Gift Ideas Your Golfing Sweetheart will Love  

- It seems like retailers had their Valentine’s Day displays up the minute they pulled down the holiday holly. Look at it this way… by raising the level of awareness early, you actually have time to really be creative with what you get for your sweetheart.

So what do you do if your sweetheart is a golfer? Sure, you may want to stick to the original game plan of flowers or candy and a card. But to show that you really care (and support) his/her golfing habit, here are some smaller items that are fairly reasonably priced and would be welcomed pretty much any time of year.

Tees

I can assure you that most golfers go through their share of tees. Here are a couple of gift suggestions. I favor these because they have lines that make it easy to consistently set up your ball so you can hit it squarely on its sweet spot.

Pride Golf ProLength Tee System - $4.95 (The Golf Warehouse)
These color-coded tees allow you to easily identify length and appropriateness for various golf clubs. The company claims that the majority of PGA Tour players use ProLength tees each week. Plus they are nicely packaged. Add a bow and you’re done.

NIKE Repair Tool/Ball Marker/Tees Set - $5.95 (The Golf Warehouse)
These Nike tees were the first ones I used that had lines (3 stripes designed to help with tee height for all sizes of club heads) and I loved them. They are hard to find though. What’s nice about this set is that you also get a bent tab divot repair tool and ball marker made of high quality steel with an antique tin finish. Classy and well packaged.

Towels

I GOTCHA Dry Rain Towel/Club Cover - $19.99 (Check your Pro Shop)
A good year-round gift, but especially well received during the rainy season, is a nice towel. Once again, there are a ridiculous number of options. If you can find it, the I GOTCHA Dry Rain Towel/Club Cover sounds awesome. It performs double duty – wiping your club heads and then quickly transforming into a head cover for your entire bag by turning it inside out and placing it over your clubs. The company claims the water resistant nylon surface on the underside of the towel will keep your clubs dry all day.

REI MultiTowel Lite - $16.00 (REI)
REI sells a towel that comes in a zippered mesh pouch, which can be used for storage. This MultiTowel serves multi-purposes and would be a great addition to a golfer’s bag (especially since it takes up so little space). This ultra light, highly absorbent, quick-drying towel is made of anti-bacterial fabric and is machine washable.

Ball Cleaner

One of the challenges of playing in less than ideal conditions is dealing with a muddy ball and having no towel nearby (say you are on the green and the towel is in the cart or attached to your bag far away). Last week, I ran an experiment and used an old sport sock (actually a Champion Quarter Crew Sock) that I kept in my pocket. It did the job. But I found something that’s even better…

CADDY SACK - $8.95 - $22.50 (online: www.caddysack.com)
This is a much classier way to go. It has a black vinyl exterior and the interior seems to be made of terry cloth-like material. It is about the size of my Treo. Basically, you wet the interior liner before you start your round of golf. Then you put your dirty ball in one end, rub the dirt off and it comes out clean on the other end. To up the “cool” factor, the CADDY SACK comes with a ball maker and room for holding 3 tees, and a belt clip.

Golf Balls

The pros have this down. Most use Titleist Pro V1s that run $45-$58 a box (four sleeves). What about the rest of us? I saw on the Morton Golf Sales website (www.mortongolfsales.com) a quiz you can take that helps guide you into the right type of ball. While that’s cool, it may not be pragmatic for gift giving (Hint: store that for future reference). Here are a couple of options to ponder.

Titleist Personalized Golf Balls (www.titleist.com)
Titleist has a deal going on right now through the end of the year, where personalization charges will be waived on all Titleist Pro V1, Pro V1x, NXT Tour, NXT Extreme and DT SoLo golf ball models. Basically, on any order of just one dozen or more, you can create your own message imprinted on a Titleist golf ball in up to three lines of block text in red, blue, green or black ink colors. That’s a fun idea, even if you have to take delivery in ’08.

ID Align Golf Balls – (www.golfballs.com)
Golfballs.com will sell you balls that are personalized plus have an alignment aid on them. The Titleist Pro V1s with IDAlign run $50.95 ($45 without). It’s a cool idea plus they offer free gift-wrapping and have no minimum order. Their website claims printed, gift wrapped and shipped in 1-2 days. And they’ll do it on the lower-end balls too (like the Top-Flite XLs).

Gift Cards

Gift cards are always an option, and I’m not just referring to ones from places like Golfsmith. If you look around, golf courses are aggressively marketing their “gift” programs. So if you know of a course the golfer in your life would love to play, but may be of the normal price range, a gift card is a great option.


No excuses. Jump on this sooner than later. Your golfing sweetheart will absolutely LOVE it!