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Maybe he already jumped off the HGH/steroid bandwagon earlier this year when it became apparent testing is going to begin next year. His age is probably the reason he's faltered - but his decline the last three or four months is eye opening. The guys on The Golf Channel were blaming it on Vijay tinkering with his swing. However, the specter of HGH/steroids shouldn't be ignored. I think everyone presumes someone on HGH/steroids is going to look like Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire. The fact is that stuff lets you perform for longer stretches of time and you are able to recover more quickly from exertion - thus guys can lift weights at a longer and more frequent pace; or guys can find it easier to play 6 or 7 rounds of golf each week and still feel day one fresh on Saturdays and Sundays. I think it is ignorant for tour people to think HGH/steroids isn't being abused on tour. Wouldn't it make sense for a guy in his mid-40s to start hitting the sauce so he can feel good on weekends? Can anyone look and see what Vijay's average scores are this year by round? I'd be curious if he's averaging 70 on Thursday and Friday, but is 72 on the weekends.

The Red is an excellent golf course. Took a buddy from work back in July - he's about a 20 handicap. First hole, 471 yard par 4, up hill. He went driver, 5-wood to about 10 feet and made the putt......I'd say there are less than 20 birdies on that hole over the course of a season. One advantage over The Black, it's nice to be able to feel your legs when you're done with The Red since you can use a cart.

They all failed to spell "Deutsche" correctly when registering.

I played Division I baseball in college and consider myself to be very competitive - however, when it comes to golf - I'm there for the five hour break from reality. I can't stand playing with some of my friends who continually piss and moan, throw clubs etc etc. I played all weekend with my uncles, cousins and brother. We were all there to have a great time, break shoes and gain bragging rights for the next year. I played very well - 85 on Saturday, 83 on Sunday. On Sunday I had a string of four straight pars to open the back 9 when I pushed a lousy tee shot into the trees. I have half a dozen friends who would have went ballistic - I saw an opportunity to make a par from the trees. I slapped out a 5-iron from under the trees and had 160 left to the hole - I hit a nice 6-iron into the wind to 18 inches and made par. No matter how bad you hit a shot, the next one can always be spectacular. Life is too short to get pissed off about hooking a tee shot or chunking a wedge.

Old, decrepit, fossilized, ornery rangers/starters is on the top of my list of pet peeves - they seem to outnumber the pleasant ones 10-to-one. May I ask how old the ranger was? As for what you should do - I would explain the situation to the pro, tell him what happened. Any reasonable person would come to the conclusion that the ranger and the assistant pro went overboard - especially the ranger.

Went and got a new set of clubs last week and the golf store had two simulators. The guy told me it's $40 an hour (so $10 each if you bring a foursome) and you can choose from 25 different courses to play - he said it takes about 2.5 hours for a foursome to get in 18. I hit a bunch of irons before buying using the simulator and it was a lot of fun. The guy told me they have regular foursomes show up once a week in the dead of winter to play - said they even show up with a cooler full of beer. I'm definitely going to partake this winter instead of putting the clubs away.

Thanks for the responses. I like the Pumas, but they're pretty mainstream - although brite. I have several pairs highlighted by a pair of lime green aligators and a pair of blue suede golf shoes. The 'gators are especially nice with a pair of white pants.

I don't have a real particular type of ball. However, when I do find one I like, I will generally go on EBay and search for, for example, "Callaway Hex AAAA" - you can usually pick up 100 of them for $100 - $125 and the "AAAA" rated balls look like they are right out of a new sleeve - most have some sort of corporate logo on them, but I find I get a significant value.

I love obnoxious, loud golf shoes. Does anyone know of any websites that have real odd golf shoes? I usually find a pair on EBay once in a while, but that's it.

Good info, thanks. No good this coming weekend, but I'll get out a couple of more times this year. No chance to get an entire round in teeing off after 2pm or so - so going through the reservation system ain't going to cut it with the days getting shorter.

I think Stricker will be ok on Sunday. Westchester is such an easy, short course that he could use a 7-iron all day and shoot 69. Stricker has been pretty consistent and the course plays to that this week.

Absolutely. Anyone can hack it up to the green in a couple of shots and as long as you can get up and down (one chip, one putt) 50% of the time - you'll be in the 90s before you know it. A guy at work just picked up the game and he's in the 120 - 130 range right now - but 1/2 his shots are from within 20 yards of the hole. All it takes is a couple of hours on the practice green figuring out how far your chips go to really take some strokes off your score.

I played baseball in college. Played one day with a teammate who was 6'6 and about 280 - lousy golfer, but a tremendous pitcher. Par 4, 409 yards - he put his drive on the apron of the green - about 390 - no wind, no nothing. He made a 6-footer to save his bogie.

