ScouseJohnny

Lawyer up, Scottie. 508.025 Assault in the third degree. (1) A person is guilty of assault in the third degree when the actor: (a) Recklessly, with a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument, or intentionally causes or attempts to cause physical injury to: 1. A state, county, city, or federal peace officer. (2) (a) For a violation of subsection (1)(a) of this section, assault in the third degree is a Class D felony. https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=53982 For what it's worth, I think the newspapers are misreporting the charges. Kentucky seems to bundle assaults against "protected victims" (including peace officers) into s.508.025 - Assault in the third degree. Second degree assault on police isn't mentioned in the state penal code. The assumption would be for the higher level of assault (second degree), the fact that the victim was a police officer would be an aggravating factor in sentencing?

Good question. I'm not entirely sure. I think it means that routine excellence can become dull over time; and that is never true of sporadic genius. That doesn't mean routine excellence needs to go away, but an injection of sporadic (spontaneous) genius would be welcome, for the watching public.

Oh dear, Jack. How to make the scales fall from my eyes (c'mon man, you were my Dad's favourite....!) You document the past while acknowledging you're not, yourself, a blue collar schlub from the midwest. But why would anyone think otherwise? The son of a prosperous pharmacist, and, yourself, a graduate of The Ohio State University. Grandpappy worked on the railroads. So what? You're 84. He probably did that when Grover Cleveland was President. You were raised during the Great Prosperity post-WWII; your post does nothing to explain how that will be rediscovered, today, by the man you proclaim to be the most likely to realize it. This is fanzine stuff, not an analytical article. I am mindful of @iacas's instruction that this is not an invitation to discuss politics, so shall demur (and comply). But there is something incredibly disingenuous about Jack's post. I always thought him a gentleman. How sad he should be in awe of someone who (to be fair, I think) wouldn't give a toss if that description should be attached to him or not.

It's a bit telling, I suppose, that the Masters has just ended and the conversation here turns to whether an 84 year old retired golfer who last won in 1986 made fewer consecutive cuts than a 48 year old golfer who last won in 2019 and just finished +16 for the tournament. But I don't demean that. In the days when Woods was at his dazzling, brilliant best, it was still a very human performance. This is a bit like watching modern day Formula 1. The technical precision is remarkable. You are often inclined to step away from few minutes to make a cup of tea. The golf machine whirrs away in the background, as programmed. Golf has a lot of Scotties and Brooks. I'm starting to think it needs another Seve, urgently.

I admit when I moved to the US from the UK, I was surprised and (privately) very sneery about carts. I'd never even seen one before in the flesh, let alone driven one or played golf from one. Yeah, 5 years playing golf in the summers of south Georgia cured me of that unpleasantly ignorant and superior attitude. If nothing else, a cart is a mobile shelter, a place to store towels, water, and sit down for a minute in the brutal heat. The southern US isn't the northern UK.... I love walking the course, and do that in the fall, winter (when possible) and spring where I currently live in Virginia. Summer, I ride. Otherwise, when I play with people who like to ride, I take a cart. When I play with my usual partner (who likes to walk), I walk.....unless it's summer. I agree the walking / riding mix is awkward. Under those circumstances, I just ride. I long since came to the conclusion there's a lot more to golf than how you carry your carcass around the course.

I dug back through my computer for the photo of the Trackman screen from a year ago. You are quite right; in 2022 it was recorded in yards. So, we are dealing with 54 feet (Wilson) vs 79 feet (PING). Thank you for pointing out this error.

Sorry to resurrect an old thread. A year ago, I was wondering why I was losing so much distance with my driver. These were the stats from a trip to the range back then. The driver was a Wilson Staff D100, 10.5 degree, regular flex shaft. These stats haven't changed much since that time; if anything, the total yardage is probably 5 yards shorter on average. Carry: 182 yards Total: 212 yards Ball speed: 125 mph Height: 18 feet Launch angle: 13.1 degrees Yesterday, at the range, I was curious, so borrowed a demonstrator driver, a PING G430, 10.5 degree, regular shaft. These are typical stats from that session: Carry: 217 yards Total: 240 yards Ball speed: 136 mph Height: 79 feet Launch angle: 14.5 degrees I guess I can't buy a putt, but perhaps I can buy a driver. FWIW, I think those Wilson "Superlight" drivers are too light. You really have to swing hard at the ball to get any speed on the ball. The PING was heavier and the weight distribution in it just felt solid. I didn't swing hard at the ball. I'm coming up on 50, and a 16 handicap. I'll live with that distance. I'm hoping this will be a good investment. I liked the club, I know it's very expensive (I think he's selling them for $550 or so), but I think I'll stop by and buy one. The only thing that staggers me is the difference in height, in those stats. The Wilson only reached 18 feet and the PING reached 79 feet? Maybe I transcribed the Trackman figures wrongly?

