Alex B

A great image for hitting greenside bunker shots: "Fillet it out." Even regardless of its meaning (which provides a cool metaphor), the sound of "fillet" is exactly what you want in a bunker shot: it begins with a soft backswing ("fil") followed by a harder downswing that nonetheless cuts smoothly through the sand (the "lay" sound is accented but contains the liquid "l" and leaves an open vowel, suggesting a gentle thump -- if you pronounced the "t," that'd be like catching the ball first and skulling it over the green).

I go for "bogey." ----- On a side note, I'm enclosing the full OED entry for "bogey," with definitions, etymology, citations, and various spellings: The most interesting citation is the last one under definition (c), as it explains how bogey went from being the expect score on a hole to one over the expected score. Obviously, we'd need to verify this explanation (which I've never seen before) with other sources if we are to accept it. As an addendum, the entry for "bogey" as a verb:

He shot 41 on the back nine. Today, he started on the back nine, and shot 31. He's -5 on his round so far.

Discuss ... Check out Y.E. Yang's great performance in defending his title. He's only 14 shots and 138 spots off the lead after Day 1! If he can beat Tiger, he can beat 138 hackers ...

So I'm in two groups: the TST group (team name: The Dinker, currently in 8th place) and a small group with some buddies from my former high-school golf team. As some guys in that group have a tendency to forget to pick their players, I sent out this message on Saturday of last week: What'd I do this week? Forget to pick my players, of course ...

Sometimes when you make an argument, it's a good idea to use an analogy to confirm the sensibility of your argument. Thus: Only one of the top 50 men's tennis players in the world are from Australia. Meanwhile, nine of the top 50 are from Spain. The Australian Open is the weakest of the four tennis majors. Therefore, the Australian Open should move to Spain, or the Spanish Open should become tennis's fourth major. (Note that, as of today, these numbers are in fact the case -- and I'd say that the Australian Open is more firmly stuck in last place than the PGA is.) Do you agree with this argument as well? If you don't, then I believe you are contradicting yourself.

Yes, I would. I'm trying to figure out what each photo depicts ... Photo 1: 12th hole. Photo 2: 15th hole (???). Photo 3: ??? Photo 4: ??? Photo 5: 9th green (???). Photo 6: 16th green. Photo 7: 11th hole, with 12th in background. Photo 8: 8th hole (???). Photo 9: Hogan Bridge, 12th hole. Photo 10: 12th hole (I think this and Photo 1 are identical.) Does anyone know how to fill in or fix the "???"s?

And since there's a .0001% that it will happen, who cares? So now we move from an impossible hypothetical to speculation. From personal experience, of the ten or so people I asked to rank the majors, no one has refused to differentiate between them. Granted, that's a small and biased sample, but it's more evidence than you gave ... Sure it could. The R&A; would also make a ton of cash if they brought the Open Championship to America. Again, however, since it ain't gonna happen, who cares?

What of that which we we see of you is real, and what of it is an image?

Oh, man, I should've realized that I'm the only one who uses "gagger-vance" as a verb. It means "to choke," punning on the golf movie "The Legend of Bagger Vance." My error. As for tennis players, Agassi is a perfect example.

Also remember that a then-winless Tiger gagger-vanced away the 1996 Quad Cities to Ed Fiori -- so Rickie is in good company.

What's the deal with Snedeker (his 78 was tied for the worst round of the day)? The bogey-double-double finish (when he was out of contention) made the debacle seem worse than it probably was, but still ... I wonder if the demons from the BMW last year are still haunting him.

Anthony Kim: 65 on Friday (sixth best round of the day); 76 on Saturday (second worst round of the day). This is why AK != Tiger.

Yeah, my bad. Sorry about that.

This is not the way you calculate handicap. ----- Here's the deal: either those are the only ten rounds you've posted, or simply the last ten rounds you've posted (and you've posted others beforehand). If those are the only ten rounds you've posted, you calculate your handicap by average the best three differentials of the ten. In this case, your handicap is (8.4 + 11.9 + 14.9) / 3 = 11.7. If those are the last ten rounds you've posted, there are two possibilities. Either you've posted at least twenty rounds in total, or you've posted 11-19 rounds in total. In the former case, average the ten best differentials of you last twenty rounds. In the latter case, average the n best differentials of your x posted rounds, following this chart (sorry for the sloppy formatting): x posted rounds ........ n best differentials 5-6 ........................... 1 7-8 ........................... 2 9-10 ......................... 3 11-12 ....................... 4 13-14 ....................... 5 15-16 ....................... 6 17 ............................ 7 18 ............................ 8 19 ............................ 9 20 ............................ 10 (Note that, according to this chart, if 9-10 rounds are posted you average the three best differentials. This I what I did earlier.) As Erik said, it's probably the case that you've posted rounds other than the ten you listed for us; these other rounds (worse, I presume) are what make your handicap 14.9. EDIT: Oh yeah, don't forgot to multiply by .96 when it's over. (This would make the 11.7 an 11.3.)

Ah, I f'ed up, didn't realize that walnuts aren't an option. Cashews, then. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, he started on the back, was even for the round after 11 holes, then went +9 on his next 6 holes (dub-bog-par-trip-par-trip). Solid birdie on 9 kept him in the 70s .

Haha no, I'm not a scientist at all -- I'm a college student, probably a Classics major, and I run and hide from science courses. So I guess that's as far away from "scientist" as it gets ...

Just a faulty argument that shows no understanding of randomness. Look, there are thirteen weeks in the PGA Tour season before the Masters. So, assuming that Tiger was always going to speak at some point this year before Augusta, there's a 1/13 chance it would happen during the week of this tournament -- odds that are not high enough to infer that Tiger is intentionally trying to slight Accenture by holding the conference this week. It may well be true, it's a understandable hypothesis, but it's in no way "obvious." Correlation does not imply causation, folks.

The best nuts in the can are the walnuts, which I eat last, not first. Basically, I would rather salvage a ho-hum round with birdies on 17 and 18 than get off to a hot start but be disappointed with the rest of the round -- you know, if eating mixed nuts is like a round of golf or anything ...

Well, now we know why the press conference is urgent -- according to the commissioner himself, Tiger needs to get back to therapy. ESPN.com Article "As we understand it, Tiger's therapy called for a week's break at this time during which he has spent a few days with his children and then will make his statement before returning," Finchem said in a letter Thursday. "Accordingly, there was very little flexibility in the date for the announcement."

Absolutely. In fact, the tournament is basically random at this point: the average seed remaining is an 8.2. (If you picked numbers randomly from 1-16, of course, the mean would be 8.5.)

To: Steve Stricker. Way to bust my bracket after Day 1. (Still love you though, Stricks!)

Well done again, Ben, even if the end wasn't your best. Your stats are probably way better if you take out that one poor round from Japanese Q School -- it seems like you've been par or better every other round. Keep it up -- this is your year!

Yeah, he does the early rounds of the US Open. As for today's round, Dustin Johnson is six under through seven. 59 potential? (Oh, and I have him on my fantasy team too -- looks like I'll have picked the winner for the third straight week! )