In case you can’t tell from the glaring GOLFDIGEST75 at the top of the page, this year is our 75th anniversary. Since 1950, Golf Digest has been a record-keeper of sorts, preserving all the game has to offer from the good to the bad to everything in between.
One of those things that pops up every now and again, from the professional game to the grassroots level, is what to do when a club keeps … well … failing you. We know you’ve been there. We certainly have. We’re not just golf writers, we’re golfers ourselves, which means we’ve experienced the same fury that you have after flubbing a tee shot, skulling one from the bunker or even bricking a gimme putt.
As the saying goes, “A bad carpenter blames his tools … but a great carpenter knows when it’s time to break one of his tools, so he can buy a brand-new one (perhaps from the Golf Digest Hot List).” Anyway, here’s where our Golf Digest staff stands on breaking golf clubs, including some of our best personal anecdotes for good measure.
Jamie Kennedy, Director of Content and Social Media: I was 100 percent raised to not lash out in anger and the idea of breaking a club was sacrilege. From the age of 7 or so, I got a new club for each birthday or Christmas. Starting with a 7-iron, then a PW, then a 5-iron, then a driver, etc, etc. I knew the value of my equipment.
Fast forward to college golf, we were playing a tournament in California. I had won the event the year before but had since developed the yips. It was bad. From the first hole, I could tell how the day was going to pan out. Fairway, green, no birdie. Rinse. Repeat. At the end of the round, I had hit 18 greens in regulation. I shot a four-over 76. One birdie (two-putts on a par 5) and five three-putt bogeys. Pretty much 18 times throughout the round, I wanted to break the putter. Surely that would fix the issue. But I couldn’t.
After the round, I signed my card and ate lunch with the team. But before we got on the bus back to the hotel, I quietly took a moment, took my putter out of my bag, walked to the corner of the parking lot and carefully broke it in half, pushing my foot down on the shaft as it perched on a rock. I dropped it into the bin and got on the bus.
The ritual was complete. I committed a sin, but in a respectful manner.
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Kevin Harrigan, Director of Marketing & Aud Dev: No, never, regardless of sport (stick, bat, etc.).
Mike Stachura, Senior Equipment Editor: When I started at Golf Digest, one of my first jobs was to gather information for the News and Notes section known as The Digest. You know, holes in one on par 4s, age-shooters breaking 90 and the occasional horrific golf course incident/accident/explosion. One of the latter that jumped out in the earliest days involved a temper tantrum that led to a smashed club that snapped at the shaft with one piece of shrapnel lodging itself in a golfer’s carotid artery, resulting in his embarrassingly untimely and immediate death.
I am not making this up.
Safe to say, this gruesome tragicomedy stuck with me. While I am notorious in these parts for Olympic-caliber self-loathing, and while clubs in my possession on countless occasions have found themselves inexplicably helicoptering tens and sometimes hundreds of yards away, actually breaking a club as I’m holding it strikes in me as much fear as if I were attempting to subdue an inland taipan with my bare hands and a swizzle stick.
Yes, many of my clubs have been dinged up as they clattered along a cart path, a lie angle occasionally comes back a bit off kilter after a topped 5-wood and subsequent hammer throw, and once even the face insert of a putter dislodged after ricocheting off a tree branch about 40 yards north of the green on the fifth hole. (Yes, that forced me to putt the last 13 holes with an assortment of pathetically infuriating substitutes from hybrid to wedge.) That said, my position on the frustration that leads to various degrees of golf club homicide is simply this: If you don’t care enough about the pursuit of improvement, nay excellence, to want to break something, anything, everything, when that pursuit is confronted with the impossible futility that only Kafka adequately could express, then you really don’t love this infernal game. To do this game right, as I’ve often said, you need to be bleeding from the mouth walking off the 18th green. As such, you are well within your rights on occasion to hit back at the height of its unending array of indignities. Just do so without endangering others and most particularly yourself.
Greg Gottfried, Web Producer: I have yet to break a club, despite slamming drivers every so often across this nation of ours, but I’m sure it will happen here soon enough. I did shatter a tennis racket (or two) in my day, and the pure joy that comes out of a good old-fashioned rage smash is what it’s all about. And yet, as great as that feeling is, buying new equipment is just so embarrassing. Like I have to shell out all this money because I acted like a jackass for a millisecond? That’s karma right there. Totally understand when someone breaks their club though. All the power to them!
Fuse
Sam Weinman, Digital Editorial Director: I’m not one to judge. One time after pulling a drive into the trees, I helicoptered my driver behind me, where it left a dent into the adjacent green–all in full view of the greens committee member who was my partner. Just last week, I was so frustrated by a bad shot, I kicked my bag over with enough force to convert a 40-yard field goal.
MORE: Never throw a golf club, except …
Tod Leonard, Senior Editor: Breaking clubs is dumb and costly, but that comes from personal experience. I’m embarrassed that I broke a few clubs in my young, hot-head days. The walk of shame was rough going into the golf shop and sheepishly presenting only the bottom half of the club to get re-shafted. The fitters never had much of a reaction, though, because it’s so common. Had a friend break a club on the range once. Now THAT is extreme!
Keely Levins, Contributing Writer: Call me old school, because in some ways, I am. My mom taught me how to play golf, and she was taught by her dad, a World War II fighter pilot who returned from the war wanting to spend as much time as he could on the golf course. One of his core principles about golf was that it was a privilege. My siblings and I were raised with that same sentiment. So it should not shock you that one of the first lessons I learned on the golf course was to never break a club. I did not question it, because I was told my golf clubs would be unceremoniously taken from me if I violated that rule. Yes, there have been wretched, unfair moments on the golf course that have led me to curse my way through rounds, sternly shove misbehaving clubs back into my bag, throw my head up to the sky and demand Why? But never in 30 years of playing golf have I broken a club, nor will I ever. Because golf is, first and foremost, a privilege. And if you’re breaking your clubs over bad shots (that your mortgage doesn’t rely on, by the way), you’ve forgotten that.
Shane Ryan, Contributing Editor: I’m super reformed on this now that I haven’t broken a club in about eight months, and will be zealously condemning anyone who breaks in the future.
Shane Ryan Flashback (Six Months Ago): There is something a bit shameful about breaking a club. Like Tod said earlier, the experience of bringing it in to the pro shop for repair is a little excruciating, even when they laugh. Paying $30 for a new shaft feels like proper penance for going a little too far, but it is also embarrassing. If it wasn’t off, on some level, I wouldn’t have felt the need to quit cold turkey, and I wouldn’t have a running tally in my head like the safety signs you see at some factories: “It has been ____ days since our last club-snapping incident.”
Joel Beall, Senior Writer: When Shane casually mentioned breaking upwards of 10 clubs in his lifetime, I stared at him across the table like I’d just discovered he kept a collection of human teeth. One broken club? Sure, we’ve all had that round from hell. Two? Golf is a cruel mistress. Creeping toward a baker’s dozen? I started scrolling through therapist reviews while pretending to nurse my beer. A month later at my home club, I hit 16 greens but finished over par (feeling you there Jaime!). In the parking lot, something in me snapped. Well, on me, as I channeled my inner Bo Jackson, brought my putter to my knee and felt … peace. Pure, unexpected peace. Sometimes a golf club needs to die so a golfer’s spirit can live.
MORE: PGA Tour pro flubs bunker shot, promptly snaps sand wedge in two
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
