There are golf clubs, and there are golf clubs.  By that I mean there’s the kind you hit with, and the kind you belong to.  And there are very important differences between the two.

            To begin with, new is good with the kind of golf clubs you hit with.  For drivers alone, if you don’t have the latest technology, from titanium club faces to faux leather grips to dynamic shafts, you’re about thirty yards behind the competition.  That’s a two or three club difference hitting into the green on your next shot.  You don’t have to be a genius to see what an advantage that can be.  (And I won’t even talk about what’s going on with golf balls, which are so technical nowadays that you’ve got to have a Ph.D. in chemical engineering just to understand what’s printed on the package they come in.) 

            If you have the slightest doubt about what I’m saying, go into your garage and pull out those old clubs that you played with back when you had more hair and less belly.  Try hitting those clubs now.  That beautiful old persimmon driver sounds like a powder puff hitting the ball.  And the irons?  Try hitting the two-iron and see if it doesn’t send a shock wave up your arm that’ll jar your wisdom teeth loose.

            If that’s not enough to convince you how the clubs have changed, think for a minute about how far you hit the driver back when you were twenty-something and your swing was powered by testosterone, chili, and beer.  You remember those days, when you could sleep all night without having to get up and pee every twenty minutes.  In case you haven’t noticed, you’re still hitting it every bit as far as back then.  And it ain’t that pot belly that’s giving you all that distance despite your advancing years.  It’s space age titanium, rocket science powered technology.

            Of course, there’s a downside to all this.  Architects keep making the courses longer to keep up with the new equipment.  Unfortunately, the least imaginative way to defend par is to make a course long.  But the new technology is making wonderful old courses like Merion, which hosted four U.S. Opens despite being only 6500 yards long, obsolete, at least to the touring professionals.  Seems that everyone forgot that no one ever set a scoring record at Merion, even though it was shorter than any other course ever to host the Open.

            Anyway, we’ll talk about the other kind of golf club — the kind you join — next time.