Should you be carrying this in your golf bag?
Tis the season for weird golf gimmicks to start popping up in every catalog under the face of the sun. If you are like me, your mailbox is overflowing with the likes of Brookstone, Sharper Image, Herrington, etc.
In years past I have received such items as the slightly useful but impractical item as the golf ball personalizer; pointless items like the golf ball locating sunglasses; and I admit at one point I even carried and used the drink keg/pump booze dispenser hidden inside a faux driver (I was younger).
This year’s crop includes all of the above and some equally bizarre items and I admit I was tempted to order the 73-degreee wedge (yes 73 degrees!) from the Herrington catalog because if skill cannot help my short game, surely spending money can. The only reason I held back is because I have way too many golf clubs and way too little disposable income. Maybe next year.
But this is the one that leapt out at me, from the pages of Hammacher Schlemmer, known for its eclectic, often very expensive, and sometimes great gift selection. But this time they struck out.
“The Weed Whacking Golf Driver.”
This is December not April’s Fools, so I kid you not. The point of this is to carry a second (fake) driver that has an actual motorized mini string weed whacker concealed within its head. Or as the catalog copy reads: “This is the golf driver with a built-in grass trimmer, ideal for surreptitiously improving one’s lie… Requiring only the semblance of a square stance and proper grip for activation, two thumb buttons built into the handle activate the trimmer for a quick clearing of obstructive grass.”
So when you hit your ball into the rough, which was designed to penalize you for missing the fairway, you simply removed the rough? Get it?
This is the stupidest golf product I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot, in addition to being an utter slap in the face to golf, the rules of golf, and even if like me you don’t exactly follow the rules of golf, the spirit of the game. It also presupposes that destruction of the actual golf course by visiting players is acceptable.
In order to buy this product – and they should not sell even one – you need to buy into several assumptions:
Your friends won’t questions why you carry two drivers.
It’s either worth substituting for an actual cub or carrying too many and cheating on every single shot instead of just those in the rough.
That the situation in which you need a weed whacker on the course will arise with regularity.
No one will question why you keep thinking about hitting driver out of the rough, lining up, changing your mind and putting it back in your bag to hit wedge.
That you are a pathological liar who should not be playing golf anyway.
That if you are going to cheat anyway in the rough, this is a better way to do it than simply moving your ball.
That it is okay to do your own landscaping/destruction on someone else’s very expensive and manicured golf course when that grass is there on purpose. Admit it, you are a vandal.
Only $39.95.
