The art of the club ho'

If people think that club ho info should be included in "Golf Discussion" then I'll cancel this category. I kind of like the idea of only having two categories. They had so many over at that bicycle forum I had no way of knowing where I was navigating. I mean, is it really necesarry to have a forum dedicated only to "tire spokes"?

My latest club purchase was a Ping G2 8.5 Driver with stock Ping TFC Stiff shaft, Ping G5 19* hybrid with Aldila NV-HL 65 Stiff and then one of the recent Taylormade Ghost putters, center-shafted. I like the idea of playing with a putter named Ghost. Surely it will scare away the competition. And if people yell "Boo!" I will know why.

I still need to sell the Bobby Jones irons 3-SW that I obtained from an relatively uneducated club selling novice on Craigslist. I got them for $40 and I'm trying to sell them for $240. That's some jingle right there.

After that it's unloading the Ping Eye 2 BeCu 4-9 irons that I foolishly bought for $50. Oh, and I've still got the set of Ping Eye 2+ graphite irons.

Prices in stores are the best I have seen in years. We're talkin' used equipment, naturally.

FamousDavis wrote:If people think that club ho info should be included in "Golf Discussion" then I'll cancel this category. I kind of like the idea of only having two categories. They had so many over at that bicycle forum I had no way of knowing where I was navigating. I mean, is it really necesarry to have a forum dedicated only to "tire spokes"?

My latest club purchase was a Ping G2 8.5 Driver with stock Ping TFC Stiff shaft, Ping G5 19* hybrid with Aldila NV-HL 65 Stiff and then one of the recent Taylormade Ghost putters, center-shafted. I like the idea of playing with a putter named Ghost. Surely it will scare away the competition. And if people yell "Boo!" I will know why.

I still need to sell the Bobby Jones irons 3-SW that I obtained from an relatively uneducated club selling novice on Craigslist. I got them for $40 and I'm trying to sell them for $240. That's some jingle right there.

After that it's unloading the Ping Eye 2 BeCu 4-9 irons that I foolishly bought for $50. Oh, and I've still got the set of Ping Eye 2+ graphite irons.

Prices in stores are the best I have seen in years. We're talkin' used equipment, naturally.

A separate category is OK by me. Better than having a thread that inevitably morphs into something else which this one will probably do anyway.

My name is *** and I am a Club Ho. I've been a sporadic club ho for over two decades but in the past two years it has become rather chronic as I ventured back into playing regularly. The reason I ho is to find the best tools for my game. At the lowest prices possible. So this means 99% used clubs ho'ed. Of course I am not so retarded to believe that lessons and practice don;t matter. Of course they are very important. Instead of one instructor, I have access to many of the best including the Golf Magazine Top 100. Every month there are at least 10-20 paragraphs and even entire articles dedicated to lessons. I take my lessons early every morning since I keep about 10-15 back issues on the table in front of my throne in the basement powder room. I have a regular Ho Route that commences closest to home with a Play It Again Sports store about 2.2 miles north from our house. The proprietor is a nice young guy who knows golf and will make deals. From there it is on west 4.7 miles to the local Golf Galaxy. I have scored way too many cheap clubs there over the past two years but the current used offerings are really slim. From there its on west again four miles to the Golfsmith retail store. Now those dudes have scads of used clubs but I need to spend lots of time to go through everything and once in awhile there are reasonably priced sticks that I can use.

Most recent acquisitions are mainly to shore up my short game that has lost me more strokes over the past year than anything. So I gots me a Rife Two Bar putter for $39. A Mizuno MP Series Chrome 54/8 with factory graphite Accel Arc stiff regular shaft for $16. A Mizuno MP-R Nickel Chrome 60/8 for $24.95. Last weekend I also picked up a Cleveland Launcher Titanium 5 wood for $15 with regular flex Fuji gold proprietary shaft. My quest for a reliable fairway club is continuous but maybe this one will do it. It came at 43.5" which is way too long for a 19* club and had a jumbo Lamkin grip that I have to immediately cut off. That freaking grip weighs 78 grams. So I cut the shaft at the butt and it will play at 42.5" as soon as I put another grip on it.

On this Ho's radar is another Titleist 909D Comp driver, or at least the head. I have a 10.5* and hit it so reliably that I think a 9.5* with an ultra-light stiffer shaft might give me a few more yards. Iron ho'ing is on hold since my wife got me a set of Cobra cast GI's for Christmas. I'll regrip them December 26th and see how they go. I've got so many freaking shafts and clubheads lying around it is starting to drive even me a bit daft. The wife knows enough not to say anything.

