Why this pro gambler used to use 2 golf bags on the course

If you’ve ever gambled on the golf course, you probably understand that people will do some pretty unorthodox things when money is at stake.

Ben Lamb is no exception. In an appearance on this week’s episode of Subpar, Lamb described the unconventional ways he would approach a round of golf when he was teeing it up with his fellow gamblers.

So what kind of things are we talking about? For Lamb, “greasing” — the act of applying Vaseline or Chapstick to the clubface — was an accepted practice. (The grease helped the ball go farther, higher, and stay on-line.) The group would also play the ball down pretty much everywhere unless hitting it could injure you.

But perhaps the most out-of-the-ordinary practice during those rounds was the number of clubs each player would pack. According to Lamb, he carried as many as 22 clubs across two different bags.

“Back in that time period — the grease days — I had two sets of golf clubs on my golf cart at Shadow Creek,” Lamb told hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz. “I had all my golf clubs, and then the other one was all wedges. I had 46, 48, 50, 52. Every two degrees, all the way up to 64. And me and Nick had gone out there, and we had measured the distances on like an 80-percent swing on all of them. It was a real repeatable swing. Took it to here, whatever. So if I was 71 yards, I’d use the 64. If I was 77 yards, I’d use the 62. I had probably more than 22 clubs back then.”

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Those days are now far behind Lamb, who has taken a more conventional approach to the game in recent years.

“I’m reformed, I have no grease,” Lamb said. “There’s currently 15 clubs in my bag. But I take one out before the round.”

For more from Lamb, including the details of his round with Tiger Woods, check out the full interview below.

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of female varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everyone on the masthead. She can out-hustle them in the office, too, where she’s primarily responsible for producing both print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview series, “A Round With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in both in the magazine and in video form on GOLF.com.