Golf Bags to Lighten Your Game

	Photo: Sun Mountain

Here's what I used to carry around a golf course: anger, frustration, unrealistic expectations and a bag 16 times my weight.

But even the infantile mature eventually, and that's what happened. I don't get excited when I make a birdie anymore (I know a double-bogey is just around the corner), and I don't haul around a bag that makes Craig Stadler look slim.

I am my own Sherpa and I'm no Schwarzenegger, so I've switched to a practical Sun Mountain bag (see photo, right) instead.

The story of Sun Mountain Sports starts in the early 1970s with Rick Reimers, an inventive golf pro in San Jose, Calif.

This was the era of back-breaking golf bag, equipment as cavernous (and cumbersome) as a coffin and so hefty you'd swear you'd stuffed a corpse inside.

Surveying his surroundings, Reimers noticed that far too many golfers sloped around the course like Atlas: slump-shouldered and freighted with the weight of the world.

Surely, there had to be a better way.

Drawing inspiration from backpacking equipment, Reimers designed a new breed of golf bag, swapping out the usual materials (cotton and vinyl) for sturdy, lightweight nylon. His first carry bag, the Back 9, didn't make much green but it probably helped golfers land more shots there. At less than half the weight of a traditional bag, it freed you up to focus on your swing.

The Back 9 begat the Front 9 (similar idea but with a molded top and bottom), which sired the Ping L8, a bag Reimers developed specifically for the company.