Bench Notes
Writing them down saves everyone time, including us. There is nothing to buy at the end of any of these, no affiliate links, and no manufacturer had any input. They are the arguments we have across the counter, set down in the order we usually make them.
Bounce · Eight minute read
The ground around the Bay is sand with a thin skin over it, and it behaves like two completely different surfaces depending on the month. Here is how we pick a number that survives both.
Delivery · Seven minute read
The figure stamped on the hosel is measured in a position almost nobody uses. What your hands do at address moves it several degrees before the club has even started back.
Wear · Six minute read
Nobody wakes up one morning with worn wedges. The decline is gradual, it shows up in one specific shot before any other, and there is a point where replacing beats persevering.
Care · Six minute read
Clubs stored two miles from the water age differently from clubs stored in Richmond. What actually corrodes, how fast, and the four minutes a week that stop most of it.
Moisture · Seven minute read
Moisture between the face and the cover behaves like a bearing. The result is a shot that leaves lower and stops later, and it is the reason morning rounds here play differently.
Course craft · Seven minute read
A flyer is not bad luck. It is a predictable outcome of grass between the face and the ball, and the lies that produce one look a specific way from above.
Because they are the topics that come up in the bay most often and get answered worst elsewhere. Four of the six are about wedges and wear, which is not an accident. That is where the scorecards we read say the strokes are going, and it is the part of the bag that receives the least attention from an industry that would rather sell you a driver.
The other two are about this coast specifically. Salt in the air and moisture on the grass are daily facts of golf around Hampton Roads, and both of them change equipment behaviour in ways that a general article written for a national audience will not mention.