The Art of the Club Throw
- Updated: February 17, 2021
Twitter/@GolfChannel
Let’s face it, we all get angry on the golf course. It’s only natural. How we release this anger is a matter of personal choice, and my personal preference is the old-fashioned club throw.
According to a poll of myself, this is one of the oldest and most effective methods. If you don’t do it, you should start. If you’re having trouble getting started, here are 7 tips from a seasoned veteran:
The Black Hawk Down
After a four putt double, you split the next fairway and have birdie on the brain the entire walk to your ball. After a lengthy discussion with your caddy about club selection, you take a divot the size and shape of a Chipotle burrito, causing your ball to go about 50 feet. This is the last straw.
You take your club and wind up, mimicking your backswing, do a crow hop forward, and release the club much better than you did during the shot you just hit.
Your wedge helicopters through the air as far as your ball went, and after two more hacks, you finally make it far enough to retrieve it.
The Cool Toss
From 185 out in a fairway bunker, you miss the green wide right. You tried to hold a hard draw up against the stiff breeze coming out of the southeast, but it didn’t quite take and now it’s buried in the rough.
You aren’t happy, but in your head, you realistically calculate your odds of having executed that shot. After this quick mental math, you curb your anger slightly but still feel the need to wear at least some of your emotions on your sleeve.
So you gently toss your club at your bag, grip first. It gracefully glides through the air like a javelin until the butt of your Tour Velvet hits your side pocket and falls to the ground. You unstrap your glove with force and begin to walk toward your ball.
This is highly recommended if you have a caddy to clean up after you. If not, you just look like an idiot raking the trap and putting the club back in your bag.
The Tomahawk
After a missed shorty on the last, you get up to the tee ready to unleash all your rage on the next shot. You take a mighty whack, but it gets caught up in the breeze and sails well off line.
It seems you still have some leftover rage as you proceed to, in one fluid motion, bring the club back over your head and spike it straight into the ground. thus causing two things to happen:
- You pick up the two pieces of your driver and put them in the side pocket of your bag to be repaired later. OR….
- You pick up just one of the five pieces of your club and heave it straight into the trees, leaving the rest behind to let the groups behind know what kind of day you’re having. You then proceed to take less than driver on every remaining tee shot, which is probably for the best.
The Blind Fury
After thinning a wedge into the fescue beyond the green, you hold the finish for a split second, then immediately uncoil your body in the opposite direction and release the club.
The only problem is that you keep you head down on this release more than the one that counted, and don’t realize that your golf cart and playing partner are directly in the firing line.
In what seems like slow motion, you watch your club go full steam into his shin before he has a chance to react. In all fairness, there are much worse places you could have hit him.
The Bermuda Triangle
You’re between clubs on the par-three seventh. It’s playing 145 over water the whole way. After much deliberation, you decide that a nine iron will clear. It doesn’t. You hit it a few grooves low and dump it straight in the pond.
Without thinking, you twirl around 360 degrees like you’re throwing discus, and heave your club across the corner of the small pond. It is tracking better than your shot ever was and looks like it will land clean on the other side.
Just as you start storming back to your bag, you hear the unmistakable clank of steel on wood and see some falling leaves in your peripherals. Before you can turn your head 90 degrees to look, you hear a GALUNK and see ripples moving in all directions in the shape of a short iron. Next time you’ll take the eight.
The Full Bag Heave
After five embarrassing shots, your ball finally makes it onto the green. Your three playing partners have already taken the flag out and begun putting.
When you finally make it to the green yourself, you need to make the three of them aware of the hell you just went through getting there. So, you pull your putter out and thrust your bag forward with complete disregard for the stand it is equipped with. It lands with a clank and your clubs come halfway out as your playing partner steps off his putt.
Three putts give you ample time to cool off, and you return to your disheveled bag and shamefully put the clubs back into their designated slots as the group behind you continues to wait with their hands on their hips.
The Style Drop
You’re on the tee at the short par four 17th. Tees are up today and it’s measuring 300 and some short change. Despite a stiff breeze in your face and the fact that your longest drive ever went 297 after a couple of member’s bounces off the cart path, you decide to go for it.
After a quick backswing and a loose downswing, you make impact and immediately feel the ball slide right. Despite the laughable trajectory, you release your hips and bring your arms all the way through.
As soon as you complete the swing, you drop your club flat onto the ground while continuing to hold the finish with your belt buckle pointed at the target you just missed by 60 yards.
Nobody got a line on your ball but they all saw that finish, and where I come from, style points count for something. Now, remember that form when you hit your provisional.
The Bat Flip
You’ve striped your drive and find yourself smack dab in the middle of the go zone on your next shot. You shoot the pin 3 times and get three different numbers, which you use to estimate the actual yardage.
With your favorite club in hand, you make a beautiful rhythmic golf swing and hold the finish. You look up and see the ball heading 30 yards left of your target, and just as smoothly as you swung, you flip your 7 iron on the a line further left than your shot.
End over end, it tumbles through the air on a trajectory far more impressive than that of your golf shot. For a moment, it eases the pain of the abomination of a shot you just hit and you get to blow off some steam as you walk the 20 yards to retrieve it.
Two Inches Short is a place where amateur golfers can unapologetically be themselves. It’s where we can all relate to the greatest game ever played at a level we can all understand.
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“Making triple bogey from the middle of the fairway isn’t just about skill, it’s a lifestyle.”
Matt – love the creative names and write-ups for each. I’ve witnessed most of these, the Tomahawk being my favorite.