Yass or Pass: Customized Vokeys
Colin Morikawa’s wedges
My favorite view on every golf course is my Ritz cracker lying on the green. My Ritz cracker ball marker, that is. It’s not a real Ritz cracker. It’s a ball marker, metal with a vinyl sticker on it, and a reference to that iconic moment in Happy Gilmore when Happy borrows a spectator’s snack to mark his ball. Seeing that cracker on the ground never fails to loosen me up before a putt. I still miss them high and long and short and low, but at least I’ve got a positive mindset standing over the ball. Goofy references and nostalgia are powerful forces, which might explain why many pros seem to be decorating their Titleist Vokey wedges.
Since 2019, Titleist has offered increasing levels of Vokey customization in the form of stamped and painted letters and symbols. Colin Morikawa’s wedges are imprinted with the names of his favorite breakfast foods, Jessica Korda’s with quotes from the Home Alone films (weird choice but we love her for it), and Justin Thomas’s with a variety of things that probably mean something to him. Magazines love to feature them and camera operators love to zoom in on them during tournaments.
But should we, too, stamp our wedges? The pros can afford to—they can replace any club for free at the drop of a bucket hat. But as recreational players, there’s a lot we have to consider. Is this quote or symbol I like timeless enough to stamp on my club permanently? Am I still going to like this quote or symbol after I’ve had to look at it every day for a few years? What if my tastes change and I stop liking my stamps? How am I going to look a decade from now with stamps on my lower clubs? Does laser removal work on iron?
The Ritz cracker makes me laugh, but if I’m asking myself if that’s enough for me to stamp them or any other HG reference on my clubs, the answer is yes. Watching that movie marked the first time I realized how inherently funny golf is, and every time I watch it, I’m reminded of how good it feels to let the game make you laugh. I mean… if you claim to play “for fun,” you should probably be having some. So get your wedges stamped with things that can bring you back to center whenever you slice it out of bounds or miss a tap-in, because at the end of the day, we’re using a piece of metal to hit a ball into a hole to pass some time. That’s hilarious.
Photo by Andrew Tursky/PGA Tour