sonicblue

I know that, as a standing-still view , your handicap is the average of your ten best, and usually five will be lower, and five will be higher but that is not a mathematical certainty. Median works that way, average does not. In my current calc, I only have two scores below my index, and the other eight are either at it or within two strokes above (I shoot mid-80's a lot, but then occasionally light it up). However, just looking at lowering your handicap, just shooting under your current index once will lower it by some amount. On a technical note, though, you don't HAVE to. Say my 10 best differentials are my last ten rounds, and they are five 4.0's, three 7.0's and two 11.0's (a 6.0 index). All I have to do is shoot something that pushes that 11.0 out and my index will drop some. Actually beating your index will impact it quickly, especially depending on what it pushes out. For the record, though, re-read my post: I did say, "shoot it once, then again, then probably again." That's 2, maybe 3 times; not once, maybe twice. THAT will make some progress, no matter what. In my example, if I add two 4.0's and push out the two 11.0's, it drops to 4.7. What I was really talking about was, though, as a long-term goal of lowering your index. Whatever your index is, the 'optimism' of that calc means beating your index is a "good round." However, while doing that will hiccup it down at first, if you go back to your usual, it will eventually go back up, especially once the low round falls off. You have to shoot "good rounds" again just to maintain it, let alone lower it. It was to reiterate that, even at my level, even to maintain my handicap, I have to play well "again," and Tiger epitomizes "playing well again" at the highest level of the sport. That's what set his run(s) apart, and I think that's really why people root for him. When he pulls off the victory, grinds it out, torches the field, whatever, he's done it again....and for his 15th....or 83rd again, and that's entirely different than anyone else, even the guys who have done it a handful of times - Rory, Dustin, Luke, Lee, even Phil - out there right now.

Not what I was saying at all. I know the calculation well. What any one, or two, etc..., scores will do to a handicap, is varied, and entirely dependent on what scores are already in the calculation, and when they were posted. My point simply was, someone with an established handicap isn't likely to move their index very much with one good round. If you're trying to get better (i.e., lower your index, from wherever it is), you'll need to shoot better than it, and then do it again, and probably again....

I lost respect for Rick Reilly with that column. I would love for some Hollywood paparazzi-style private detective to dig in and find something on that pompous ass. Let's make a list of golfers who are around 20th in the OWGR, who hadn't won in two years at that point, and who didn't have an injury or a major life event to distract them from their game. While the Chevron has all kinds of caveats about field size, etc..., Tiger still held off a world-class competitor on the back 9 on Sunday to win a tournament, which is still something probably 100 guys with their tour card can't say they've ever done, which immediately undoes half the things he says, just like that. The true forgiving person, finds a way to forgive in the wake of serious misgivings. Any fair-weather human being can forgive the little stuff. Now we know where Rick stands.

Part of me thinks people making a big deal about WHO wins, is really misplaced. I mean, a true golf fan just likes to see good golf. Watching Rory at the US Open was amazing mostly because his play was simply extraordinary, drive after drive, green after green, putt after putt, he made it look like video game golf. The second piece, and the piece that I think drives Tiger mania is, when one person can produce that play over and over. Watching Schwarzel torch the back 9 at Augusta, Keegan Bradley cooly bring home the PGA...they're all great one-time events. When one guy puts out a repeat performance, there's just something additional about it. Real golf fans know - well, maybe can just imagine, maybe truly empathize, if not 'know' - how.hard.this.game.is. I've said it elsewhere on here, what made "The Era of Tiger, Part One" so amazing...nearly unfathomable...was how he truly competed for the win - quite literally - every time out. To win, over and over, sometimes with robotic precision, sometimes with determined grinding and miraculous shots, is different than when any other player out there wins. If the greater population of the world realized, that only makes Tiger a great golfer, with a great golfing mind, and great golfing determination, and not an incredible human being, maybe things play out differently... Sure, I always thought Tiger seemed cool, still do (call me the forgiving type), but I take all my role models - of any type - with a grain of salt. I digress... I watch golf in the hopes of seeing the highest level of play from anyone. Profesional golf is for a viewer's entertainment. There's no global implications on world peace here. I hope players like Rory, or Bradley, or Donald, or anyone else, can reach that level and provide the best entertainment. However, the fact is, hoping those guys do it, is just hope, fiction, a dream. Tiger's already done it, so we know that ability exists within him. That's what sets "rooting for Tiger" apart, one crucial word that comes after "holy cow, he drained it!" or "man, he STUCK that approach!," and that word is "again." I'm an 8-9 handicap, and I'll card a low round and realize, if I want to get to a 3, 4 or 5-ish, I have to card a low round again to really move my index, and that "again" doesn't happen much for me. How often do you see a guy on tour drop a Thu or Fri round of 66, but then not get another low round? It's tough to go low again. How often do you see a guy right in the mix for a tourney or two, then fall off the radar the rest of the season? It's really hard to compete again. How many times does a guy grab a win, seemingly easily, then he doesn't win again that year, or even a few years? It's REALLY hard to win again. Tiger does "again," again and again. That's amazing, and I want to see an era like that. Again.

