When I’m king, I will declare that all golf bags be waterproof, but until then you need to bring a bag like the Sun Mountain H2NO model ($360 list), which has 14 individual dividers and seven pockets, among which is a full-length apparel pocket that you’ll need for your waterproof tops and pants.
I’ve been carrying or pushing waterproof Sun Mountain bags for as long as I’ve been traveling to Ireland and they not only last for years, but all the external features, such as their dual strap system, a cooler pocket with a magnetic closure and well-placed grab handles seem to improve with each new edition. Just remember, attach your waterproof rainhood before you start your Irish round so you won’t have to mess with the fasteners in a sudden downpour.
Waterproof shoes also seem to prompt the question, Why exactly would you want shoes that don’t protect your feet from getting soaked?
Like many, I discovered ECCO golf shoes one forgotten day when I tried most of the major brands and found them stiff and pinching. I cringe when I sound like an infomercial, but every pair of ECCO shoes I’ve owned over the past 20 years have been comfortable right out of the box. The Danish company believes in an anatomical “last” with a built-in arch and a slightly wider fit than I find in regular width U.S. shoes.
The spikeless ECCO Biom H4 https://us.ecco.com/golf/collections/biom-h4 (about $150) model I wear now is made of durable “performance” leather and has GORE-TEX waterproof protection throughout. I was initially concerned that the spikeless shoes, while wonderful on dry flat fairways, might be a problem on damp Irish dunes, but they performed well.
Keep in mind, only the shoe is waterproof, so if you get 20 m.p.h sideways rain in Belmullet and your socks get soaked, that water will run down into your shoes and make your insoles squishy and miserable. Don’t blame the Danes.
The only equipment change I made for Ireland was in my wedges. On a well-maintained links course, you’re going to have tight lies all day long off the fairways, so I brought some Cleveland CBX4 wedges https://us.dunlopsports.com/cleveland-golf/clubs/wedges to help me pinch more shots. They’re a larger, more forgiving cavity-backed club than the forged Mizunos I had been playing, but I didn’t mind that when I found myself in the inevitable dense rough that always seems much closer to the greens in Ireland.
Man-made climate change has brought more warmth and sunny days to Ireland in the past 20 years, so you definitely need sunglasses. But I need prescription shades, so for the longest time I thought I would never find a true prescription lens in a sporty frame. San Diego-based SportRX began solving that problem in 1996 and now is the leader in making wraparound prescription shades for virtually any sport, even snow goggles. https://www.sportrx.com/ (About $150 to $300, with a great return policy.)
But CEO Rob Tavakoli did even more for golfers, experimenting with different tints to see if certain colors would add more definition to green putting surfaces, a deficiency of most traditional dark shades. My transition SportRX shades go from amber to brown and I’ve never felt the need to take them off to see a subtle break, removing yet another excuse for missed putts.
“A lot of people wear the same sunglasses for driving, walking the dog, playing golf,” says Tavakoli, an avid mountain biker, “and yet they would never wear the same shoes for work that they do for golf. If for no other reason, golfers have got to start protecting their eyes from UV rays, but I think our glasses will actually help your putting and in spotting the ball in the sky.”
In Ireland, not many links courses have sprinklers, thus there are few precise yardage markers other than the typical blue, white and red variety, and if you’re lost in the dunes you may not be able to see the flag. I didn’t want to be that guy putting a laser device to my eye for every shot, so I went to the Garmin Approach G12 ($150), which is about the size of a watch face and can be put in your pocket or, as I do, securely clipped to your golf bag. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/c/sports-fitness/golf-gps-devices-smartwatches/ You’ll be locked in to some 43,000 courses worldwide and the gizmo works for about 30 hours on a single charge.
And, finally, for those rare days when constant rain prevents you from playing, you might want something to read. How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill tells how the saints and scholars of unconquered Ireland laboriously and lovingly preserved the West’s written treasury and foiled the barbarians. Say Nothing by New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe unravels a brutal 1972 killing of a Belfast mother during the 30-year sectarian civil war known as the Troubles en route to a broader dissection of the social and emotional impact of the IRA’s violent guerrilla war and the spy games and treachery of the British Army. Passion, betrayal, vengeance, anguish – the perfect side dish for golf.
Bruce Selcraig is a former staff writer for Sports Illustrated who has written for The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s and The Atlantic, among others. selcraig@swbell.net