jaragon126

Kudos to the ranger for doing something about slow play. I've played many rounds where the ranger just drives around doing nothing. I've even been on a course where the ranger asked my group to slow down because the group in front of us felt "rushed". (We weren't hitting into the group ahead of us, we weren't yelling at the group ahead of us, we were just keeping up as we were supposed to) I agree with other posters, slow play is the worst. In my league we are penalized with added strokes if we get too far behind the group in front of us. Now, I can't really say if HOW the ranger tried to speed up play was good or not, I wasn't in the situation. No one should be yelled at or looked down upon like they are idiots. So if the kids felt bad because of that, it's an unfortunate situation. The ranger should have politely explained to them what was going on, and took the stance that he was helping them ... not reprimanding them.

Love your tempo! Looks fine to me, but again ... who am I to give a +2 handicap any advice

Well you better bring your rain suit/stocking cap/winter gloves for this weekend if you are going to play ... supposed to be CRAPPY weather Snow / rain on Sat & Sun. Friday will be cool, but still should be able to play. Thursday looks like it's going to be nasty too ... rain / snow all day.

I buy my 5 star (highest quality) used Titleist ProV1 from http://www.lostgolfballs.com/

Lol I've played with some guys that hit with their left hand below their right (right handed swing). It's very odd looking ... but the guy I played with wasn't that bad. Definitely not a single digit handicap, but not awful.

We post ALL of our scores ... whether they are Match Play or Stroke Play. Our league requires that we post all scores ... not sure how other leagues work. If we didn't putt out on a hole because we were given the putt by the opponent, then you count what you would have made on that hole. Most of the time we just count that putt since it's not like we are giving each other 10 foot putts on the hole.

To be honest, I haven't played the TW game for probably 3-4 years. I don't remember what level I was playing on at the time. Got bored with it & it's just been collecting dust. I have about 10-15 games right now, I probably play an average of 1 hour per week since I can still get out & golf before the snow hits here in Colorado, and that 1 hour that I DO play is usually Rock Band or Guitar Hero :). I just got Guitar Hero 5 and I haven't even played it yet ... I got it because you get Guitar Hero Van Halen for free with some promotion they were running. Maybe this winter I'll dust off TW again & see where I left off and try the different difficulty levels.

Ya shades9323, I try to use the course yardages as much as possible, but there are times when the sprinkler heads are empty or you need to know the distance TO a specific area. If the ball is close to the standard 200/150/100 yard markers all the time, then not much need for a GPS/Laser. But since I'm not good enough to keep my shots in those areas all the time I need all the help I can get. I'm sure the other golfers on the course appreciate me not wasting 10 minutes walking off some obscure yardage when I'm far from a yardage marker.

I am going to be getting a Laser Rangefinder for Xmas (I know I'm a wishful thinker!), and I like the idea of putting your name/address/phone on it ... hoping someone would return it if it was lost. Hopefully the thing will come with a cool case that can hang on the bag or that will fit in one of my bag pockets. That way I get in the habit if putting it back in the case.

You'll love Arrowhead ... it's a beautiful course. Try looking here for discounts: http://www.golfcolorado.com/display.php?courseid=4 Murphy Creek is nice too ... no trees, usually breezy. http://www.auroragov.org/AuroraGov/D...unts/index.htm Never played the other courses you mentioned, and sorry no advice on fishing :)

For me, I stopped buying the Tiger Woods games because they all were pretty much the same. I have the xbox 360, and I think the last one I got was 2005 or 2006. Got kind of boring for me, able to shoot 20 under par on the courses myself ... then get online to play against other people & end up getting smoked. On the games I had, you could use power boost on your shots to get unrealistic distances ... you could put unrealistic spin on the ball to get it ridiculously close to the pins ... you could see the specific mark & speed that you needed to roll your putt to to get it in the cup. Not very challenging for me. I have downloaded a couple of the demos of the new ones that have come out, but again, they are the same as the old ones which I don't play anymore anyway since the evolution of the Rock Band/Guitar Hero games . According to the reviews at http://reviews.teamxbox.com , the game got a 9 out of 10 score (as well as the Editor's Choice award) ... so it appears that it's a keeper. But for me, they all seemed the same back in the day.

kleraudio: stay in FL man ... winter golf here in Colorado sucks! I went to the range to chip & putt this morning before work and it was barely 40 degrees outside with a stiff breeze

I'm having issues with this as well. Most of the time I find that if I try to rip the ball as hard as I can I mis-hit the ball often. So I try to dial down my speed into something nice & smooth, but in my last lesson at GolfTec I asked the instructor if we could somehow get yardages for my clubs since I have been hitting them very inconsistently & my yardages are way off. We hit through all the irons, and he noticed some pretty big gaps (20 yards or so) between a few clubs. I guess normally the gaps between clubs should be 10-15 yards. I did notice that my swing speed was pretty consistent around 80mph. So he told me that I should try to swing harder so that I could get more distance out of my clubs. I told him that getting more distance wasn't what I was interested in, getting an actual average yardage for each of my clubs was what I wanted. I explained that maybe because I don't know how hard to swing my clubs, that was causing me to sometimes hit my 9 iron 120 yards one time and 140 yards another time (all things being equal). I think that the pro's swing speed is well over 100mph, so maybe I do need to start practicing swinging harder if I want to get to scratch golf ... but whenever I speed up I don't hit the ball well (I even get the shanks at times). My instructor checked the loft & lie of one of my irons (Callaway X-18), and it was close to the "standard" for other brands of irons ... so he said the clubs looked ok. He did ask if I had gotten fitted for them, and I explained that I went into Golfsmith to buy my irons & made a big deal about getting fitted for them ... only to have the Golfsmith guy let me hit a few irons with impact tape on the bottom and hand me a standard lie-standard length set from the rack. Now I don't know if I truly AM standard ... or if the Golfsmith guy was wrong. The instructor seemed to roll his eyes when I told him I got fitted at Golfsmith Isn't it better to swing slow & smooth and in control, rather than to try to hit your 9iron as far as you can?