For the love of god, I was hoping there wouldn't be this kind of talk this morning. See: Micheel, Curtis, Beem, et al. Guy had an 'on' week, good for him, let's not shovel the hope of USA golf on his shoulders, eh? Hell, after McIlroy obliterated a US Open setup, even he didn't nearly match that form in the subsequent weeks. This is what Tiger Woods did to the game of golf (maybe, "re-did" to golf, if you say Jack did it first), is made us expect there to be guys that win with regularity. It's just not going to happen, IMO. I remember one tournament where Hunter Mahan was playing well, and the announcers went on about how well he was playing, how he had 'the kind of swing' that could win mutliple times that year. Um...yeah.... It's a lot of fun to see different guys step up and play their best - Bradley definitely had his own energy and pulled off some great shots- and win. It was also amazing to see Tiger manage to stave off, time after time, ''that guy" who has having his best week, and manage to win. It doesn't look like that's happening soon, so the status quo WILL be, a different winner each week, and no one is 'the future of US Golf.' Some notes on the final leaderboard this weekend: Kevin Na and DA Points in the top 10 - good players, rarely contenders. Adam Scott, off a win, playing some of his best golf, 7th place. Phil Mickelson, a non-contending 19th. Schwartzel, torches Augusta, barely heard him since, 12th. Jim Furyk - perennial top WGC ranking, do we ever hear him in the mix, 39th? Jonny Vegas, he won early, we talked of him being 'next,' 51st. DLIII, having such a good year, people talking of his late-age renaissance (yet we question if Tiger can play into his 40's), 72nd. Missed cut: Kaymer, Day (playing some good golf in earlier weeks), Dustin Johnson (so tired of hearing of his coronation), Vijay, Graeme, Oosthuizen. These are guys with (presumably) no major life upheavals going on, no tireless media scrutiny being shone upon them, that missed the cut, and (my gut, not sure the actual stats) miss the cut with reasonable frequency. Yet, a rookie completely busts the odds and suddenly we're going to talk like he's going to go on some streak of winning tournaments now. Gah, I'm ranting, I know....

I think Williams is really showing a lack of class, and ignorance about how the world works. He's taking this personally, which is a childish reaction. Tiger needs the change, Stevie's fallen into a good gig, it's a very practical direction for the whole thing to take. His repeated jabs at Tiger are getting old. I highly doubt Tiger said, "Stevie you suck, it's your fault I can't get back to form, go pound sand." Even if he did, Stevie should be taking a higher road, simply say, "the time was right to move on, I look forward to continue working with Adam and helping him win as best I can." Close the book on this thing.

