Believing in Sasquatch

Feb. 16, 2006

Dear Patty,

The hours of sunlight are lengthening, intimations of spring are all around. These are the longest days of the year for golfers.

We itch to play.

Some people talk about new car designs when they're introduced. You know the season is nearing when golfers start discussing the new drivers.

If you haven't recently seen one of these clubs used to drive the ball, they've changed since the days of Ben Hogan and even Jack Nicklaus. The latest innovation is that size matters. They're made of harder and lighter titanium. The heads of most new drivers are the size of an armadillo.

Taylormade's driver has moveable tungsten weights that can be positioned to change the way the ball flies. Nike's Sasquatch driver is flat and wide like Bigfoot's paw. Callaway named its Big Bertha for a World War I howitzer that was named for the wife of the man who invented the incredibly destructive artillery piece.

Cleveland has the Launcher, Lynx the Predator, all made for bashing and bombarding.

No matter how polite the game, it seems we're never far removed from our inner warriors.

But to golfers the names Taylormade, Titleist and Mizuno resonate like Dior, Armani and Gucci do to people who care about fashion. Golfers buy hats and golf bags bearing the companies' names to proclaim themselves loyal to their brand.

Titleist fans tend to be classicists, Mizuno attracts younger golfers looking for equipment with high standards. Taylormade has the innovation market currently cornered.

Certain highly successful professional golfers are identified with particular brands. Tiger Woods' association with the Nike swoosh is the most famous example of branding in the golf world.

Nike is a primal brand, according to an ad man named Patrick Hanlon. Certain brands like Nike, Coke and Starbucks elicit emotional responses from people and often loyalty. These brands have become belief systems, in Hanlon's view.

All belief systems begin with a creation story. We know Coke was created by an Atlanta druggist and that Apple computers started in a garage.

Belief systems have a creed -- "It's the real thing" -- and icons -- the iPod itself -- and rituals and their own vocabulary. They also have unbelievers (Pepsi drinkers) who hate the brand, and a leader who personifies it.

These he says are elements of a primal code that attracts followers/buyers.

If true, golf itself is a belief system. It was created in Scotland, although some people make a case for Holland. It has a creed ("the greatest game"), icons (the Masters, St. Andrews, Arnold Palmer), rituals (the etiquette, the rules, the recapitulation at the 19th hole), a vocabulary (fore, hole-in-one) and unbelievers (the legion of people, some of them close to me, who hate golf).

Golf has a leader, too -- Tiger Woods again.

You can spend up to $800 on the newest and most in-demand drivers. To DC that's a sacrilege. Eight hundred dollars so you can hit a golf ball a few yards further and maybe a little bit straighter?

If you believe and your income-tax refund is a bit bigger than normal this year, that might be a bargain.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.