GCA Guilty Pleasures

[JMEvensky]

Didn't read all, but at our course we have a tradition of 2 balls off the first tee, if needed.  I'd never do it at another course unless it was also an accepted practice.  Yet, after so many years of seeing players have the chance of recovering from a bad start, I think this guilty pleasure ought to be universal in recreational golf.

A fraternity brother (an elite level player) always said "the game is hard enough already, why start with a bad shot?". I have subscribed to this philosophy for 40 years.

[MCirba]

I once saw components being sold with G1 and G2 stamped on the club head. They would replace what you used to carry as a pitching wedge, and a nine iron. Inquiring minds want to know if you carry such clubs.

Garland,

I'm the last Mohican.   Up until my club fitting last fall I was playing with 1988 TaylorMade blades and 1998 Mizuno blades.   

Turning 60 this year I decided it was time.

I'm anything but a club geek so I don't know exactly what G1 and G2 are supposed to represent but I can tell you that I have a 53 degree Taylor Made wedge from sometime in the 1990s and a 60 degree copper Cleveland wedge that I liked so much the first year I bought it (it must have been about the year 2000 because my first round with it was with Pat Mucci, Dr. Geoffrey Childs, and Matt Ward at Garden City) that I used it for about 80% of my shots that year. 

Pat thought the wedge was possessed and recommended an exorcism.

Because those were the most lofted clubs in my bag, the pro/club fitter suggested I needed a 48 degree gap wedge because evidently the pitching wedge in the set was only 43 degrees.   

[Garland Bayley]

The G1 would be 52 degrees, which is the loft a pitching wedge was when we began the game.
The G2 would be 48 degrees, which is the loft a nine iron was when we began the game.
So your 53 would be the G1, and your 48 would be the G2. Can't help but notice that since your pitching wedge is 43 degrees, instead of 44 degrees, it will only be a matter of time before we will need to buy G3 wedges.

When I began the game, I could hit the 7 iron very well. With a set like yours I would begin to struggle with the 7 iron due to lack of loft. You think maybe club manufacturers are destroying the game?

[MCirba]

Good question, Garland.   

They definitely know how to boost our frail, aging, fragile egos and I'm guilty as charged.