Kids’ Set of Clubs Comes Complete With Attitude

No more of the father’s fantasy, popping a spare six-iron into a vise, hacksawing it to fit the child and then jamming on a $2.98 rubber grip, all with an idea that it’s an investment in the kid’s future . . . and maybe in the old man’s.

No, Jerry Davis wants the kid to have his own clubs, but not like the junior models from Sears or the new junior set that Callaway is rumored to be introducing this fall.

“We call it golf with an attitude,” says Davis, president of Grips Golf Gear, an Agoura Hills start-up company.

His clubs will have a painted-on logo that looks like something that escaped from a skateboard.

The logo is a golf ball with a face like a linebacker with a quarterback in his sights and flames leaping from where his hair might be if the sphere--70 compression, just right for juniors and available from Grips--hadn’t been spanked with a 16-degree driver with a 35-inch shaft (ages 6-8) or 39-incher (9-12).

Dad’s stick has a 45-inch shaft, for comparison’s sake.

The driver is the only wood, and there are three-, five-, seven- and nine-irons, plus a pitching wedge and putter, all with graphite-composite shafts.

The lot, plus a bag, will probably retail for $139.95. Grips also will sell golf shirts, T-shirts, golf gloves and hats . . . all with the flame-trailing ball logo that Tiger Woods might have insisted Earl Woods buy if it had been around in 1985 or so.