Skip to main content

The $50 Thrift Store Golf Challenge Part Deux

 Last winter, I set out on a journey - a budget of $50 to assemble a complete, useable set of golf clubs.  My rules were as follows:

  1. Total budget of $50 for everything (including clubs, bag, balls, and tees)
  2. A standard, USGA-conforming set...that is, a maximum of 14 clubs
  3. All clubs must be in USGA compliance - no mega-sized drivers or "illegal'' wedges
  4. The irons must be a complete set - wedges and woods can be piecemeal
For the 2022 season, I've added a little hitch:  The set must be period correct from the mid 1990s.  My earliest golf memories were playing at the now-defunct Rolling Hills Golf Course in Hudsonville, MI in 1996, 1997, and 1998, so Part Deux of the $50 Thrift Store Golf Challenge is my attempt to pay homage to those early days.  As such, I've been using a lot of information from Golfclubspec.com, the PGA Value Guide, and 2nd Swing to nail down production dates of clubs.  

All that being said, I've got the foundations of a set already started:



Hogan Edge irons - not the forged ones that debuted in 1989, but the GCD set that debuted in 1994.  I found a 2i through PW set (with bag) for $16.

Not pictured, and I'm trying to find a date on these, but I've also found a Callaway Big Bertha Steelhead driver and 3 wood, which seem to date from 1998.  Those were a set for $3.

There's also an Adams Tight Lies Air Assault GT 5 wood, which based on looking up the patent numbers on the US Patent Office website, seem to place this club between 1994 and 1997.  This was purchased individually for $2.

As of this writing, I have a putter (Titleist Bullseye, from sometime between the 1950s and the 1970s), and a series of wedges (the earliest from the 1980s, and the rest from the 2000s and later).  The spirit of this experiment, as mentioned above, is to celebrate my earliest exposures to golf, and to expand on the previous $5 Thrift Store Challenge by looking for specific bits of gear that meant something to me in those early years.  

On the one hand, I have a complete set of clubs if you include the putter and wedges in the paragraph above.  On the other hand, they don't have that sentimental draw that the Hogan irons and the Callaway woods do.  I'll be keeping an eye out - I've got a few new gems; some thrift stores that have a wonderful selection of golf clubs, here in Tulip City.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Eddie Bentz Bank Robbery

Prohibition is one of the most storied periods in American history. Urban myths and legends abound nationwide, with tales of folk heroes like Al Capone, Babyface Nelson, and John Dillinger. Tall tales are woven around organized crime, wild bootleggers, underground saloons, and well-dressed gangsters. There's something uniquely American about the DIY ethos of taking matters into your own hands, making illegal alcohol, and selling it through clandestine channels; stickin' it to the man like those in the illegal alcohol industry did. These stories are immortalized in movies like The Road To Perdition and Public Enemies, as well as TV series like HBO's Boardwalk Empire and, well, PBS's Prohibition. Many lakeshore towns in Western Michigan have tales of organized crime and bootlegging. Easy access to Lake Michigan meant that bootleggers had easy access to boat routes, safely out of reach of authorities. Booze was funneled in from Canada, then taken by boat to cities all aro
Post a Comment
Read more

August 2023 Holland Photoblog!

 The assignment was to take an old disposable camera that I'd found in the basement, jimmy-rig a polarized filter out of an old pair of sunglasses, then shoot what I saw in and around Downtown Holland, Michigan. Some key takeaways? It's not necessarily worth using a filter like this when the clouds are making diffuse light anyway (except when it is) Rule Of Thirds is a general guideline, and I hope I didn't create too much imbalance Holland has some really cool architecture!   A view of the sidewalk in Holland Heights, looking westward along E. 8th Street The entryway to the Windmill Way subdivision, at the corner of Paw Paw Drive and E. 8th St. A retaining wall looking west on E 8th St, just a bit down the road from Windmill Way Construction in front of Barber Ford, looking westward at US-31.  Background has the Shell Station and the plaza where Ditto and the Secretary Of State office are Barber Ford looking south along Homestead Drive.  Love that Blue Oval! The same const
Post a Comment
Read more

Junk Food Review: Chocolatey Payday.

 I saw an ad on my Instagram page for a chocolate-covered Payday bar.  Jokingly, I took a screenshot, and posted it on my stories asking the question "Isn't this just a Baby Ruth?"  A friend responded by saying that no, a Baby Ruth is peanuts surrounding caramel and chocolate-flavored nougat; the chocolate-covered Payday is peanuts in caramel-flavored nougat, dipped in chocolate. Now, candy bars are made from a few common ingredients:  Chocolate, peanuts, nougat, and caramel.  Chocolate and nougat is something like a 3 Musketeers.  Chocolate, nougat, and caramel is something like a Milky Way.  All 4 makes a Snickers bar.  Chocolate and Peanuts is a Mr. Goodbar.  Chocolate and caramel is either a Caramello or a type of Milky Way.  Peanuts and caramel (no chocolate) is a Payday.  And, chocolate, peanuts, and caramel led to the confusion that took me down the road to writing this article in the first place. I did what any sane person would do:  I bought both bars, and did a 
Post a Comment
Read more