NEOHMark

I've always found range balls to be terribly dead. I don't even pay attention to distance on full swing shots, just direction.

No doubt. But I do find it interesting the same universe of folks (this forum) can question whether or not wearing jeans on the golf course is beneath the game's standards and also discuss whether or not breaking a putter in anger during a public PGA tournament makes the players more interesting and less robotic.

I s'pose the only reason Tiger should enter the discussion is perhaps the role he played in making tantrums and throwing clubs - while playing public tourneys - more-or-less accepted behavior. He's surely not the first PGA player to throw tantrums and clubs, but he is the first GREAT player I can recall ever doing so. Nicklaus, Palmer, Watson, Faldo, et al were always much more subdued in their self-critique and anger. Tiger was the first to bring it out in the open and have people pretty much look the other way because of his greatness. I think it's fair to openly question whether or not that has allowed this kind of behavior to creep into the PGA overall? Regarding Hoffman - he should definitely be fined. Anger is anger, and it's a display of poor sportsmanship. In other games they have rules to keep this under control, but many times the administrators of the respective sports go over and above game time penalties and impose fines and suspensions beyond that. With golf, there's nothing in the rule book against such behavior so the PGA has no choice but to impose some sort of sanction outside the field of play. Some people love it though. NASCAR fans have always loved a good ol' boys brawl. The NBA has never been more popular with players so full of themselves with entitlement attitudes, and trash-talk being an accepted part of the game. I suppose it was inevitable for some of that to creep into the pro golf game. JMHO

Back to the OP question - at what point? I believe it was when he was the underdog for that period of time when he wore the mantle of 'best ever to not win a major'. IIRC, that was maybe a 2-3 year span when he was in the hunt at seemingly every major but coming up agonizingly short. People root for an underdog. Tiger never was an underdog, he was more of 'the chosen one', so to speak, so Phil was the perfect foil in that one-on-one popularity contest. And then he broke through and that made the perfect feel-good story. He's seemingly a nice guy, doesn't throw tantrums while playing. He isn't curt, pithy, or condescending with his public statements. And he doesn't project an entitled attitude while trying to veil it in a false sense of humility. In short, personality wise, he's everything Tiger isn't.....and people love him for that. Y'know, it's not all that much different than Jack v Arnie (though Arnie was King prior to Jack knocking him off the throne). Arnie was the guy with the smile, the air of sincerity, and the underdog to root for. Jack had that cocky arrogance that made a lot people outright hate him....as good as he was. And notwithstanding, Phil has the ultimate feel-good story with a marriage of fidelity and a wife who is a cancer survivor. It's hard to root against him.

Being a child of the 60s and 70s, there is very little anyone can throw on and hit the links with that seem more outlandish to me than some of the crap worn in the late 60s through mid 70s. You want loud fashion? Bring up a few old clips of J Miller, Nicklaus, Watson, et al and see how well they 'wore it'. And then, of course, every MAWG in America then brought those same 'fashions' to your local muny (YIKES!!). For my eyes, I'd much rather see the young ladies sportin' the trendy stuff. Whether or not they can actually play isn't even relevant, IMHO. If they're going to be out there, why not at least look good?

Since my playing partners are usually my 26 and 22 yr-old sons, they have free access to every club in my bag. Anyone else? Not so much.

Did anyone see Stadler's Lefthanded wedge chip from the edging on 17? Pretty nicely done.

43, in league play. Doesn't sound all that great, but it helped trim another .2 off the hcp. I have my sights set at getting to single digits and today's round gets me to less than a stroke away. I'm stoked.

Frankly? A mulligan or two gives him back well more than just the one or two strokes he retakes, IMHO. OB, lost ball, and other trouble can easily add up to 3, 4, maybe even 5 strokes across two 'mulligans' in 18 holes. He may post 2-5, but if he played it down, he's probably more like a 6-10 IMHO. I'll sometimes (on an empty course) play two balls like a two-person scramble as an exercise to see what my potential is. Surprisingly, the second ball isn't usually wildly better scoring than the first, but it's usually 2-3 strokes per side. Those couple/three strokes are usually clustered on only a couple of holes - where the first shot ended up in more than enough trouble where a mulligan would've come in quite handy (like your friend's 'mulligan or two'). I don't post these scores for hcp purposes, but it is an interesting exercise to show how eliminating just a couple bad shots per side can reap much more than just those shot strokes themselves and show you what you CAN score if you played very near your best on any given day. JMHO

I prefer to watch The Players over the PGA Championship any day. I love the fact it's played, like The Masters, on the same course every year. Add in the BIG money, and the stellar field - I'd call it 'the fifth'. Then again, what do I know?

I work in the chemical industry. The big names are all very active in trying to be able to market a 'green' product that the public will buy (their R&D; depts are immense). jamo is correct - it comes down to the price the market is willing to pay.

I was accused of being a sandbagger in my first season of our league - when I made the finals. When I made the finals the second season, the choruses of 'sandbagger' went away. Especially since I crumbled in the finals and was the runner up two years in a row.....

Not semi-pro at all - just playing ready golf. Not racing either. The caveat is - our league has no one....and I mean no one....in front of us. Our slower guys often get out in the first group, so the faster pace isn't the norm - rather just possible when the better/faster players get out first. Our course is not real happy if you are turning #9 in more than 2 hours. 2:00 front nine, 2:06 back nine - I believe is their MAXimum pace-of-play posted.

Our local courses will chastise your group if the pace is over four hours. The better players in our league (most of them walk, BTW) can do it in closer to 3:15 or so.

Ultimately it depends on how you hit them, but those MP60s have a target market of mostly single-digit players. IMHO you'd benefit from a more forgiving club, based on your handicap.

