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About this blog

The occasional random golf-related thoughts pop into my head. The blog efforts of several other TST members has inspired me to give it a try again. No one should anticipate a cohesive series of blog entries.  I go where the mental winds blow.  ;-)

The photo was taken at Carnoustie as I and my fellow golfers/caddies walk down the fairway. I am on the far left.

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Entries in this blog

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

I suspect I am like many other golfers after a round.  We look at the scorecard and begin to analyze our round with a pair of rose-tinted glasses.  “If I would have just …”  If I could have …”  I should have …”  It is fun imagining how making better club selections, being more conservative/aggressive and taking a bit more time over that putt would-could-should have resulted in a score several shots better. Perhaps this exercise is why we often over value the “mental game” versus the physica
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bkuehn1952

10

Winter Golf

When I use the term “winter golf” I am not talking about trudging through snow drifts and playing orange golf balls.  There are certainly people who engage in that sort of activity and enjoy it.  Hitting out of a snow drift to a rock hard green, however, isn’t close enough to golf for me.  I played in one “Chilly Open” and while it was fun there was no need to repeat that experience. “Winter golf” to me is the time period in SE Michigan that starts around Thanksgiving and ends when snow bla
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2
Winter

Winter at Leslie Park Golf Course

Something a little different for this post. My wife and I walk local golf courses in the off season for exercise and as a change of pace. We tend to go to courses when there is minimal snow (1-3 inches) on the ground. Walking through deeper snow is a real chose. Following a cross country sier's trail makes it a little easier.   Some enterprising individuals have made a skating rink on the par-3 17th hole's pond.   Some major tree trimming have been recently p
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bkuehn1952 in Winter

1

Wildlife Encounters

One of the many reasons I enjoy golf is that it is an outdoor game.  One has the opportunity to view nature up close, especially when one’s golf game is as erratic as mine.  Too often I have opportunities to view both woodland and aquatic habitats while attempting to play golf. Over the past 50 years I have had numerous encounters with our local wildlife.  While I have had to escape a swarm of bees when I inadvertently disturbed their nest with my follow through and watched a golf buddy ge
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bkuehn1952

15

TST Michigan

The first TST-Michigan outing is in the books.  We exceeded our target with a total of seven TST’ers meeting up in Okemos, MI.  A few observations: It was interesting meeting the people behind the user names and avatars.  My plan was to get to the course a bit early to put out a small “TST” sign to attract the members as we wandered in.  Before setting out the sign, I passed a gentleman a couple times and I strongly suspected he was part of our outing. Why?  No idea other than he seemed a
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6

Trees (and Patience Rewarded)

I recently read a short posting by an excellent golf blogger, Charles Prokop.  A link is below.  I highly recommend his blog for short, well-written essays on golf and life in the Texas Hill Country. http://fairwaywords.com/2015/11/06/patience-in-golf-really-does-pay/ His tongue-in-cheek conclusion about the virtues of being patient got me thinking.  I have played golf in SE Michigan for 40 years.  Over those four decades I have played around, over and through a number of trees tha
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28
Health

To the Brink and Back

If you are looking for a golf story, time to move on. Last year we had a dead tree taken down. I asked the tree guys to cut the trunk into moveable chunks.  I subsequently chain-sawed them into log-size pieces.  In early December I started splitting the large pieces into usable logs for our fireplace with a wedge and 10-pound sledgehammer. After a few days of intermittent wood-splitting I noticed I had a persistent headache and/or a stiff & sore neck.  I began popping 2 ibuprofens every
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bkuehn1952 in Health

14

The WHS

I recently attended a USGA sponsored seminar on the new World Handicap System (WHS).  Our Club needed to have one member certified by the USGA and as handicap chairman, I was the logical choice. As a member of TST and from reading material on the WHS, I was familiar with the general outline of the changes and new procedures.  My hope was that the seminar would fill in a lot of the details.  It did. Two items on the agenda were most interesting to me. Playing Conditions Calculation
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3
Blogging

