The Promise
or
How JDM Golf Gear Ruined an Engagement

By NewTokyo

As a recently engaged person, I have some freedoms not afforded to
those married. It turns out that an obsession with golf is forgivable.
However, an obsession with the acquisition of rare and expensive golf
equipment is less so. When golf takes up so much time at home on the
internet and on the weekends in the quest for rare clubs, there lies a
point of contention.

Thus begat the Promise:

>No more buying clubs until after we are married

But the story starts a little bit earlier.

After a 10 year hiatus from the world of golf, I decided to get back.
My original golfing affair was during a period of limited resources and
limited judgement. I'm talking, of course, about high school. Pulling
a real paycheck and still lacking judgment, I had no idea the peril my
seemingly innocuous choice of hobby would present.

After going through a round with a loaner set, I was committed. My
dad, bless him, has an interesting theory on buying golf clubs.

> Get the cheap stuff, that way you can afford to buy new stuff every
year. Unless you are a pro, the expensive stuff doesn't matter.

I ignore my good ol' dad on some topics, like computers, but the man
has been playing golf longer than I have been alive. With pride I show
up for my next round with a big bag of hunk-o-steel on sticks.

Things start off okay, but only because I didn't know any better. I
quickly discovered that if my partners were swinging their 9 irons, I
need a 7. My driver was short and wide right. Distance with the
wedges was inconsistent, assuming I could even get the ball in the air.
The utility wasn't bad though. No feel, but it seemed to go much
straighter than most other clubs. My swing at the time was a mess. As
I played more, the game because frustrating. After months of lessons,
no real improvement. The harder I tried, the worse the results got,
especially off the tee. Something needed to change. Thanks for the
advice Dad, but it's time I tried it my way.

I couldn't justify a made for TV full set makeover all at once, so I
set some goals. Start with a putter. Next, irons and wedges, then
fill the FW gap and maybe some new hybrids. Save the driver for last.

First a Japan-spec TaylorMade Rossa Corza. Something about new quality
equipment really makes the game fun. Next, I went with some Mizuno
irons (MX-25, 5-PW) and wedges(MP-R 52, 56, 60). After this. I
started really noticing the difference. The forged irons had tons of
feel and feedback. The irons were flying longer and the wedges were
ten times more predictable and controllable. The scores were coming
down, yet more importantly, the game was becoming more and more
enjoyable. New equipment also encourages practice, which of course,
tends to help swing faults.

After a taste of quality clubs, I became desperate. The driver was
still a sore point, but it could wait: at least I had one. I didn't
own a FW and the lump-o-metal utilities felt dead compared to the
Mizuno gear. An unhealthy amount of time was spent lurking on the
various corners of the internet, which did not escape the notice of my
significant other. I found a small little company with a great
reputation and good prices. My serendipitous discovery of **G-Field**
sealed my fate.

The first sign of addiction was a GFT FW with a Mach Line shaft. If
you read on a message board that a club face is hot, you think "okay,
it probably hits the ball far." But until you hit a screamer that
blows by anything you have ever hit before, you just don't really know
hot. Incidentally, *hotness* also increases with the number of
witnesses. That being said, even with nobody watching, the GFT FW is
incredibly hot. Supermodel hot. Having a club like this invokes two
emotions. Not only does the game of golf become more enjoyable, it
becomes immensely more *exciting* and *satisfying*. Secondly, there is
and burning desire to buy more clubs just like it.

After this, the next purchase was a custom built number 3 GFT-UT
utility club. This was easy to find. Around this time the company had
the nerve to go out of business. This made the next club choice, (5
GFT-UW) rather difficult.

So the quest begins. Here is a recipe you can follow to find rare
clubs:

1. Visit or call all the golf stores in the greater tokyo metropolitan
area.
2. Call all the used golf stores in the country of Japan
3. Check the various online shopping sites. Don't believe them when
they say they have inventory. They probably don't.
4. Check the auction sites
5. Check the online used golf trading sites

Coincidentally, this is the _exact same_ recipe used to irritate your
fiancé. The hunt ended up being the tipping point. While she could
condone the sessions at the range and the time on the course, the
additional hours spent in the stores and on the internet was apparently
unendurable. After securing the 5 utility I found myself shackled by
the dreaded promise: "No more buying clubs until after we are married."
How could this be? Would my future marriage survive my enthusiasm for
new instruments of the game? Ironically, my fiancé enjoys golf. She
doesn't get to play as much as I do, but enjoys outings with our other
golfing couples.

Now, with a nearly full set of Japanese golf gear, you figure a man
could wait it out till after the wedding. But I was missing the
Driver. And I hate my Driver. And Japan is full of amazing drivers.
That cost a lot.

One more piece of information about my non-traditional betrothal. I
didn't know her size or what kind of ring she really wanted. So the
day I asked her, I said we would go ring shopping together. Turns out
rings are expensive; so are weddings. More than Drivers. Looking at
the budget, it appears that I was bound to be driverless for a good
long while, likely until I pay off both the ring and the wedding.

Resigned to the chunk-o-riffic driver in the bag, we ended up going
ring shopping. It turns out that women's wedding rings cost something
like 5x that of the men's rings on average. In fact, her ring cost
more than my entire golf bag and all the clubs in it. What can I say,
it was love, even if I had to endure a piece of deadwood off the tee.

It *also* turns out that my fiancé knows me well. As a return gift for
the ring and my selfless promise, we are going to schedule a trip to
Niigata after the wedding to visit the home base of the ultimate JDM
company, Epon. She loves me enough to get a brand new custom fit Epon
driver. Who knows, she might even catch the new equipment obsession.

In the end, from the perspective of tee shots looking down long par 5s,
I suppose you can call the engagement ruined. Other than that, there
sure is a lot to look forward to.