Several months ago I took a set of King Cobra graphite shaft irons to the driving range to try them out. I had been on a relative hot steak for me, flirting with the low 90's and even breaking through to the 80's a few times. So I strode out to the practice tee full of confidence and pulled a graphite shafted 7 iron from the bag. After a brief stretch and warm-up a stepped up to the first ball and swung away. Topped badly, the ball bounded across the range coming to a rest about 75 yards from the tee. "Wow". I thought , "I missed that one badly!"

Then over next 15 minutes I watched in bewilderment as shot after shot squirted from me tee. Some duck-hooking badly left, others loopety-looped off to the right and many bounced nastily straight ahead rolling to a stop well short of the 100 yard marker.

I tried everything. Slow down...down rush the backswing...pause at the top...stengthen the grip...waken the grip...close the stance...focus on the ball...CONCENTRATE!!! Smack, clunk, clink, pop, the balls continued to scrample away from my trainwreck of a practice session until my bucket was empty and I slunk away, drained of my last ounce of confidence and feeling like I'd never played the game in my life.

A few weeks later, for some unknown reason, I took these same King Cobras out for a round and actually played pretty well. I suspect I was hitting the ball well of the tee and putting well, leaving myself with a minimal number of 7 and 5 iron shots that I managed to get reasonably close to the green then jumped into the comfort zone of one of my old blade-style pitching wedges. By the time I walked off the course that day, I felt that I had easily solved my graphite shaft woes (although I could not tell you how) and all was right in my world of golf again.

Then, last night, as I was walking through a local department store, I spotted a set of Wilson ProStaff 360's on the clearance rack. Naturally, having way too much money in my possession and still having a couple of square feet in my garage not occupied by golf clubs, the Wilsons ended up in the back seat of my car and , this afternoon, in my bag on the driving range. Did I mention that these Wilson ProStaff 360's also have graphite shafts?

It took about 3 swings for Deja Vu to come crashing down. I was once again a novice golfer who had never swung a club in anger. To my left, my 11 year old son was smacking beautiful fairway woods right down the center of the range. My 4 year old son was whacking tight little irons toward the flag about 50 yards away. Even my wife, who says she hates golf, or at least finds nothing interesting about it, cracked a couple of sharp 7-irons about 125 yards and straight. But here stood dad, flailing away at the stationary balls and watching them as the bounced crazily off in a variety of directions. Again, I tired everything, and again nothing worked. There must be a secret to hitting these things and I suspect my inability to do so reveals a flaw in my swing that the stiffer steel shafts covers up. If anyone knows any graphite shaft secrets and would like to share them, I'm all ears. In the meantime I guess I'll have to hit the range tomorrow with a set of trusty steel shafts to restore my wounded manhood.