The Angry Golfer

When it comes to golf bags, some legs aren't made for standing

The search for a good carry bag is neverending.

July 12, 2007

We've put a man on the moon, found cures for deadly diseases and built cars that can park themselves, so it's only a matter of time before someone masters the design of the stand-alone carry bag.

Please, spare me your horror stories -- I've got a half-dozen of my own to work with. I went through three bags last year and am preparing to file charges against my latest lemon, a $179 beauty with seven zippers, a special place for my scorecard and legs that function no better than Franklin Delano Roosevelt's.

The insulated pocket for a cold beverage is nice, but a bag that stands on its own will also fall on its own. Having recently entrusted my snazzy Ogio to one of the high-school kids who caddies at my club on weekends, I could feel the young man's dismay after he failed to stabilize the stems on a grassy incline at the par-4 11th. The good news is that my clubs toppled to the ground in someone else's backswing. The bad news is that my $179 investment survived the crash.

Like most of the equipment they carry, walking bags have undergone a technological revolution in the last 10 years. They're lighter and more practical in terms of economizing space. The double-strap feature seems like a big success, although I've never understood why anybody capable of walking five miles with 40 extra pounds on their shoulders would see the need to balance the weight. Many of the latest models have compartments for a cellphone, as if to acknowledge the excess of access.

Among the dozen or so bags I've owned over that period, however, the legs have worked properly on just one -- a Ping Hoofer that wasn't versatile enough to hold a five-course meal or even a rainsuit, for that matter. Now I'm no engineer, but the high-powered minds who manufacture these things need to work on the little spring that activates the legs once you've set the bag down. Even on flat turf, the limbs on a lot of bags don't reach their full extension. On any sort of hill, they're tipsier than Foster Brooks four martinis into Happy Hour.

Of course, I'm no doctor, either. Otherwise, I'd amputate.

Columns by The Angry Golfer -- a.k.a. Golf World columnist John Hawkins -- appear exclusively on GolfDigest.com. We're pretty sure he's angry about that, too.