Tenet: It isn't called "course management" until you can hit each club relatively consistently. If you frequently banana-spray your driver 75 yards right, or lay a foot of sod over your 5-iron, or skull your sand wedge into the catering tent, 'course management' isn't your concern. Instead, you're simply 'hitting the clubs you can." This is what people are referring to when they say, "just take an iron off the tee," or "just hit a PW from 180 and try to pitch on from there." It's because it simply does you no good to send your ball all over creation or constantly replace divots the size of a small feline. You are, essentially, using the course as your practice range, dialing down your swing and just moving your ball along. That is entirely different from someone who stands on the tee of a 325-yard par 4, that narrows to the width of a straw at 275 and hooks around a pond to the green, and decides they're going to take driver. Even if you hit that driver 295 consistently, that is a high, high risk play, and crushing the ball sweetly, high and far at that kind of target, could leave you in an absolute scoring-purgatory position. 'Good course management' is (virtually) guaranteeing the fairway with a 225-yard hybrid and trying to make your birdie from 100 yards. "Course management" - in my opinion - is the concept of, responsibly accounting for your "likely or common misses," and also realizing that very well-struck shots, aimed at the wrong place or hit the wrong distance, can get you in just as much trouble as a bladed banana ball, when it comes to scoring opportunities. That's different than, if I played with a 36-handicapper who's capable of god-knows-what, my advice would be, "every hole, simply take whatever club you think you can comfortably hit to keep the ball in play." Caveat: I'm quite sure, somewhere out there, are people who actually can hit nearly every club in their bag, in the air, more or less straight, and simply pay no attention to where they are, how the hole plays, and just bang balls around until it finds the cup. Clearly, that person needs the "dude, you have to plan your path to the hole" talk, and maybe that's to whom the OP is referring, but my reaction to this thread was more the person who is simply struggling to hit the ball, in most cases.

I think the issue with this is, are you playing back/laying up because it's smarter, or because you flat-out can't hit the longer club? I think people learning the game don't want to play back because, well, they just can't keep their driver on the planet, you want to hit it in order to improve yourself at it, or battle-test it. Never pulling your driver can be akin to acknowledging your incompetence, or your fear of it. On the other hand, if you know you can hit it when you need to, and know that leaving it in the bag is simply the smarter play, irrespective of your ability to hit it, then course management gets easier. THAT is the reason I think higher handicappers attempt the harder/wrong shots, because they feel like the alternative is 'bailing out' because of their lesser ability. Of course, this is a chicken-or-egg situation. In some cases, taking a smart play, staying out of trouble, will build confidence, which can then lead to a better swing, that eventually does help you hit long irons, driver, etc... On the other hand, at some point, to break through scoring plateaus, you do need to start setting slightly higher expectations for yourself and attempt harder shots. For example, when I was breaking into the 'always under 90' club, I realized, I needed to stop going after par 5's in two as my 'default' goal. I'm not super-long off the tee in most cases, but say I do catch one and end up 200 yards away, I would be on all cylinders, I have to go at it. In truth, I really don't have that shot with any consistency, and one day just said, "hit a solid 7-iron in those cases, get to 60 yards (at which distance I am pretty good), and make a birdie." Sound approach, smart approach, but certainly, there needs to come a time when I DO need to get confident hitting a 200-yard approach from the middle of the fairway. As a result, lately, I've started trying those shots, and though missing them is still my norm, I've got to try to battle-test myself with those kinds of shots. The balance of doing that vs. maintaining scoring is the challenge.

