I was looking in the paper at an advert for the sale of golf clubs, all of them being offered at appreciable discounts. Top price went to a
set of Mizuno MX200 Graphite irons which were the best part of Rp 18
million (US$1,895) but now being offered at just over Rp 7 million.
Now, (and this is a bit off the fairway) Rp 18 million is about one
twenty-fifth of $50,000, which means an Indonesian wife is the
equivalent to 25 sets of Mizuno irons. A Mizuno golf bag was nearly Rp
2 million but now offered at Rp 590,000 which again is a chunky
discount.
Big Bertha (and that’s not the caddy) is a set of Callaway JV Graphite
irons which, once upon a pre-crisis time, were Rp 15 million but now,
would you believe, less than Rp 4.5 million. That, according to my
Casio HL-820A calculator, is about a 70 percent discount, which is
huge.
Just imagine how you would feel if last week you paid the full price,
and now every Tom, Dick and Tiger Woods was buying at the lower prices.
Gutted — that’s hardly the word for it. But how can such reductions be
possible, unless of course people have woken up to the fact that Golf
Technology Inc. has had one hell of a ball over the past few years.
Either that or all those golfers with more money than sense already
have 25 drivers, eight sets of irons and two dozen putters in their
garages. In other words, the market is well and truly over-clubbed. All
I want is a ball that goes straight, but, of course, they are not on
the list.
There are balls, but they are Prostaff Boost which were Rp 15,000 each, and that would add a further Rp 120,000 to my normal
wayward game. Shoes are 50 percent off and shirts much the same, and so
what I did was to take three woods, a set of irons, a putter, a wedge,
a golf bag, a pair of shoes, a shirt and a box of balls and worked out
what it would have cost me pre-sale to have become a golfer.
It worked out to Rp 67 million and that’s before you’ve paid the green
fees and taken a caddy on board. Where I play in Medan the course is
often empty, which is wonderful, especially now I know the reason why.
Incidentally, has anyone got a left-handed 13 wood with a chemically
milled hyperbolic face, aerodynamically balanced of fused Titanium
modular design with, of course, a hickory shaft?
David Wallis
Medan
