I’m also giving new meaning to the term “bag lady.” I guess when a girl obsessed with handbags develops an obsession with golf, it’s only natural that she will start to collect golf bags.
Awhile back, I posted about Birdie Girl’s great looking bags and especially lusted for the orange stand bag. It was still in production so I had to wait but in the mean time I got my hands on the pink and white tour bag. Because I was still traveling for work quite a bit, I also got their travel bag. I don’t think these two items were meant to go together, but I’ll get to that later.
The tour bag is gorgeous and adds a powerful, feminine touch to any golf course. (No, guys, that’s not an oxymoron.) But it is a tour bag and is meant to be carried, not carted. It’s a touch too bulky and the pockets aren’t the most accessible from a cart position. Much to my chagrin, I’m not on any tour, don’t have a caddie and wouldn’t dream of carrying this baby myself. The bag lady in me just thought it would be cool to have a tour bag.
Here it is pictured in action – providing some much needed brightness at a miserable 5 1/2 hour round at the rock hard Knollwood Country Club in Granada Hills, CA where it was a wrist-breaking risk to try to take a divot on approach. Ugh – but at least my Birdie Girl bag made me smile. You can see the beautiful detail work in the close up shot. The side view shot was at Black Gold Golf Club in Yorba Linda, CA. This golf course certainly didn’t need any dressing up but the bag still stood out – far more than my performance in that tournament.
Throwing some Ogio in the mix
Since the tour bag is a bit unwieldy and much of my golf is played on courses that aren’t too walker-friendly, I knew I needed to revert back to an actual cart bag. I love my chocolate Ogio and think Ogio makes the most tricked out bags designed from a planning perspective based on what golfers need. From what I’ve seen, some other bag manufacturers are catching on, but Ogio innovates and the others seem to follow. I decided to upgrade from my chocolate bag to the latest and greatest.
I chose this cool bag, the Atlas, in the indigo color scheme. Ogio thinks of everything but my enjoyment of the handy pockets, ball dispenser, individual club dividers, and sleek look only lasted for a short while. Why? Because Greg liked it just as much as I did and it turned out that indigo would have been his color selection as well. He doesn’t lust for products too much, so I took the opportunity to make a sneaky trade along with a friendly couple’s wager (the details of which shall remain private) and he is now the proud owner of this bag. We both ended up winners in this deal.
Back to Birdie Girl
Then the long awaited orange stand bag was off the Birdie Girl production lines and on my doorstep. I was giddy. It’s even better looking up close and personal – and with my stuff in it! The attention to detail of the designers isn’t evident in the photos of this bag on the Birdie Girl website.
When I first opened the package and saw the tiny pink and white polka dots on the stand’s legs, I thought “whaaa?” Then I set it down on its stand and noticed how the white mesh on the orange side pockets almost looks like pink polka dots and it all made sense. It’s even hard to tell with the lights and shadows in this photo, but trust me, this is such a cool touch!
If you zoom in on this photo, you’ll see the neat splashes of other colors in the detail work on the logo and handle. I never would have thought of the polka dots or putting all these colors together, but I love the way they work together! Kudos to the Birdie Girl designers.
Here it is on the course and on the cart. Again, I love the brightness! 
Here it is with Greg’s new Ogio bag. What a cool looking pair!
Yes, I’m using it as a cart bag. My chocolate Ogio just looks so dull after having my Birdie Girl bags out there. Oh yeah, something else after which to lust. I guess now I need this powder/chocolate Luxe Cart bag for my collection! We play walking rounds with our friends Lou and Leslie on Friday afternoons in the spring and summer so my orange bag could still see some action. Well, I play other walking rounds but I use my push cart for those so I can strap on either kind of bag and I’ll be able to mix it up.
Now to the travel bag
My one complaint with Birdie Girl is about their travel bag. It looks smart and is easy to spot on the luggage carousel – I’ll give it that, but then I’d expect that from Birdie Girl. It’s the size that bothers me. Of course I never expected the tour bag to fit in there, but I did expect it to accommodate my golf clubs in any other golf bag with ease. No go. I understand that it is designed with women in mind but even if I had shorter golf clubs, that’s only another inch or so of room. After taking off the club head covers, it was a really tight squeeze to get my golf clubs in this travel bag. I worried that when TSA searched it and tried to repack they might damage my stuff. And I worried that such a tight fit might cause a snap with a rough throw. Thankfully neither happened and my clubs made the trip unscathed, but I won’t risk it again. How about just a couple more inches of leeway in the length, Birdie Girl? Maybe it would be good for a junior set of clubs.
Accessories
The club head covers I got with the orange stand bag are nice, but not for me. First, they’re too big. I don’t like it when club head covers are too tight and difficult to take off and put on, but I also don’t like them to be too baggy and loose. I know, I’m hard to please size-wise. Many women are. They’re also orange and black instead of orange and white, which, unlike their other color surprises doesn’t work for me. Besides, though it might not be hard to displace my Ruger and Taylor Made headcovers on my 3- and 5- woods, nothing’s going to take the place of the Goose on my driver.
My accessories of choice by Birdie Girl are these snazzy umbrellas!
