NiftyNiblick

If getting it over with was the goal, I got it over with a month early. Made for a very long winter, Rev.

Without hitting anything and going only by visuals, my thoughts for new irons would be.... #s 2, 3, 4: Ping G410 Crossover #s 5, 6, 7, 8, 9: Mizuno JPX 919 Forged 48, 53W: Titleist T300 58W: Cleveland RTX-4. Leaves room for two metalwoods and a putter.

They're actually playing a Super Bowl game today without my Patriots being involved. I understand that it's going to be official and count in the records and everything. Hard to imagine. To what little extent that I care about a no-Patriots game, I hope the Chiefs win because they're an original AFL team (albeit first in Dallas, not Kansas City). Plus, the Niners would join the Patriots and the (uuugh) Steelers at six Lombardy Trophies if they win. Now if I actually had to go for a visit, then yes, in that case I'll take San Francisco over flyover country, even though my favorite hangout there, Lefty O'Doul's, has closed. Middle America isn't comfortable with my shockingly coastal values! Sorry, Jimmy G....I know you're a fellow paisan and all, but I've got to go with Mahomes and his ridiculous haircut today....not that I'll actually be watching the game.

I tend to agree. Nuclear holes almost always result from errant drives. On a scary tight driving hole, it would be easy to take oneself out of the hole with one swing. I'd slap a driving iron safely onto the short grass, disaster avoided, but now I have an approach shot of well over 100 yards. Let's say I don't make the GIR. A bad pitch, chip, cut lob, sand shot, or even lag putt might cost you a shot. An errant drive could cost you a snowman.

Toward the end of my playing days, I just took gapping issues as a fact of life. I was always going to have them, because I didn't take them into consideration when configuring a set. I'd stuff my bag with stuff that I liked. If the look and feel of a club gave my confidence, it would find it's way into my bag without consideration as to how it fit into the set. I would have a big cart bag stuffed with fourteen clubs and still have to attempt contrived shots as if I were playing with six clubs in a pencil bag. There was always a driving iron that I'd never try to hit from the fairway and a sand iron that I'd never hit from the grass. There was always a high loft fairway wood that I could hit from the rough or over trees. There was always a high loft, low bounce wedge that wasn't fabulous for full shots but was great near the greens when I short-sided myself with my miss. I liked this stuff, and it if didn't really come together to make a balanced set with linear loft progression, I still played better because I had specific shots covered with clubs that gave me confidence. [Forget that I'd then go onto an internet forum and complain about the fourteen club rule because it gave me gapping issues.] Reading the posts on this forum, it doesn't seem like many of us go about it that way. Most likely for the best. But even if my way was clearly not the right way as recommended by fitters and instructors, I was never going to be a scratch player anyway. This was the best way for me to play my potentially best golf.

The iron sets that I've kept: 1954 Wilson Staff DynaPowered (with MacGregor Tommy Armour Woods) handed down from my uncle. 1964 H&B PowerBilt Citation (first new set, high school graduation gift) 1972 Spalding Top Flite (an "almost cavity back") 1978 Spalding Executive (first with Lynx Predator "semi-metal" woods / Then with Maltby custom made persimmon woods; the Executive irons were an inexpensive big seller and more forgiving than the new Pings then making the scene--terrible shaft-over-hosel look, though) 1984 Wilson 1200 GE (with TaylorMade original "Pittsburgh Persimmon" real metalwoods; again a Ping-type iron that I liked better ) 1997 Titleist DCI 962 (model with most rounds played on them--in my bag almost to the end with Titleist PT metalwoods) 2001 Kenneth Smith Royal Signet (irons and fitting were retirement gift from my union...I retired about a month after 9/11 at the age of 55; keepsakes hardly played) 2015 Hogan FW15 (got all excited about the no club numbers--didn't play well with them; was regularly in conversation with you guys then) current Mizuno JPX 919 Tour impulse purchase never played.

I love the fifteen clubs, geez. My last cart bag also has fourteen full-length dividers PLUS a putter well. My last set has fifteen clubs so it worked out really well. Purists on these and other pages opined that I wasn't playing golf. The club that STILL accepts my dues is a "Golf & Racquet Club," so possibly, I was playing tennis without even realizing it. Now I go there to play cards. Here's the good part: there are only thirteen clubs in a deck of cards so I'm finally in compliance.

Very good. That seems to be what i said, too.

I think that this would be a good set to look at while they're plowing the snow outside.

Does the Senate trial qualify as a TV series?

Off the tee or 100 yards in? Neither. I saved almost 90 strokes when they installed a pool table in the clubhouse.

The manufacturers don't seem to know that I'm out of action. They're doing these ridiculously strong lofts specifically to force me back into hickories. If I were still playing, I wouldn't have a clue how to configure a whole bag starting with these ultra strong lofted irons. I predict a 1-iron-lofted flop wedge before the end of this decade.