Ah ok sorry, I didn't know that some of the old PS2 games would work. I could have sworn that I heard the PS3 didn't play PS2 games when the PS3 came out. I must have gotten bad information. I have probably 5 old Xbox games at home that I play on my Xbox360. According to this page: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/back...ygameslist.htm there are over 450 old Xbox games that work on Xbox 360.

I don't mind playing alone ... it is lonely ... but I can work on my game by hitting multiple balls. I don't really notice if I play better or worse when I'm alone or not. Sometimes I get paired up with some good players so I like watching them. Other times I get paired up with jack*sses so it's annoying.

I used to get my lessons from a golf pro at a course. I went to him for many years, so he would give me lessons at a pretty reduced rate. He would teach me for about an hour & only charge me $30. On those occasions, I would give him an extra $10 to make it an even $40 because I knew he was giving me a discount. At my last lesson with him, he mentioned that for me to get my handicap lower I would probably have to go somewhere to get more detailed lessons (such as video & stuff like that). So reluctantly I went to GolfTec and spent a TRUCKLOAD of money on lesson packages. I do NOT tip the GolfTec guy. I actually wish I could cash in the remaining lessons I have with them & get my money back :( Too late now I guess. I have 4 lessons left with GolfTec so I'm not sure what I'm going to do after that's done. Not sure if I should go back to my guy that got my handicap down to about 6, but said he couldn't do much more for me. I don't want to go back to GolfTec, my handicap has been 11 this whole year and I'm not satisfied. There is a Mike McGetrick academy here in Colorado that I could try, but that is expensive too. //// sorry for the rant

Sounds very fishy to me. As you also mentioned, make sure he is posting those scores. I played in a match a few years ago in my league, and both of us played pretty well that day. The match went down to the wire, and he ended up winning the last hole to beat me. I shot a 74 (yes, this was several years ago when I was playing much better and was a much lower handicap), and he shot a 73. He wasn't a sandbagger by ANY means. Anyway, I was chatting with our golf league president about how close the match was & mentioned our scores. A couple of weeks later, the league president noticed my opponent hadn't posted his 73 yet. So our league president posted that score for the guy TWICE. Yes, that was a pretty harsh deal, and I felt bad because it wasn't like I was trying to tattle on the guy. I was just having a conversation with the president & I just mentioned our scores in passing. But, handicaps are no good unless they are posted truthfully & honestly. I'm not sure if your situation was in a league in which you'll see your opponent again, or if it was a one time deal where you'll never have to see him again. For what it's worth, in our league we never have to play anyone that's more than say 3-4 strokes different than ourself. Our league does a great job of putting people in proper flights based on handicaps. Why on earth you were playing with someone with such a big difference in handicaps pretty much blows. I am a 10.5 handicap and my rounds since May 2009 have been: 84, 84, 85, 86, 81, 81, 79, 88, 85, 85, 87, 86, 86, 79, 82, 82, 89, 89, 87, 83 So I've only broken 80 twice, and was nowhere near the low 70s. Does it sound realistic for the guy to shoot that low ... I say no. Could it happen ... maybe. Maybe it's worth following up with the league committee to make sure he posted his score. Handicap events are tough, because there ARE going to be sandbaggers out there. That's part of the beauty of being able to play scratch golf ... no more handicaps to consider!

Ya oneF457z, I thought about getting a mat & a net to hit into over the winter. I hate hitting into nets ... that's how my golf lessons at GolfTec are, but I guess hitting something is better than nothing. I don't have a garage to hit into though ... we live in an apartment, so I wonder if I could get away with putting the net into the spare bedroom.

Similar here in Colorado ... winter isn't a fun time to golf. I am going to try to get out to practice more this winter rather than hang up the clubs completely. I am going to putt more inside my apartment, even though it's on the carpet. I don't know of many indoor hitting areas aside from GolfTec where I've been getting some lesson at. But you have to pay a few hundred bucks to be able to practice there over the winter without taking any lessons.

Xbox 360 here, used to be a big PS2 & original Xbox player. PS3 won't play PS2 games from what I've heard. That's one of the reasons I never got the PS3. Xbox 360 does play most of the original Xbox games ... with updates coming out regularly to be able to play the older games. I have pretty much all the guitar hero/rock band games ... I LOVE them ... looking forward to Guitar Hero Van Halen coming out soon! A buddy of mine has the Wii, and the games are fun because you have to get up & move around to play them. But they are very "cartoon-ish" and kid-friendly from what I've seen.

I'm not a golf pro, but am also interested in responses to this post. I have also read from similar posts that golf pros actually don't get much time to golf at all ... with the lessons & management & supervision involved in the position. Is this true?

I would play it. A little scuff mark isn't bad in my opinion. If there was a deeper cut, or if the cover was coming off then I would toss it out. But a scuff mark isn't that bad to me.

Take a lesson If you felt like your last instructor wasn't good, then find another one. I have taken lessons from bad instructors before I found a good one. Seek out someone that helps you out ...

Titleist ProV1. Sometimes Bridgestones if I find them on the course somewhere.

I agree with whetstone ... the "Playing Lessons From The Pros" is awesome. They give you better course management tips as well as great insight into what's going on in their minds. I don't get to watch it as often as I'd like ... I wish I had a way to record it :)