BOMB: Day two with our retailers wound down and after sifting through every category of clubs imaginable, Ken Morton Jr. of Haggin Oaks Golf Superstore in Sacramento, California, asked a seemingly innocent enough question--one that set off one of our more animated discussions. The query? "Have you guys given any thought to having a category for chippers?"
Chippers? Chippers. Seriously. Chippers? CHIPPERS??????
To serious golfers, the use of a chipper ranks right up there with carrying a ball retriever--one that elongates out some 15 feet, to boot. Or carrying that little steel brush to clean your clubs. Or headcovers for irons. It's something you simply don't do unless you want to get laughed out of your foursome. But when pressed why he asked, Morton replied that he had sold more than 50 Ray Cook chippers. Dale Robbins of Dale's Winning Edge in Knoxville, Tenn., added he had sold more than 50 of Odyssey's putting wedge. And the other retailers told similar tales, including one of Adams Golf's recent chipper introduction being so popular it is now backordered to mid-November.
Personally, I'd be aghast if it weren't the for the fact that I recently have had first-hand experience with a chipper--Cleveland Golf's Niblick model (sorry, boys, you call it Niblick but it's still a freaking chipper). During two rounds of golf using the 37-degree club, it proved to be nearly impossible to chunk a chip, gave adequate loft and proved versatility far beyond anything I could imagine, including hitting it off the tee on a 125-yard par 3 to 12 feet. The short shaft felt controllable and for some reason it just plain worked. I felt filthy enough for using it that I had to take a shower afterward, but hey, it saved me strokes so laugh all you want.
GOUGE: I cannot laugh at such sacrilege. Any golfer with a soul knows that these infernal crutches can be considered nothing short of the raping of the American golfer. It's creating a buzz for a morally reprehensible piece of equipment. It's a plague of rewarding incompetence and mediocrity in one of the most fundamental segments of the playing of a game whose very existence is built on the honest challenge of its varied requirements.
But then again, the things work.
And golfers are incompetent, especially at the short game.
And I'm one of them, of course.
And if you've never watched a career 25-handicapper skull and chunk a hundred straight short shots, then you don't know how much a life can be changed by successfully executing a chip shot.
So where to come down on this particular equipment-related travesty? If chippers, niblicks and putting wedges are keeping someone in the game, that can hardly be a bad thing. Still, if chippers, niblicks and putting wedges are the game's salvation, then you and I will soon be putting together the Hot List at Cat Fancy. If your short game has reached a new depth of pathetic only previously knowable by Linus Van Pelt at the realization that there is no such thing as the Great Pumpkin, then by all means try anything. But don't be fooled. No piece of equipment can eliminate a problem, it can only mask it--and only then for a limited period of time. A brilliant man once remarked that if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. A one-dimensional solution can only last for a short period of time and only work in specific situations (like a chipper, which only works when you have a straight shot off tight grass to the hole, anywhere else it's a liability). Why would you buy a chipper, when you could get a lesson or practice or do both? And that chipper won't help you lob one up to the green over a bunker. So why again are you forfeiting one of the 14 slots in your bag for a one-dimensional product that in real terms is no better or at least no different than a hybrid or a 7-iron?
Because it'll only cost you 30 bucks. And, of course, your soul.
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