Historically, the best golfers have always been admired not for their technical skill but for their creativity. While we applaud the 350 yard drive, what really gets fans going are shots like Bubba’s massive hook out of the trees to win the Masters, Mickelson’s ability to see shots no one else could imagine or Roy McAvoy’s persistence to never lay up.

Recently, I’ve been catching up with a lot of my high school classmates on Facebook. I didn’t really intend to, but I found my childhood best friend, and he was friends with a lot of our classmates. One thing led to another, and the next thing I know we’re having ourselves a class reunion, right there in cyberspace.

Have you ever been watching TV, maybe late at night, or maybe in the middle of the day, and seen a commercial for something that was so mind-bendingly stupid that you asked yourself: “Who the hell would buy that?”  I hate to break it to you, but a lot of time and money was spent analyzing that very question, and the answer that the TV executives, MBAs, marketing wonks, and social psychologists came up with was: you.

There’s a fine line between having hipster cred for liking things before they’re cool and just being strange for liking things that nobody else likes. I’m choosing to believe that Cleveland Classic putters are going to help me cross the line from the latter to the former, because they are too good to not be cool. I have long said that if you removed the branding I would be hard pressed to tell the difference in a Scotty Cameron putter and Cleveland Classic of the same style, and if you blindfolded me I wouldn’t have any more chance of figuring out which one I was using than I would of making putts.

Long ago when hair was large and men wore spandex (that would be the 80s, for you youngsters), Ping founder Karsten Solheim applied his engineering background to club design and quickly realized that square-cut grooves could put more spin on the ball while still abiding by the USGA rules. Depending on who you ask this was either the greatest thing since sliced bread or an unmitigated disaster. The USGA was in the latter camp and they promptly banned the square grooves, effective in 2010 (for those not following the anchored putter kerfuffle, “promptly” has a slightly different meaning when applied to the USGA). This led to 2010 being declared “the year of the wedge”, competitors everywhere had to replace their non-conforming wedges. All was not lost, however, as manufacturers milled, spun, and laser-cut the faces of their wedges to try to return the spin of the old square grooves.

A couple of years ago, Matt wrote a blistering post about how dumb throwback clubs were. Specifically, he took a few shots at the then new Cleveland Classic. Luckily, Cleveland has a sense of humor and the brass to call his bluff. A week later a shiny Cleveland Classic driver showed up and Matt was forced to come to terms with his new favorite driver. Thanks to Cleveland, for over a year now I have had to endure Matt yammer on about how great a driver the Classic is. To this day, he pretty much compares all drivers to that club (even though he still thinks it looks kind of stupid).

This spring I received a set of Cleveland Bloom Go! golf clubs for women. The “Go!” simply means that it is a beginner set consisting of a 3 wood, hybrid, 7 iron, 9 iron, 56 wedge and putter. The set came complete with a small lightweight bag and headcovers, perfect for a beginner that likes to walk the course. And yes, they aren’t exactly maxing out the 14 club limit . . . the idea being that a beginner just needs the basic sticks to get things rolling and then she can get more complex from there, which I believe to be a sound approach. Doesn’t hurt that you save a few bucks to boot – no need to drop a cool G on a set of clubs when you’re not even sure you’ll be hooked on the game (although if you don’t end up hooked, there’s clearly something wrong with you).

Cleveland Junior Golf Clubs Review: Let’s face it, golf is not the most exciting game to learn. What’s worse is that golf is one of the few games you have to practice for a long time before you are even allowed to play. While I may be content to whack balls at the range all day, the same is not usually true for our short attention-span kids (I wanted to say MTV kids, but I guess that just dates me and is not even a good metaphor anymore). So out of the gate, moms and dads are fighting a battle to engage their kids into the game many of us love.

A while back I wrote a bit of a rant about the Cleveland Classic Driver and its relevance in today’s market. My original take on the Cleveland Classic was that I simply did not buy into the “classic looks” concept – the fact that it was designed to evoke memories of the old persimmon woods was not something that sparked my interest. And maybe I took a few jabs at the folks who actually would buy into such a “gimmick”, but that was only because I am so charitable in nature. Well it appears that Cleveland was paying attention, because they called my shot and immediately shipped out a Cleveland Classic driver of my choice. The package may as well have had the words “eat crow” spray painted across it, because surely that was their intention.