It’s that time of the summer again: late August, when my age always goes up a year and my handicap goes down a couple strokes. Just in time for the season to wind down, some drives are finding the fairway and putts are finally dropping.

Sigh.

So, to make myself feel better, I find the best golf gifts I can and, well, I get them for myself. And, of course, I write about them.

So here it is: My Wish List for 2019.

Volvik Marvel Avenger Golf Balls

Volvik, official golf ball of the World Long Drive, is offering their premium 3-piece Vivid matte balls with Captain America, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Hulk colors and logos. These balls are absolutely gorgeous! I mean, when I opened these and beheld their graphics and the matching hat-clip ball markers, I wept harder than I did at the end of Infinity War. I’m frankly scared to play them because I don’t want to lose any. I simply cannot bear to see Spidey disappear or lose Tony Stark again.

CBD Products

CBD, the THC-free component of cannabis, has exploded in popularity. It’s being touted as an anti-inflammatory, a mood stabilizer, a digestive aid, and more. One media contact for several CBD products reports that his wife says he’s “less of an a$$h*le” since he’s been taking CBD daily, so he’s sticking with it. I have no idea if it works or not, to be honest (my wife says it sounds promising, though).

Ever since receiving a CBD goodie bag, I’ve been sampling a wide variety of products. One of my favorites is The Midnight Oil hemp extract infused coffee by SleepFuze. There are 360mg of CBD per bag of beans, but the flavor is rich and full as any other gourmet coffee. I also enjoy tea, so the SleepFuze hemp extract Black Blend tea (180mg CBD per tin). If you’d rather use your own favorite coffee blend, there’s Barista Blend powdered water-soluble CBD from UnCanny that you can just scoop into your drip coffee basket or right into your cup o’ Joe.

Maybe you’d prefer CBD as a supplement. Evo Hemp offers hemp extract drops and capsules at 10mg and 25mg per serving/capsule, as does Evolved Alchemy (25mg CBD per capsule). I prefer the tasteless, ordorless capsules. Finally, maybe you’ve read about the benefits of hemp but are not sold on CBD. Hemp is actually a nutrient-rich foodstuff, and Evo Hemp offers 8oz bags of shelled hemp hearts, which make great additions to salads, yoghurt, toast, stir-fry – pretty much anything. Each 3tbsp serving contains no carbs, only trace sugar, 11% fiber, and a host of minerals including 110% of your daily manganese, 45% phosphorus & magnesium, and substantial percentages of your daily allowances of iron, thiamin, zinc, and vitamin B6.

After enjoying all of these hemp-derived treats for several weeks, I asked my wife if I was less of an a$$h*le. She said, “Well, why don’t you just keep taking that stuff?” So maybe the jury’s still out. And in any case, the Evo Hemp cap is pretty hipster!

InvisaSox and Tattoo Golf

My nicest clothes are golf-related. I own one dress suit, but I have over a half-dozen rain suits. I don’t have more than 3 pairs of dress shoes, but my trunk is home to 30+ pairs of golf shoes. If I head to the course and my golf shoes, belt, and cap don’t match, I feel naked. So let me tell you, I got pretty excited when Tattoo Golf sent me an email about their new line of colored golf gloves – red, orange, purple, white, and various combinations of black and white ($18). Heck, I don’t even normally wear a glove, but if I can match my red and black golf shoes with my red belt, red cap, AND red golf glove – oh, baby, you bet your bottom birdie I’m going to be styling my next round.

I also like to match my sox to my outfits, but sometimes that’s not so easy. The next best thing is not showing any sock at all. InvisaSox are super-comfy, ultra-thin bootie sox that hug your feet and heels with a guaranteed no-slip fabric blend. My golf shoes glide smoothly across them, ensuring a blister-free walk. The only downside is that they’re so small and thin, they’re tough to find in the laundry.

SkyCaddie SX500 GPS

As a golf writer, I play a lot of different courses around the world, from the Dominican Republic to Iceland. Sometimes it’s tricky to get a feel for a course or for certain holes, never having seen them before. The SkyCaddie SX500 GPS ($350) is the 20th anniversary release from SkyGolf. WiFi connectivity, a 5-inch touch screen, IntelliGreen® technology, with contour and breaks of all greens for 35,000 preloaded, ground-verified, error-corrected courses. My son and I used the SX500 during a trip to Michigan and found it supremely helpful navigating timber-lined fairways and blind landing areas. The best part is that it charges extremely fast and the battery life stretches easily over at least two rounds. The second-best thing is the flexible bracket that mounts the SX500 onto any golf cart (or even push cart).

So as I console myself over another golf season – and as another year of my bit part in this mortal coil comes to an end – I swallow my CBD, don some colorful accessories, tee up a Captain America ball, and map out my strategy on another new course.

Excelsior!