At the beginning of a media journey just a few years into my profession as a touring golf journalist, I used to be hanging out with a couple of veteran golf writers by one of many baggage declare carousels inside Missouri’s Springfield-Branson National Airport, ready for everybody’s golf equipment to reach. When particulars of my sticks got here up in dialog, I opened my journey bag to tug out an iron. That’s when one of many extra skilled journey writers dropped some data on me.
“You travel with your clubs like that?” he requested, clearly stunned.
I had no thought what he was getting at. I had headcovers on the driver, fairway wood and hybrids, and the bag was securely tucked contained in the journey bag. All appeared fantastic to me.
“You should protect them more,” he stated.
As I realized that afternoon, this specific author all the time removes the heads of his driver and fairway woods, tucking them into the aspect pocket of his golf bag at any time when he travels. As he informed me, it’s extra widespread than you would possibly suppose for golf equipment to be damaged, given how baggage handlers haphazardly toss golf journey baggage round. More particularly, these baggage are routinely thrown head-on into barricades, the interior partitions of bags transport autos, and different arduous surfaces. At that angle of influence, the power can simply trigger light-weight graphite shafts to bend awkwardly and snap. Influencer Erik Anders Lang skilled this a number of years in the past, and he documented it in a vlog that he posted again in 2021.
The considered eradicating clubheads every time I pack my golf bag for a visit didn’t sit nicely with me then, and it nonetheless doesn’t in the present day. Even although my driver, woods and hybrids are all adjustable, I by no means tinker with the settings. Once I’ve been expertly match with new gear, I go away issues alone — I’d relatively alter the mechanics of my swing than the loft and lie angles of my membership. Removing a clubhead solely after which reattaching it after a flight fills me with acute uneasiness. I worry I wouldn’t be capable of return the membership to the precise specs that have been initially calibrated for my swing.
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Fortunately, there’s one other answer for membership safety. Products akin to Club Glove’s Stiff Arm, BagBoy’s Backbone, the Club Shield by Tour Trek, and Caddy Daddy’s North Pole Club Travel Protector all present a mandatory buffer between your golf equipment and the highest finish of the journey bag. These extendable units successfully act as a shock absorber, taking the brunt of any head-on impacts, leaving your golf equipment unscathed.
I’ve employed their use for greater than a decade and — knock on wooden — I’ve by no means suffered any membership harm. Years in the past, nonetheless, I did open my journey bag to seek out that the Backbone inside had damaged. But you could possibly argue the gadget did its job — if the transport of my bag broke the Backbone, you possibly can think about what it will’ve executed to my driver. And I’d a lot relatively spend $40 to switch a journey accent than $500 for a brand new membership.
So, for those who’re not taking measures to make sure your golf equipment are nicely guarded in opposition to negligent baggage handlers, be it by way of the aforementioned ways or utilizing a hardcase journey bag, you’re taking up a whole lot of danger every time you journey. And as you recognize, minimizing danger is the important thing to good scores on the course. We advocate it right here too.