jshots

I bet on Scottie to win this week but looks like he is a bit too riled up.

You literally just said that same thing to me.

The wording I read somewhere from a summary of this lawsuit, was that the 11 LIV players are arguing that they have "No meaningful choice" to play professional golf in the USA besides PGA Tour. So its not just my simplistic view. The simplistic view is thinking this is some black and white non issue for the PGA Tour.

It isn't just any old business, it is a business that has near complete control over a particular market and is possibly acting in an anti competitive way toward another business. I get that many of you don't think its anti competitive (although some admit that it is anti-competitive just not illegal), but that is probably going to be the central argument of the lawsuit, whether PGA Tour is acting predatory or not. Check out Radovich v NFL - IMO a lot of parallels to draw, and the NFL lost.

You are arguing that anti competition practices are a good thing... talk about worthy comments I guess it boils down to that disagreement then. I think they are bad, and the FTC tends to agree. Software engineer why?

I'm glossing over the part that I repeated like 15 times? They don't have a choice! How difficult is it to see that? If you want to play professional golf at the highest level in the US, there is ONE SINGLE tour. Where is the choice? "All agreed" is also bullshit and you know it. There is process, a council, a small group that make major decisions, you don't think there are politics and disagreements involved in all of that? I would be surprised if decisions are even a majority opinion for players. They agree because there is no where else to play, because its tradition, its expected that you will play on the PGA Tour if you are the best. PGA Tour is using that limited choice that players have as leverage. Yall acting like I'm making idiotic arguments when all the stuff I'm talking about has happened frequently in other sports leagues and its literally the exact argument that the LIV players are making right now in court. That they had no meaningful choice in pursuing professional golf. I see that completely differently - the fact that it is taking an insane amount of wealth from the Saudis to be able to establish a different league is evidence that they do have a monopoly. They haven't outright prevented a competitor from operating but are absolutely taking direct action that limits the competitors ability to establish themselves. It isn't just refusal to help though, they have taken direct action that is limiting competition.

They've gotten only a handful of top players, I think that number would be significantly higher if it wasn't for the PGA Tour barring players.

The PGA Tour is guilty of anti-trust behavior (my opinion). I have no idea if its at the level of being illegal, but regardless of what the law is, I think it ought to be illegal. They are basically using their position/power/monopoly to hamstring a potential competitor. I don't like LIV Golf though.

I mean doesn't that basically amount to a threat?? Should the best players in the world be deciding where they play based on a threat? The players are what make the PGA Tour, not the other way around. IMO if those tournaments stop attracting players, then so be it. The best tournaments should get the most viewers, biggest sponsors, and biggest purses, will naturally attract the best players.

Maybe depending on the industry, but I find its pretty common that contractors work for competing companies in software development, and some states have laws preventing non compete clauses for contractors. If you aren't simply providing an alternative product you are asking for a lawsuit, I'm talking about any direct action toward preventing competition for example, a contract that uses your position and status as the premiere golf league to hinder another league from establishing itself. How many Golfers would already have signed up for LIV if not for the contract issues and fear of no longer being able to play on the PGA Tour. Yeah... I'm not a lawyer but it seems obvious to me that that is going to raise some eyebrows. Right but when did it matter until now? Quite clearly a bunch of players are now not agreeing to those terms, had there been an option of another tour that paid more when they signed would they have ever agreed to sign. It was the only option to play at the highest level for the biggest purses for how long now? They don't have a real choice because they want to play with the best and PGA Tour has a monopoly on the best. Imagine hypothetically 2 years from now 50% of the PGA Tour is playing for LIV and not allowed to play on the PGA Tour, is that good for the game of golf? I'm not saying LIV is less restrictive at all just that the PGA Tour in its position should not be restricting how their players are using their talents. Those players make the PGA Tour what it is. Figure out how to give them what they want or watch out. This is basically admitting though that the PGA Tour has a bunch of tournaments that no one really cares about enough to play in. The Players, The Memorial, Arnold Palmer, Wells Fargo are always going to draw a big field because they are good tournaments.

Obviously everyone wants to beat the competition, when you try to beat your competition by means other than providing a better/cheaper product you are bordering on illegal in the USA. Doesn't necessarily mean that all players agreed unanimously on them. PGA Tour is practically synonymous with professional golf at the highest level. My 2 cents is that they shouldn't be able to restrict access to that level of professional golf based on being involved with a competing tour. Even if they can legally they shouldn't, its bad for the game and the players, as more players leave, its bad for the fans too. If the PGA Tour tightens its grip I guarantee more players are going to leave.

It just means when it comes down to it they are anti competition. Whether illegally or not I guess is up for debate but they clearly currently have all the power in the US, top level golfers don't have a choice on which tour they are going to play. The contractual tour restrictions of course were never a problem until a valid competitor comes along, but now that it has they are using it to maintain their control, IMO the tour restrictions shouldn't be there in the first place. Regardless of how it plays out in the short term with the bans, if the PGA Tour can't provide the players what they want then they will lose players and deservingly so, whether LIV or something else. It seems to me like the PGA Tour is only really hurting themselves by not letting players play different tours. PGA Tour wins when they have great fields, and lose a lot by banning top layers.

The more I think about it - LIV isn't great, , but the PGA Tour seemingly wants all the power and that isn't great either. Golf is due for a major restructuring of power, the game doesn't just exist in America and it should be played equally on the highest level across the entire world. The only real problem I have with LIV is the dumb format. I would like to see half the season played regionally, USA, Europe, Asia, then the second half the year played globally with the top players from all of the regions, one tournament every other week similar to Formula 1. Every large region gets a single major event, and then The Masters b/c its special. LIV gets the middle eastern region .