The Slow Death of a Blog

I was thinking about the impending start of my 2023 golf season. Hmmm, it seemed like a decent topic for my “Blog.” Nope, I already blabbed on that subject a while ago. Then I noticed how rarely I am moved to write a blog entry. My blogging on TST began in 2016.  My blog entries have slowly dwindled: 2016       27 2017       10 2018         2 2019         6 2020         5 2021         2 2022         3 2023         ? Undoubtedly there was much celebrat
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bkuehn1952 in Blogging

11
Attitude

The Season's Last Round

It seemed like my off season was going to start early when we had a cold snap and snow in early November. Fortunately, 2022-2023 is an El Nino year for the Mitten and we had a very temperate December with very little snow. I managed to play four rounds in December, including New Year’s Eve. My 2023 year started early with a round at Lake Forest GC (Ann Arbor) on January 3. The round in January was a real lifesaver. My previous attempt at golf on the last day of December had been a mess. I c
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bkuehn1952 in Attitude

4

The Older We Get, The Further We Used to Hit It

Getting older is inevitable unless you are a vampire or one of the walking dead.  As a golfer, the aging process becomes noticeable in a number of ways. While many of us senior citizens remain in reasonably good shape and still have some limberness, one can’t help but notice the inevitable signs of getting older.  My physician has started the process of freezing off bits of my head and hands from years of sun exposure.  Hats and sun screen were for sissies back in the day.  Haircuts for we
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14

The Nine Hole Conundrum

It is always fascinating to me how all sports seemed to have developed a structure that tests the participants for a sufficient length of time to separate the wheat from the chaff.  In football one has to play both halves. Remember the Super Bowl?  The seventh inning stretch doesn’t end the game, the 8th and 9th innings must be played. Long ago when the game of golf was being formed, somehow the founders knew that 9 holes would not require the consistency a truly sound golfer must have to succee
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15

The Life & Death of Golf Forums

Many people start golf blogs or forums with good intentions of maintaining the site for an infinite period of time.  The sad truth is most rarely make it for more than a year or two.   I first became acquainted with the idea of a golf blog/forum when a site called “Last Minute Golfer (LMG)” existed.  Really, the forum was just an afterthought.  The main reason for LMG was to sell spots 24-48 hours prior to the tee time.  They must have done reasonably well because eventually GolfNow swallow
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7

The Irritable Golfer

Well, the snow is gone and I have had a chance to wander out to the course a few times. While a casual round is a time to relax for most of us, often all I do is work on my ulcers thinking about the myriad ways course owners and green keepers do a number on me.  To be sure, not every course is guilty of these transgressions but they are common enough that most of us are familiar with a few of these issues. Tee Markers – One is allowed to tee the ball in a rectangular area defined by the mar
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10

The End to Sand Bagging?

Each summer for the past 7 years I have played in a series of 12-14 “net” tournaments with 100+ fellow senior golfers.  Over the years I have enjoyed some success but nothing out of the ordinary.  We typically have 4 flights of 25-30 players with each flight competing against similar handicapped individuals.  Everyone uses their full USGA-certified handicap index to develop their tournament course handicap.  Our prize structure is $100/$80/$60/$40/$20 for the top 5 “net” scores (plus ties) in ea
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23

The End of Sandbagging - Part II

This somewhat continues a blog posting from 2016.  If anyone is interested (Anyone?... Anyone?... Bueller), here is a link: https://thesandtrap.com/blogs/entry/91-the-end-to-sand-bagging/ Fast forward 4+ years and I now occupy the highly sought-after position of Handicap Chairman.  We modified the Knuth Tournament Point System for our club.  Members accumulate points over the course of the season but, rather than roll the points over to the next year, we start fresh.  One of the biggest dra
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7