I hear you MG, although to be completely honest with myself I must admit that the majority of my club ho'ing is about the excitement. I can't honestly say that I'm looking for better equipment. I've come to the realization that irons don't really make that much of a difference in scoring and that I play virtually as well with blades or cavity backs. Each type has benefits as well as drawbacks. Let's take a look at both and how I play with them:

Pure Blade (example: Titleist 710 MB) I played 2 rounds with these. I hit the short irons spectacular and I was able to hit under a tree and onto the green, one of the best shots of the year. Chipping was very easy and distance was good when hit solid. The cons were extreme distance lost with toe hits and long irons are easily mishit if your swing is off. Feel horrible in cold weather.

Cavity Back (forged): Basically the same as the blade category with the longer irons being easier to hit when swing is off.

Cavity Back (stainless): Ping i5) Not as appealing to the eye, more offset, don't feel as good. Easy to hit and still workable.

Big Arse SGI (Ping Rapture): Lack of feel, lack of workability, ugly. Great distance, forgiving, etc.

I will say this: When my swing is on there is nothing better than the Mizuno MP-32 irons I picked up for $89. I can hit the long irons every bit as good as anything else. Feel is unreal.

In my experience, having the right driver, wedges and putter is the most important thing toward achieving lower scores.

Aren't smileys fun!

Great to see a sub forum dedicated to hoing. I can see most of my posts being in this section.
Being a dedicated ho and like FD knowing what and when to buy I have been very successful in gathering a substantial collection of quality clubs. Like FD I buy low and usually always sell for a profit (except to mates, who defer to my expertise and get me to procure their needs. My specialist area is iron sets although I also have separate bags of drivers, putters, wedges etc.
My collection is far to numerous to list in this post; instead I will give you a run down of new purchases in the last two months or so.
Two sets of cobra s3 pro irons, one full cavity and one combo blades set.
Some Hogan FTX irons.
Callaway original x proto blades.
JDM PRGR TR 900 MD irons. (the ducks nuts)
Ping ISI be-cu 1-sw in beautiful nick.
Some Miura 2007 Tournament blades.
Yonex ezone 380 driver with aftermarket aldila red eyes.
Ping G20 8.5 with stock stiff tour shaft.
Snake eyes raw wedge.
And probably some more that I can't remember right now.
Yes it has been a full and enjoyable 60 days of hoing.
I think i am well qualified to contribute the the "art of hoing" thread and will look forward to many posts in this sub forum and hearing about other ho's latest buys.

I am slowing down in the club ho department... Marginal improvement is just a band-aid to me, so I will play with what I have, will spend more time at the range to groove in my swing.

Well Guys/ Girls/ AC-DC , they made me an offer I can't refuse but they asked me to stay until June 30, 2013 to help completing projects. I am a happy camper now, no more stress ... I will be going to Aussie in Sept 2013 for the Pky World reunion in Sidney Aussie, the tour would include Sidney, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane, they have not finalized yet... I am looking forward to the trip , especially after retirement... CAN'T beat that

Pky6471 wrote:I am slowing down in the club ho department... Marginal improvement is just a band-aid to me, so I will play with what I have, will spend more time at the range to groove in my swing.

Well Guys/ Girls/ AC-DC , they made me an offer I can't refuse but they asked me to stay until June 30, 2013 to help completing projects. I am a happy camper now, no more stress ... I will be going to Aussie in Sept 2013 for the Pky World reunion in Sidney Aussie, the tour would include Sidney, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane, they have not finalized yet... I am looking forward to the trip , especially after retirement... CAN'T beat that

You are a fortunate man, indeed. How many classmates still survive from your Pky in Saigon?

Mostly German wrote:

Pky6471 wrote:I am slowing down in the club ho department... Marginal improvement is just a band-aid to me, so I will play with what I have, will spend more time at the range to groove in my swing.

Well Guys/ Girls/ AC-DC , they made me an offer I can't refuse but they asked me to stay until June 30, 2013 to help completing projects. I am a happy camper now, no more stress ... I will be going to Aussie in Sept 2013 for the Pky World reunion in Sidney Aussie, the tour would include Sidney, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane, they have not finalized yet... I am looking forward to the trip , especially after retirement... CAN'T beat that

You are a fortunate man, indeed. How many classmates still survive from your Pky in Saigon?

