golf Smith in Pleasanton one day.

The problem with this was the guy taking the measurements at Golf Smith was bored and not paying attention to how long and short each of my limbs was.

He was doing the Ping sizing which catered to average people of average limb dimensions.

I did share with them that my body geometry and movement had been impinged by said medical maladies that were an unfortunate consequence of resulting laws of motion from flying a mass of fiber glass impacting a very nasty Redwood tree and suddenly losing all properties and characteristics of flight sans a tail and the resulting dreadful jarring impact with mother Earth that ensues care of gravitational laws a la Newton.

On seeing my frustration from using these "sized" for me Ping G5 clubs, she who must be obeyed bought me some golf lessons at Santa Clara Golf and Tennis Club as I was now working for the now defunct Silicon Valley Bank and said range was right next door to my new place of work.

I went there three times a day to hit balls, before work, at lunch time and after work.

The Golf Instructor was a great old guy but he had also failed to note my many maladies.

I did learn the right way to hit a club from him though.

I swiftly realized that the Ping G5's were not working for me so I bought a Mizuno set at plus 2 inches, then being convinced due to my ex 6 foot 4 stature that I was over tall - based on the erroneous Ping Measurements.

So I played with these for 2 years before deciding they too were in fact the problem.

Those Mizuno clubs did not work due to their extra length that I had mirrored from the Ping G5 set by the way.

I was of course questioning if it was the Indian and not the arrow that was at fault as the chances the clubs were the problem were not stacked in my favor.

I had also by now roped a project manager I was deploying Windows 2003 with globally to be my golf course partner in crime.

Sergio and I played for some 7 years before my crude sarcasm and wit hit a major nerve and he married a South African girl for more sado-masochistic action than what mere golf or I myself could ever offer.

So anyways, one day I run into a guy from Portland who watches me play at Bridges Golf club Golf driving Range and he tells me my problem is that my golf clubs are way too long.

Something I had already suspected as being a fact as I happened to hit other folks clubs better than my own and these things were regular length clubs....

He then points me to a web site in Oregon called Pinemeadow Golf as I bleat about the fortune I have spent on clubs and I am still getting nowhere angst.

Oh, he tells me, for a mere $379 you can get a whole set of clubs with graphite shafts!

I was dubious about said claim and was not understanding the cheapie golf club manufacturing game at all and life has taught me to be weary of too good to be true statements via real world examples by the bucket load.

I climbed on the interwebs thang and found a lot of outfits like this one and many other club manufacturers who were much cheaper than the Ping, Mizuno, Nike, Wilson and all collection of mainstream golf club manufacturers who were out there in this space.

However, I did some trig and math with some laser measurements with the aid of my video machine as said Portland chap also remarked I was tall not because of my leg length but because my torso was very long.

So I called the Pinemeadow Golf phone number on their web page and had a great chat with a down to earth type who made me measure a few things and he flat out told me on review of said stats that "yeah, standard length clubs bud, your legs are not long at all".

So $379 worth of all Graphite Excel EGI Hybrids for a right handed player are duly dispatched via Fedex and heading my way molto pronto.

When they arrived at my Danville home I nipped orf smartly to the Las Positas driving range near Livermore Airport to get used to using them and the very first time I played with Sergio with these things I immediately saw I could start giving him a run for his money.

The range had not convinced me these things worked any differently to the Mizuno clubs but I immediately started hitting reasonable shots on the course grass, where it actually counts.

It took me three more years of hitting these EGI Hybrids and I got rather quite reasonable at it I can tell ya.

My score went from 105 to 84 over said three year period. Of course I was playing 3 times a week then.

By 2014, I was ready for my first "real" set of clubs and went to Ping in Arizona in person thinking this would have a better result than at Golf Smith sizing shops, where they again made the customary bad measurements and sent me a set of clubs their sizing tool told them to make but which they could not.

Their tool told them Purple Dot 5, degrees upright.

They were taking forever to make them and I just called them in frustration one day and the Ping factory person eventually tells me "er yeah we cannot do Purple Dot at those settings, we can only do Silver Dot".

So now I am irked and highly irritated that I went to Arizona in person for this gig where I get regaled with the "Science" and such BS behind the manufacturing process only to run into "er, yeah.....er... we cannot make that".

So I ask why they did not pick up the darn telephone and tell me or the Golf Smith bad elf who I had to send them to as the dealer, and they have no words.....

Eventually they say try them and see, Full refund guarantee.

I did, they didn't, so I sent them back and happened upon the Mizuno rep in Golf Smith who had been hearing my loud tale of woe about this Ping time wasting malarkey misadventure of mine (I had been there complaining to their management that nobody wanted to take my $2500 dollars I was offering for the task)..

He pulls me on one side after watching me hit a few on the sizing rig mat at Golf Smith in Pleasanton and tells me that stuff Ping told me is utter garbage and a gimmick, all I needed was a bog standard Mizuno JPX graphite set with 2 degrees upright lie and that's it.

