Golf Season is Here! Time to Accessorize!

With the first Major of 2016 come and gone, for those of us east of the Rockies that can mean only one thing:  It’s finally golf season.  And a new golf season means it’s time to accessorize!

I’ve put together a few new toys that will make a range session or round of golf that much better.

The Tidy Golfer

Let’s start with my favorite new product.  I actually hung this one on my bag towards the end of last season and have been using it ever since. Like many brilliant products, the beauty is in The Tidy Golfer’s simplicity.

This relatively small pouch, which comes with a nice clip so you can hang it from your bag, contains both a brush and a cloth.

Pour a bit of water onto the brush side inside the pouch, and voila, you’ve got yourself a nice club and/or golf ball cleaner for your round.  It really is perfectly designed, too.

The pouch is just big enough so that you can clean the face of any club, but small enough so it doesn’t take up too much real estate on your bag.  The brush is similar to the brush found on of one of those two-sided sponges you would find in a kitchen.  It’s rough enough to get into the grooves of your irons or dimples of the golf ball, but doesn’t cause damage either.  Once you’ve used the brush on the iron or ball, you can flip the iron and use the other side in the pouch to wipe it clean.

It also maintains its moisture inside the pouch throughout the round without dripping or leaking externally.  This allows you to clip it to a belt loop or pocket and bring it with you onto the green to clean your golf ball before you putt.

Finally, at the end of the day, you can turn it inside-out and throw it right into the washer.  It comes out brand new and ready for another round of golf!

Cradlz Universal Smartphone Holster

We have all seen the guy trying to balance his smartphone on his bag or against a bench or, even worse, asking some stranger if he wouldn’t mind recording his swing for him*.

*I have been all of those guys.

Cradlz has a solution for all of us who love to self-diagnose our own swing faults via video.

The Universal Smartphone Holster is basically a one-size fits all grip for a smartphone that can be attached to an alignment stick or tripod to record videos.  Again, the beauty is in its simplicity.

The holster can be squeezed around a phone with or without a phone case and has padding where it would hold the phone to provide a nice strong grip.

The holster can also be combined with this great mini-tripod that can stand on its own or be manipulated to attach to random objects.  It really allows you to get the right set-up to video your swing.

It also comes with a nice pouch and clip that holds both pieces and hangs right off your bag.

Bluetooth Headphones by Mpow

This next recommendation isn’t necessarily a golf product, but I’ve found them as a “nice to have” when I’m at the range or warming up before a round.

These Bluetooth headphones by Mpow are sweat-proof, quick to set-up, and fit in my ear comfortably.  I happen to come across these on sale on Amazon.com for about $15.  I am sure there are several different versions out there for you to buy.

Granted, these aren’t Sennheiser headphones we’re talking about when it comes to audio quality.  That wasn’t really what I was looking for when I bought these.  I just wanted some earbuds that I could easily store in my golf bag and had what I would describe as “decent” audio quality.  Done and done.

3-in-1 Clip-On Lenses by Mpow

I actually tacked these onto my Bluetooth headphone purchase.  They were on-sale for $10 so I thought, “why-not?”  (Curse you, Amazon!)

I like to take pictures of my golf experiences (you can follow me on Instagram and Twitter at @krismcewen), and, based on my own Instagram and Twitter feeds, so do a lot of other golfers.  These clip-on lenses are easy to take on and off of your phone, and can easily be stored in one of your golf bag pockets.

While it’s a “3-in-1” package of lenses, they actually come as a set of two.  One of the lenses doubles as a macro lens and a wide-angle lens. You simply unscrew a part of the lens and it changes lens type.  The other lens is a cool fish-eye lens.  Both come with nice lens covers to help keep any lint or dirt from collecting on the lenses themselves.

I don’t use them all of the time, but when I’m feeling a little more creative or I’m stuck behind a slow foursome, I’ll pull the lenses out and take some shots.