Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Women's Golf Equipment - Athletic vs Aesthetic











Tonight's show
may deal with equipment, but it's actually about much more than that.

You see, a couple of weeks ago I happened to be artfully procrastinating diligently networking on Twitter and caught a conversational snippet that intrigued me. It went something like this:

Random gentleman asks popular professional golfer (male) for advice on buying women's clubs for his 17 year-old daughter.

Popular professional golfer then refers the question to several of his female friends, who are either professional golfers or competitive, low-cappers themselves.

The response that comes back is distinctly dismissive of "Women's Clubs". As in: Does anyone actually use women's clubs?


I'm paraphrasing there, but it got me to thinking, because I realized it wasn't the first time I'd heard a female... um... disrespecting women's golf equipment... early this summer I played with a diminutive twenty something grad student I met on the internet (yes, I frequently hook up with golfers online - but that's another show).

Anyway this girl woman, who I'll call Aimee, had only been playing golf for a few months, but was the proud owner of a set of cut down men's clubs. She loved her long irons and wanted nothing to do with L-flex shafts... especially if they were pink. The smack talk started in the parking lot the moment I took my whimsically awesome rose-colored golf bag out of the trunk. "Did you borrow that from Barbie?" she asked, as she slung a navy blue Callaway Warbird bag over her shoulder.

Initially, I found her rhetorical machismo off-putting, and anticipated a tortuous round animated by an endless display of bombastic bravado, but by the time we reached the first green I'd discovered that Aimee laughed easily. And at herself for the most part. It was actually lots of fun and my short game happened to be on so we were quite evenly matched. Stylistically however, we couldn't have been further apart; in the way we played and in the gear we chose to play with.

Which brings us to our topic: Women's golf equipment. More specifically... Do golf manufacturers get it? Are women golfers being served well these days with women specific club choices or are they just being inundated with pink? Are there enough choices in club styles, shaft flex, swing weights, or lofts normally available? And... is there a dismisiveness among more competitive women golfers about equipment that's specifically tailored to females?

That's what we'll be talking about tonight on "Only Two Things". We'll be broadcasting from 9:30 - 10:30PM ET. And you can weigh in on-air by using call-in number 917-889-9592. Or join the conversation in the chat room or on Twitter... or just listen at BlogTalkRadio. Talk to you tonight.

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