We’ve all spent the past few weeks cooing over the latest gear. But what about the old golf equipment? Those classics in your bag you with which you simply cannot part ways? The NCG team of Alex Perry, Mark Townsend, Steve Carroll and Dan Murphy dig deep…
Alex: Up until a few months ago, I had the Ping G25 range through my bag. When was that released? 2013? I’m onto the G400 now, but I’m not really a tinkerer. If I find something that works, it stays.
Mark: I have a four-year-old Yes! putter. It’s been an ever-present, other than a short period of time in a cupboard last year.
Alex: Dare I ask?
Mark: I was advised by Danny Willett’s putting coach that it was offline. Cue a period of 45 putts a round with something that quickly went to the retailer in the sky.
Alex: If I’m struggling on the greens I go back to an old Ping Zing which I bought when I was in school in nineteen-ninety something or other it doesn’t really matter.
Steve: My oldest piece of equipment was taken out the plastic four days ago so I’m going to bring the average down a bit. I can barely walk past a pro shop without my wallet falling open.
Alex: Your wife will use that against you in court one day.
Steve: I do have a couple of Titleist Vokey wedges about to enter their third season of action. Clearly, I want to – and am going to – replace them.
Dan: Apparently you should replace your wedges every 75 rounds.
Steve: Crikey. I’ll be changing my wedges every couple of months.
Mark: Not if you struggle to find the centre of the club face to wear out the grooves.
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Alex: Does that 75-rounds rule reset if you buy them second hand?
Dan: How many of you lot have ever hit a persimmon wood?
Steve: I had an old Dunlop 2-wood that was my favourite club in the world. I cried when I cracked the face of it.
Dan: You cried?
Steve: I was 12. Unfortunately I’m old enough to have spent a number of years toting a bit of firewood around with me.
Alex: I took my family to The Milky Way, a family attraction type place in Devon, recently. They had a little driving net there with loads of persimmon woods. I really enjoyed hitting them – makes you concentrate a lot more on the shot. Don’t half make your hands ring though. I’ll stick to the metal woods.
Dan: “Metal woods”. What a strange piece of terminology that is when you think about it.
Mark: Just this weekend in my mum’s garage I found a Hogan Apex driver from 1986 that is smaller than a present-day 7-wood. I couldn’t hit it then and definitely wouldn’t be able to now. The 5-wood is like a glockenspiel hammer. I also uncovered some irons which I would quite fancy taking out. I got quite emotional seeing them again.
Dan: You forget that in those days the driver was a club only wielded by the most skilful and strong players, and some high handicappers could play an entire round without really ever getting the ball off the ground.
Mark: I don’t forget. I’ve thought about it every day for the past 30 years.
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