If his knees were better, I think he could win at least another 5 or 6 majors. I think the knees will become more and more of an issue as time goes on - probably limiting his playing time to 'just' the majors and higher-profile tourneys. I think it'll be kind of akin to Freddie Couples' back situation. Certainly, Fred remains competitive, but the reality is he hasn't won a PGA Tour event since he was 44 - and only won four times past the age of 35. Time is not on anyone's side once a fairly serious injury occurs. Add to that mix some of the strong, younger opponents on the tour now, and I think Tiger has his work cutout to even get to 18 majors. But who knows? Vijay won three majors post-40 and has the most wins past the age of 40 (22 I t believe). But Vijay played a lot of tournaments in that stretch. Tiger's knees may be the deciding factor in whether or not he can maintain the kind of playing pace required to keep his game sharp and be in the hunt enough times to have a chance to keep winning. JMHO

YEah - I read that completely wrong. I think he's taking total putts and dividing it by GIR - my bad. A literal interpretation of putts per GIR could be # of putts divided by those holes he reached in GIR. That's not what he meant, I'm sure.

You joined the forum just now so you could get that off your chest, didn't you? FWIW - I am in comPLETE agreement. Contrary to common belief, I think carts can actually slow the game down - not speed it up. Your scenario is spot-on more often than not - while walkers go straight to their ball, do their routine more or less simultaneously with the others in the group, and then hit-and-walk. I'm the exception in our league, but I think nothing of hopping out of the cart (if riding) and walking FIFTY yds to my ball just to get a good idea of the lie, the yardage, and the shot. By the time my riding partner has completed his shot and brought my bag to me, I've done at least 2/3s of my pre-shot mental stuff and just have to pluck a club and hit..... Welcome to the forum, BTW!

I'm not so sure he he's a shoe-in to catch Nicklaus' record at this point. He has exactly the same number of Majors now at age 35 that Jack had at the same age - 14. Jack won three more by age 40, and then his swan song at The Masters at age 46. Nicklaus' wins by year: 1962 U.S. Open 1963 The Masters PGA Championship 1965 The Masters 1966 The Masters British Open 1967 U.S. Open 1970 British Open 1971 PGA Championship 1972 The Masters U.S. Open 1973 PGA Championship 1975 The Masters PGA Championship 1978 British Open 1980 U.S. Open PGA Championship 1986 The Masters

I think it you asked a lot of course supers, they'd tell you they are only giving the public what it wants/demands. A golf course doesn't have to be such a huge environmental impact on the area, but few players want to put up with less-than-pristine conditions. You don't NEED fairways lush and green and cut to a perfect 1/2" height to play the game, but we expect it anymore. I'm 50 years old and I can remember the average playing condition of typical munys and other public courses being MUCH lower than it is today. The expectation is so high though now, that if a golf course wants to attract any appreciable amount of business, they have to keep their course's condition at what would've been considered resort-level just a couple decades ago. Golf courses are no longer 'placed' on a terrain - taking advantage of the local lay of the land, they're now 'carved' out of the terrain. Many newer courses don't even remotely resemble the lay of the land they've replaced. The architects of these tracts do it because they are paid handsomely, and the playing public expects nothing less.

It's definitely not just you. Yesterday I could do no wrong with my 'scoring' wedges to some very tight pin placements. Three 30-yd-and-under flop shots to within 5 ft of the cup, and I couldn't hole a single putt. Other days I can't miss with the putter but can't chip it close enough to even give myself a chance.....sigh.

Agreed - I think (though I'm not 100% certain as to how you meant this). When you think about it, the stymie rule used to allow you to control what your opponent could - or couldn't do - by allowing a defensive play to be made on the green. Billiard players do it all the time. Sometimes a great billiard shot is one that is not really an attempt to hole the ball at all (if extraordinarily difficult) , but rather to stymie the opponent from that pocket (which could easily be the simpler play). The same could've been done on the putting surface - plan your attempt so that, if you don't make the shot, you at least prevent your opponent a clear path to the hole. Though '52 was before my time, I can envision it as the ultimate in gamesmanship. If you're a stroke behind on the hole but are away, you could theoretically stymie your opponent into forcing at least a two-putt, and who knows then what can happen? Perhaps he leaves himself too much of a bender from the side and ends up three-putting while you tap in your stymie-ball and halve the hole? If it were still allowed, it'd be a completely different game on/around the greens.

Ditto. Quite frankly, I've never found anything to affect my game to such a degree that I'd have to avoid it simply to play - alcohol included. I've shot lights out while both stoned-cold sober and with a slight buzz, and have sucked big time in both states of mind. If I had to worry about the littlest things I consumed - like sugar, caffeine, etc. - and how it affected my game, I think I'd give it up. Golf is supposed to be fun, not a strenuous workout or a test of endurance. If I'm going out for a 2-mile run or a session on the weight bench, I might limit my intake of specific things for a couple hours prior, but for a round of golf? Please......

This one should definitely be changed. Great care is taken in all sorts of other rules to ensure the player is not penalized due to things beyond his control. Embedded balls in the fairway may be lifted, cleaned, and placed. Relief, without penalty, is given for many man-made artifacts like cart paths, walls, ground under repair, etc. and even some non man-made artifacts like casual water and movable obstructions. The intent of the rules is clear - the player should not be penalized for things beyond his control. The folly of this rule is that it ASSUMES that - because he grounded his club - any/all subsequent actions are a direct cause of his grounding of the club.....and it's simply not true in the case of wind. Y'know, Kenny Perry was cleared of 'improving his lie' a couple years ago when he was CLEARLY tamping the grass behind a very, VERY buried lie in tall rough. And Webb Simpson gets nailed for something completely out of his control??? That is not, in any way, shape, or form, a consistent enforcement of equitable playing conditions in the rules of golf.