I'm so nervous for Tiger. The longer he waited to get healthy, the higher the expectations got about how he'll play upon his return. If he purports to be 100%, we will once again, more or less, expect him to win, or at least expect him to be fully capable of winning. With all that's gone on, I don't think he's capable of winning next week, I think a great result is simply solid, sound play, with good course management, maybe a top 10. However, if he finishes in the top 10, I fear the talk will be, "Tiger's lost that fire, he didn't seem driven to win." If he finishes out of the top 10, it may instead be, "he came back too early, really wasn't sharp," and the "will he ever win another major" debate will get yet more fuel. Which leads to why I'm really nervous, which is, the only way Tiger can finally stop this circus of speculation after whatever tournaments he plays in the rest of this year, is to win. And despite how many times he has risen above seemingly insurmountable odds, and his once-nearly infallible mental toughness, considering how many really good players.......REALLY good players.....go entire seasons without winning a tournament, that's simply a inter-galactic amount of pressure. I won't start any sort of debate about, "understanding what it's like to be Tiger" as regards what happened in his personal life, but I will encourage any Tiger nay-sayers to, cut the guy a little break. I mean, think about what I said above, to be Tiger this week. Could any of us even remotely handle that kind of scrutiny, and examination, and speculation, and pressure?? I'll tell you right now, I'd crumble like a three-day-old cookie. Even though I think he's in a bit of a lose-lose situation, I do hope he can just play the game well, satisfy whatever his own goals are for the tournament, and take a step toward becoming relevant again, and pushing others to play their best, too.

Wouldn't the world be a better place, if people realized this about everyone and everything?

I don't see how you can claim that seeing "raw mean = 2, std dev = 3" is very informative, but (once you know what they represent) say that "index = 0.2, dispersion = 5 / 3 / 4" is so confusing? The standard deviation of all 20 differentials for the six samples range from 1.8 to 3.9. I also looked at three more guys: a 7, an 11 and a 24. Their standard deviations 2.4, 3.2 and 3.6, respectively. There's just not as much room for that statistic to vary, I don't think. The dispersion stats aren't any harder to calculate once you have differentials, and is certainly easier than standard deviation for the lay person (if you've got a spreadsheet, hell, anything is easy to calculate). Yes, they require interpretation in context of the index, but I don't think that's difficult, either. I thought maybe coefficient of variation would be good (std dev / mean) but, when the mean is close to zero, that ratio blows out (and can be undefined if the mean happens to hit zero dead-on). I agree standard devation is a valid measure and useful, but I just think that over time, watching it go from - say - 3.5, to 3.3, to 3.1, etc..., is sort of a slow, thankless process. For the dispersion stats, I can tell you, what I'd ultimately like to see is, mine going from the 3/4/8 they're at, to something like 4/2/4. That is, I have three numbers that can change, maybe more quickly, by more than just fractions like std dev, and each tells me something. Frankly, I don't want 1/1/1. For the level I'm at, I want to see my first number get higher, to gain the ability to 'really be on' sometimes, and then my last two numbers decrease, and get closer, to imply that 'off' doesn't mean 'holy s**t, what happened to my game??" As my index (hopefully) drops, I would have to have lower expectations on that first number (which is why I find that -1.8's first number of 4 so amazing; as good as he is, he occasionally goes unconsciously good). In contrast, my current std dev is about a 4. I'd probably have to get a bunch of good rounds in to get it to go to...what....a 3? I think in terms of a snapshot, yes, standard deviation is probably a good one-time measure of "how consistent am I?" For tracking/improvement, I think the dispersion stats provide a little more feedback on where you are or aren't consistent, and are more responsive to the progress you make toward becoming more consistent.

I just got an interesting reply back from Dean Knuth, the Pope of Slope himself. Concise, but quite telling (some spelling/grammar errors left in, I imagine he is busy with more important things, lol): "Back when I was a researcher for the USGA, our Handicap Research Team (HRT) ran many math models on "the search for the perfect handicap". I recall that from more than 100 models, the best was a normal model that used the mean and the std deviation as the two numbers that golfers would be issued. Reaction for the USGA committees was that it was two complex when I will also introducing the Slope System. Years later I studied and liked a way to class players by their games, Average Andy, Steady Eddie and Wild Willy. (A, S and W) after the Handicap Index. That was considered too complex as well" So, the upshot is, the USGA wants nothing to do with anything more than "here's your index," and by extension, doesn't seem to care about the potential inequities that result from not having any sort of standard deviation/disperson/consistency measure. *shrug* I'm still going to track mine, because even if I can't lower my handicap, I think it's still a measure of improvement to lower my dispersion stats.

