TSA finds club used | CPT PPP Coverage

Standard golf clubs are not allowed on commercial flights as checked luggage. Neither are clubs used for other purposes, however obscure they might be, the Transportation Security Administration reminded travelers this week.

In an installment this week of the agency’s ongoing review of airline rules for “Prohibited Items Week,” TSA highlighted a particularly unique find by its security agents at the Boise Airport baggage checkpoint in Idaho last month. On March 3, agents discovered a shillelagh — a wooden club or walking stick typically associated with Ireland and Irish folklore — in a traveler’s checked bag. 

“So we had to Google what, exactly, a shillelagh is, but we know that anything that’s made with the intent to bludgeon someone else is not allowed as a carry-on item,” TSA said on Twitter. “Great job our team at @iflyBoise for finding this item last month.”

The Gaelic club, which has a large knob on one end and narrows into sharper point on the other, was traditionally used to “settle disputes in a gentlemanly manner,” TSA Pacific wrote in a tweet. In contemporary times, some people study bataireacht, a type of Irish martial art, using the shillelagh. The one agents found at Boise Airport in March measured about 18 inches long.

“It may look like a miniature golf club, but it’s not,” the agency tweeted, adding: “Bad idea to bring it to the checkpoint; perfect for checked baggage.” 

Like golf clubs, walking sticks and most hiking poles are prohibited from traveling with airline passengers as carry-on items, according to TSA rules. There are exceptions for canes and certain walking sticks that are determined to be medically-necessary assistive devices for passengers, and for hiking poles that are foldable and can fit inside a carry-on sized travel bag.

Huge knives, guns and ammunition are among the collection of additional banned items that TSA has spotlighted on its social media page, as examples of what not to do when attempting to board an airplane. The agency periodically shares stories of bizarre finds by agents at airports across the United States, with standout discoveries from last year including a cat inside a checked bag at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City and a gun stashed inside a raw chicken in another checked bag flagged at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida.