Opinion & Analysis

When Golf Turns Deadly…

Published

8 years ago

Sep 9, 2017

The story you are about to read is largely fictitious. I say “largely” because it is based on an actual phone call that I received one day from a man that I had never met. The story that follows is based on that same conversation.

I later found out that the scenario that this man described was a product of his imagination, the purpose of which, was to convey in no uncertain terms, his level of desperation. What I would soon learn was that for this man golf was more than just a game. He was euphoric when he played well, but when his game went south it was as if his life was coming to an end. And at that point for him, THE GAME TURNED DEADLY.

Before reading on you should know, that as the saying goes, the man who you will soon meet is not “the sharpest knife in the drawer.” This leads to some humorous moments as he pours his heart out to the operator. That is where our story begins.

—

I was working as a dispatcher part-time for the local police department. There were three of us, including my supervisor. The phone rang and it was my turn to take the call. “911” I said. “What is your emergency?”

“I’m standing on the edge of a bridge,” the panicked voice began. I wasn’t sure but it sounded like a man on the other end.

“Slow down sir. Which bridge,” I asked in calm voice, remembering my training.

“I’m not going to giveaway my location. You’ll send someone.”

“Sir, we are just trained to ask that question in case there is an emergency,” I countered.

“Would jumping off a bridge qualify as an emergency,” he said sarcastically.

“Yes sir, that certainly would qualify as an emergency.”

“I’ve stood in this exact spot before. This time I’m going to do it,” he said with what sounded like a certain degree of conviction.

“Sir, you are going to do what this time,” I asked?

“I’m going to throw them in,” he replied.

“Are there others with you that are in danger,” I questioned.

“You bet they’re in danger—big time.”

“What do you mean by THEM,“ I asked with some concern?

“I don’t want to talk about them now,” he said. And then adding, “In any case, they’re dead to me.”

I switch my microphone to the off position. My supervisor had, up until that point, been listening only to my side of the conversation.

“Sharon, I’m not sure, but we might have a genuine problem here,” I said. “A distraught man. A possible suicide with hostages. Maybe you should alert the police so they’re ready to move on this quickly,” I added.

She nodded in agreement. I switched my mic back on.

“Sir, I need your help. Who is there with you,” I stated authoritatively. I must have thrown him off balance, because this time he answered.

“You want to know who THEY are,” he said, his voice becoming more animated. “THEY are my golf clubs. And here is is something else. Based on the number of bizarre shots that I hit with them, I’d swear sometimes that they are the spawn of the devil.”

That was the first time in my career that I’d heard that excuse.

“Let me get this right. You’re standing on the edge of a bridge with the river below. You have your golf clubs with you and you are thinking about throwing them over the railing. Do I have that right,” I asked?

“I didn’t tell you there is a river below. How did you know that,” he asked suspiciously?

“Why else would there be a bridge,” I answered?

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I never thought of it that way,” his voice drifting off at the end.

“You said you were getting ready to throw your clubs over the edge of the bridge,” I said.

“Yes, I’m very close,” he said.

There was a long pause as if he were thinking, and then he added, “And I might just join them. “

I switched off my mic again. Sharon was now sitting next to me listening to both sides of the conversation. “What do you think. Do we have a jumper?”

“That’s hard to say exactly,” she said. “And we don’t have a location yet, so it is a moot point,”

“Maybe the he police could determine his location using cell towers,” I suggested.

“That’s a good idea,“ she said. “I’ll get them on the line while you’re talking to him.”

I nodded in agreement. I switched my mic back on just in time to hear him say, “I don’t think you are taking me seriously. I have my golf bag right here. I’m hold it in my arms like a damn’ baby. Me or them?”

I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was becoming more and more agitated. “Don’t jump,” I said emphatically. He was quiet for a moment. I thought now was a good time to ask. “What ‘s your name?”

“Dan” he replied.

“What’s your last name Dan?” I asked.

“I’d rather not say right now,” he replied

“That’s fine, Dan. We’ll do it your way.”

“What should I do next,” he said? “My swing has gone to hell.”

“I can help you. I’m a golf professional,” I said.

“Come on. You’re a switchboard operator,” he said with a measure of doubt in his voice.

“I’m only doing this part-time. I’ve been teaching the game for more than 40 years,” I explained.

“How lucky does that make me,” he said with just the slightest hint of optimism in his voice.

“Dan, I want you to stay in contact with me. Do not hang up. Can you do that for me,” I asked? I sensed that something was missing in his life: maybe a meaningful connection, another person who cared both about him — and, of course, his golf clubs.

“Yes, I can do that,” he replied contritely. “What should I do next,” he asked.

“Dan, I want to ask you a question. Do you believe I can help you,” I asked him point-blank.