I'm an 8. See my thread on Disperson Statistics to see what the previous label was getting into. ;-)

It means A is a +2.5 handicap, where his two best differentials average to three less than that, his middle ten rounds average to 2 above that, and his highest ten rounds average to 5 above that. I leave off the 'less than' and 'greater than' because, by nature of the math, the first number will ALWAYS be less than your index, and the other two will ALWAYS be higher.

I posted a thread a while back about, instead of using a single index to sort of 'state your game,' using three figures instead. It was met with some "hmmm, interesting" as well as some "what's the point"'s. In another thread, talk of people shooting far lower than their handicap led me to a chart that The Pope of Slope put together on probabilities of a player's two lowest differentials being X strokes lower than their index. It all just got me thinking more on, there must be some (relatively) simple and concise way to measure the thing we all want from our game, and thus, I think, want to know about others', too - consistency. Though the megalomaniac in me would love to think that one day the "Sonicblue Disperson Statistic" becomes an official USGA figure, maybe it's just for this thread, so let's just see what we've all got here? Index itself is unchanged, but then there are three other figures to go with it, all stated relative to your index: 1) Average of your TWO BEST differentials 2) Average of your middle TEN (ranks 6-15) 3) Average of your TEN worst (ranks 11-20), aka "anti-handicap" Round to the nearest whole number, and you can ignore saying "plus/minus," because the first will always be 0. I am an 8.0 index, and my dispersion is 3/4/8. This is sorta like saying, "if I'm on, I can score +5, but I'll most likely play +12 and, look out, I could pop to a +16" (all relative to the slope-adjusted course rating). Um...I am not consistent... I went on GHIN and pulled some stats for some friends and/or players I know. Those results are: A) +2.5, 3/2/5 B) 1.1, 2/2/5 C) 3.9, 1/2/4 D) 4.5, 1/2/4 E) 7.2, 1/1/3 F) +1.8, 4/4/6 A and F are known as two of the best players at my club. It wasn't surprising to see their first stat very high (meaning, they occasionally go very low), but interesting to see how F's middle stat is quite high, and each's third stat is quite high. B, C and D are all very similar, but E stands out: this basically says 15 of his 20 scores are within +/-1 of his index, and his other five scores average only +3. THAT'S consistency. Like any handicap, yes, it's subject to fraud and intentional sandbagging, so let's just worry about who uses it correctly. And, like any statistic, I think it's something worth tracking and measuring and targeting for improvement. Post yours!

http://www.popeofslope.com/sandbagging/odds.html It varies by handicap the farther below net par you shoot. For all, shooting net par is about a 5:1 shot, and shooting net -2 is only about a 10-20:1. For the low handicappers, the odds go down drastically, to the tune of 150:1 to shoot net -4. For a high handicapper (22+), the odds of shooting net -3 are about 20:1, so it's definitely unusual, but it's not exactly remote. For a 30+ handicapper, even shooting -7 is just about 100:1; again, very uncommon, but not remote. He proposes an interesting adjustment there, where you look at your two best differentials. A 'consistent' player, let's call him, would have differentials (relative to his current handicap) that might look something like: -4, -3, -2, -2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3 (mathematically, that may not work, you get my point). Say someone had two lowest differentials of -6 and -8, and they were a 15. He says that's a 1 in 7,249 chance, which is too small. If you revise it to say, that should only happen 1 in 258 rounds, you adjust the handicap by however stair-steps in his table you need to go to get to that revised probability (in this case, it's three). So that person becomes a 12. What he's talking about is, I think, very closely related to the idea of anti-handicaps, as well as an idea I threw out once on here, about a third handicap. That is: current USGA index is best 10 of last 20. "Anti-handicap" is a somewhat well-known measure, and would take the WORST 10 of last 20. I think looking at a third measure - which is the middle 10 (throw out best 5 and worst 5) - would provide some insight, too (would be interesting to really analyze real data). You can see in my profile, not only is my anti-handicap high, but so is my (guess I need a name, I'll pick) "mode" handicap. These three numbers show a 'sliding' window of your scores: Break your 20 rounds up into 5 sections, call them A (lowest 5), B, C and D (highest 5). Index uses A&B;, mode uses B&C; and anti-handicap uses C&D.; Seeing the progression across these three numbers tells you, in some respects, how good their good rounds are, and how much worse their other rounds are. I think you could actually set up a pretty easy algorithm that says, 'based on your scores, we'll calculate these three numbers, and then based on their spread, the adjustment to your final index is X." It still never addresses people who just don't turn in bad rounds, but it does help address the people who have higher handicaps but clearly hold the potential to drop some low scores every now and then.

