Ebay bargain

[Hacker Khan]

Really? And you are basing that comment on what exactly?

Because we all play a lot of golf?

 

[stevie_r]

Because we all play a lot of golf?

It could be the fact that we never worked selling golf gear and shivas did, possibly the most exciting thing that anyone has ever done, ever

 

[shivas irons]

I have never caddied for Woosie, although I hear he was once number 1 golfer. In Oswestry, for sure, and probably the rest of the world too. But I know a guy who works on Tour vans, and I mean the ones making golf clubs not those selling burgers at golf events.

Tour Issue means a whole lot of things, depending on the make. It can range from retail heads which are, carefully QC'd to a higher spec, and taken to the Tour van. These are sometimes given a special format of serial number.

Or you can have clubs which resemble retail clubs but are really quite different. Taylor Made do this a lot. The irons you buy in AG and those the pros play are not the same. The Tour heads are available in different size and shape, and are variously known as B or C heads. Many of these leak onto the internet for sale, and ebay and WRX will often have them.

Then there are prototypes, either early draft versions of soon-to-be-retail clubs or special forgings that will never come to retail. These are pretty rare and tend to get onto the secondhand market pretty rarely. The exception is putters, and lots of special edition/one-off/specially customised putters from Scotty Cameron and others are often resold, sometimes at eye-watering prices.

For the average culb golfer, the question is whether there is any value in buying these things. If the club is no more expensive than the retail equivalent and you want something a little different,l sure, why not. But if it is a premium price and/or was made with a special shaft for Retief Goosen, then unless you are Retief Goosen, probably best to stay away.

I remember playing at my home club in NI with a guy, a 15 handicap at the time with a nice smooth swing. He had a new set of irons but proceeded to hit a few low balls which didn't go too far with them. I asked him where he got the clubs and he told me they were an old set of Darren Clarke's and clearly Tour Issue clubs. Sure enough they had tipped X flex shafts. No wonder he couldn't hit them.

Woosie is a nice fella, I was dying to ask him about this incident, prob best I didnt!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYV-csdgRv0&feature=youtube_gdata_player