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It takes no talent to be a nice person. You maybe paired up with someone you have never meet or is new to your Club. They don't know anyone and that person is taking a huge step out of their comfort zone to meet new people by playing golf. By being nice to that person for 1 round of golf can make such a tremendous positive impact in their life. Remember: Life is hard, golf is hard, being nice is easy

Do or do not. There is no try.

Let me be clear at least for myself: I don't think there's any sort of "conspiracy" per se. I just think that our "view" of the virus is a bit exaggerated as a country. I'm excluding NYC, Philly, Detroit, and two or three other cities from this, but basically: The mortality rate is lower than most continue to believe. The infection rate is much higher than initially believed. These two go hand in hand. The disease affects older people greatly. They could have been under different restrictions than others. Most areas are seeing massively underwhelming use of their hospital resources. The effects on the economy will last for a decade. Did we over-react? Yes, IMO, we did. But… I was scheduled to go to Pinehurst on a trip at the end of March for a four-day weekend. I said after that weekend had passed (and it was 80° and sunny every day in Pinehurst) that two things were both true: We absolutely made the right call to cancel our trip given the information we had at the time. We could have gone and been completely, totally safe and had a marvelous, wonderful time given the information we learned after the fact. At the time, it seemed likely to most that Pinehurst would also close down, or travel bans would exist state-to-state, or that restrooms would close along the highways… whatever. But after the fact, and having gone to Pinehurst in late April instead for a longer period of time… it would have been fine to go, and was a great mental health boost. In other words, we did and didn't "over-react" because the information we had at the time was that this was a "Very Bad Thing™". Italy, Spain, etc. were being rocked. China was full of shit (have they reported even 1/5th the number of deaths as even NYC yet?). But in hindsight, we could have likely done things differently. We could have: Prepared better. More tests, more masks. This was hampered greatly by the bullshit coming from China. Closed fewer businesses, but had more precautions in place. Masks, customer limits, etc. Done more with restrictions regionally. Many states are big, and Erie ≠ Pittsburgh ≠ Philadelphia. Some good will come of this, too. Some companies are learning that telecommuting can work. Some people are getting to spend more time with their families. We're seeing unprecedented study of corona virus type stuff, which may help fight not only SARS, MERS, COVID-19, but future coronaviruses.

Tier 1: Start a daily stretching routine. People always talk about fitness but often neglect stretching/flexibility. Not only will positively impact your golf game it also will help you feel better in your day to day life.

Tier 1 Take appropriate care of the golf course. Replace divots, fill divot holes with sand mix, repair ball marks (properly), rake bunkers (when rakes come back).

Skip the driver and get those lessons. IIRC you haven't been happy with your play over the last year or two. Now is as good of a time to get working on that as any.

I bought her… this: It's what she wanted! P.S. She thinks flowers (and cards) are a waste of money.

It is a flu. of course - the Concord is an airplane. A Porsche is a car....... What we're tired of is people purposely misrepresenting this thing for various reasons: to continually and remorselessly and exhaustingly push their pro/anti/etc political agendas (I'm been done with the idiotic rationalization by the fringers to push their shit - this is just a continuation of that - can't expect them to put on hold their sole reason for living the life of total assholiness) to satisfy their desire to under or overstate the situation to blissfully soak in a combination of optimism and ignorance to do what they want instead of what they should (did you guys actual LISTEN to the spring breaker interviews? what a product of today's attempts to brainwash the kids - total backfire - and totally predictable) so the grumble is about human nature be smart - keep your separation - wash your hands - stay nice to others - don't hoard shit other people might need too - don't be assholes. Stop proclaiming what OTHERS should do - just be an example and walk the walk. For me - it's just too much talking. (like my post here). Not enough doing. again, be an example, not a preacher it's not rocket surgery oh - and any time ANYONE quotes numbers - make sure to review your statistics textbooks about sampling, causation, correlation, test patterns, etc. Journalists are NOT known for their mathematical rigor.

A Medical Worker Describes Terrifying Lung Failure From COVID-19 — Even in His Young Patients — ProPublica “It first struck me how different it was when I saw my first coronavirus patient go bad. I was like, Holy shit, this is not the flu. Watching this relatively young guy, gasping for air, pink frothy secretions coming out of his tube.” The author interviewed a respiratory therapist who works in an ICU at a hospital affected by COVID-19. I'm going to pull some excerpts from the article. Emphasis is mine:

Golf is a fine balance between trying to score well (it's relative) and play well and enjoying a day in the elements and hopefully with good friends, or at least interesting people. Mcanadiens, you can still pure a 7 iron and get the same pleasurable feedback, whether you are scoring or not.

