About
A golf publication for people who stay for the second drink.
2ndswingking started as a group chat and a shared note file: three friends, one muni, and a running argument about whether a nine-hole round counts. It counts. Everything here comes from that argument.
Golf writing has a problem: most of it is written for people who are already good, or for people who are thinking about buying something.
We're neither. We play to handicaps between eight and nineteen, we buy our clubs used, we walk when the course lets us, and we've never had a fitting that changed our lives. What we do have is a lot of afternoons on courses nobody writes about, and a conviction that the game is more interesting the further you get from the leaderboard.
That's the beat. Play, practice, gear that's worth the money, courses worth the drive, and the hour after the round that nobody photographs. If it doesn't survive a wet Saturday in October, we don't write about it.
We publish when we have something. Sometimes that's weekly, sometimes it isn't. The Sunday Pin Sheet is the only thing on a schedule, and it's short on purpose.
What we cover
- Play — how the game actually feels, from the first tee to the car park.
- Instruction — practice that shows up on the card, not on the range.
- Gear — things we bought, carried for a season, and would buy again.
- Courses & Travel — the ninety-minute drive, the municipal gem, the bench worth sitting on.
- The 19th Hole — brews, clubhouse food, and the post-round debrief.
Editorial standards
Four rules we don't break
We pay for it
Green fees, clubs, beer. If something was given to us, the piece says so in the first paragraph, not the last.
No affiliate links
We don't earn a commission on anything we recommend. There is nothing to click but the thing itself.
A season, minimum
Nothing gets reviewed after a range session. A full season of real rounds, in real weather, or it waits.
We say when it's fine
"Fine" is a useful verdict and we use it. Not everything needs a recommendation, and most things don't deserve one.
The masthead
Two people and a group chat
Mick Aldergrove writes about play, practice, and the parts of golf that don't show up on a scorecard. Plays to a nine, walks whenever the course lets him.
Dana Reyes covers gear and travel, with a bias toward fewer clubs and cheaper green fees. Keeps a spreadsheet of every course with a bench worth sitting on.
Contact
Pitches, corrections, arguments
We read everything. We're slow to reply and we always reply.
- Pitchespitches@2ndswingking.com
- Correctionscorrections@2ndswingking.com
The Sunday Pin Sheet
One email, every Sunday. Reading, not marketing.
A short dispatch: what we played, what we broke, what we drank, and the one thing worth trying next weekend.