Thank you, @ChetlovesMer, for the useful and practical advice. Right. I'll settle for high and straight and easy to hit. Done deal. Thanks for the recommendation to Rock Bottom Golf (where my original XCG3s came from a dozen years ago!), but I specifically wanted 4 -PW. Turns out that in exchange for my Gmail address, Tour Edge gave me 15% off, so I got out the door for a hair over $400 including Virginia's usurious sales tax. I'll take that. Looking forward to the big box arriving from UPS. Thanks, Johnny.

I'm currently playing with a set of old Tour Edge XCG3 irons (dating back to 2011). I'd probably hang on to them, but I bought them cheap with stiff steel shafts at the time. Yeah, well, now I'm knocking on the door of 50 and all that goes along with that. Price is a factor in all of this after a series of air conditioning disasters and some unpleasant business with failing GM brake calipers. Cheap is good. These are on sale for $459, delivered, 4-PW with regular flex graphite shafts, and I was thinking about having a punt: Tour Edge Hot Launch C522 Iron - Best Value The Competition Spec 522 irons are maximum distance and forgiveness irons in a traditional cavity back design. The Hot Launch C522 Irons are made... Remember, I'm a modest 16 handicap! - but I do play to it. I guess I'm looking for something easier to hit, without going to true GI shovels. I like the idea of still having a proper 4 iron, not a hybrid. For whatever reason, I still hit a 4 iron pretty well. My one concession to vanity. Thanks for any advice, especially from those who may have hit one of these irons.

Mister "I play better from the tips" (when actually, they don't). The first time couple of times this happened, I somehow got shamed into joining such players from the blue tees. Ever since then, I've let them hit and then make my way to the white tees. I'd entirely understand it if these guys were youthful, single-digit-handicappers, but quite often, they're not.

The death of a parent at a tender age doesn't make you intrinsically interesting. Lots of people have suffered that. I have nothing against this young man, and celebrate his success. Many here like to talk about the mythical moving of the needle, and I rather wish Rory would have won, for that reason. The headlines on the back pages of the newspapers would have been more fun. This young man won, such is life - or rather, such is his incredible accomplishment. Good luck to him. Without being callous, I think he'll win as many majors as Danny Willett or Ian Baker Finch, but time will tell. The odd thing is, they stick out in the mind because they were rather unusual - true one-hit wonders. If you'd have asked me to name the 2019 US Open winner I'd have had to look it up - Gary Woodland - an excellent player among many excellent players, who came good for one weekend.

Yes. My mother died of the exact same thing when I was 16, and she was 47. That is the absolute truth, not internet forum BS. What's your point?

Classic contemporary major winner. Midwestern/western college education, as wholesome and interesting as a Kia Soul but as reliably American as a Ford Ranger. Probably has a girlfriend called Caitlyn who was on the cheer squad at Oklahoma State. A year later, after his victory...."Oh yeah, that guy. How's his season been going?"

As he is an Australian, one can only assume that Greg, presumably overcome with emotion at the events of the recent Platinum Jubilee, was expressing a heartfelt hope for another four years of Elizabethan monarchy.

What a charming little irony.

That's a nice, subtle piece of dry humour that cuts like a stiletto. I bet the audience is on the edge of its seats.

@Vinsk All fair points. I'd say I've noticed the diminished distance off the tee for the past two years. I play with a genuinely good golfer, a colleague, who is undoubtedly a single digit handicap (we play for fun, I've never asked him what his handicap is, when he plays in tournaments). He was always faaaarrr longer than me, these days he's practically playing the next hole before I catch up! A good point about the video. I'll ask someone with a smartphone to record me next time I'm at the range. For what it's worth, I have the same unfortunate disease that Mickelson mercilessly goaded Faldo about. (1) I'm British (well sort of, I'm actually from Liverpool and there is some considerable debate on that matter). (2), I'm 6 foot 3 and have always hit it shorter than most off the tee. These days (as the stats above prove), it's abysmally short, I'm guessing there's people on this forum who could hit a 4 iron that far. Must have been something in the water in England when I was a kid. Or mad cow disease.