“Yes, I think you can help me. But this is serious. Like I told you earlier—my golf game has gone to hell.”

“Yes, so you said. Would you like to hear what I think after listening to you, “ I asked?

“Sure,” he replied.”

“I think you’ve been traumatized, and because of what you’ve experienced, you‘re are not thinking clearly. There is no need for you to jump off the bridge. Now your clubs —that’s a different matter. Of course, that means that unless you quit the game entirely, you’ll have to buy another set to replace them.”

I continued, “Have they been giving you a lot of trouble lately,” I asked?

“They have dragged me through hell and back,” he answered. “Especially the driver. I’ve never driven the ball so poorly.”

“What should I do next, he asked?

“Dan, are you familiar with the phrase from the bible that says, ‘If thy eye offend thee then pluck it out,'” I asked.

“There is nothing wrong with my eyes. I have 20-20 vision,” he answered with obvious pride.

“Dan, you missed the point completely. I’m referring to your driver. I think you would agree that your driver offends you. And so, the bible is suggesting that you should ‘pluck it out,’ which in this case means dispose of it,” I explained this point as if I were his bible-school teacher.

“That wouldn’t bother me one bit,” he replied. “That club has always given me the creeps. Maybe it is possessed.”

“Could be,” I said. “Have you ever seen the head spin around in a circle,” I asked jokingly?

“Yes,” he said excitedly. “There was that one time when it came loose..”

“No, Dan. That wasn’t what I was talking about,” I replied.

“OK. What’s next,” Dan asked?

“You need to show your clubs who’s in charge. The inmates are running the asylum. I want you to take the driver out of your bag.”

“I’ve got it. What’s next?”

“How has the headcover been treating you?”

“Fine, I don’t have a beef with the headcover.”

“OK. Take it off and set it aside,” I said. “Now take the club in your right hand and wrap your fingers tightly around the handle.

“How many knuckles should I see when I grip it?”

“Dan, forget about your knuckles.”

“Where should the “V” of my right hand be pointed?”

“You can forget about that,” I replied.

“OK. Now what?”

“Wait, are you right-handed?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to lift the driver above your head and then smash it down on the pavement as hard as you can. I continued, “And if you see a black puff of smoke as it hits the ground, then it’s absolute proof that the club was possessed.”

“Really?”

“No, I’m kidding you. Go ahead now,” I said with some authority again.

“Really?”

“Just do it,” I said. “You’ll feel better,” I added.

“OK. Here goes. I’m going to put the phone down. Hold on.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. The next second I heard a crashing sound. In a moment, he was back.

“I did it,” he said. “But there wasn’t a puff of black smoke,” he added.

“Dan, we talked about that. “How do you feel?”

“Great,” he said. “Now what.”

“Take the pieces and throw them over the top of the bridge. A sort of burial at sea without all of the pomp and circumstance.”

I could hear him fumbling around in the background. “OK. I did it. What’s next.”

“Well, the rest of the clubs just saw what you did to the driver. They are probably pretty scared thinking they’re next. I’d suggest that you put them in the trunk of your car,” I said.

The phone went quiet for a moment and then he was back. “OK. I put my clubs in the trunk. Now what?”

“Did you have any problems?”

“The 4-iron game me a little trouble. His was sticking up out of the bag. I think he was looking for a way to escape. I slapped him upside the head and he slipped back down into the bag.” he said.

“What did the other clubs do,” I asked.

“They just stood there looking. I think the 4-iron was the ring-leader,” he added.

“You may be right about that, but that’s water under the bridge, I replied.”

“Very funny.”

“Which brings up the subject of the bridge. Which one are you standing on,” I asked.

“The Mendota Bridge,” he said quietly.

“Dan, here’s what I’d like you to do next. I’d like you to climb into your car, put the key in the ignition and start driving. You are only 15 minutes away.”

“Away from where,” he questioned.

“You are 15 minutes away from my home course, which is located on 66th Street and Cedar Avenue next to the airport—Rich Acres.

“I know where it’s located. I played there once a few year ago,” he volunteered as his mood seemed to brighten.

“I done here in five minutes. I’ll meet you there and give you a free lesson. How’s that for a deal,” I asked?

There was quiet on the other end. “Are you still there,” I questioned.

“Yes, I’m here,” he said.

“What’s the problem,” I asked?

“Do you have a driver that I can borrow?”

Opinion & Analysis

The 2 primary challenges golf equipment companies face

Published

4 weeks ago

Jul 30, 2025

Ben Alberstadt

As the editor-in-chief of this website and an observer of the GolfWRX forums and other online golf equipment discourse for over a decade, I’m pretty well attuned to the grunts and grumbles of a significant portion of the golf equipment purchasing spectrum. And before you accuse me of lording above all in some digital ivory tower, I’d like to offer that I worked at golf courses (public and private) for years prior to picking up my pen, so I’m well-versed in the non-degenerate golf equipment consumers out there. I touched (green)grass (retail)!

