You are waiting on the 4th tee because the group ahead is slow, and you rummage through your bag to pass the time. Three tired balls, a pencil with no lead, a cereal bar from last season. The ball marker you have been looking for since the 3rd green, no.
What to put in a golf bag comes down to three families: enough to last hours outdoors, enough to play properly, and enough to take whatever the weather does. In practice: water, something to eat, balls, a glove, tees, a ball marker, a towel, a cap, and a layer for wind and rain. The rest is weight you carry for nothing.
We take the question from the end that interests us: what you carry, not the clubs. Those are settled with somebody who has watched you play. If you are starting out, begin with the contents of the bag: one evening is enough, the rest will take years.
What goes on the table before you leave
- Water. Some courses have something to drink at the turn, others do not: set off assuming they do not. Take enough for the whole round.
- Something to eat. Not an athlete’s food bought for the photograph: something you will actually swallow on the 9th.
- Sunscreen. Applied at the tee on uncovered skin, then reapplied regularly, especially after sweating. Four hours outdoors counts even under a veiled sky.
- Balls. Enough not to play the second half of the course in economy mode: a player counting their balls is no longer playing the same shot.
- A scorecard, a pencil that writes and a pitch repairer. The small things you can check in one second.
- A waterproof pocket for phone and keys. Even when the sky is blue.
If you take one thing from this article, take this one: the bag is packed the evening before, on a table, in the cold light of day. Not in the car park ten minutes before the tee time with the boot open. That is the moment when you check badly and forget easily.
The six objects nobody talks about
What you need in your bag comes down to the same handful of objects. Nobody ever looks at them, and they are what decides how comfortable your day is.
The glove goes away flat, in a pocket of its own, and comes out of the bag when you get home: rolled into a ball while damp, it hardens into the shape of a fist and never softens again. Tees, you take more than you need, because they break and because they stay in the ground behind you. The ball marker is the object that is missing at the worst moment, the one where three people are waiting for you to find it.
The towel hangs outside, not inside: one end damp for cleaning, the rest dry for wiping. The cap helps you follow the ball against a bright sky; it does leave the back of the neck exposed. And the headcover is not a decoration: it protects the driver head from knocking against the other clubs.
All of them have a place in the bag, and it never changes. It looks like a quirk, it is a method: it saves us rummaging on the 4th tee.
The layer you take even when the weather is good
Here, a clear sky on the tee tells you nothing about what is waiting for you on the 12th. The wind gets up on the open holes, a shower crosses through and moves on without warning.
A zip-neck sweater for the cool, a windproof or a rain jacket according to the forecast: choose the layer before you close the bag. Wool does not replace a waterproof. On the day the weather turns, that pocket packed in advance makes all the difference.
The umbrella earns its place too: it keeps the grips dry as much as it keeps you dry. Left in the boot, it is no use at all when the shower arrives at the furthest hole.
The rest depends on the season: a spare cap on rainy days, dry socks, and a dry glove, because a soaked glove slips instead of holding.
And do not leave the wet layer in the bag until next week. Trapped damp does no garment any favours: looking after your golf clothes starts with taking them out of the bag.
What is useless and still weighs something
A golf bag turns into a wardrobe: things go in, nothing comes out.
What you always find in there: the sleeve of balls you will not play, the second glove that stayed damp, the broken tees, the sunscreen that leaked into the bottom of the pocket.
Sorting it is not done pocket by pocket: it is done by emptying the lot onto the table, once a season.
Carried, on a trolley or on a cart: the choice is yours. In all three cases, taking out what you do not need makes packing easier and lets you find what you are looking for without emptying a whole pocket.
The Dogleg accessories
The six objects above, we make all of them: the glove, the tees, the ball marker, the towel, the cap and the headcover.