Golfers are suckers for an endless parade of new stuff. No other sport pushes equipment upgrades every 6 months to a year. You don’t see tennis players buying new rackets every year. Plus, tennis players and hockey players don’t carry 14 clubs to use in every game. Stop being a sucker for new stuff in golf. Manufacturers are like drug pushers or pharmaceutical sales folk, as they push the belief that new sticks will solve the golf conundrum. Golf is a hard sport to play, as it takes great skill and mental resolve over nearly 5 hours. It is easy to fall into the false belief that a brand new club will provide instant relief.

Falling For The New Club Phony Solution In Golf

I fall for this phony solution all too often myself. A belief that shiny new things will turn my game around. Manufacturers pay a superstar golfer to promote their new driver, putter, wedge or whatever club. We watch the ads on our screens and imagine this magic wand will revolutionise our abilities at golf. In actual fact, what happens is that we put an unfamiliar instrument into our hands. This can ensue a period of adjustment that can take weeks and months, which makes the game even harder. The truth is that you could put a lump of wood into someone like Jon Rahm’s hands and he would hit it better than I would swing my thousand dollar driver.

New Golf Stuff Highs Are Temporary & Illusory

I understand the buzz around getting a new high tech golf club and that it gives us a temporary lift. It is a bit like a sugar rush, in that you get excited and your mates want to check it out, but it is rarely any real long term answer to our performance woes. Golfers who need to derive their high from constant equipment changes are operating on the fringes of the game. The Stoic golfer finds joy inside, in the here and now. Be here now! Stop projecting yourself into a future that never arrives. Materialism is like that, in that there is always another bright shiny thing to buy before you find happiness. It is a trap – a typically American style consumer trap.

Stop being a sucker for new stuff in golf.

This endless procession of drivers and other clubs is a wasteful distraction from the real game. Remember that much of what you read online or in magazines is designed to encourage golfers to purchase new equipment. The sales edifice is massive in golf. Manufacturers are always beating the sales drum. The BS around equipment is hyperbolic hot air. The game of golf is rooted in the earth, in grass and dirt. The stick is not more important than the course. If you want to play a video game in front of a screen, go for it, but that aint golf in my book. Some pundits say that technology is making golf courses obsolete. That the high tech balls and fairway clubs are travelling too far for the majority of courses built many decades ago. The sucker’s love affair with shiny new things is taking him away from the golf course and into a simulator studio. Who knows, that could be a good thing for the game.

Golf is a great game. It is a widely patronised sport across the land. The heart and soul of golf is in the playing. The equipment BS is on the periphery. Shiny new things are all well and fine but don’t lose your way in the materialistic trap. The selling is not telling the truth about golf. You need to find that yourself inside your own experience.

Live life joyously in the here and now! Stoic Joy: A Stoic rejoices in the present moment and finds joy in living a virtuous life, regardless of external circumstances. When you strip away all the stuff from your life. Ditch the desires for endless material things. Discard the wants for this and that. Stop craving for substances to fill up your life. You will find that simply being alive can be a beautiful experience – not all the time, of course. Constant happiness is a furphy, another illusory desire. Allow yourself to be free enough of fear and desire to be joyous in the here and now.

Wisdom from The Stoic Golfer: Finding Inner Peace & Focus on the Fairway by Robert Sudha Hamilton

Available at Amazon

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