“Every week I excitedly wait for my favorite golf website to post the latest Tour winner’s WITB (what’s in the bag?) photos. I immediately drive to Dick’s Sporting Goods and buy the exact set, knowing that if some PGA Tour pro wins with them, they’ll help my game.”
Said no one with a brain…
One of the easiest posts for lazy golf journalists is the “what’s in the bag?” photo. This is a great alternative to actually working to create a meaningful, quality, and interesting piece of journalism. It’s right up there with the “will Tiger break Jack’s record?” and “who is in your dream foursome?” drivel. The web is full of it. It fills up space and keeps Google chewing on keywords which help the website’s SEO.
WITB – Tony Korologos 2014 River Oaks Club Champion
I especially like the watermarked WITB photos. After all, this is photographic genius we are talking about. Better watermark that shit so it doesn’t get stolen and win some million dollar prize or something.
The Truth About WITB Photos
Why are we subjected to this meaningless garbage every week? For the source, it is a low hanging fruit. Easy pickens. Five minutes. An easy bet, like a 1-handicap playing a 17 straight up. It’s also a great way for some of these journalistic outlets to pat the back of their paid equipment sponsors. Gee, what a coincidence eh?
Is this information useful at all? Not for 99.9% of amateur, or even most pro golfers. What’s in the bag for a given PGA Tour pro is typically a set of handmade clubs direct from the manufacturer’s tour truck, built precisely to the specs of the pro who will use them. Some of the clubs are custom made just for that week’s course or conditions. An average amtauter golfer could NEVER buy a set like this. If he could, he would never be able to hit them.
Sure there are the diehard gearheads who eat this drivel up. They’re the same ones who own 57 limited edition Scotty Cameron putter covers…. for each of their 27 limited edition Scotty Cameron putters. You can find them on WRX or some other golf forum. They’re the ones with 10,000 or more posts. 9,500 of their golf forum posts are about limited edition Scotty Cameron putter covers and 500 of them are about Natalie Gulbis.
Reality Check
If you are delusional, you might think you could putt as well as Rory McIlory if you had the same putter he uses. You might think you could drive it as far as Bubba Watson if you had the same driver he has.
Dream on.
You might as well assume you could paint the next Mona Lisa if you use the same set of paintbrushes that Leonardo da Vinci had. While you’re at it, buy the same set of wrenches your plumber has. Buy the same shoes Michael Jordan wears. You’ll be able to jump just as high as he does. Buy the same set of tools your auto mechanic has. Buy the same set of blogging tools mediaguru (a.k.a. Tony Korologos) has, then you could write blogs as good as he does.
Well, perhaps not that last one…
Carry on.
Now if you’ll excuse me I must take off. The paper has come out of my dot matrix printer and the ink is almost dry. I’ve printed off the latest watermarked WITB photos from WRX Digest, or was it Bunkers Hackerdice or something like that? Anyway, I’m headed to Dick’s Sporting Goods to buy the exact same set of golf clubs James Hahn used to win last week’s Northern Trust Open, just in case…
HOGWire – Golf Industry News
A very accurate assessment of the state of Golf Online.
And I thought I was the only one still hitting Edge Pros! 🙂
greggvm: I’ve had countless sets of irons submitted by most of the major manufacturers. As soon as I find a better set, I’ll switch. Until then, these are the gamers and have been since about 2002.