I never worked at a place where I earned tips - but I am always overly generous, especially places where my wife and I frequent. 20% minimum at restaurants - but if I get a bill for $31 and the service was good, I'll always leave $40. My wife and I have twin girls who are 14 months - we take them everywhere, especially out for pub burgers or the local mexican joint. By the time we're ready to leave - underneath our table generally looks like someone put the girls' food in a blender and dumped it out. Not only will we leave a real nice tip when we have the girls with us, but we'll also cleanup the floor from the mess the girls made. Seriously, the guy in the original post who gave the girl a $0.30 tip - he's probably making $180k per year. I just don't understand how a professional like him, who is very intelligent, doesn't understand he should duke the girl a couple of bucks. I have another example. I get a call from an uncle - he's paid $10k for an outing at Old Westbury CC on Long Island for one of his clients but he can't make it. He gives me the foursome and tells me to have a good time with some friends or guys from work. I invite my office's managing partner - a guy who is a member of another club and who makes in the neighborhood of $1 million a year. Our foursome is assigned a fore caddie who was great. At the end of the round we're at the cars putting the clubs away - the managing partner gives the guy $20.....twenty bucks for humping it all over the course for five hours keeping track of everyones balls and being attentive to everything. I came prepared, but I was expecting the managing partner to take care of any out of pocket money that day as a thank you for the invite. I grabbed the guy and gave him another $80. It's mindboggling how this stuff is lost on people.

http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/USAZ0207_f.html Good luck.

Is there any doubt Tiger wins two of the last three? There is no doubt in my mind he's going to try and make a mockery out of it - just to show up Finchem. Actually, depending on how things play out this week - like if someone way down the list wins and no one in the Top 10 in points plays real well, he may skip next week, as well.

Don't worry about it.

Best way to get on, especially if you are from out of state, is to sleep in the lot with the rest of the overnighters. If you want to play during the week, you need to get there around 4 or 5pm the day before. If you want to play on Saturday or Sunday, you need to get there about noon or 1pm the day before. I played last Friday, got there at 1:30pm and drove by the numbered parking spaces for the overnighters and there were already half a dozen cars there for Saturday times. For out of staters, The Black course is $100 during the week and $120 on weekends. The Black does not allow motorized carts - so you have to hoof it. As long as you guys have driver licenses, I don't think you would have a problem getting out.

If you are going with some friends, I would do the overnight thing just for the experience. That's the easiest way to ensure you get off before noon - especially if you have four guys. I've never found the Bethpage staff to be intimidating - but some of them are ornery - mostly a couple of the older guys. Just kill them with politeness. I don't know if there is an age-limit, but if you have a valid drivers license you can make a reservation, so I'm assuming if you have a foursome of all 16/17 year olds, its not a big deal.

All good replies to my original post. It doesn't matter what they really look like - I was using the word "cute" as more of a description of her personality - I tip the same anywhere. As for the cost of the two waters - we were playing at Bethpage on Long Island - everything is more expensive in NYC area. I don't like tipping the club cleaners - but I do. I guess it depends on who they are - as long as the beer cart girl and the other people doing odds and ends are college kids, I don't mind giving them a couple of bucks. I do refuse to tip at my local take-out restaurant - when the heck did they start putting jars out?

CPA - I work in public accounting for one of the big firms.

"How about a little something, you know, for the effort?"

Played with some guys from work last week. One guy, who is 35 and one of the smartest people I know, stops the beer girl. He buys two waters - one for me, one for him. Cute college girl, very pleasant, chatty, good sense of humor....the two waters come to $4.70...he hands her a $5 bill. I nearly fainted from embarassment. She got quiet pretty fast - but not in a bad way - and politely asked if he needed change. He said, "No, that's ok" without even blinking and proceeded to carry-on. I know tipping is a touchy subject with people - but the cute beer cart girls work off their tips. I wanted to chase her down and giver her $2. Without sounding like a dick - I would say our foursome had a combined income of about $600k and we're all in our early to mid-30s. How does a 35 year-old professional making a nice lioving blow off the beer cart girl with a $.30 tip? Do situations like this boggle anyone elses mind? It's like all of the booksmart people were raped of common sense when they came screaming out of their mother's vagina. You have to give the beer cart girl $1 tip per drink - no? If it was me, I'd have bought the waters (we were on the second hole), give her a $20 and tell her to keep coming around. Maybe I'm the idiot.

That, my friend, is what I would call a great day.

I'm 31, caught the tail end of Jack ('86 Masters). If you gave a 30 year old Jack and a 30 year old Tiger equipment from the 60s or 70s - I have a feeling its not a fair fight. I think technology has given golf more parity than there actually is. The perfect example of what Tiger has done to golf is found with the 1997 Masters highlights video - I've caught it on The Golf Channel a couple of times. The looks on the faces of and the comments made by Tom Kite and Colin Montgomerie (two guys who were still young enough to be major factors in major tournaments) after the 2nd and 3rd rounds were telling - without saying it, the looks on their faces pretty much said, "The chances of me winning a major have passed me by." Another thing that irritates me to no end is some of the older commentators, who have all pretty much went by the wayside now, would bring up "Well Tiger never had to compete against guys like Gary Player, or Arnold Palmer etc etc".......Well Jack never had to compete against Michelson, Else, Goosen, Singh, Faldo etc etc and 300 other guys who are all in shape and who all have careers because of technology. Give Tiger and Jack, both in their primes, a sack of off the shelf 1970 golf clubs and Tiger would over power Jack. In 1997 all of the players were using all of the same equipment - none of the balls were juiced, none of the clubs were juiced - the clubs in 1997 were much more comparable to the clubs in the 70s than the clubs and balls they're using now and Augusta had to modify their course. Does anyone doubt Tiger will win a major in his 50s?