Whether you’re trying to get away for some winter sun or heading off on a trip to play some of your bucket list courses, making sure your golf clubs arrive safely is vital to making your trip a pleasurable one and having your own sticks gives you the best chance to play your best golf. When deciding what to pack for a golf trip, your clubs should be top of the list.
Having traveled multiple times a year across the Atlantic for university and then around the world with my clubs while playing professionally, I can hand on heart say there is no greater relief than seeing that your clubs have made it to their destination in tact! You see and hear plenty of horror stories of irons with chunks missing and snapped drivers, but there are ways you can help prevent yourself becoming the main character in any of those nightmares.
Invest In A Robust Travel Bag
Having one of the best golf travel bags is by far the easiest way of protecting your clubs as you travel around. Some of our favorites include the Sun Mountain Kube Travel Cover Bag, Motocaddy Flightsafe and the Ogio Alpha Travel Cover. Both of these options provide enhanced padding and the former has a hard shell base that sits underneath the head of your clubs for added protection. There are plenty of color options with most travel bags now and while they are easier to pick out on the conveyor belt, these can appear flashy and thieves may target them so having a bag that’s fairly understated may help your precious cargo go under the radar.
Remove The Metalwood Heads
A large proportion of the best drivers, fairway woods and hybrids all possess adjustable loft sleeves and so the heads can be removed, which is one way to ensure they don't become damaged in transit. The safest way I have found so far is to place the removed heads back in their headcovers and then either place them in the large side pocket of your golf bag or if you have space, even carry them separately in your hand luggage.
Wrap Them Up In Towels
The next thing I do every time I travel is make sure all my putter, wedges and irons are all secure and wrapped up in multiple towels. I will wrap them round once with one towel fairly tight to try and minimise movement and rattling and then I will wrap another towel around that making sure I cover the whole top and of the bag for another layer of protection. If you are travelling to cooler climates, I will typically pad out the top end of my travel bag with any additional jackets or waterproofs I may be taking to give those clubs the best chance of making it to my final destination unscathed.
Use A Spine
Your precious sticks can never have too much protection and so I definitely recommend thinking of anything you can add that will give your bag and travel case a little more robustness. You can purchase travel cover spines that act as a solid foundation through the center of your golf bag and have a rigid cap on the top to prevent your clubs and shafts from suffering any dents or breaks. These are available online at a reasonable price and just enhance your level of armor. One more cost-effective alternative that a colleague employs is a plastic bucket, although it may not offer the same level of sturdiness.
Use Padlocks And Tracking Devices
While you can do everything possible to make sure your clubs don’t see any physical damage while on their travels, there is little you can do about your clubs being lost or stolen when out of your possession. I will always padlock my bag shut when heading to the airport and have recently started adding tags/tracking devices to my luggage so I can see where my clubs are at all times via an app on my phone. This has already saved me second-guessing whether my clubs even boarded the plane and has actually allowed me to retrieve my clubs much faster, as I could prove they had in fact made the flight and were in the airport they were meant to be, they just hadn’t made it through to the luggage collection point.
