Nothing gives me back pain like watching golfers haul around bags that look too heavy to be holding only golf clubs. Clubs are skinny and light, bags are heavy and cumbersome. Why not simplify things by making yourself a light-weight rack to display all your prized clubs?
Out of four lengths of hockey stick, build a rectangular frame, making sure it is long enough to hold your longest club and wide enough to accommodate the number of clubs you’ll be carrying. Next, make angled cuts in the frame’s end sticks, measuring to make sure each slot is the perfect size to hold each of your clubs in place. Drill a few holes along the top just small enough to hold your golf tees snugly. Now, attach a comfortable handle to the top, and your club rack is complete. A place to carry extra golf balls? Drop six to eight balls into long sport sock, tie it to your club rack with a jaunty flourish, and you’re ready to tee off.
One advantage to having a straight edge as part of your new golf rack is that you can include a handy rangefinder. Now, my understanding of the game of golf is that drinks are sometimes quaffed while on the links. Accuracy of the rangefinder may be inversely proportional to the quantity of intoxicating beverages consumed because using it demands steady nerves and the ability to wink each eye separately.
You will need two 28" lengths of stick and a crosspiece of 5", attached loosely enough to pivot, and a 2" x 6" piece of stiff card with a 1/8" by 4" slot down the centre. Four finishing nails, one at each end of the top of each stick, hammered in so about 1/4" remains above the wood, will make your “sights.” On the end with the crosspiece, which will be closest to your eyes, the nails should be as far apart as your pupils. Hammer the third nail in the centre of the far end of one stick and through one end of the card. Hammer the fourth nail into the end of the other stick so that it will slide through the slot in the card. The position of the nail along the slot will be your distance indicator.
Calibrate the rangefinder by marking distances on the card. Go to a football field, and use the yard lines to work out the distances. Close one eye and sight down the nailheads to the target distance. Close that eye and sight down the other stick with the other eye at the chosen spot, without moving the first stick. Your nailhead should slide along the groove in the card. Mark where it stops, record the distance, and repeat with another yard line. The farther away the yard lines are, the wider apart the ends of the sticks will be. Parallel sticks indicate infinity. Since there are no golf courses with fairways that long yet, work down from there.
This golf club rack and rangefinder make a pretty elaborate system, but one thing is assured: you will be talked about.
