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SAN JOSE, Calif. - I made the biggest blunder a golfer can possibly make when buying a new car.
In the rush to beat the tariffs, my wife and I got swept up by a great buy on our first luxury sedan, a Lincoln Contour. We love everything about it - the color that seems to change depending on the light, the ride, the technology, the heated steering wheel, etc. The only bummer is the lack of trunk space. It will fit my clubs lying sideways, but once you stack more than two golf bags back there, things go really sideways. Nothing truly fits after that.
Now when I offer to carpool my foursome to a weekend tee time, everyone has to remove their drivers and 3-woods to get the bags to stack properly. Honestly, it's a pain.
Since the summer road trip is almost upon us, I've found a really good solution for my golf bag problem. It could work for your foursome, too. I'm hardly the only golfer struggling with a lame trunk game.
Yakima is more known for its high-quality outdoor gear, specializing in vehicle-mounted racks for bikes, skis and kayaks, but golfers can also benefit from its durable, weatherproof storage bins that attach to any hitch on a car, truck or SUV.
The Yakima EXO GearLocker provides a secure, organized way to store golf bags and gear for that long or short road trip, keeping them clean and protected from the elements. The GearLocker ($599) only fits two golf bags, but that's all I need to make my trunk useful again.
I like the GearLocker so much better than any sort of roof storage unit because everything you've packed is so much more accessible, especially if you purchase the EXO SwingBase.
To be honest, I couldn't see owning one without the other. The SwingBase ($699) opens with a few simple button releases, allowing access into the trunk without messing with what's packed in the securely locked GearLocker. This allows me another option for a longer road trip - putting luggage in the GearLocker with the clubs still in the trunk.
Either way, I've finally got the storage I need to lug my foursome and their clubs wherever we want to go. It's an hour to Pebble Beach or The Olympic Club, 45 minutes to Pasatiempo, two hours to Silverado in Napa, four hours to Edgewood Tahoe and six hours to SoCal's The Resort at Pelican Hill. We've got options.
The $1,300 spent for both pieces might sound expensive until you realize it costs more to rent a van to drive to a golf destination once with your foursome, and it's certainly less than buying a new car/SUV. The price sounds right to me.
How do you pack a foursome for a one-vehicle, driving-only golf trip? Let us know some suggestions in the comments below.
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