Golf The Way We Really Play It

At Cloudjammer, we slip out for nine holes every now and again after work or during lunch. We run on up to our local course, RiverPines, and hack a round or hit the range. Despite all the work, training aids, and friendly advice, one immutable fact holds true about our golf games.

We suck.

We're not terrible, per se – just not good. This complicates things when we run down to Golfsmith to buy some balls or a new club. The Salesmanship is all about how good you are. How good I am is not a factor in my game.

This is where Bogey Pro comes into play. Bogey Pro is a product line designed specifically for the inferior golfer. Instead of concentrating on how good your golf game is, Bogey Pro focuses more on the aspect of the game most of us bad golfers often forget about – having fun.

Their tongue-in-cheek product line includes poor performance golf balls – in zero distance, poor spin, and no control varieties – t-shirts and cozies bearing helpful golf tips – such as "Keep your head down...while ogling the beer cart girl" – a hilarious covert beer cooler disguised as a shoe bag, golf lessons in a box, underachievement awards, and a stylish "+1" cap.

BogeyPro.com, the official site, is well worth the visit. Their 19th hole features unique lessons – how to break your club, use your foot wedge, and throw your bag – and interactive features allow bad golfers nationwide to submit stories, pictures, and report lost balls. There's even a very scientific golf skills test and a score adjustment card which takes into account different weather phenomena and levels of sobriety.

From a design perspective, too, the site is compelling. Select almost any product in the Bogey Pro shop and you can view, in a well designed and functional interface, close details of the packaging. The site also has a refreshing overall design – not the same tour series photographs and classic feel you find at Titleist or Callaway's sites. BogeyPro.com is just plain fun.

So while our golf games show little sign of improving in the near future (though that foot wedge lesson has saved us a lot of strokes) Bogey Pro has given us a reason to keep playing. And if, God willing, any of us ever do break 100, then we'll know just where to get their underachievement accolade. fb