So in desperation I agree and throw money at him for said irons plus a few others he tells me will suite my "style" with a snigger from him which had me admire his powers of sarcasm only he was not being sarcastic at all.

It was my last chance hail Mary with Golf and I just went for it. Think it was all in $1599.00 or therabouts...as I recall.

Nothing to lose at that stage but the good ol Yankee Dollah...

These clubs worked so well that I bought their JPX driver as well shortly after that and a few of their fancy wedges.

Those things also transformed my game big time.

This was my first "set" correctly sized for my body and very ugly swing.

The rep threw two JPX High Fli Hybrids into the equation as well - the Irons were 6-PW with a Sand Wedge.

I added the 60 degree wedge and the JPX driver later, as I stated.

My Second Mizuno set of clubs sans 5 Iron

That's nice, but so what, you may be asking yourself?

Well, the thing is, I had recently gone from Silicon Valley Bank to working for a Computer specialist consultant company called Forsythe Solutions Group, and despite the fact I was still pretty awful at Golf in 2006, I had used it very effectively to get to know people I was selling to and I was rather good at the whole getting to build relationships thang.

Some of the Forsythe folks in Pleasanton I worked with had real big issues that my sales guys and I, with a few golf focused customers were racking up some impressive numbers - all on the golf course.

In their minds eye we were being paid to play golf all day long and were not doing our jobs.

It was only when the veep of our division pointed out our sales numbers compared to the other teams that they all reluctantly shut their jealous maws.

I was making 3x my salary in commissions after a year and it started to get real stacked after 3 years to boot.

All the while, I was getting much better at golf and selling shit. My presentation skills also got pretty darn good while I was at it too.

The golf was awesome therapy for my aircraft induced injuries and is, I find, still the best combo of exercises for my eye calibration issues, judging distances and skills of estimation et al because I do not lose interest in doing it.

I cannot tell you how much money she who must be obeyed has spent on all manner of very expensive exercise gadgets only for them to turn into ornaments after 2 months or so.

I never get tired of whacking the old featherie though!

The impact on sales numbers puts partaking completely beyond question or scrutiny by the way.

Of all the hundreds of trainings and certifications I have done in my career, none has been more useful or impactful than actually playing golf with customers.

Learning from my mistakes and initiating newbies into the art of Golf follows the path of my own mistake strewn experiences as described.

You do not need $1500 worth of golf clubs to partake in the sport ab-initio either.

All you need is a set of Pinemeadow Golf EGI hybrids roughly sized for your body geometry, a will to learn how to hit the ball and a golf range to execute on.

Obviously, this will require some time investment on your part in the beginning.

I wish I had started with the Pinemeadow clubs from day one. It would have saved me $5299.71 and saved me another 3 years of figuring out ball striking schemes and resulting suspicions of applied geometry!

So, for any of you out there who want to figure out an edge and add an enjoyable angle to keeping fit, have some fun and excel at work all in one dollop, Golf as a tool offers quite a lot of opportunities to break down barriers and get to know people that just cold calling them will never afford you with the standard MO approach to your work life.

Its a fairly healthy activity as well.

Even in the Pandemic, the one piece of sanity for many of the myriad of cooped up people wanting to flee to a golf course for a small slice of "normal" offered a great way to get to top of mind for them.

It works. It breaks barriers. It builds relationships. That wins business.

I hardly ever talk shop at these golf sessions either by the way. This is not the point.

That comes later.

You will be shocked at the total of business deals I have closed on Golf courses with my partaking sales folks since 2005, it currently stands at $127 Million US dollars worth of business won to date just due to Golfing activities and my single biggest deal in 2019 was $20 million.

Not too shabby!

So next time somebody gives you a hard time about playing golf at work, ask them how much business they won piloting a desk computer and a phone at an office? I will guarantee it will be a pale shadow of a golfing based approach.

That usually shuts the argument dead in it's tracks....

And in case you think you need to be real good at Golf to do this sort of lark, the guys I have seen pull the most money doing this really, really suck at playing golf!

It's not about how good or bad you are, its about relationships with people and getting into the doorway of their attention span and building relationships.

I could sell literally anything and have the same result too, its not just about how good the product you are selling is (though that sure helps), it's the solution that impacts the bottom line for your customer by making them higher profits that wins the day.

Getting the opportunity to play is the trick and Golf delivers near most of the time.

I have done this with truly awful solutions with the right teams supporting the effort on the back end.

There is, as they say, more than one way to skin a cat in the IT space.

The Golf course is a pretty solid way to get your goals met. IPSO FACTO.

Try it before you knock it.

It has worked for me rather well and I have several disabilities to contend with over what a normal human being faces via consequences of said gravitational compression on my body.

Pinemeadow Excel EGI Hybrids (pinemeadowgolf.com)

If you want to get into Golf, call Pinemeadow up and do the rough measurements thang.

A couple of tips on ordering clubs from them.

Golf grips are pretty key to hitting Golf clubs correctly, so after you select the standard shafts (no need for the fancy stuff at this juncture) pay attention to the grips.