Sorry, Dragon, can't resist: "onus" ;-)

I played it several years ago, admittedly not well. It is a beautiful facility, with the full complement of staff and amenities. I recall it not being very long, but somewhat tight in places and somewhat unforgiving for wayward drives. There are a lot of trees, most holes are pretty 'tucked' in their own area, so to speak; if you miss a fairway by a ton, you're not on another hole, you're deep in the trees. I also recall a very varied layout, a lot of different lengths and shapes to the holes. I don't have a strong recollection of the greens, which probably means they were very good, not lightning, but well kept (I would remember if they were bumpy or like glass, e.g.).

Among amateur golfers, 'scratch' is like a unicorn. It's just not something that most, most, most people will ever get to. So, out of the gate, the answer is definitely not. If you were someone who shot 81 in his first round, and could break 80 with a little regular play, then I'd say you were in that rare category of 'natural golfer,' that could definitely get there....with a lot of practice and coaching. Alas, you appear to be just like the rest of us, so that makes the answer, as you are proceeding now, definitely not. A massive majority of us are lucky to bust our ass, take a lot of lessons and maybe get into the 'elite single digit' range, like 2-4. Cutting those last precious strokes to get to scratch is squeezing blood out of the stone. Makes you realize just how good the pros are. Related (sorta) story: a friend of mine said this guy played at his club, the highest ranked senior amateur in the country. His handicap is like a +5, and I think he shot 66-67 or so at my friend's club (no slouch of a course). Someone asked him why he doesn't play the Champions Tour. His response: "I'm not good enough."

I've made a lot of strides in my putting just in the last, say, year or so, based on the following, and I think they're somewhat universal concepts. First, my comments on speed and line. While certainly you can hit a putt way too hard (too soft is obvious), or you can misread the line, I think a lot of putts on a lot of the courses we amateurs play, are quite straightforward as respects both of these parameters. While some breaks can be very sensitive to speed, I think speed has a pretty wide berth. I also believe that most lines are not all that cryptic. If you get behind your putt, take a look for about five seconds, most of the time, I'm willing to bet you've got that line correct, within makeable tolerances. Stated another way, I'll say that, I can almost guarantee that I could put anyone over a putt and say, "miss it left," or "miss it right," or "hit it a little too hard," etc..., and even an average or below-average putter could do all of them. The right speed and line are just in between all of those misses. With the above being said, I'll go out on a limb and say, though speed and line can be off a little, the real reason most putts are missed is because of a lack of committment. You get sideways over the ball, suddenly the line looks different, or you feel something in your feet and start to doubt your line, or something. While those may be valid, what one should do, is then back off the putt and look at it again. Instead, what I think a poor putter does, is tries to make an adjustment while over the ball ('I'll just aim a bit more right') or during the stroke ('I've got too much speed, better hit it softer'). Not only is that highly unlikely to work, I would proffer that, the adjustment was probably unnecessary. You can't read a line while over the ball, the (IIRC) 'parallax effect,' they call it, can skew your perspective. For speed, you have to get a feel beforehand, in your practice stroke if that's what you do, nothing you experience while over the ball should change your mind....except doubt. Doubt kills putts. I tell my 10 y/o son about 'the putting robot.' Once you pick a line, you should look exactly the same. Feet, putter, grip, stroke...all of it, exactly the same, every time. All of the work deciding where to aim the putting robot, and how hard the putting robot should hit, is done beforehand. Once over the ball, you simply execute the same square putting stroke at the chosen speed.