Personally don't think joining a saudi backed golf league makes you immoral. There is a lot to unpack there IMO - but its not like they are joining LIV and getting sent a designated caddy slave. I'm sure you could find some immoral ties through the PGA Tour as well. Its really just a shame they can't all play nice and let players pick and choose events. OWGR should almost step in and say, we don't give a f*** where you play if the field is good enough and you follow a certain set of rules, and here is a completely unaffiliated playoff event that is strictly OWGR based. Let the best events come out on top.

See that is interesting, I have this idea that I would really like a 2i utility for a very similar reason. Plus I love hitting the ball low. Also I have found my 3i currently is really good at helping me hit a low fade out from trees which is a common place for me which the 2 utility could still do, whereas a hybrid doesn't give me confidence out of the rough, and it gets up quickly. But I watched this and started to think maybe a hybrid has more forgiveness and will just help me hit more fairways.

@ChetlovesMer btw this is all about the one I mentioned in previous posts that I am gonna wait a few months to hear more about/

Never used one. Golf simulator videos guy seems to get some inaccurate data occasionally, but usually it seems decent.

How do you all set up the long end of your bag and why? What are your 2 longest clubs besides driver and how did you decide to put them in the bag. I am finding my largest strokes lost category is penalties off of the tee, and it doesn't seem to matter if I hit Driver, 3 wood, or 3 iron, so I am thinking of swapping out 3 wood and 3 iron. I'm looking at choosing 2 new clubs with options of 3 wood, 2 hybrid, 3 hybrid, or a driving iron. While initially I thought a driving iron might be more forgiving than my current fairway finder ( 3 iron), it seems like if I want accuracy then maybe it makes more sense to get an even more forgiving hybrid. I frequently use 3 wood on several short par 4s where driver would be long, but its squirrely enough that other than needing less distance it doesn't give me really any value for accuracy. Those reasons have me leaning towards replacing my two long clubs with a 2h and 3h.

Is it really a garage if there aren't dents and cracks in the wall?

I played with a guy who had one of these and he liked it a lot. It really freaked me out for the first few holes though, something in my subconscious kept saying "that push cart is rolling down a hill" and a few times I nearly took off to grab it.

Yeah I understand what you are saying, I just jumped to the calibration idea. If you are having trouble keeping the ball online on the range, or even on the course for that matter, you could always recalibrate your lateral dispersion by either changing number of fingers, or moving your fingers closer to your eye, using an actual bad shot as your measuring stick. Just by measuring my own dimensions came to like 3.5% per finger. Maybe I have fat fingers or a short arm. Also it is not exactly easy to measure from your eyeball so I might be off a little bit. Really? I hear a lot that avg PGA Tour dispersion with driver is ~70 yards wide at 300 yard distance. 35/300 would be almost 12% off center.

You could probably calibrate your bad days too, bring your finger closer to you until your furthest ball at the range is at one edge and your target on the other. Use that same finger distance for the day. I think you probably want to be more liberal with at least driver, maybe other long clubs too. But I seem to be at closer to 13% off center with my driver, which is like an extra half a finger.

After reading about shot zones in LSW, I have not had enough time to properly measure all of my shot zones, let alone chart them out for the courses I am playing so I came up with this idea that I thought was worth sharing. Stealing an idea from Aimpoint express, where using your fingers "projects" an angle outward from your eye that will give you the correct "aim point" for a given slope no matter how far away the cup is. Essentially this just means your finger held at a fixed length will always cover the same percentage of the distance, no matter how far your target is. That idea can be used for full shots too! I estimated a percentage on the driving range for my PW at 150 yards, my shots all landed roughly inside of 15 yards either side of my target, so a little less than 10%. I measured about 22 inches from my eyeball to my fingers held at arms length, and it just so happens that 3 fingers width is about 2.25 inches or roughly 10%! So now I know that whenever I hold 3 fingers up at arms length, I'm covering roughly 10 percent of the distance. If I place the flag or target on one edge of my finger, the edge of my shot zone should be roughly at the other edge of my finger. If there is trouble inside of my finger, then I can align my finger to the trouble, and move my shot center to the other edge of my finger. It won't help you with the depth of your shot zone, but seems pretty useful on a new/unknown course that you don't have time to chart out.

After reading LSW, this 185 yd 6i stood out to me this week. Flag marked with the yellow dot. Into the wind, I chose a club and shot center (red dot) that put most of my shot zone on the green, and even slightly overlapping the right rough. This is a pin that I absolutely would have taken dead aim at 2 weeks ago, even if I had aimed somewhat right of the target, I can guarantee it wouldn't have been enough and probably brought the sand into play. I struck it absolutely on the screws and probably landed the ball within a yard of my shot center, leaving myself a 40 foot birdie putt that I 3 putted Funny b/c 2 holes later I chose a similarly off target shot center, and hit it somewhat poorly and ended up with a 6 foot birdie putt.

I'd been wondering when we would see something like this for golf. The pace this type of machine learning is moving is incredible, and it can do things that are sometimes hard to believe. I would bet that they film golf swings, similar to the way an end user would do it , but use a system similar to gears as the validation data to train some kind of deep learning algorithm to convert the input video into the body segments. What a time to be alive.