The Eagle Has Landed

Early in 2016 I asked some of my online friends when was the last time they made eagle. I had discovered, to my chagrin, that while I thought it had been a year or two, it actually had been nearly 5 years.  Many of my online buddies confessed to similar droughts.  At the time I joked that we all had better start taking dead aim. Shortly thereafter, a golf buddy remarked that I was one of the better wedge players he knew.  He said I always seemed to be right in line with the target and usu
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11

Streaks

If the weather holds and I manage to play a round of golf in November, it will mark the 45th consecutive month that I have played golf in Michigan.  The last month I did not manage to play 18 holes was February, 2015.  Yes, I am one of those fools wandering around on the course when it is 35 degrees.  While I can handle cold and wind, I do have some standards as far as conditions.  I neither play when the greens are frozen solid as concrete nor if the course is mostly or entirely covered in snow
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14

Solo

There are not a lot of games one can play solo.  Solitaire in cards, I suppose.  Video/online games where one doesn’t need a human or computer-based opponent.  One can run or ride a bicycle to beat one’s best time but I wouldn’t think most of us would consider those types of activities as a game.  Most games need an opponent in order to create a contest.  So golf and bowling are somewhat unique in that one’s opponent is not a person but a standard, par in the case of golf and “300” for bow
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2
Playing

Shooting Your Age

As I approached the age of 70, my thoughts turned toward shooting my age. It sort of becomes a race against time and the erosion of one’s golf skills. At age 70, I managed a 1-under par 71. Close but no cigar. Early this year I was standing on the 17th tee when it dawned on me that I was 1-under on a par 72 layout. “Hey, I can shoot my age!!!” Two bogies later I had a 73 and another failed attempt at shooting my age. Today did not seem like the moment I might achieve one of my goals. I had
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bkuehn1952 in Playing

5

Senior Ryder Cup - Indiana Style

This Monday I travel to the Ft. Wayne, IN, area for a Ryder Cup-style event between a group of senior golfers from Michigan versus a similar group in Indiana.  We are only going to play two days with the first day a team game, either foursomes or four-ball, or maybe a combination.  The second day is singles. I have never played a competitive foursomes or four-ball match.  I suspect most of the other players on the MI team have no experience, either.  I will need to brush up on the few Rul
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1

Senior Golf - Slow, Rude, Clueless & Angry

It can be Hell getting old, but becoming a senior golfer has its benefits.  Senior rates save one a bundle in greens fees.  People expect us to tee off from the forward tees.  In fact, it can be fairly easy to impress others who assume anyone over the age of 60 should be in a rest home.  I became a minor celebrity one day down in Florida.  As I was making the turn the starter asked if I was checking in.  I told him I was making the turn.  He nodded and said, “Oh, you are the guy who walks and ca
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35

Seasonal Sandbagging

Our state association recently announced that the handicap reporting season has been extended to November 15.  This came after they opened the reporting season early with a March 15 opening rather than the traditional April 1st date. I am all for reporting as many scores as possible but extending the handicap reporting season, on both ends, seems like a bad idea.  Certainly most courses in Southeast Michigan become playable by mid-March and remain so until mid-November.  There is a big di
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9

Rules

I enjoy Rules discussions.  One learns a few things and also experiences another’s perspective.  I started playing competitive golf late in life (35 or so) but I made it a point to learn the Rules well before I ever entered a tournament.  Frankly, I see no point in playing any game without a clear understanding of the Rules.  Collecting double the rent on an unimproved Monopoly or “castling” in chess are details and one can play either game without knowing the rule.  One is likely, however, to s
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1

Random Friday Thoughts

Disappointment – For me the most disappointing result in golf is when I hit a green in regulation and then 3-putt.  Yes, a “5” on a par 4 is a bogey no matter how one achieved that result.  Still, having a GIR and then throwing it away with my putter stings a bit more.  I am going to make a fair amount of mistakes and poor shots during a round and they often lead to bogey (or worse!).  When I manage to put together a decent drive and a well struck approach shot, I really need to make par (or bet
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4


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