Yes, I am a Birdie Girl
So what if I miss a lot of birdie putts? So what if the most birdies I’ve had in a round is a whopping 2? I’m a Birdie Girl – my bags say so! Birdie Girl makes the cutest stuff and keeps me stylin’ on the golf course whether I’m making birdies or not.
Next post.
Gotta weigh in on Wie
Exactly what does it mean to be non-competitive? Well, the LPGA has put a number on it: 88.
If a non-member shoots an 88 or higher in an LPGA tournament, she is banned from LPGA events for the rest of the year. Golf writers have been typing until they’re blue in the hands about Michelle Wie’s withdrawal from last week’s Ginn Tribute.
In case you’ve somehow managed to miss the coverage, the gist is that she withdrew from the event after playing 16 holes including five bogeys, a double, a triple and even a quintuple-bogey (!) leaving her just two bogeys short of reaching that dreaded 88. However, she claims she withdrew because her previously injured wrist was bothering her. (Like, I tweaked it, you know?)
Would they have allowed her to withdraw if the reason was avoiding the 88 rule? No? So if that was the reason, she had to lie. What? Dishonesty is frowned upon in golf? It shows a lack of respect for the game, its rules, and your fellow players? Like, whatever. I guess it’s the truth, then.
There have been implications of a conspiracy involving LPGA officials and agents that warned Wie to drop out despite the rules on giving and receiving advice except from a caddie. Speaking of advice, there was a questionable situation in that same round in which she might have received those dreaded two strokes in the form of a penalty because her father gave her advice on that triple-bogey hole (they didn’t assess the penalty because she didn’t ask for the advice – though I agree with Beth Ann Baldry that perhaps the “didn’t ask” clause isn’t meant to include parents or coaches).
Yet another rule she gets away with not breaking – this time because she’s a non-member and it doesn’t apply – is that she played the golf course the week before the tournament, something members are barred from doing.
Learning how to avoid these types of mistakes (and learning that they are mistakes) can be done by players as they work their way up the ranks, playing in events in which they can compete and getting accustomed to the rules, etiquette and decorum expected of a professional golfer. This isn’t to say that Wie can’t be competitive in LPGA events. Of course she can, but her camp of marketers has launched her into a spotlight where every misstep is highlighted and must be defended.
So what do we have here…
All this in one tournament – no, one ROUND – on an LPGA Tour event. Funny thing is, sponsors are going to be chomping at the bit to give her more and more exemptions to LPGA and PGA Tour events because of all this. Just look at all the attention it generates.
So what about PGA Tour Events?
After conducting
exhaustive researcha quick google, I was unable to find any specific score associated with non-competitiveness on the PGA Tour. I guess that rule is a little more subjective over there. And Michelle Wie, Inc. excels at exploiting subjective rules.I’m currently reading John Feinstein’s book Tales from Q School, from which I learned that in that tournament (the qualifying tournament for the PGA Tour and Nationwide Tour), players will be deemed non-competitive if they don’t “come close to breaking 80” in four rounds. The PGA doesn’t just ban these players for a year, they maintain a list of non-competitive players and make them prove that they can compete, essentially qualifying to qualify. The idea is that it’s not fair for players to be distracted by non-competitive players in a tournament that can make or break their careers. Q-School is grueling and a rite of passage that most players on the PGA Tour have had to endure, many of them several times. To go through all that just to be distracted from a PGA Tour event by a non-competitive player (or even sideshow) when they know they’ll have to go back to Q-School if they don’t produce… well, that certainly can’t be fair.
Remember Casey Martin, the golfer with the degenerative disease in his leg that took the PGA Tour all the way to the Supreme Court for the right to play in a cart and won? All the attention from that case made him into something of a sideshow as well, but he had the respect for the game not to exploit the system with his star power. Martin went back to Q-School year after year and played on the developmental tours in between, trying to work his way up to the PGA Tour. He did not use his stardom to apply for exemptions and try to make some cuts and maybe win enough money to stay. According to Tales from Q School, Martin “thought it pointless to take a spot in the field from someone else when he was likely to miss the cut.” I guess that’s because he knows how hard it is for those guys to earn their way there. No matter where you stand on the cart/no cart issue, you have to respect him for that.
Some people may blame the sponsors for giving Wie exemptions in the first place. I’m sure she doesn’t even have to apply for them, they’re just thrown in her lap. But that doesn’t mean she has to accept them. Some poor schmuck is going to have to go back to Q-School because some non-competitive player took up a coveted spot in the field in one too many tournaments. Of course, there is no way for a female player to earn her way to the PGA Tour. Not officially, at least. But maybe the next time she plays on an exemption and doesn’t “come close to breaking 80″(the standard for Q-School), maybe she should get a letter of non-competitiveness and be kept on file. Would they let her attempt Q-School? Even if she qualified to qualify? I doubt she’d dare if they did.
Oh, and… pssst…. Ms. Bivens… over here. How about a golf blogger’s exemption? I’ve been known to break 88 and who knows, I could string together a couple of miracle rounds and possibly make a cut. Okay, probably not, but think of the publicity we could generate!
Next post.