Golf Porn In My Mailbox

My mailbox has in recent days been full of golf porn—catalogs from all the major retailers hawking the latest and greatest in clubs, balls and apparel. It’s the start Christmas gift giving season, and I fear it’ll only get worse.

The clubs on display in the photographs all are unnaturally shiny, and as beautiful as only Photoshop can make them. It’s disappointing to find how much more ordinary golf clubs look in a pro shop.

It reminds me of a lecture I attended while in journalism school. Given by a Playboy photographer, the lecture consisted of a series of “before and after” slides of Playboy bunnies along with descriptions on how the use of camera lenses, lighting and darkroom technique turned ordinary women into porn goddesses (it was the best lecture I ever attended). In a great many cases, the actual girl and the final photograph didn’t even look like the same person.

Golf catalogs are more than a bit like that. 

Catalog balls are whiter, irons sleeker, and drivers more aggressive looking than they are in person. Properly photographed, they use angles, highlights and reflections to inspire every golfer’s desire.

And the product descriptions! They’re the golf equivalent of male enhancement spam emails. Each one is guaranteed to make you longer, straighter, higher, faster and stronger. And happier.

Keep dreaming.

But of course, that’s what the catalogs and manufacturers are selling: hopes and dreams.

We hope that the latest irons really will let us hit the ball long and straight. We dream of balls with ten yards more carry and drivers with that tour preferred draw. A new game is, after all, just two thousand dollars away.

But I don’t need hope. And I don’t need new equipment. What I really need is the golf equivalent of a viagra pill—something to get my game going when I’ve lost it.