{"id":228,"date":"2011-02-13T11:56:49","date_gmt":"2011-02-13T18:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/herbgould.com\/?p=228"},"modified":"2011-02-13T11:56:49","modified_gmt":"2011-02-13T18:56:49","slug":"the-eight-club-experiment-try-it-you-may-like-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/golf\/equipment\/228\/the-eight-club-experiment-try-it-you-may-like-it","title":{"rendered":"The eight-club experiment? Try it. You may like it."},"content":{"rendered":"

Just got back from the eight-club experiment in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, the golf course was a pretty good test. Recently renovated by P.B. Dye, it was not long. But the combination of water, wind and trees put a premium on accuracy on this tight track at Barcelo Bavaro Beach Resort, which includes golf for a $30 cart fee.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That said, there were hardly any moments when I was thinking my eight clubs were not enough. The driver and five-wood were fine for all the long stuff. The nine iron, pitching wedge, sand wedge and putter obviously covered the short shots. (I’m not a gap wedge, 56-degree wedge guy.) And the five- and seven-iron were adequate for the in-between situations.<\/p>\n

I can’t say it affected scoring. I had my usual low 90s. And what really hurt my scores was course management. There were times on the par fives when the five-iron, rather than the five-wood, was the second-shot play, on the narrow fairways.<\/p>\n

If I was going to put one more club in the bag, it would be the eight-iron. Two more clubs and I’d add the six-iron. All of the par-threes were wind-swept middle-iron shots to water-guarded greens where club selection was big. But it really wasn’t that big of a deal. The three–quarter seven-iron probably was a better play than the eight-iron, especially all the water was in front.<\/p>\n

I’ve always been a big fan of taking extra club and swinging easier, anyway. I don’t need to dazzle anybody with how far I hit a nine-iron, or whatever. Because that’s never going to happen, anyway.<\/p>\n

My wife–who brought a 3-wood, a hybrid, four, six and nine irons, pitching wedge, sand wedge and putter–really missed her seven-iron. She’s the better ball-striker in the family. But that was easily solved. I handed her my seven-iron when needed. And she thought the Sun Mountain Sunday bag was adorable.<\/p>\n

I think a short bag, if used on some informal rounds, could help some players. It forces creativity, and it is a reminder to make a good smooth swing. Because a good smooth swing with the wrong club is better than a bad swing with the right club.<\/p>\n

When I’m carrying the bag on hot days this summer, I definitely expect to take out a few clubs. I might not go down to eight. But 10, or 12 at the most, is very likely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just got back from the eight-club experiment in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. As it turns out, the golf course was… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4,334,3,17],"tags":[1846,2014],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-travel","category-commentary","category-equipment","category-courses-and-travel","tag-punta-cana","tag-caribbean"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2011\/02\/Herb-Gould-headshot-Copy3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions\/233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}