Are you wasting spots in your golf bag?

Golf Digest

You’re allowed 14 golf clubs in your bag, but do you even need all 14? That’s a question Golf Digest equipment editor E. Michael Johnson explored on Saturday, the day I happened to finish up my dad’s member-guest. Reading EMJ’s piece this morning, I realized I hit my 4-iron once over three days, and the 3-hybrid just once, too. Could I ditch one of those and add another wedge? Do I even need both? Well, both came in handy, the 4 on a low punch out of the trees that led to a par save, and the 3 hybrid on a mega slice out of the woods (it’s the one club I can mega slice, for some reason), which also led to a crucial par save. I’d argue it’s good to have full use of your weaponry, but I can also understand the “gapping” issue that renders one, or two, of your longer clubs useless. I’ll never let the 4 iron die, though.

You get 14 clubs. Here’s how to know if you’re wasting spots in your bag

Data suggests you have one or more yardage-spacing issues with your clubs. Our experts weigh in

By E. Michael Johnson

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Ryan Herrington

The brutal weather at The Honors Course in Tennessee, with five straight days of thunderstorms interrupting play during the U.S. Women’s Amateur, hasn’t prevented a … wait for it … "electric" final match. Junior phenom Asterisk Talley (a USWA finalist in 2024) will play co-medalist Anna Iwanaga from Japan in the 36-hole final after both players wrapped up their weather-delayed semifinal matches Sunday morning. Everyone benefitted from Talley and Iwanaga each winning in convincing 6-and-4 fashion. But the dash to try to finish the championship on Sunday will run into a familiar obstacle in the weather. The forecast calls for a 45 percent chance of another thunderstorm rolling through later today.

Ryan Herrington

Just when you think you’ve seen everything from a Rules of Golf perspective ... Shortly after a horn blew to stop play in the third round of the Wyndham Championship on Saturday due to dangerous weather, a young girl wandered under the ropes and stepped in the lie where leader Beau Hossler’s ball had been on the 18th hole. Hossler had already picked up his ball and marked the area with a white flag. The question though was whether the girl had changed the lie that Hossler was to return to when play resumed another hour later. Hossler eventually talked to rules officials who allowed him to place his ball in a spot just beside where his ball had been in order to best replicate the lie that he had before the girl stepped there.

Christopher Powers

Stand down, Golf Twitter. There’s footage of Davis Thompson’s albatross. Well, sort of. On Saturday, the 27-year-old had the golf sickos of Twitter/X up in arms when, at the par-5 fifth hole, he holed out for a two from 186 yards. The problem? There was zero footage of the shot. You can imagine how that news was received by the terminally online. A little after 5 p.m. ET, though, an angel from on high—a ShotLink Camera—flew down to save the day. Hey, we'll take what we can get, I guess.