The golf clubs that followed him home – Part 1

This is a tale of an orphan 9-iron and the vagabond golf clubs that came after. And a driver that was just too loud.

Before all that, there was a simple question: “You play much golf, Steve?”

He said, “Nah, I’m (terrible).” Or something like it. Valandra is nothing if not profane.

“Wanna play sometime?”

“Yeah, OK. But I’m (terrible).”

So he played, and then he played again, and then he was playing a lot. And he was (terrible).

He knew, even then, in 2008, it wasn’t just his equipment. He knew he had to get help with his swing. But in fact, his clubs were (terrible).

So our guy, Steve Valandra, mid-50s, by day the communications director for a Washington state agency, set about building a set.

Realize, by this time he was full-on buggy about golf. Unhinged. He was then on the first of the three instructors he would work with in a year’s time.

With the focus of a newborn zealot, he got acquisitive. First he bought a driver, from The Golf Club Co. in Olympia, where a lot of people around here get their first made-to-order clubs.

His irons were the (worst) of all – old, off-brand, not very good even when they were new.

The set didn’t include a 9-iron, so he picked one up on eBay – MacGregor NVG, a couple model years old, which in the breathless world of golf marketing means it was hopelessly obsolete.

He hit it for the first time on the par-3 15th over the water at Gold Mountain Olympic. Stuck it on the green and made par. He kept on hitting it and kept on liking it.

By this time, he’d made the acquaintance of Craig Foster of Craig’s Custom Clubs in Olympia. Valandra asked him why he was hitting the 9-iron so well.

Foster, who’s seen equipment madness in many forms and many degrees in his business repairing, adjusting and customizing golf clubs, told him it was because it was a lot better club than any other iron in his bag.

So Valandra went looking for the matching full set of NVGs and found it, on the Golfsmith Web site.

Around in here, he acquired a MacGregor MacTec driver. New on eBay, around $40.

 He didn’t warm to the MacGregor, and he wasn’t driving the ball well that summer, at all, so he wasn’t using it or any of his various drivers. He gave the Golf Club Co. driver to a friend and put the MacGregor aside.

But he was going to Portugal, and taking his sticks, so he needed a driver. Before he left town, he picked up an Adams RPM driver online from Dick’s Sporting Goods – 460cc head, 10.5 degrees of loft, and loud.

When he got back, he played the Adams on the front nine of his first home-turf round. It wouldn’t have mattered if he was hitting it well (which he wasn’t) because he was hating the way it sounded, the grating peeng at impact.

On the back nine, he switched to the MacGregor, which he hadn’t swung in months.

“It’s got that oval shape (head),” he said. “I liked the way it looked.”

He liked the way it sounded, too, and suddenly he was hitting it fine.

He used the MacGregor in an October 2009 round at Tumwater Valley, drove it well all day, and shot the best score of his life.

“I’m sticking with it after that one,” he said. “I don’t think it’s so much the club, it’s the instruction. But it doesn’t make that stupid sound.”

By this time, he wasn’t even such a (shitty) player.

But was he done? Had he found a big stick to stick with? Was he down with his irons? Maybe … for a minute.

All that churn in his golf bag, all this restlessness in his golfer soul, only takes our story to late 2009.

Next: Part 2, in which our man finds inner peace, solves the world monetary crisis and gets a new putter.