REVIEW: Sun Mountain Golf Eco-Lite stand bag
Equipment

REVIEW: Sun Mountain Golf Eco-Lite stand bag

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Plastics makes perfect -- in this case anyway. If you’re someone who steadfastly uses recycled bags at the supermarket, is obsessive about sorting your home trash, hugs trees after hitting them with errant shots and/or genuinely cares about the wellbeing of the earth, then the Sun Mountain Eco-Lite golf bag will make you grin.

You’ll gladly bear it, considering it weighs less than 4 pounds. It’s like playing naked, with clothes on.

Evaluation

NEW FEATURES: The fabric used on the Eco-Lite golf bag is made from recycled plastic bottles. I thought that would be weird and that it would feel cheap. Not at all. If anything, it feels stronger.

DEFINING FEATURES: It has six external pockets, including a velour-lined pouch for valuables, a hydration sleeve and a full-length pocket for apparel (and extra golf balls). The 9-inch top has a wide-open, solid, four-part divider and a comfort-grip handle. The strap system is Sun Mountain’s patented E-Z Lite Dual Strap and yet, impressively, all of that equals less than four pounds (before I add too many extra golf balls).

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES: The material is amazingly durable. The legs extend logically and don’t wobble. The straps are easy to adjust. The color schemes are fire. (Slang for “hot.”) The weight is, again, impressively minimal. This bag is everything I look for in an ideal carry bag. It’s not waterproof, but neither am I, so, if you don’t want to get wet, don’t play in the rain.

COMPARABILITY: There is literally nothing else on the market like it. If you like unique products, that alone should be a strong selling point. The bag comes in four different bold color schemes: Black-White-Gunmetal-Red, Cadet-Inferno-Gunmetal, Navy-Red-Cobalt and (my personal favorite) the “Irish” Rush-Green.

COST AND VALUE: With a retail price of only $220, it comes in well below many similarly built products by other companies. If you tell yourself they used 25 Fiji water bottles to build your specific bag, you can almost feel like you got $100 for free ($150 if you buy your bottled water at the airport). At that rate it’s a steal. At that rate, I’d buy two of them. And maybe even carry both at the same time if that means I can play with 28 clubs.

Unless you exclusively fly Southwest Airlines, you’re well aware of “the 50 pound rule," a flying golfer’s archenemy. Not with this bag.

“You can take four more boxes of balls along,” my son said, implying I might somehow lose the four dozen I’d already jammed in my travel bag.

He’s right. This bag is so light, and yet so well built it’s almost unbelievable. I’ll no longer be the guy the caddies dread, and my son might even let me play with him and his friends. Why would the weight of the bag matter to him and his friends? It’s not the weight.

“That bag is sick, Dad,” he says. “Totally sick.”

Sick in a good way, apparently. I get a lot of products to test that I’ll never use. I shan’t say that about this bag. This sucker is loaded and ready to go. Now, if only having the coolest bag on the course made me the best golfer on the course, too. Definitely not the case. My game is still sick. Just in a bad way.

Eric Hart was provided equipment for review by the manufacturer.

About the author

Eric N. Hart

Eric Hart (aka MobileGolfer) is an award-winning travel and leisure writer for Golf News Net and the owner of Stays + Plays Travel Agency in the Midwest. Eric has stayed at 250-plus resorts and hotels around the world and played 500-plus golf courses. He has worked with 16 tourism agencies and written more than 1,100 articles for 14 regional, national and international golf, family and travel publications since he began in 2007. With a passion for promoting both golf and family travel, Eric routinely hits the road with his son and/or the full family (wife and four kids).

Reach Eric by email at info[at]staysandplays.com