Sometimes it's good to change things up and just play without the pressure of a score or anything. I sometimes think about playing practice rounds and how those may help me because if I hit an errant shot, who cares, and if I'd really like, I can drop another there and take another shot without concern (provided I don't slow anyone down). Good luck, sir!

Very cool! Not just the invites, but also that they give you an “excuse” to get out and enjoy the game again!

You never get back a round you didn't play.

If you play, it would make for a great blog posting!

Well, the pro wasn't exactly encouraging. But I guess it depends on what you want to gain from the experience. Compete for the 'ship (or a flight)? - sounds like it's probably not setup to give you a run at that. Meet some new people? - maybe. Build some personal mettle by forcing yourself out of your comfort zone? - yeah, may be a good opportunity for that. Have fun? - honestly it doesn't sound like it sets up to be much fun (if it was me). For me - I'm all for meeting people and pushing myself in competition, even when I know I'm outclassed in the talent or experience categories. But I'd have been a little discouraged by the pro's response, and with the fun factor feeling near zero, I'm not sure the other two would be worth it. I'd probably save my money for rounds or instruction. If you think you'd end up having a good time, while maybe meeting a few potential partners for down the road and getting the benefit of pushing yourself a bit, I'd say go for it. But I don't think it'd be gutless at all to skip out. I also wouldn't give a flip about 'considerate'. To me, considerate = being a guy people enjoy playing with (pace, attitude, etc.)...nothing to do with my abilities vs. the field in a tournament that's open to all entries.

If the country would act the way it has for the past couple of months I think we’d have the mildest flu season in years. Not shutting businesses, but with some social distancing and masks it would make a substantial difference.

405.

I know all about it. D1 home run hitter and coached hitters after college. I can talk hitting all day long. On home run swings, yes essentially everyone has to get to same positions to have good results. The Bambino had way too much if a weight shift imo. The majority of your weight should be back at contact. The front side is just to torque into creating power. Of course this is impact which is the only thing that matters consistently. It doesn't matter what you look like after the swing or before for the most part. During his time period yes the babe was a monster but in today's game he would get carved up by any D1 Friday night starter. Yep pujols keeps that weight over the back knee like he should. That is a ball of Fame swing.

Knitting? Cost you your man card, it will...

I made huge improvements in 6 months by working on 5SK skills While reading LSW. He’s just got to put the work in.

Wife got me this a couple years ago. As I walk to the course the neighbor kids come up and say “hey Uncle we like your Yoda” Aloha, iSank

One of my clubs does the same thing, maintains a club only index after a first season (first season is based upon GHIN). The difference is the indexes are only used to determine flights whereas the competitions are gross within flight and overall. I think that avoids your socialism issue but IDK.

It has been 9 months. Let's see the result!

Nice short.

Even better!

Good story. And a good shorts story. So when you hit the ball you're +6. When you don't you're a 26...

Play the appropriate set of tees. Or do your own "blended" set. Most of all, have a blast.

I’m reminded by Teddy Roosevelt ... "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

The result is not what you wanted but you are out there competing and keeping your cool. Tomorrow break 90 or at least give it a go.

Ah heck. You guys are probably right. I'm not slow. Just bad. Checking my ego at the door, getting ready for a world-class shellacking and signing up this evening. Plus side is that it is two rounds early in the morning before it hits 100 degrees outside.

If you play ready golf, they won't care how you play. I say "Go for it"

Definitely NOT gutless if you pass on the opportunity. On the other hand, if you embrace the challenge and look at this as just one more experience to collect, years from now you will have some good stories.

Tier 1: Clean your clubs. Don't get upset the ball didn't spin as much as you wanted it to when your grooves are full of dirt and grass. Tier 2: Learn how to read your lie. Don't try to hit your fairway wood over a forced carry when the ball is buried in deep rough.

How about comparing the US to the EU instead? The Graphic Truth: Two different pandemics – EU vs US - GZERO Media The United States and the European Union have comparable population sizes, but the trajectories of their COVID-19 outbreaks have been vastly different. Data recently released by the European Center for Disease... That's not really a good analogy. In general, obesity and tobacco-related diseases are preventable through lifestyle choices or changes. I guess you could say COVID-19 is preventable through lifestyle choices, but those choices infringe on people's freedom... The recent spike of cases in the states that are making COVID-19 a political issue rather than a medical science one answers this question.