Complaints about the ills of and related to the OEMs usually follow some version of: Product cycles are too short for real innovation, tour equipment isn’t the same as retail (which is largely not true, by the way), too much is invested in marketing and not enough in R&D, top staffer X hasn’t even put the new driver in play, so it’s obviously not superior to the previous generation, prices are too high, and on and on.

Without digging into the merits of any of these claims, which I believe are mostly red herrings, I’d like to bring into view of our rangefinder what I believe to be the two primary difficulties golf equipment companies face.

One: As Terry Koehler, back when he was the CEO of Ben Hogan, told me at the time of the Ft Worth irons launch, if you can’t regularly hit the golf ball in a coin-sized area in the middle of the face, there’s not a ton that iron technology can do for you. Now, this is less true now with respect to irons than when he said it, and is less and less true by degrees as the clubs get larger (utilities, fairways, hybrids, drivers), but there remains a great deal of golf equipment truth in that statement. Think about it — which is to say, in TL;DR fashion, get lessons from a qualified instructor who will teach you about the fundamentals of repeatable impact and how the golf swing works, not just offer band-aid fixes. If you can’t repeatably deliver the golf club to the golf ball in something resembling the manner it was designed for, how can you expect to be getting the most out of the club — put another way, the maximum value from your investment?

Similarly, game improvement equipment can only improve your game if you game it. In other words, get fit for the clubs you ought to be playing rather than filling the bag with the ones you wish you could hit or used to be able to hit. Of course, don’t do this if you don’t care about performance and just want to hit a forged blade while playing off an 18 handicap. That’s absolutely fine. There were plenty of members in clubs back in the day playing Hogan Apex or Mizuno MP-32 irons who had no business doing so from a ballstriking standpoint, but they enjoyed their look, feel, and complementary qualities to their Gatsby hats and cashmere sweaters. Do what brings you a measure of joy in this maddening game.

Now, the second issue. This is not a plea for non-conforming equipment; rather, it is a statement of fact. USGA/R&A limits on every facet of golf equipment are detrimental to golf equipment manufacturers. Sure, you know this, but do you think about it as it applies to almost every element of equipment? A 500cc driver would be inherently more forgiving than a 460cc, as one with a COR measurement in excess of 0.83. 50-inch shafts. Box grooves. And on and on.

Would fewer regulations be objectively bad for the game? Would this erode its soul? Fortunately, that’s beside the point of this exercise, which is merely to point out the facts. The fact, in this case, is that equipment restrictions and regulations are the slaughterbench of an abundance of innovation in the golf equipment space. Is this for the best? Well, now I’ve asked the question twice and might as well give a partial response, I guess my answer to that would be, “It depends on what type of golf you’re playing and who you’re playing it with.”

For my part, I don’t mind embarrassing myself with vintage blades and persimmons chasing after the quasi-spiritual elevation of a well-struck shot, but that’s just me. Plenty of folks don’t give a damn if their grooves are conforming. Plenty of folks think the folks in Liberty Corner ought to add a prison to the museum for such offences. And those are just a few of the considerations for the amateur game — which doesn’t get inside the gallery ropes of the pro game…

Different strokes in the game of golf, in my humble opinion.

Anyway, I believe equipment company engineers are genuinely trying to build better equipment year over year. The marketing departments are trying to find ways to make this equipment appeal to the broadest segment of the golf market possible. All of this against (1) the backdrop of — at least for now — firm product cycles. And golfers who, with their ~15 average handicap (men), for the most part, are not striping the golf ball like Tiger in his prime and seem to have less and less time year over year to practice and improve. (2) Regulations that massively restrict what they’re able to do…

That’s the landscape as I see it and the real headwinds for golf equipment companies. No doubt, there’s more I haven’t considered, but I think the previous is a better — and better faith — point of departure when formulating any serious commentary on the golf equipment world than some of the more cynical and conspiratorial takes I hear.

Agree? Disagree? Think I’m worthy of an Adam Hadwin-esque security guard tackle? Let me know in the comments.

@golfoncbs The infamous Adam Hadwin tackle ? #golf #fyp #canada #pgatour #adamhadwin ? Ghibli-style nostalgic waltz – MaSssuguMusic

Podcasts

Fore Love of Golf: Introducing a new club concept

Published

1 month ago

Jul 22, 2025

GolfWRX Staff

Episode #16 brings us Cliff McKinney. Cliff is the founder of Old Charlie Golf Club, a new club, and concept, to be built in the Florida panhandle. The model is quite interesting and aims to make great, private golf more affordable. We hope you enjoy the show!

