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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

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
bkuehn1952

bkuehn1952

35

I Am Not a Mudder, Are You?

mudder noun mud·der | \ˈmədə(r)\ plural -s Definition of mudder  1 : a race horse that runs well on a wet or muddy track 2 : a player or a team (as in football) that performs well on a wet field    After my final round of 2018, I was thinking about the course conditions the past month or so.  While we have had relatively mild weather, it has been wet.  I don’t do particularly well in wet and muddy conditions.  I play in all sorts of weather: hot, windy
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bkuehn1952

28

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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bkuehn1952

28

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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bkuehn1952

23

“Single Digit”

It seems like most serious golfers, at one time or another, want to be “single digit” players.  Of course, once one has achieved that status it becomes a fight to be a low “single digit”, then scratch, then plus... One problem with this progression is we can’t even truly agree as to what “single digit” means.  I read a post where a player was quite elated to have reached an index of 9.9 and now felt he was a “single digit” golfer.  Another poster quickly added that 9.4 needed to be achieved
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19

Looking back, I wish I had …

It is not good to spend a lot of time regretting decisions we have made.  We don’t have time machines so we can’t go back and change things.  What is past is past.  Learn from your errors and move forward.  Still, it is hard not to occasionally think about prior events. Looking back, I wish I had … …saved my first set of golf clubs.  Or more properly OUR first set of golf clubs because they were shared with my sister and then subsequently my younger brother.  The set would certainly no
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18

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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bkuehn1952

15

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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15

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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bkuehn1952

14

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
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
bkuehn1952

bkuehn1952 in Health

14

I Wish That Poster Would ...

We often hear, “that is a 1st World problem,” when we complain about many of the trivial irritants we encounter during the day.  The following list clearly falls into that category.  In my defense, there is not a lot of golf being played here in the Frozen Mitten right now and that likely explains my irritable mood.  Also, I know at some point I have been guilty of a number of items on the list and likely a lot more!  Still, sometimes it feels good to just vent. ·         Very long posts. 
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14

2019 Rules Changes - Observations After a Season

One of the big changes in 2019 was the USGA/R&A overhaul of the Rules of Golf.  Our Club runs a series of net tournaments for our members.  Our members range in age from 50 to 94 with handicaps of +1 to 36.  I was a bit pessimistic that our members would be able to accommodate all the Rules changes.  After a season of watching our members play in our Tournaments, here are a few of my observations. The option to leave or remove the flagstick has turned out to be a bit of help on pace o
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bkuehn1952

13

I Hate Scrambles

I hate 4-person golf scrambles. Yes, charities raise a fair amount of money holding these events.  I also appreciate that many non-golfers and bad golfers like the 4-person scramble because there is no pressure to perform.  That’s fine, just don’t call me to round out the team. I did not always hate 4-person scrambles.  For a while, long ago, I actually liked joining my buddies in these events.  Swing out of my shoes, drink some beer and chill out for 5+ hours.  What was not to like? 
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bkuehn1952

11

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

End of the Season

My last round of the year was played Wednesday, 12/7/2016.  It wasn’t exactly perfect weather with a high of 37˚ (f) and a 14 mph breeze.  Still, it was sunny and I have played in much worse conditions.  I tend to tell myself that if we had this weather in January or February, we would all be out running around in shorts. It was definitely chilly at the outset but after walking the first three or four holes it was very comfortable.   Living in the north central part of the USA tends to infl
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11
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

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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10

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

Driver Evolution

I have been fortunate to have played golf for close to 55 years.  A lot has stayed the same in golf during that time but much has changed.  I started thinking about the evolution in my driver (or 1 Wood/1 Metal/1 Multi Compound). My first non-junior driver was a laminated maple, steel shafted, leather gripped brown behemoth.  On those rare swings that I hit it on the sweet spot, I could literally state I had hit it on the screws as it had a screwed in insert.  Through high school and colleg
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9

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

Last

Recently a local course was closed and is now in the process of being turned into a subdivision.  I was trying to recall the most recent time I had played there.  I think it was with my former golf buddy, Dave, just prior to his moving out of state.  Neither of us realized it but that round was the last time, the last time we would be at that course and the last time we would play golf together.  Over the course of one’s golf life, there are going to be a number of “last times” somewhere or with
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7

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

Golfer Memory

There is a thread in the “Forums” where the total number of courses played has been discussed.  I have undoubtedly played more courses than the average golfer but certainly not as many as some of the more prolific players have stated.  One point that interested me was a comment someone made about not remembering every course without the aid of an actual written list.  I suspect that many of us could list every course we have played from memory and give some story or incident that occurred.  We m
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7

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


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