LarryK

Not much you can do about a broken club but to take it in. As for regripping, I usually tried to do that in the dead of winter right before a major snow storm.

My personal best (from the whites) is 81. Normally, I am in the high 80s. I tell people when I start routinely shooting in the low to mid-seventies, I'll think about moving back to the blues, but not 'til then.

I recently moved to another state, and while I miss my regular playing partners of old, I am also one of those who plays better as a single. First off, I hate being pushed by the group behind which can sometimes happen if you are part of a threesome or foursome. In that case, I find myself rushing my shot and screwing up. Playing solo, I almost never get pushed by a twosome or threesome behind me, so that gives me plenty of time to concentrate over the ball without worrying if I am holding anyone up. Allowing a group to play through me is never an issue. If I end up pushing a group ahead of me and they invite me to play through, I will almost always do so. But I would never ask for the privilege unless they were painfully slow (i.e. a group of obvious beginners). In the same vein, I would never ask to join an existing twosome or threesome. I would think that would be presumptuous on my part. If they should invite me to join them , however, I may or may not, depending on my mood. I would almost certainly join them if my playing through would not appreciably improve my situation or theirs. Specifically, if there is another foursome in front of them, then my jumping between the two groups is just going to clog things up. Better to consolidate and make a larger playing group, strangers though they may be. In short, playing alone can be very tranquil, good for your game and a great deal of fun. But going out alone doesn't mean you should expect to finish that way. I believe you should always be prepared to pair up if circumstances dictate.

Fear not, 3Q. Why do I think it is coming your way if, in fact, it hasn't already?

Hate to be the one to ruin your day, but I can't believe you are unaware that state legislatures do this all the time. http://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/...r=0336&pn;=1931 or how 'bout this one: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/...r=0333&pn;=1929

On the contrary. Whenever you beat your personal best by three strokes, that is absolutely something to brag about. That is a real chest-thumper, pard!! Nice going!

Hopefully your mini-rant provided some relief. At least here you will get some sympathy. My experience with truly boorish individuals (and fess up...yours, too, right?) is that the more severe and numerous their offenses, the less likely they are to feel any sense of guilt or shame surrounding their actions. In fact, if you confront them on their behavior they are more than likely to take offense at your offense and come up with some truly outlandish rationale on why they are entitled to act like idiots. I once saw a driver ahead of me throw out bags of trash (i.e. super-sized happy meals) onto a scenic road through a national park. Upon confronting the individual (oh, yes, I did), I did not for a moment entertain the idea that he was somehow unaware that blatant littering was socially unacceptable. To do so would have extended a benefit of doubt that he did not deserve. Instead, my rebuke cut to the heart of his real "crime," and with a fair amount of sarcasm, I let it be known that his lack of respect for others was only exceeded by my lack of respect for him. That is about all you can do with people who demonstrate arrogance rather than honest negligence.

Thank you, Wulff. Thank you, thank you, and again, thank you!

You guys got it all wrong! I predict just the opposite. When Michelle grows into a woman instead of a goofy little girl, I look for her to pull a fairly low-key Sean O'Hair. When she is strong and mature enough to put her parents in their rightful place and take full control of her game (and not incidentally her life ) there is no reason why her considerable talents should not develop to where she is a dominant force in woman's golf. This, of course, also presumes that she matures enough to abandoned the silly notion of becoming a dominant force in men's golf.

I don't think the appropriate question has to do with "fairness". As MGP pointed out, as long as everyone is playing the same course, that's fair. The better question has to do with whether or not the USGA can provide the severest possible test of golf for the best players in the world, and still have that course set up be "reasonable". They haven't always done that, but this year, I think they got it right. The evidence that they have, are the rounds by Nick Dougherty and Paul Casey -- competent professionals to be sure, but hardly who we would have picked to shoot lights out, right? Their rounds pretty much rob everyone else of any excuse. So yeah, tough, fair and reasonable. An awful lot of guys still have a chance to win this thing.

Back several years ago when I was unemployed and had severely limited funds for golf, I would go to my local range which also had an excellent chipping and pitching area. I would buy a small bucket and often supplement that with additional balls I would gather from around the chipping green if it was clear they been left by someone previously. After practicing my short game I might then hit these balls down range with my irons and driver. Obviously, I might save a buck or two on balls hit down range via my "gathering strategy". I never abused this to the extent that many guys did, gathering gargantuan buckets of free balls without paying for them. Rarely, if I got tired or needed to leave, I might stuff some unused balls in my bag, knowing full well that I was coming back tomorrow and that the balls were coming with me to be left at their rightful home. If you only saw me take the balls, you would probably assuming I was stealing them. But again, they were coming back within a day or two at most. It was never about stealing balls for regular rounds of golf elsewhere. Thankfully, I was never that poor.

I dunno....if it takes you 4 or 5 separate strokes to get "home" when having sex, you may need to sign up for some lessons.

Remind me to never stand next to you during a thunderstorm.

