The fine art of tinkering with sports equipment
What’s golf without trying to improve upon your clubs?
In golf, many of us are on a seemingly never-ending journey to maximize the performance of our equipment. What I call tinkering. Every new year brings new technology, new options.
After some 50 years of tinkering, it seems clear to me the best drivers of the ball, the best iron players, the short game wizards all share a solid understanding of their own mechanical idiosyncrasies, strengths and limitations, and search out the equipment that best capitalizes on what is there and supplements what is missing in their games.
Pro and celebrity endorsements of clubs are of little value to the master tinkerer. They are distractions. The hottest new driver is of zero use if you can’t stand the look of it at address, or if it creates a shot shape you’re trying to eliminate. The master tinkerer must be able to shut out the noise of the golf industry and find quiet space to figure out how to get more out of his or her tools.
I’ve been dealing with a driver dilemma of my own, which has caused a level of second-guessing that I know is unhealthy. Five years ago, I was a guest at a charity golf tournament that was sponsored by Ping.
They had on-site custom driver fittings for each and every participant. As the special gift to all players that day was a brand new Ping G400 driver. From that day in the spring of 2019 to sometime last fall, it has been the favourite, most dependable and enjoyable club in my bag. It feels good.
It sounds amazing, and it gave me a level of control on my drives that anyone would be pleased with. So why mess with that, right? The downside of too much tinkering is often not talked about. It can lead you to a dark place you can’t escape from. The art of being a super tinkerer is knowing when to leave well enough alone and move on to your other weaknesses.
In the years subsequent to the G400 securing a coveted spot in my 12-club carry bag, Ping has released a new and improved G425, followed by an even mightier G430. These line extensions are the biggest trick in the savvy marketer’s playbook — making you feel like a club you love is now out of date. But professional tinkerers are supposed to be immune to this.
The whole reason for tinkering, the very definition of the word, means you are fiddling around with things for the sole purpose of improving, but also to avoid the dreaded step backward. That is tinkerer hell.
It’s crystal clear to me now. Feeling like I had perhaps sacrificed a few yards off the tee by sticking with my G400 instead of upgrading, I finally succumbed. Surely the G425 was a smart move. Since it has been replaced by the G430 in terms of being considered top of the line, it was now priced accordingly. And I was in Florida at a PGA Superstore, which made the price even better — as tinkerers are known for ignoring exchange rates when calculating value.
The G425 upgrade was not a good move. It delivered a few more yards, but it sounded like hell. And felt even worse. It flew lower, uglier and, even those times where I knew I was gaining ground on my mates, it was definitely a one-step-forward, two-steps-back thing. It sounded like a miss hit. Almost always. My G400 had felt dead solid perfect 90 per cent of the time. It gave me shots the new G425 just couldn’t deliver: the bunt, cut driver into the wind on one of those superlong par 3s; the ability to shape it either way depending on need; that solid, stinger of a steer when you absolutely, positively had to hit it dead straight when under the gun.
I’ll always remember my G425 as the $425 mistake that taught me the golden rule of tinkering. Golf is hard, so leave well enough alone.