Earlier this month I wrote about my experience shopping for new golf clubs and how I ended up purchasing my new Callaway irons. As I mentioned at that time, the plan was to wait until after Christmas before shopping around for my driver and 3- and 5-woods – the idea being, there would a lots of people finding new club sets or golf shop gift certificates under the Christmas tree, and with Callaway’s RAZR X HL line now pushing two years old I’d find some great deals on gently-used woods out there on the various golf equipment sites.

(A disclaimer before I proceed: Normally this wouldn’t be the best way to shop for golf clubs, but as I mentioned in my earlier post I’ve played the RAZR X HLs a couple of times over at Las Vegas National, so I know the clubs and how they feel and play. Were I looking for a new set of clubs and wasn’t sure what I was looking for, I’d do it the old-fashioned way and find a golf shop with a range and a 30-day return guarantee in case they didn’t work out for me.)

One of the cool things about shopping on eBay is that you can set alerts for things you’re looking to buy: in my case I set an alert up for anything involving a Callaway RAZR X club (or clubs) for sale. A couple of Saturdays ago, it’s late at night and Tracey’s watching TV, the rabbits are munching away happily on their kale nitecaps, and I’m surfing the net mindlessly. I look at e-mail and see a couple of alerts for eBay items, one of which appears to be a left-handed RAZR X HL driver. And it’s on a 24-hour special priced at $90 for quick sale. I check it out, and it looks great, practically new. And it’s just sitting there on the 20″ monitor staring back at me.

I wonder why someone would be selling a driver so cheap – I mean, I’ve seen similar clubs out on eBay are running $130-$180; heck, they were selling for well over $250 less than two years ago new. But it looks in great condition, it has a 14-day return guarantee on it, and it’s looking back at me with a long (club) face, saying:

Dude – I know you were planning on waiting until after Christmas, but my owner needs some Christmas cash fast for Tiny Tim so he can get that operation he needs so there’s no empty chair at the dinner table next year. Don’t leave his fate to the shadows of the Ghost of Christmas Future, buy me!

How could I resist? I immediately transferred some money from the savings account into my Paypal account, and in less than five minutes the deed was done. Now I’m running on pure adrenaline. I check out the Callaway Pre-Owned Clubs site just for yucks – I’d been checking the site out for a couple of months now and it was either that they had no left-handed 3-woods or 5-woods, or the ones they had were too damned expensive. But now I’m astounded at the sight of a 3-wood priced at $82 and a 5-wood at $72. I start doing the math: with all my Cobra trade-ins and the Black Friday deal at RockBottomGolf I paid $210 for set of irons. A $90 driver, an $82 3-wood, and a $72 5-wood, I’m looking at a total set replacement cost of less than $500! I mean, you can’t beat that, even with a stick!

And it’s not as if the pre-owned clubs look like crap – in fact, there are just a few small ball marks on the faces and the shafts look brand-new. I haven’t seen seen the driver yet – Tracey forbids it – but she checked it out and said it looks great. And all come with genuine Callaway head covers! So not only did I upgrade my Cobras, I also gave someone’s Tiny Tim a chance at a new life. What a Christmas story that is!

And, to top it all off, we received a wine gift package from Callaway Vineyard and Winery (no relation) courtesy of my folks – now that makes it a real “Callaway Christmas”!