Being a golfer, with a math degree and a mathematical job, this subject is near and dear to me. IMO, statistics are often wrongly interpreted, or rather, the USE of statistics can be wrongly interpreted. I think you can use them to compare pieces of your game, maybe describe yourself as a player (i.e., low FH and GIR % but low PPH = "scrambler"), or compare yourself to others. But my statistics don't seem to really ever surprise me. I know I miss fairways and greens way too often, but that I pitch and chip well, and my putting is very good. Say I scramble at around 40%. One could say, 'raise that to 75%, and you could drop four strokes a round.' Well, yeah, I know that. I know every time I don't make the par saver that I just cost myself a stroke. And even if I do make a few more, and my scramble % goes up, the fact remains, if I hit more greens (likely through hitting more fairways as well), I may not have to scramble as much, and that would drop strokes, too. I also think sometimes statistics puts the cart before the horse. Now on the Tour, you'll see an immediate stat pop up, while Goosen is over a 15 foot put: "Chances of making 15 foot putt: 41%" or something, based on Goosen's actual statistics. Well, every 15-footer is different, and those stats don't know if his misses were off by 3 feet or not. A statistics from past results is not a looking-forward probability. Still useful if you're betting with your buddies, I guess, but it's not like Goosen would say, "hmmm, gee, I really need to get that statistics up to, like, 55%." He just looks at (nearly) every 15 footer and says, "I want to make this." Which brings me back to the elegant simplicity of golf. Sure, after a round, if you hit 11/14 fairways, 15/18 greens, 1.8 putts per hole, you'd think, 'damn good round!' But, you'd probably know it was a good round the second it ended. And it's not like you'd look back and say, "gee, I wish I only hit one more green," you'll likely really have wished you hit three more! The fact is, the large majority of us aren't capable of hitting a ton of greens or fairways, or putting lights out, but that's the beauty of golf psychology. With very few exceptions (really difficult holes, unreachable greens, etc...), you'll be on the tee thinking, "I want to hit the fairway." On your approach, you want to get on the green. If you don't hit the green and you're around it somewhere, you're thinking, "hit this up there somewhere close to get a chance to make a putt." Lastly, unless you're truly in 'lag-only' range, you should be over a putt thinking, "let's drop this thing." Basically, regardless of your stats, I believe in (I should trademark this phrase) "one shot, this shot" philosophy. That has a binary result: success or failure. Hit a fairway or don't. Hit the green or don't. Make the putt or don't. You don't tee it up and think, "let's hit 70% of this fairway," or get over a putt and go, "let's get down in 1.80 putts." Ok, my little rant is over...

Medium par 4, driver could get me down to 100 yards, if I could control it, but I can't lately, so 3W it is. Just hang it out right, drifts.....drifts... I've done that before, normally I'll be in some trees with a potential line to punch out and reach the green from about 150 or so. Must have hit a tree, it's just in the rough, kinda hard-pan lie, but all the way back right next to the 200 yard post. A little downhill, but dead straight, laid out right in front of me, with room to run it up. I put a nice swing on a 5I, definitely didn't get a lot of ball because of the lie, or at least the contact felt a little clunky, but I must have gotten enough of it, came out low and dead on line. Rolled up into the middle of the green to a back pin - made the ~15 footer for birdie!

I have a very important question......... Dude, is your name Russell or Norman????

Divot repair tool Two coins for markers (unless I'm alone, then I'll just bring one) Small, wet microfiber towel Snacks (mini-Clif bars and mini-Lara bars are awesome) Bottle of Vitamin water, Propel, e.g. Bug spray and sunblock That's about it, I try to always trave light, even if I happen to end up in a cart.

I specifically said that he did "win" it and that he did NOT "just outlast" the other guys. We agree on that point, too. :D