I also agree, and it's why I keep a stat called "other". "Other" are the number of stokes left after I subtract my tee shots (18) and total putts from my total score. If you hit every green in regulation, your "other" stat would be 18 strokes. If you are a bogey golfer, that number will be a lot closer to 36. Anything over 36......well, at least you were outside, and hopefully it was a nice day.

http://www.beardancegolf.com/golf/images/hole16_t.jpg #16 at Bear Dance GC in Larkspur, CO. Looks a little puny next to all these Banff photos, but it's still a great course. Eye candy holes are a big reason I play golf.

And that really is the point! Salute.

The Players is not a "true" championship for the same reason that the two best NBA teams playing each other during the regular season is not the NBA Championship. Same for the two best teams in the NFL that might coincidentally butt heads in inter-conference play. The winners of either of those games are not the champions of their respective leagues. That game comes later. No one is saying the Players is not a great tournament. We're only saying that it takes more than a great field on a great course to justify the designation of a "major". "Best field in all of the tournaments played?" Did you mean to imply that the Players' field is better than the Masters, Open, British, and/or PGA fields? Surely not.

The Players is not a major because it is not a true "championship" -- regardless of what the promoters choose to call it. The US Open is the USGA championship. It is the United States championship of amateur and professional golf combined. The British Open is the championship of the United Kingdom (if not all of Europe) and is therefore the championship of the very birthplace of golf. The PGA was , for most of its history, the professional championship, although the Tour Championship and the Fed Ex Cup have done their best to reduce its importance. One could argue that the pros should only get one championship to crown their champion and that that tournament should be a major. But make up your mind, fer cryin' out loud. How many Super Bowls does the NFL play? The Masters is the lone exception to the championship = major argument. And that's the problem. Because Bobby Jones' friendly get together evolved into something much bigger based on strength of field and tradition, others with a bad case of ego or mere over-enthusiasm apparently want to see if they can make history by actually manufacturing it through sheer hype. They don't seem to understand that you don't create a "major" via majority vote or mere designation. It happens by acclamation.

I have always tried to fix my marks according to the technique shown in the video. But I could swear that I sometimes see professional tour players not using this method. Seems that some just do a vertical stabbing motion. Is that what others see, or am I missing something?

Everyone talks about breaking 100 as a milestone, but I think there is something particularly special about breaking 90. A golf pro once told my novice group that while the "bogey" is thought of as a bad score, we should not believe it. "Bogey golf is good golf," he said. And since bogey golf is usually a 90, you just beat that to a pulp. I sure remember my first 89! And I don't remember breaking 100 at all. I just did it at some point, and it didn't seem to be a big deal. Outstanding job!

Paula's my girl. I will usually opt for the girl next door look over Vegas cocktail waitress.

Well, duhhhhh...... Their presence today answers nothing. The question is where have they been and why? Does it make any sense for TGC to hype the hell out of their very own broadcast team as part of their brand spanking new 2007 PGA package, hire Faldo for tons of money, and then have that very same broadcast team "drop by" every five or six weeks? I thought the point of "every PGA event starts here" was to have a consistent look to the beginning of each tour event -- something that none of the networks can claim. It's a branding thing, and it looked originally like TGC was playing a smart hand. But they mucked their high pair. Why? I have no frigging idea, but I find it hard to believe that it is because of some strategic marketing plan to offer their satellite uplink time to allow another network to do a dress rehearsal for that network's weekend coverage. And that's exactly what has been happening for over a month. Conspiracy or no, I'm simply saying there is a reason why. I don't believe it was part of the original programming plan, and we aren't hearing about it.

I get tired of the Natalie pin up show, so it's nice to hear she's not particularly wild about it either. Having said that, Natalie's golf game is far, far better than Anna K's tennis game. With Anna, it's all about the skin and the Eastern European mystique. For Natalie, winning is just a matter of time, and I think she is in contention often enough that there is no real time pressure for her to produce. It will happen.

I raised this same question in another thread a few weeks ago. No one seems to know for certain what happened, but given all the hype that the Golf Channel put forth about their new broadcast team, I have to believe one of two things: Either Kelly and Nick didn't get along that well and one of them essentially refused to work with the other, or the Golf Channel did some "focus group" testing and didn't like the numbers they saw. Either way, I believe the Golf Channel panicked and pulled the plug too early. For whatever criticisms the Thursday/Friday broadcast received, it wasn't that bad. I think it makes them look silly and their failure to publicly address the situation makes them look worse. It's like whenever a TV or radio station fires someone. Everyone goes mute and pretends like the person never existed. (Don Imus being an obvious exception).

Within the past month, I've moved from Colorado to Kentucky. Playing my first muni here a few weeks ago I was paired with a local who knew the course pretty well. On one hole on the back nine, the cart path made a steep, twisting descent from the tee box to the fairway. My partner assured me that the nearby warning signs were to be taken seriously. I drove extra cautiously and we took the plunge without incident. Standing on the next tee box, however, we suddenly heard, far off in the distance and in the general direction from where we had come, the screeching of brakes followed by the sound of an obviously severe impact and the crunching of metal. It was very similar to those hokey sound effects on TV. We all just kind of looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. It was a pretty good object lesson.