Congratulations to all of you!

And my 32nd was Thursday! Congrats to all of us!

+1

Hey, today's my 15th anniversary! Congrats to us both!

Congrats on the the new home!

Discussing the actual definition of a word is one thing, because even if that word is religious in nature, the conversation is not religious. This has veered into discussing religion, which is forbidden. It ends now.

A lot of people, stuck at home, have nothing better to do than to come and post here. Which is fine; we can be social while "socially distancing" ourselves.

It's not this particular virus that worries me...it's the one in the future that could be even more deadly. COVID-19 is a novel virus, meaning this is the first time it's infected humans so there is no immunity that anyone on the planet has. My late father, who was born in 1914, told me about his vague memories as a small child of something similar, the Spanish Flu, that had three distinct mutations starting in 1918. It was the H1N1 virus that no one had any immunity to either and It was actually the 2nd wave that killed millions. It was estimated that 1/3 of the world's population of 1.5 billion at the time became infected with 50 million deaths. Hopefully, the epidemiologists and other pharmaceutical researchers here in the 21st century can come up with something to combat this but this is just not going to go away as the weather gets warmer and anyone who thinks so is, as Prof. Harold Hill said, "is closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge and are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the presence of a pool table (substitute the word "virus") in your community. And so we have trouble my friends, trouble right here." (Meredith Wilson - The Music Man)

Don’t “Flatten the Curve,” stop it! - Joscha Bach - Medium You have all seen a version of this curve of COVID-19 case loads by now: It's much graver than you think. The sudden high number of people who will need to be in intensive care is much greater than the number of people who die. Think of it this way, 3% of people just don't fall over dead. That would be a lot cleaner. 6% of people need to be put on a ventilator. If this infects 40% of the population, 143,000,000 people, then 8.1 million of them will need to be on a ventilator. "if hospitals put all existing ventilators to use, we have 160,000 of them. In addition, the CDC has a strategic stockpile of 8900 ventilators that can be deployed in hospitals that need them." Social distancing accomplishes two things. 1. It spreads out the number of people who need a ventilator so it doesn't overload the system as bad as it would otherwise. 2. It gives more time to find a cure. The lucky people are those who get hit with this thing either really early or really late or not at all.

It’s infuriating how uninformed / willfully ignorant people can be. Information is not that hard to get these days. Hundreds of thousands to potentially millions of American lives are at risk, this goes way beyond politics. I just hope enough people catch on and start doing the right thing. I like to believe that we’re moving in the right direction but I’m not sure.

I have to agree with you. If I could add, I'm also pretty tired of folks using this as a means to advance their political agenda. Folks on both sides of the aisle. Cut it out!

I've tried hitting a 64 degree wedge into a frozen green, straight up and straight down. Still lands as if on a trampoline and bounces over the green. The time I am referring to the greens were frozen but the fairway fronting the greens was soft, wet and soggy. So any British Open approach to the greens didn't work either.

Sounds like fun, living in Illinois years ago my son and I played a hole that was dog leg right with a lake to the right. I pushed my drive which would have been wet but solid ice the ball bounced and skidded across the lake to a chip away from the green. Never could do that in July.

I may not be entirely sane, but that sounds like a lot of fun. Not to play in every time, but doing it once and just trying to do your best in the conditions. It helps that it was cheap though. I don't really want to pay full freight for that. I played last December where there was no frost, the fairways were fine, but the greens were still frozen for the first 9 holes or so. That was a lot of fun because you would try to get the ball to bounce just in front of the green, and then the ball would have the right combination of spin and speed to stop on the green. There was a way to pull it off. It was really fun when it worked.

Now that's one way to move a couch in the city.

Yeah, but that constitution was written 250 years ago by white, old, rich men. Doesn't have any relevance to today's times. It's a living, breathing document that should adapt to evolving circumstances. Written with tongue in cheek but hopefully I get my point across. Sorta chaps my ass when lefties use the above then firmly embrace the aspects they like (their favorite almost invariably being church/state separation). I like the whole thing because I believe our founders were perhaps the wisest men ever assembled to create a nation. It is the foundation upon which the greatest country ever conceived is lain.