As a young kid working for a PGA pro in the 1970s I learned how to pull soleplates off persimmon drivers and drill out the lead plug to lower swingweight. I was editor of a cult-creating trade magazine called Golf Shop Operations in the 1980s. In the 1990s I wrote a history of the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament, called Q School Confidential. After that I did a lot of golf travel writing and editing. I interviewed Karsten Solheim once, driving around in his brand new white BMW. A pebble hit the windshield and put a little star in it. I told him that happened to my buddy Stewie in his old Mercury Montego and it ticked him off, because the crack grew and he had to pay for a new windshield. “He shouldn’t have been upset about that,” said Karsten, ever the optimist. “When you put a new windshield in an old car, you can look out and feel like you just left the showroom.”