ScT1

I think the best possible outcome at this point would be for Tiger to disqualify himself.

That's really stretching the fudge factor on it.

That's dodging a bullet. He signed for an incorrect score and ought to be disqualified.

I thought maybe it would have happened by now in case they wanted to adjust the pairings. But since Bubba has probably already teed off, I guess that won't be happening. I suppose though the DQ remains a possibility up until the point Tiger begins his practice and warmup for the day -- they'd most certainly want to reach a decision before that.

Wow, I hadn't realized all this last night, and had only been thinking about the awful luck of hitting the stick like that and ending up with bogey. But having read through everything and seeing what Tiger said about it, he ought to be disqualified. Whether he actually will, is less certain, but I believe it's very likely he will be disqualified and the biggest story of this event (unless Fred Couples defies time and age and wins) will be Tiger Woods being disqualified.

Faldo isn't as good as I felt that Ken Venturi was, but he's way better than the guy he replaced, Lanny Wadkins. Now if they could just get rid of Jim Nantz. He's becoming more and more annoying, it seems like.

Playing most often as a walk-on single at a local muni, I've often played with new and different people. The vast majority I've enjoyed the holes I've played with them. There's really only been a few that got on my nerves, and the most prominent of those both have holes-in-one involved. The first one is a guy who plays semi-frequently at that muni, so I've ended up playing a few times with him, although every subsequent time has been with ever more dread. But the first time I ended up playing with him, I got to see a hole-in-one live for the first time. And it was Mr. Cuss-after-every-wayward-shot who got the hole-in-one. But for the 8 holes before his hole-in-one, it was one long litany of cursing, cursing at the ball, cursing at the course, cursing at the weather, cursing at the angle of the sun, cursing at how the tree branches moved in wind, cursing how there are such things as hills, cursing at those sandy areas called bunkers, cursing at his clubs, cursing at his putter, cursing at his golf cart. Did I mention the guy just didn't seem to be all that happy? But there at the 9th hole, the best hole on the course to see a hole-in-one shot, he hit a nice looking shot towards the left front corner of the green where the pin was, it hit just in front of the green, got a forward roll off the slope, and tracked on in for a hole-in-one. The other guy who was with us and me congratulated him and both of us felt a certain relief that we got a break from the usual stream of cursing. The next guy that I was glad to see the round end and hopefully never have to worry about pairing up with again was someone who just seemed to have no concept of courtesy or etiquette. Early on, I asked him if he would take the time to avoid stepping on the putting lines of the rest of us in the foursome. Nope, didn't take. It happened to me again on the 4th and 5th holes, and I didn't feel like harping on it. When we got the 6th hole, the first par-3 on the course, I remember looking at the flag. Slightly left of center, front-middle, a slight wind from the right, and I just got this incredible instinctive feeling -- "I've got this shot. It's a 5-iron, I just start it at the right edge of the bunker, let my fade die against that wind, and it'll be good." My mind went completely empty except for how much I felt I owned the shot at that moment. And when I made my swing, everything clicked. The ball took off right where I aimed it for and then began curling lightly back, and tracking for the hole. Unfortunately, the light in the afternoon there makes you most often lose the ball against the background, unless you have really young and sharp eyes, and we all lost it. I just said, "That felt right." It sure turned out to be right. It was my first and so far only hole-in-one. I remember thinking to myself I did it specifically so I wouldn't have that guy trample over my putting line, again. In some ways, I both look forward to, and dread my next encounter with a hole-in-one.

My guess is that it might be asking too much to bend a wedge 4 degrees. I've heard 2 degrees is about the limit. Also, seeing that you're a newbie golfer, I think you've got plenty to learn about hitting the wedges you have now consistently and solidly, before you start fiddling around with a more unusual and specialty sort of wedge.

I felt it's important to revisit this. I'm not going to argue with you that lifting won't increase flexibility, I think it can help, and it can especially help with individuals who are not only told what types of lifting to do, but how to do them . Which can be extremely important for all types of people, sometimes even well-conditioned athletes can have deficiencies in movement patterns and their amounts of flexibility. It's also important in view of how we had an older individual asking about this. If there's one damn certain thing about this world, it's that the older you get, the more you can lose flexibility and movement. I'm not old yet, I'm 42, but even when young I wasn't all that gumby-like and I've also had type 1 diabetes for over 27 years, and there is a good body of evidence about how diabetes tends to do cruddy sorts of things to the stuff that's involved in being limber -- the ligaments and tendons, and how the muscle fibers lay out. So speaking as someone who decided to get off his butt in late 2005, and began doing stuff like golfing, running, lifting, lifting itself wasn't enough. I've had to put time into working on getting more flexible. And I'm still working on it because I've got some compensatory movement patterns and I slacked off for about a year and half while my left shoulder was frozen up pretty good with adhesive capsulitis. Anyhow, I came across a good thread today at the Irongarm forums where someone asked about putting together a program for his father at the age of 62. There's a lot of quality advice in there and there's a pretty consistent theme among them all -- mobility is huge. Another place recently where I saw some talk about flexibility was on Joe DeFranco's site, The Stretching Roundtable . So I do take some issue with the assertion that any form of weightlifting will produce above average flexibility in a person. It is certainly not true in all individuals, and the older the individual we have, it may be even more likely there will already be compensatory factors that will interfere with a person achieving above average flexibility simply through some sort of weightlifting. I've also been unable to find anything about that study of novice weighlifters after 11 weeks having become more flexible, at least nothing detailed to say what the ages were of the participants and what exactly the program was and if it didn't include some sort flexibility and mobility work.

