Tim Thoughts

A few weeks ago I was golfing with my friend, Matt. We were standing along a tree line in the rough. We spent most of our time in the rough. Looking into the woods, Matt asked me a very serious question: “If something were to run out of there and attack us, what golf club would you use to protect yourself?”

Wow. Fast forward about 3 weeks and I’m still thinking about it. Let’s assume for the sake of conversation that the creature is not a bear, or a wolf, but rather a monster. Why? I don’t want any activists telling me that the proper thing to do is just play dead or something in the presence of the majestic animal. So no, it’s just some sort of monster. And it’s on a dead sprint to eat you. What club do you reach for?

I’ll give you my thoughts, but I really want your answer too. This is important stuff.

I immediately was aware of a dilemma. Do you go with a long club or a short club? If you grab the longest club possible, you can attempt to keep a safe distance between you and the beast. But with a long club comes a lack of agility. If you’ve ever watched an MMA fight you know that sometimes you just get bull rushed and you might need something you can use with quickness.

Then again, with a really long club, like a driver, the velocity at the head of the club is greater than with a shorter club, like the pitching wedge. So you might assume I’m confident enough to think I can connect with the monster with one blow and put myself out of danger with the driver. Not so fast. The head of the driver is big, but it isn’t very dense.  I’d prefer to use an iron. The iron head is more dense and therefore delivers the most bang for the buck at the point of impact. And depending on the nature of this beast, it might be just as likely to play jump rope with the flexible shaft of a driver as it is to be impaired by it.

So I’d think in the split second I have to grab a club from my bag to save my life, it’d definitely be an iron. But I would still want some of the advantage of a longer club so that the head travels at a high velocity. The 3-iron is just too long. I have to think the 5-iron is the winner. That’s my weapon of choice. Of course, there is the 4-iron, but I’m not as familiar with it and I wouldn’t want to attempt to become familiar at a moment like this.

For me, it’s got to be the 5-iron. I became even more confident in my answer when watching Entourage Season 5 on DVD the other day. Johnny Drama decides to attack a car windshield with a golf club, and he definitely asks Turtle for the 5-iron. So that settles it.

What do you think you’d do? I guess depending on the monster, maybe putting the golf cart in reverse and threatening it with that high pitch buzzing news might just do the trick. But I want to hear what club you’d reach for and why. And if you’re going to say the putter, please at least be ready to defend that weak answer.