George Bernard Shaw once wrote off golf as “typical capitalist lunacy.” While the Irish playwright’s snide affront was mere anti-bourgeois disdain, the fortunes of golf and the financial markets have been closely tied for over a century and grown even tighter in modern times.
“Don’t lick it. Don’t sniff it. Don’t play with it. Just do it,” my waitress at Primland’s 19th Pub says with a drawl just before I knock back a shot of 100 proof Virginia Lightning moonshine. The clear corn whiskey is potent stuff, wiping clean all flavour memories of the juicy pimento cheese-topped Kobe beef burger and the pig candy (slices of bacon lightly coated in cayenne pepper, paprika, brown sugar and maple syrup) that preceded it. The drink sparks a fire in my belly, revving me up for the back nine. “Make sure you hydrate out there,” she adds motheringly as I leave.
Belt technology may be as staid as a grey suit, but Nexbelt strives to take the science of keeping waists happy to the next level. Their PreciseFit tightening system eliminates yesteryear’s punched holes which have a tendency to scuff and lose their shape, while facilitating size adjustments in quarter inch increments. The belt won’t shave any points off your score by coaxing long putts hole-ward bound using an onboard buckle tractor beam as the “Go-In!” name seems to allude, but the face niftily flips down to reveal a magnetic ball marker. Off the course, Nexbelt’s quick release clasp comes in handy in airport security lines, not too mention certain touchy feely instances that call for dropping your drawers in a hurry.
Think of this après-golf rubdown as Rollersage’s dimpled cousin. After you’ve chased spheres down fairways and hunted for strays in the woods all day, wouldn’t it be cool of them to pay you back for your valiant attempts to leave no ball behind? At the Resort at Pelican Hill in Newport Beach, California, wayward Callaways and Titleists and the old Westin in Hilton Head used to make it up to you for all their awkward bounces with a golf ball massage. Good news is the Ahhhmmm Massage Therapy in Thousand Oaks, California, where therapist Heather Karr has designed a special caddy for her golf massage balls to allow for deeper tissue massage still offers the treatment. BENEFITS CLAIMED: Along with relieving muscle pain and erasing memories of that disastrous triple bogey on the back nine, this massage will also loosen up your swing and leave you feeling more relaxed in your stance. A few years back when the Heavenly Spa at Westin in Hilton Head was still offering them I had one. They called it the Royal Tee golf ball massage. I thought what better way to unwind my tight shoulders and bogeyed-out muscles. Having experienced hot stone massage before, the one where hot lava rocks are smoothed all over your body, the initial sensation wasn’t too novel. The first 10 minutes felt like a regular sports massage interspersed with some golfball-rolling action. But later on, you really notice the golfball dimples when the therapist starts rolling them on your neck, arms, lower buttocks, and especially the balls of your feet. The advert claimed they used Pro V1 balls but a sneak peek in her ball-warming Crock-Pot revealed the presence of some Max-Fli's. I suggested that it would be cool if the treatment was paired with some tee pricking acupuncture but was told the size of golf tees would make it excruciatingly painful.
While there’s a bevy of guys on Tour that can out-drive TW, when it comes to stunts like teeing off in Europe and landing it in Asia there’s only one guy who gets the call. Stopping traffic, Tiger laid into one on the Bosphorus Bridge in Turkey which spans between Ortakoy on the Euro side and Beylerbeyi on the Asian side.
Hilarious Caddy Futurists Debate who has the Edge at the 2015 U.S. Open: Mickelson vs Woods.
Katsuhiro Miura, the meticulous master metal shaper, has been hand-forging golf clubs for over fifty years in his factory Himeji Japan. The city is renowned for exquisite craftsmanship, it’s where katanas—the blades samurai warriors wielded centuries back and also Uma Thurman’s weapon of choice during her revenge rampage in the Kill Bill flicks—were pounded from hot steel into swords. Himeji’s renowned forging legacy lingers thanks to Miura’s proprietary 14-step process that each of his vaunted irons must painstakingly go through till the clubs are good to go. The ball striking nirvana of hitting a Miura has often been described as velvety smooth because of the vibration free sensation of swinging one of his creations as Jose Maria Olazabal and Retief Goosen who toted Miura irons in their bag during major championship victories can attest. K.J. Choi’s also a firm believer. We waxed philosophical with Mirua-san about everything from wabi-sabi to living up to his sky high “Hands of God” nickname.
With a 56-3 record and 49 of his fights ending in knockouts, Dr. Steelhammer, aka Wladimir Klitschko, may have the most appropriate nickname in the sport of boxing. The heavyweight champion of the world pummels opponents’ skulls with the force of an industrial pile driver. And the doctor tag — nothing to do with being a smooth operator — is also legit to the letter. The Ukrainian pugilist holds a PhD in sports science from the University of Kiev.
A shortened version of this post ran in the fall issue of Men's Fashion Magazine: Since the mid 1970s when Jack Nicklaus was still the PGA TOUR's bell cow, the pro golf season teed off in January and wound down in the fall. With all the Majors in the bag and the leaves starting to crisp, most sports fans would flip the channel to watch football, hockey and the World Series as the autumn PGA Tour swing, especially in a non-Ryder Cup year (no offense Presidents Cup) offered few compelling storylines.
|
Mike Dojc
When Mike isn't repairing impossibly large divots or alphabetizing his impressive ball marker collection, he’s slinging copy for a diverse range of editorial and corporate entities. Clients have included Nike, AAA, Maxim, Esquire.com, Metro, Inside Fitness, Sharp, Huffington Post + tons more. Reach Mike at dojcster@gmail.com Archives
October 2022
Categories
All
|