First time I've used Trackman, but it confirmed something I've noticed for some time - in particular, that I'm getting shorter and shorter off the tee on Par 4s and 5s. These were the stats on a shot picked at random, from 48 balls. It was typical of my session at the range: Carry: 182 yards Total: 212 yards Ball speed: 125 mph Height: 18 yards Launch angle: 13.1 degrees Launch Dir. 2.4L deg Side: 1.2R yds Having never used this system before, I admit to being a bit naive about what the stats mean. That looks like a slight (unintentional) fade? Is there anything noteworthy about the launch angle? What perplexes me is the very slow ball speed and short distance. I'm currently playing to a 16 handicap (genuinely), and those driving stats seem very poor. Admittedly, my strength is approach shots and putting, but I hit my mid-irons and scoring irons very well. Driving seems to be the weakness. I didn't record all the stats off Trackman when I was hitting my 5 iron (a cavity-back 5 iron, not a hybrid). But I noted the distance as 164 yards. The driver used in the stats above was a Wilson Staff D100 Superlight 10.5 degree Wilson Staff D-100 Driver Review - Golfalot Whilst Wilson may be a little late to the light-driver party, they have made quite the entrance. The SuperLight D100 driver is simple, super lightweight... Poor workman, or poor tools? Or both? A lesson, or a new driver? Or both? By the way I just turned 50, is becoming geriatric the reason for the short tee shot distance? What Trackman "said" aligned with my own experience on the course, over the past few months. I used to hit that thing further, now I can't.

As per Bernard Gallacher: "We're in a tricky position now where major champions are switching to LIV Golf and hence potentially not being able to defend their crowns. It's undermining and devaluing golfing competitions on both sides of the Atlantic,'' he added. Well, they chose that. Sometimes you can't have your cake and eat it. "If things continue as they are, major championships will look completely different in years to come, and we must collectively ask ourselves if that's really what we want. Seems as though that's more of a problem for the LIV tour - can conjure up a tournament that sufficiently captures the imagination of the golf-watching public, and the players involved, that it comes to be viewed as a "major?" The enormity of the purse, alone, won't achieve that. I don't worry too much about the existing four majors; there will always be superb players who seek to capture those, and those competitions will remain as compelling as ever. I don't foresee the US Open merging with the US Amateur, because all of the highly-regarded professional players are now out there picking up their loot on a manufactured team in Greg's Circus.

Which is an odd piece of psychology on the part of the marketing team for this expensive side show. Teams conjured up out of thin air, and yet people are supposed to become fans of them, in order, one assumes, for merchandise to be sold? It is not too cynical to make that assumption, given LIV tells us: "Each team will have unique logos, colors, and names, much like other major global sports teams." But the only incentive to support a team is its players, and those change on a tournament by tournament basis. The only "hook" is the Captain, who seems to remain constant. Do I care enough about Graeme McDowell to want to see his team prosper? The names of the teams by the way, and the descriptions provided about them, are excruciatingly corny. Become a fan of the Niblicks (and now a sentence or two about what a niblick was, in the PG Wodehouse era of golf, with some purple prose about it being a "courageous club" thrown in for good measure. I suppose saying it was a primitive forerunner of a 9 iron / PW wouldn't be quite so effusive). I do not mean to be unkind, but when I looked at the Niblicks' personnel for the London event, I had to research who Oliver Fisher is. My ignorance, admittedly, but it seems he's a journeyman on the European Tour, well into his 30s, whose claim to fame is a 59 at a European Tour event in 2018 and winning the Czech Open in 2011. Not diminishing those achievements, but I'm not entirely sure how you sell lots of T shirts and caps on the back of them, but I suppose it's early days. It's all a bit tawdry.

Very pleased to see Danny Willett making a decent fist of it. Too many people treat him as though he were a 10 handicap municipal Sunday medal winner who somehow rocked up at the Masters one year by some fluke, and then got lucky. It seems the poor man has barely been able to tie his shoelaces without taking massive doses of Advil ever since he won - and I'm pleased to see him putting up a good show this year.

We are entitled to see whatever CA Gov. Code Section 6253.9 says we're entitled to see. And that's it.

He's only 32, foreseeably a dozen more years of being competitive in the majors. It's perfectly possible that a man of his talents will have it all click and come together for 4 rounds in one or more tournament out of 48. Trouble is he doesn't seem all that hungry for it - except maybe the Masters, and I'm not sure I ever see him winning that. I get the sense he's at his most competitive when he isn't feeling the pressure, and it's almost as though he psyches himself out every time he sets foot on Augusta. Other than this year, he generally plays it very well, but there's always a sort of lingering sense of disappointment about Rory at the end of the Masters. A few years back, the general consensus at the Sand Trap was that Rory is "streaky." That's the phrase that was used frequently. 7 years without a major is certainly a long streak for someone of his stature in the game, comparative youth, and obvious talent. Hence why the phrase seems to have dropped out of favour. Brooks and Bryson (and others) just seem to want it more. Or maybe he'll be Phil. A major here and there and a fine record by the time he's 50, with majors won here and there up until that precise age; cumulative, not periodic bursts of brilliance and back-to-back majors....but I'm not sure I see it.

Man, get well soon (seriously). This is just chit-chat about golf, or, to be precise, a level of golf most of we mere mortals can only watch in awe before heading out and skinning one over the green. The best of luck with your recovery. And I'm sorry for being snippy.