I think it's interesting there are some who don't think it wouldn't be interesting to maybe even play a round or two from tees more forward. Maybe it's a bit easier for me to go about doing it because I'm not a long-ball hitter, so for me it can make for a nice change of pace to play a round where I get some more short irons into greens. But I'm still surprised that a person might not think, "What would happen if I shortened the course? How different would it play from what I'm used to?" For me at least, a round of golf from almost any set of tees would be enjoyable, because I've really come to enjoy the idea of thinking my way around a course and trying to wring the most out of my game that I can. There's a challenge there from any set of tees at the course I most often play. The challenges may differ some, but there are still challenges and plenty of fun in all kinds of shots -- whether it's trying to hit a hybrid or wood into a green, or fiddling with one of those fussy half-wedges from 40 to 50 yards, or trying to run a chip across an undulating green. The expanse of shots in golf is huge and it seems like the more you can enjoy the challenges of all types, the more open the game becomes to you. The game doesn't have to be about playing the longest possible shot every time, or the shortest one, or about seeing how fast one can race around the course from the tips or from the most forward. The game can be about a series of shots that all play off one another, but that you have to hit each one as a separate act. For me, that's the beauty of the game -- the chance for me to walk around a course in about 3 hours if I'm on my own, or longer if the course is filled up. Playing each shot as each one comes up. I don't think this game is purely about distance. There's so much more to it than that.

The first thing I'll say is that I think it's great that you want to work on getting stronger and more flexibility. Being old doesn't mean that someone has to become weaker and more inflexible, and there is a good body of evidence that strength and flexibility programs can do a lot to slow down the aging process and improve quality of life. Along with golf probably too. I'm not going to make any specific recommendations because I don't know anything about your current condition. I'd say it might be a good idea to consult with a qualified physical trainer who could assess your current level of strength and flexibility and make good safe recommendations on how you could go about improving things. Generally these days it is thought that a good strengthening program will incorporate some sort of squatting and lunges to help strengthen the legs and overall body, upper body pushing motions like push ups, bench presses, overhead presses, and upper body body pulling motions like chin ups/pull ups, and barbell or dumbbell rows. Other quality exercises that can be done with dumbbells are swings and snatches, but you definitely might want to have someone qualified to show you how to do those and make sure that you do them safely. Working out should be done in a way that improves health and you don't want to do things with poor form and risk injury. The dumbbells themselves won't do much for your flexibility, but flexibility can be important to help with performing dumbbell exercises with good form. Yoga and tai chi programs can be very good to help teach basics of flexibility and balance. Mostly it involves developing a routine that works to hit nearly all the muscles and joints of the body, and then being diligent on putting in at least 10 minutes a day doing at least some portion of the full routine. Good luck and remember. You don't actually get stronger while you lift the weights, you get stronger when your body repairs itself afterward. So eat good too and get your sleep.

Ryder Cup? What Ryder Cup? Did they play that this year? I just can't remember or don't want to or something.

I think for me it's something of curiosity that will often motivate me. 7 years ago I got curious as to whether I might learn to swing a golf club and break 100. 6 years ago I got curious to see whether I could run a half-marathon so I did that. Then I got curious to see how many chin ups I could do, curious to see if someday I could do a single-arm chin up, curious to see if I could deadlift over twice my bodyweight. It's stuff like that, I find it interesting. I'm not any great athlete, but it's gotten me in better shape than most people around me my age. Hopefully I can stay curious.

It's still impressive that he punched a ball through the screen.

I'm glad I read this thread. Based on what I learned in it, I've very much changed how I aim my putts which will track on a path outside the hole. And I've also changed where my eyes look for a target. Prior to having read this thread, on longer putts that would need a path outside the hole, I would look at the hole, then ball, then hole, then ball, then hole, then ball and stroke. Now I've begun to select a target that's off the hole and look at that instead of the hole. I've never done well with distance control if I select a target in front of the ball, but based on yesterday and a round where I had 30 putts and no 3-putts, selecting a target that's off the hole but about the same distance let's me control line and distance better. Although I'm trying to figure out what I might want to do with longer and big breaking putts where it might be hard to select a target with about same distance as hole. Maybe if I calculate where I believe the apex of the putt to be, imagine what speed it ought to be traveling at that time, then select a target point with distance close to the apex point and use that? I'll definitely go the practice green and try that to see if it will work for me. But heck, this thread made me realize why I would often have trouble starting my ball on line on longer putts, plus have trouble with distance. When I would be looking at the hole on the long putts with breaks outside the hole, my brain would be struggling with conflicting info -- eyes are looking there, try to putt to there, wait! the ball is supposed to go out there, but my eyes are looking there, stroke would then flail and fail with the conflicts going on.