My most sincere best wishes are of course with your lovely daughter and your family, Rev. We recently had a much lesser incident just before the holidays. My son fell on the ice (not a Florida thing, I guess) walking Molly and Joe-Theismanned his own leg. He was in surgery more than five hours. He's only 46 and will be OK. Now I'm the one walking the dog, with my cane, and my wife follows us in the Grand Cherokee just in case my sorry old ass falls down too! That's the best she can do because little Molly is strong enough to pull her down if she tried to walk her. It's a funny scene that you can share with Penny. The neighbors sure find it funny, anyway.

I'm thinking about the new Titleist T400 iron set. They've now introduced the 38º pitching wedge. My old seven irons were set at 40º. This is what comes of hiring engineers without drug testing them.

People are still playing football?

I would say definitely. I played much better with steel spikes than I ever did after they were discontinued for no good reason. The fact that I was getting older had nothing to do with it. It was definitely the shoes.

This is the deal, pure and simple. Playing with modern jacked lofts is very similar to playing a flugelhorn from piano sheet music. You have to transpose in your head. When you see a number 4 stamped on the sole, that's a 2-iron. When you see a number 7, that's a 5-iron. And so forth. Please don't tell me that the engineers assign club numbers according to "launch window" rather than loft. When they decided to replace names like mid-iron, mashie, and yes, niblick, with a numbering system, trust me, nobody was thinking about "launch windows." I have nothing against the modern, advanced technology. I'm just offended by the simple cosmetics of vanity stamping. As a veteran of fifty years of golf, it offends my intelligence.

Titleist obviously has no shame.

Frankly, with full length dividers and pockets accessible from the front, I can't imagine using anything but a cart bag, Everything is so neat. You can find the club that you're choosing immediately. If you left a club out on the course, you can see that immediately. Your grips don't get mangled. Even if I walked carrying my own bag without a trolley, I'd have still used a cart bag. Even a huge staff bag doesn't hold things so neatly. What would be the arguments against the modern cart bag?

By all means, YOU can move on. Football season ended last week in Foxborough for me. I've moved on to waiting for the pitchers and catchers to report to spring training.

I'm 73 and am now handicapped and unable to play. Nevertheless, I played the game for over fifty years and have a few thoughts. Go softer with your shafts and weaker with your lofts. Irons are extremely strong lofted today. In some case, they're lengthened as well to give adequate length to loft correlation. In many cases, however, they're not. I always went 1º flat with my irons. With new irons, I would go ½" long and two degrees flat. No matter how much technology was put into the new club heads to launch the ball, if they don't give you enough shaft length for the loft, your shots will never reach the intended apex of their trajectory. Another thing that changed for me as I got older was set configuration. Driver, 3-wood, 1-9 irons, PW, SW, and putter is just not going to cut it any more. That's what Jack carried, but even young people aren't bagging that setup any more. See if you do better with hybrids or with 5, 7 and 9 woods. I preferred generously lofted fairway woods because I not only couldn't hit hybrids as high or as far, but I hooked the hell out of them to boot. On the other hand, there are plenty of people on this forum who've enjoyed great success with hybrids. Wedge choices are important too. Since they now call what were 8 and 9 irons pitching wedges and gap wedges respectively, we're talking two clubs strong, you're going to have to give more thought than people used to about configuring the short end of your bag. You might do well with lower compression golf balls as well, but some take issue with that. It sounds more complicated than it is. Find sticks that you like and have fun.

I must admit that from my perspective, this is delusuional. Who among these others mentioned has taken his team to NINE super Bowl Games, won six, and personally played well enough to win the other three? Who has completely dominated a division for two decades? Fortunately, and I don't mean this disrespectfully, I don't even take other opinions into account. Brady is SO far above anybody else that to my mind, at least, only a genuine hatred of the Patriots could spawn an alternate opinion. I, of course, don't hate the Patriots, I was there when they were born in 1960. I went to those Friday night home games at Fenway Park. There will never be a team like the 2001-2019 Patriots again. There won't be time. The game will abolished for its brutality before then, and that's OK with me. I got mine, guys.

I've loved Belichick's post game conferences over the past twenty years. He gives those idiot questions exactly what they deserve. We've absolutely reveled in the hatred that we've received from the rest of the nation, and even if it's over now, our great era happened and there's nothing anybody can do about it. The Eastern elitists. The wine and cheese crowd. The people with those horrible New England accents. Their team has dominated the football world for two decades. Not to mention four World Series wins during the same period. I will admit that it's no fun not having a dog in the remaining fight. I won't watch any more games. We lost our playoff game. There's nothing left to watch. One last comment, though. Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback to ever walk the earth. Even if hubris and greed prevent him from retiring--even if, God forbid, he tries to play with diminished skills somewhere else, his legacy will remain untarnished. I've never seen anything like him, and whether they would admit it or not, neither has anybody else. Brady is the GOAT. He's provided us great entertainment and great pride. Thanks, Tommy. Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Mr. Kraft. Nothing lasts forever, but what a ride!

I was my favorite player by far, but now...tough to say.