Senior Classic: Taking care of golf clubs could improve your score

If you plan to play your best golf, it's important that your equipment is up to the task.

Take a good look at your clubs. Get to know them better. Examine the heads, check the grips, inspect the shafts, and most importantly make sure that they are matched.

Grips are probably the most overlooked part of the club. How many of you have an old club with a grip so hard that you could drive a nail with it? Since the grip is the only place where you touch the club, it must be in good shape for you to maintain control. It's a good idea to wash your grips every couple of weeks in a solution of soap and water. Use a piece of fine steel wool with soap in it. Steel wool not only cleans off the dirt but also roughens up the grips, making them feel tacky again.

If your grips are hard, worn in places or have depressions from where you hold the club, it's time for replacements. When you replace your grips take a good look at your hand size in relationship to the grip size. Properly sized grips are an easy change to make and one that will make you a more consistent player.

The shafts are next. Check for rust, which can be removed with WD-40 or the lead of a No. 2 pencil. Rust will often return. When it does, it's time to replace the shaft before it fails.

A more serious shaft problem would be a dent or ding, which will make the shaft weaker. It should be replaced as soon as possible to avoid breakage during a swing.

Make sure that none of your shafts are loose. If they squeak, there is probably a break in the epoxy securing the head to the shaft. To test your shafts, grab onto the head with one hand and the grip with the other and twist. Any movement or squeaks indicate a loose head. Shafts can become loose through normal play. The extreme variations in temperature, from day to night, can cause the epoxy to break down.

Check to see if your shafts match. Are they all the same model and stiffness? There should be a half-inch increment between the lengths of your irons. Woods usually have a one-inch increment, except for certain over-size drivers, which may be three or four inches longer than your 3-wood. If your shafts don't match, the playability of one club to the next could be compromised. This may explain why you hit your seven-iron laser-straight, but your eight-iron drifts off to the right every time.

Using a frequency analyzer will show you whether your shafts are well matched. Usually the shortest irons are the stiffest, while the longer irons are the most flexible. If you have a certain shaft that is too stiff, distance and feel will suffer compared with the rest of your set. A shaft that is too soft could cause you accuracy problems.

How do the heads look? Make sure to treat any rusting or pitting with WD-40. If your clubs are really bad, try having them rechromed or refinished. Beryllium-copper heads clean up especially well when soaked in Coca-Cola.

Check your loft and lie. It's something pro golfers do several times a year. While most amateurs don't play enough to have their lofts and lies checked as often as a pro, it's a good idea to have it done once a year.

Clubs can get out of alignment through normal play. A two-degree change in loft can mean as much as 10 yards in distance. A properly lofted set will not have any gaps in yardage. Ever wonder why you hit your 6-iron the same distance as your 7? Maybe their lofts are the same. A club that sits too flat will cause the toe to dig in, opening the clubface giving you a slice. A club that sits too upright will allow the heel to dig in, closing the clubface producing a hook.

Examine where the head meets the plastic ferrule. Make sure there are no gaps between the ferrule and the head. Some newer clubs, most notably Ping, don't have ferrules.

The ferrule serves to strengthen the shaft where it goes into the head. Without one, many shafts would eventually break at the joint and send the head flying down the fairway, or into a lake.

The weight of a club influences how it feels. If your clubs are not weight matched, each of the clubs will not feel or perform the same way. Most people can't tell the difference of one swingweight, about the weight of a dime. Go up or down three swingweights, about the weight of a quarter, and just about anyone can feel the difference. It may not seem like much, but when you put that weight on the end of a shaft and consider the force of a golf swing, you can understand what I'm saying.

A club's swingweight can be fixed by either adding or removing lead powder in the bottom of the shaft. If your club rattles, there is a good chance that some of this powder is loose.

If you're not sure how to check all of these items yourself, call your favorite shop. Most shops will, for a nominal charge, help you determine if your clubs are set up right for you and make the necessary adjustments if they are not. If they don't have the ability to help you, they will be glad to tell you who can.

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