Golf and eBay

Thank you to all of my followers for the birthday wishes today. My Facebook wall was covered with well-wishes. Whenever I told my peers that my wall was covered with birthday wishes, they looked at me with a perplexed look and asked whether taping notes or cards to the office walls was a violation of firm policy!

My SO bought me a set of Ping G-10 irons with graphite shafts (5-iron through pitching wedge and U (50degree) wedge) for my birthday. The golf clubs are fantastic. The graphite shafts are much lighter than steel shafts so my swing speed and ball speed should increase and I should be able to hit the ball a little further. Also, a graphite shaft club will not vibrate as much as a steel shaft club on a mis-hit (most of my shots), which should help my elbow pain (it is hell getting old!). Finally, the G-10 clubface has a larger sweet spot than the G-2 clubface so that should help me as well.

SO bought the golf clubs on eBay. First of all, you need to understand that SO is extremely competitive and does not like to lose, whether it is in court, playing backgammon and, now I have learned, buying items on eBay. The golf clubs were exactly as advertised. SO paid through PayPal and the clubs were shipped immediately and were exactly as advertised in excellent condition. When bidding, you need to read the eBay information carefully to confirm whether shipping is or is not included, the quality of the item and the seller rating.

SO spent last Saturday night fixated on the eBay auction site. There were three sets of G-10 irons for sale. We agreed on a maximum bid that was $300 below retail and you do not pay sales tax (I am not sure that SO ultimately held to our maximum bid amount). The bidding is timed and you can input a maximum bid amount and eBay will automatically increase your bid to one dollar higher than the highest bid until you reach your maximum bid or you can bid manually, or a combination. There is a lot of bidding strategy that you need to learn. Of course, there is little action until the last 10 minutes of the auction and then you need to be on your toes and try to make your final bid with less than 10 seconds remaining. We did not win the first auction, but we got an idea of the ballpark price for the G-10 clubs so we were ready for the next auction. The next set of clubs included a 3-iron and a 4-iron that I did not need because I use a 3-hybrid and a 4-hybrid. After we lost that auction, you could see that SO was getting frustrated and was intent on "winning" the next auction no matter the cost. The third auction did not include the 3-iron and 4-iron and the buyer paid shipping so we agreed on a further reduced maximum bid amount. SO watched the auction site like a hawk for the next 17 hours and surprise, she was the winner!

I have not seen SO since a week ago Sunday night, but I did get a call from a check-cashing store last night asking for a reference for SO to borrow money to purchase more items on eBay and I have 25 e-mails that say "I won again!".