I enjoy the occasional round of golf, which is to say I get my money's worth by running up a combination of 110-120 swings, chips, putts, hand wedges and furtive kicks.

So I'm delighted by the positively balmy weather we've recently experienced. It means soon I'll be out on the course, cursing and making excuses while wondering which hole hides the next snack shack. It also got me thinking about my current equipment, traded for at a local pawn shop and certainly adequate for my low-level skills. Still, it's the duffer who thinks that new $400 driver will turn him from Al Czervik to Jesper Parnevik.

I hit a few of the web sites looking for the newest gadget, but my favourite was revealed on me in a link dump on SportsFilter, and you have to see it to believe it. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the amazing Golf Ball Launcher!

I'm not sure what's funnier about this -- the idea that these guys are seriously marketing this as an alternative to carrying around a bag of clubs, or the fact they couldn't have picked a bigger redneck for the guy in the first picture. Nothing says golf more than jeans and tennis shoes.

There are some neat features to this gizmo. You can adjust the power to fire a ball from 25 to 300 yards, so it's good anywhere on the course (well, maybe not in the clubhouse, although I bet you'd get the bartender's attention pretty quickly). The inventors also make sure you know it can be fired right from the cart, which takes all the pesky standing up and sitting down out of your round.

Still, if these are made legal, someone in Georgia is going to shoot his buddy for sneezing during his aim. For that reason, I can't recommend the Golf Ball Launcher -- or the haircut that guy in the picture has.