GolfWRX · Fore Love of Golf: Cliff McKinney – Old Charlie Golf Club

Opinion & Analysis

On Scottie Scheffler wondering ‘What’s the point of winning?’

Published

1 month ago

Jul 22, 2025

Jaacob Bowden, PGA

Last week, I came across a reel from BBC Sport on Instagram featuring Scottie Scheffler speaking to the media ahead of The Open at Royal Portrush. In it, he shared that he often wonders what the point is of wanting to win tournaments so badly — especially when he knows, deep down, that it doesn’t lead to a truly fulfilling life.

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“Is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf? Yeah, it brings tears to my eyes just to think about it because I’ve literally worked my entire life to be good at this sport,” Scheffler said. “To have that kind of sense of accomplishment, I think, is a pretty cool feeling. To get to live out your dreams is very special, but at the end of the day, I’m not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I’m not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world, because what’s the point?”

Ironically — or perhaps perfectly — he went on to win the claret jug.

That question — what’s the point of winning? — cuts straight to the heart of the human journey.

As someone who’s spent over two decades in the trenches of professional golf, and in deep study of the mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the game, I see Scottie’s inner conflict as a sign of soul evolution in motion.

I came to golf late. I wasn’t a junior standout or college All-American. At 27, I left a steady corporate job to see if I could be on the PGA Tour starting as a 14-handicap, average-length hitter. Over the years, my journey has been defined less by trophies and more by the relentless effort to navigate the deeply inequitable and gated system of professional golf — an effort that ultimately turned inward and helped me evolve as both a golfer and a person.

One perspective that helped me make sense of this inner dissonance around competition and our culture’s tendency to overvalue winning is the idea of soul evolution.

The University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies has done extensive research on reincarnation, and Netflix’s Surviving Death (Episode 6) explores the topic, too. Whether you take it literally or metaphorically, the idea that we’re on a long arc of growth — from beginner to sage elder — offers a profound perspective.

If you accept the premise literally, then terms like “young soul” and “old soul” start to hold meaning. However, even if we set the word “soul” aside, it’s easy to see that different levels of life experience produce different worldviews.

Newer souls — or people in earlier stages of their development — may be curious and kind but still lack discernment or depth. There is a naivety, and they don’t yet question as deeply, tending to see things in black and white, partly because certainty feels safer than confronting the unknown.

As we gain more experience, we begin to experiment. We test limits. We chase extreme external goals — sometimes at the expense of health, relationships, or inner peace — still operating from hunger, ambition, and the fragility of the ego.

It’s a necessary stage, but often a turbulent and unfulfilling one.

David Duval fell off the map after reaching World No. 1. Bubba Watson had his own “Is this it?” moment with his caddie, Ted Scott, after winning the Masters.

In Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, reflecting on his 2011 Super Bowl win, Rodgers said:

“Now I’ve accomplished the only thing that I really, really wanted to do in my life. Now what? I was like, ‘Did I aim at the wrong thing? Did I spend too much time thinking about stuff that ultimately doesn’t give you true happiness?’”

Jim Carrey once said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”

Eventually, though, something shifts.

We begin to see in shades of gray. Winning, dominating, accumulating—these pursuits lose their shine. The rewards feel more fleeting. Living in a constant state of fight-or-flight makes us feel alive, yes, but not happy and joyful.

Compassion begins to replace ambition. Love, presence, and gratitude become more fulfilling than status, profits, or trophies. We crave balance over burnout. Collaboration over competition. Meaning over metrics.

Interestingly, if we zoom out, we can apply this same model to nations and cultures. Countries, like people, have a collective “soul stage” made up of the individuals within them.

Take the United States, for example. I’d place it as a mid-level soul: highly competitive and deeply driven, but still learning emotional maturity. Still uncomfortable with nuance. Still believing that more is always better. Despite its global wins, the U.S. currently ranks just 23rd in happiness (as of 2025). You might liken it to a gifted teenager—bold, eager, and ambitious, but angsty and still figuring out how to live well and in balance. As much as a parent wants to protect their child, sometimes the child has to make their own mistakes to truly grow.

So when Scottie Scheffler wonders what the point of winning is, I don’t see someone losing strength.

I see someone evolving.

He’s beginning to look beyond the leaderboard. Beyond metrics of success that carry a lower vibration. And yet, in a poetic twist, Scheffler did go on to win The Open. But that only reinforces the point: even at the pinnacle, the question remains. And if more of us in the golf and sports world — and in U.S. culture at large — started asking similar questions, we might discover that the more meaningful trophy isn’t about accumulating or beating others at all costs.

It’s about awakening and evolving to something more than winning could ever promise.