There’s something special about getting a perfectly timed (solicited) swing tip from a trusted friend or family member. It feels like what I imagine resuscitation may feel like.

A jolt of fresh perspective fires and connects two neurons which have likely been separated for too long.

The promise of GIRs spikes your heart rate. Ball on the screws. Perfect divot.

Especially when you're in a rut, nothing breathes life back into the game like the small setup or alignment tweak. It’s almost never something major, and almost always something minor.

I would like to give a hat tip to my little brother, John. Narrowed my stance a touch, which resulted in the first truly flushed irons I’ve felt in a long time. It brought me back from the brink and extinguished the bad thoughts (for now). Thanks J.

Welcome back. This is the fourth, and final, edition of the 2026 Buyer’s Guide (for now).

If you haven’t read them already, you can catch up on the first three editions below

Now, we’re looking at accessories that complete the look of the modern gentleman golfer, along with a few extra pieces of equipment that you’ll likely have on hand.

FootJoy. The Pure Touch is the best glove on the market with the price tag to prove it.

Titleist. The Players glove is a viable option if you don’t want to spend $40 on a Pure Touch. I also like the Perma-Soft model.

Red Rooster. They sell a lot of “hippie” gloves, but the solid white one is a good option if you’re looking for alternatives to the bigger players.

Tremont. My brother got me an awesome gift for Christmas this year. A tux driver cover custom-made by the guys at Tremont. The lapels are somehow stitched on separately…an incredible touch. It’s a 1/1, but I have considered doing some custom TTC stuff with them for readers…

Jan Craig. Perhaps the most “old money” option here, but Jan Craig is timeless, chic, and durable. A lethal combination. I bought a few custom ones for my groomsmen a few years back, if you’re looking for easy and unique gifts that they will use for a long time.

Winston. Ubiquitous at clubs these days, Winston wields a high quality cover with proper variety.

The move is a Tour towel. Ribbed for proper groove cleaning, and striped down the side.

Forewind sells a few good looking ones, but once you know what to look for, you can find them just about everywhere. No clip on towels, please.

As I write this, I realize I should’ve added, “Lose fewer than three alignment sticks this year” to my goals for 2026. I’m a serial loser of alignment sticks. However, I was gifted a nice set for Christmas, and vow to no longer lose them.

If you’re like me, and find yourself in the car on the way home without the alignment sticks you arrived with, you can go to your local Home Depot and buy the rods they use to mark driveways during a snow storm.

For those of you who want to dress up the bag a little, read on.

Bubbawhips. Old school look and feel.

Hazy Sticks. Similar look and feel to Bubbawhips.

Goodstick Golf. Tried these once since they are magnetic. “Surely BTG won’t lose them, they literally stick together!”. Gone in a few months. Liked em while I had em, though.

Buy the umbrella from your home club, if you can. With that being said, here are a few solid options if you choose to use the internet.

Gust Buster. Mid-tier price option with some good color optionality.

G4Free. Budget option, if you don’t want to pay $85 for an umbrella.

Titleist. Not a huge fan of the massive branding, but as I mentioned above, your home club will likely stock these with the logo. A good option if you want to go higher-end.

Bushnell. Buy once. Use for a decade at least. Worth the investment if you’re a serious player.

Foresight Sports. Only for the mini-tour guys reading this that rely on the data to feed themselves.

Rapsodo. A good mid-tier price option.

Bushnell. On the pricier side, but if you can swing it this is probably the best bang for your buck.

Onwentsia Club, one of Chicago’s most historic private country clubs, traces its roots to 1892 in Lake Forest, Illinois. It began modestly as a seven-hole course laid out by Hobart Chatfield-Taylor on the lawn of Senator Charles B. Farwell’s estate, using tomato cans as cups amid flowerbeds and trees.

C. B. Macdonald, the renowned American golf architect, designed the first nine holes in 1895. The second nine followed in 1898 under Herbert J. Tweedie, James Foulis, and Robert Foulis. Beyond golf, Onwentsia embraced polo, equestrian events, hunting, and social gatherings, evolving into a full country club.

The original clubhouse was Cobb’s Shingle-style summer home, later expanded but eventually deemed inadequate. In 1927, renowned New York architect Harrie T. Lindeberg was commissioned to design a new French-style clubhouse, envisioned as a grand country home with a dramatic roofline. It opened on November 3, 1928, replacing earlier structures and serving as the elegant social heart of the club ever since.

Today, the historic clubhouse remains a centerpiece of Onwentsia’s legacy, blending Golden Age golf heritage with enduring social tradition.

I searched for the first published instance of the phrase, given the recent ball rollback discussion and the need to carry it 300 off the tee to even have a chance to win on the TOUR. I found the June 2006 edition of Golf Digest. A true relic.

The distance debate has always existed, but with architectural changes to places like the Old Course and Pebble becoming necessary, are we sure it isn’t time to roll it back?

Anyway, here are some thoughts on the article and just how prescient it was.

The article covers three tour rookies - Bubba Watson, J.B. Holmes, and Camilo Villegas who were, at the time, causing a minor panic among traditionalists by playing a style of golf that basically said: hit it as far as humanly possible, deal with the rough when you get there. Watson was hitting drives so far at the PING fitting center in Phoenix that they had to build a six-story net to contain them. Holmes won the FBR Open by seven strokes, averaging 321 yards off the tee. Villegas had already racked up five tee shots over 375 yards in one season.

The golf establishment was not pleased.

What strikes me reading it is how clearly the people involved understood what was happening, and how few of them were willing to just accept it. Butch Harmon complained that "the quality of shotmaking has deteriorated." Jack Nicklaus said placement strategy was essentially dead. Shorter hitters like David Toms and Fred Funk were candid about being disadvantaged. Funk's quote is bleak: "There's no substitute for length and power, and there never will be."

The mechanics of why this happened are well documented in the piece (bigger driver heads, lower-spin balls, launch monitors, fitness culture hitting the tour).

But what I find more interesting is the psychological shift discussed in between the lines: These rookies grew up bombing it, getting their equipment fitted, optimizing launch conditions in their teens. They had no innate memory of playing with persimmon heads. No scar tissue.

The mental model you build as a junior golfer tends to stick. If you learned the game in the grip-it-and-rip-it era, that's what felt natural. These kids just had a different baseline. (And still do today, to a more extreme extent).

What the article got right, and what still holds today, is that distance is a structural advantage. Shorter irons into greens mean more birdie looks. More birdie looks mean lower scores. The math doesn't care.

The piece ends with Tiger, characteristically, seeing further than everyone else: "Wait until you get guys who are bigger, stronger, faster, more athletic, didn't decide to play baseball, didn't want to play basketball — they want to play golf."

I decided to write the book under my pseudonym, BTG. I thought deeply about it, and determined it was best to not broadly doxx my identity at this time.

However, I will be placing a riddle/code/cipher in the book (probably more than one) which will lead the smartest readers to my real name, if that is something you are interested in pursuing.

The website is live here: https://ingoodstandingbook.com/

The release date will be sometime in June, and the pre-order window will open in late April or early May.

I’m currently working on touching up the copy, and generating illustrations.

There will be 27 chapters covering all things private club golf. How to dress, breaking down the rooms in the clubhouse, caddie etiquette etc. I’m excited for you all to get your hands on the book.