MG... Yes indeed I am a very lucky guy to be educated in USA. I still remember Tet Offensive when we could hear bullets flying in front of our row house in Saigon. 10% of my classmates went overseas as foreign students (USA, Australia, Japan, Germany, France, Canada), maybe another 10% escaped as boat people in 1975, the rest still in Saigon,,, I believe we lost 3 classmates during VN war... and we - outside of VN - have tried our best to help our classmates who are still in VN (pay hospital bills for him and his spouse , give them money to start a small business if they have desires to do so...) and that's the least we could do for our classmates

Pky6471 wrote:

Mostly German wrote:

Pky6471 wrote:I am slowing down in the club ho department... Marginal improvement is just a band-aid to me, so I will play with what I have, will spend more time at the range to groove in my swing.

Well Guys/ Girls/ AC-DC , they made me an offer I can't refuse but they asked me to stay until June 30, 2013 to help completing projects. I am a happy camper now, no more stress ... I will be going to Aussie in Sept 2013 for the Pky World reunion in Sidney Aussie, the tour would include Sidney, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane, they have not finalized yet... I am looking forward to the trip , especially after retirement... CAN'T beat that

You are a fortunate man, indeed. How many classmates still survive from your Pky in Saigon?

MG... Yes indeed I am a very lucky guy to be educated in USA. I still remember Tet Offensive when we could hear bullets flying in front of our row house in Saigon. 10% of my classmates went overseas as foreign students (USA, Australia, Japan, Germany, France, Canada), maybe another 10% escaped as boat people in 1975, the rest still in Saigon,,, I believe we lost 3 classmates during VN war... and we - outside of VN - have tried our best to help our classmates who are still in VN (pay hospital bills for him and his spouse , give them money to start a small business if they have desires to do so...) and that's the least we could do for our classmates

Nowadays in urban Baltimore or any other large US city you can hear the bullets fly by your rowhouse most hours of the day. When I've told young people that Saigon in the 60's was safer than Baltimore, they laugh at me. I remember, when I was a college freshman in the spring of 1966, Nuygen Cao Ky spoke at our college as one in a series of "Notable Speakers". Little did I know that three years later I would be in his territorial waters and estuaries.

It is a good thing to support some of the people still there. From the videos you posted over on the other site, it looks like many now have a nice life. They deserve it.

Wow OP, that's some serious ho'ing. Let's see. In the past 60 days I have bought the following:

Titleist 905S 8.5 with ProForce V2, 86g shaft. Pretty heavy shaft, even for these guns.

Ping i3+ blade with z-z65, 3-PW, GW & SW (like new).

Callaway Bobby Jones blades 3-SW, Memphis 10

Cleveland CG Gold 3-PW

Ping Eye 2 BeCu 4-9

Hogan Apex II White Cameo irons. Bought them at Salvation Army for $5 and sold for $52.

Taylormade Ghost center shafted putter. Boo!

I'm currently checking out a set of Cleveland CG4 Tour irons in minty fresh condition.

Mostly German wrote:
Nowadays in urban Baltimore or any other large US city you can hear the bullets fly by your rowhouse most hours of the day. When I've told young people that Saigon in the 60's was safer than Baltimore, they laugh at me. I remember, when I was a college freshman in the spring of 1966, Nuygen Cao Ky spoke at our college as one in a series of "Notable Speakers". Little did I know that three years later I would be in his territorial waters and estuaries.

It is a good thing to support some of the people still there. From the videos you posted over on the other site, it looks like many now have a nice life. They deserve it.

Nguyen Cao Ky was a coward.. He passed away in Philippine and his kids tried to send his ash to a VNmese temple in California and no one accepted... Nuf Said
Saigon is much better off if the South had won back then... Much better off

Pky6471 wrote:

Mostly German wrote:
Nowadays in urban Baltimore or any other large US city you can hear the bullets fly by your rowhouse most hours of the day. When I've told young people that Saigon in the 60's was safer than Baltimore, they laugh at me. I remember, when I was a college freshman in the spring of 1966, Nuygen Cao Ky spoke at our college as one in a series of "Notable Speakers". Little did I know that three years later I would be in his territorial waters and estuaries.

It is a good thing to support some of the people still there. From the videos you posted over on the other site, it looks like many now have a nice life. They deserve it.

Nguyen Cao Ky was a coward.. He passed away in Philippine and his kids tried to send his ash to a VNmese temple in California and no one accepted... Nuf Said
Saigon is much better off if the South had won back then... Much better off

Well, we tried our hardest but the Elected Ones back in Washington, DC had other ideas. By the way, I didn't go to the Ky lecture. Instead I went down into town to shoot pool and drink beer with some of my class mates.