This is Erik J. Barzeski, Editor in Chief of The Sand Trap. Cody Thrasher, long-time columnist here at The Sand Trap, has had to resign his position due to some increasing demands on the homefront. His parting is peaceful and, should he be able to get some free time once again, temporary.
Cody is still going to participate on our forum, but his (again, possibly temporary) departure does mean one thing: we have space on our staff for someone interested in picking up where Cody left off – with a weekly “Thrash Talk” column.
Interested parties should email erik@ this domain with the subject “Thrash Talk” or they can post in the forum in this thread. Interested? We require at least a little computer skill (not much) and some writing skill (again, not much – that’s what editors are for). We do, however, absolutely require that you have a passion and a love of the game (golf, silly!).
We look forward to hearing from you and wish Cody all the best.
Happy New Year from The Bag Drop, where the arrival of 2006 means the PGA Merchandise Show is only a few weeks away. We’ll hit on some minor news on the Show front, but first let’s look at a cool new development on the golf simulator front.
Welcome back to my section at The Sand Trap. I hope everyone has had a nice, relaxing holiday season fortified by the company of good friends, shared family traditions and hearty food.
This final “hurrah” of the season couldn’t have been any more fun for both the golfers and true fans of the sport.
We’re back and three strong once again as Everardo once again joins Jeff and Erik for the “James Bond” (007) episode of “Golf Talk Podcast.” You can subscribe to the RSS feed for our podcasts 
Rarely are a set of irons so lusted after as 
If you don’t read past the first two paragraphs, take one thing away from this review: these clubs were worth the wait. It takes a lot to knock a set of irons out of my bag, but these irons effectively replaced the irons I was playing (Titleist’s Forged 680) by the turn the first time I played with them. The 680s are a forged, muscleback club with a great amount of feel and feedback, which I had always deemed important to improving my golf game. I never thought a cavity-back club could replicate the feel of a finely crafted muscleback. Until I tried the 735s. They felt so good, I came up with a phrase that I’d rather not repeat here… (but you could find 
The 2005 season on the Nationwide Tour will probably be remembered for Jason Gore’s battlefield promotion to the PGA Tour following his U.S. Open performance, but no one earned more money on the Nationwide Tour than Troy Matteson. He made the cut in 25 of 27 events, had 10 top-10 finishes and thus played his way onto the PGA Tour for 2006.
In the past week or so there has been a good 
Although the Wendy’s 3-Tour Challenge has already been played and its outcome determined, it’s still worthy of some commentary. It’s the only tournament of the year which features golfers from each of the big three tours going head-to-head to determine which tour reigns supreme.