If you have small hands get the standard Winn or Golf Pride grips, medium and oversize are the next options for bigger handed folks.

Do not get the standard Pinemeadow Golf grips, whatever you do.

Here, the more you pay, the better but the Golf Pride stuff is good value for money and will last a relatively long time. I like the Winn Dri-Tac oversize ones myself for their sticky grip.

I advise Winn or Golf Pride choices for newbies. I have played them all at some stage since 2008.

Pinemeadow have left hand club sets as well, they are at the bottom of the RH club selections and make sure you check the box for 3-PW when you select your RH or LH set.

I used to have a LH set as I am actually ambidextrous.

The Pinemeadow online ordering tool also asks you to make selections as to male or female and the shaft type as well and clicking on the standard grip reveals other options they offer.

I recommend regular Pinemeadow Graphite shafts for your first set by the way, few folks need stiff or extra stiff shafts or the fancy shaft options that cost a lot of money.

Obviously, if you are a lady or a senior choose the appropriate highlight box as offered.

This iron set does not get you a driver, wedges or a putter by the way, because guess what? It's an iron set!

In fact, few Golf sets come with all the clubs you need and when they do, the driver, putter and fairway woods are often effectively useless.

Fairway woods are also missing from the Pinemeadow EGI Iron set because they are not Irons, they are in fact Fairway Woods!

You do not need those yet anyways.

There are 14 clubs in a golf set per current golf rules and this selection of the EGI 3-PW set will give you 8. An additional putter and a Sand wedge will take you to 10 clubs.

Later on you will get a driver which leaves you with three clubs too fill your bag.

I suggest you forget drivers and fairway woods for now and focus on these 8 hybrid irons but as I said, do get a putter and a Sand Wedge.

In case you are wondering there are many types of Golf club selections and types.

All sets need a putter.

The rest is a combination of Driver, Fairway woods, Hybrid woods, Irons, Wedges and Chippers.

The Pinemeadow Wedges are actually pretty good by the way. You already have the Pitching Wedge so you just need a Sand Wedge (54 or 56 degree) and a Lob Wedge (60 or 64 degree).

A 52 degree wedge is between a 9 Iron and a PW and is also an interesting selection, I used to play one but it kinda killed my 9 iron. I am still thinking it is a better club than a 9 Iron.

However, on my new PXG 0311 XP set there is no 52 degree Wedge Option....

These also all come in steel or Graphite shaft options too. Get the Graphite shafts for the HY irons and steel shafts for the Wedges.

The Pinemeadow EGI chipper is also a club worth having and for $44 it ain't breaking the bank either. That does not offer grip or shaft choices, it is what it is.

I will probably have it shod with a Dri-Tac depending on how I like the one that it comes with.

For the putter I recommend going to Dicks sporting goods and playing on their putting green for 2-3 hours with their vast selection of putters for a few Saturdays to find the one you like the best.

Do not rush selecting a putter is the bottom line here.

On the subject of the 3-PW Iron set by the way, you may want to consider getting Irons to 5 Iron Hybrid only.

I found that for myself, the 3 and 4 Hybrid rescue clubs which are supposed to replace the Fairway woods are often better options than the EGI set 3 and 4 Hybrid irons.

As the set price is cheap just play with the 3 and 4 Iron when you get them and if it is not working out (good chance they do not) take them out your set for now and dabble with the rescue fare on offer.

Pinemeadow Golf also offer a few of these types of rescue club that are also outstanding and way less than the $249-$279 that PXG, Taylormade, Ping, Mizuno and Adams et al demand for their current rescue club variants.

I ended up trying all sorts of these clubs as I found I hit Hybrid Fairway woods from a company called Nickent rather well. Nickent is now owned by Dicks Sporting Goods.

I have a 1 iron Hybrid Rescue club made by Cleveland Golf, 2,3,4 & 5 Hybrid Rescue woods from Nickent, 3 & 4 Rescue Woods from Adams Golf and 4 & 5 Hi Fli Hybrid Rescue clubs from Mizuno.

I also have the vanilla Nickent 3 & 5 Fairway woods but I cannot hit the 3 Wood consistently. I am pretty good with the 5 but this thing has a special swing that requires lots of weeks of practice to perfect striking the ball with.

In fact when I get it right I can hit that Nickent 5 wood further than my driver and I can make shots go left, right or just straight with it as well.

I took the 3 and 5 Fairway woods out of my bag though because it messed the other clubs up.

Talking of bags you will also need a reasonable Golf bag to put all them awesome Golf clubs into by the way.

The Pinemeadow Golf bag is not bad actually and at $139.99 is pretty reasonable fare.

The next item is Golf shoes and yes, you do need special shoes to play golf and this includes range time antics.

You will not want the shoes with the special shoe spikes, get a sole with the little spikeless ridges instead like a normal sneaker choice, but made specifically for golf.

Spikeless and Spiked Golf shoes

You can