hi james!

i can DEFINITELY help you with the golf club thingy! i've got LOTS of traveling experience, and i used to work for lawyers -- and their ONE MOST IMPORTANT BAG was their golf bag!!

what i would do for them is to be sure that everything is placed securely in the bag -- if it were to get tossed around a bit, nothing would fall out.

then i would wrap either a very heavy-weight trash bag or a canopy bag around the top of the bag to cushion the club heads.

depending on how many bags you are checking, you can put them through as a piece of checked baggage, or if you'd like, you can also pay an extra $15-20 and have it checked as "special/oversized baggage," which is usually placed in a special pat of the baggage hull.

hope this is helpful. have a safe trip!

peace, michael.