djbarnes

Sorry, it's now sold. --Donnie

Okay, bear with me here...I've got a good friend who, like me, doesn't know much about golf. He inherited a WWII era elephant skin golf bag, and was on his way with it and a pile of other stuff to Goodwill when he decided to hang on to it and look and see if it was "worth anything." What he found was that they are indeed very rare (probably for obvious reasons) and he's found comments about them being very valuable (like anywhere from $2,000 to $14,000), but nothing terribly concrete. He definitely wants to sell it if it's got any significant value, but doesn't want to look crazy by just listing it for sale for $14,000 and see what happens if there's some way to know that "uh, dude, that's a $200 bag." But we're not having much luck finding any good info on it. Anyone know for real what the market might be on something like this, or where to go to find out? His grandfather apparently did get it back during WWII (supposedly brought it home from overseas, and you can see the logo says it was made in Saigon), but he passed away in 1995 so we don't know much more about it. Here are the pics: http://s1311.photobucket.com/albums/s677/jorober5/?start=all Any help or pointers would be appreciated. My guess is the thing isn't worth near $14k these days, but may be worth a grand or two. But I'm just throwing a wild guess out there... --Donnie

Yes, it's still available. On the questions: 1. Not completely sure. I bought it used about ten years ago, and I think it was about five years old then. 2. No, it works fine. 3. No, I don't. Since it's not as simple as a software upgrade (you get a new PC, too), I haven't done it. 4. It has optical detectors in the floor. I have a complete spare set, too. 5. I have no idea, I've never used Foresight. 6. I don't. A wild guess would be about $1,000 between wood crates and the shipping. It's really not a terrible drive from Ohio to here, though. Rent a small box truck and come on down. You'll be much happier if you take it down yourself so you'll have a better idea how it goes together anyway. --Donnie

It's still in operation (fully setup), and the link in my first post above has pictures (you can click them for higher res versions). Note that there's a big sun-spot bleeding through from a window that wasn't fully covered BEHIND the screen. That's easily avoidable, we just had some cardboard fall that opened up the window. I'll ship it, you'll just have to pay me something reasonable to build a wooden crate (or a couple) for it so that it makes it safely, since it'll have to go freight. It'll be a few hundred to crate and a few hundred to ship. I do have someone else mulling it over right now, too, who would also need it shipped. I've successfully shipped collectible pinball machines all over the country and internationally, so I know how to do it... I think it'll be two "normal" pallets that are going to be a taller crate each, and then it'll be at least one and maybe two very long skinny crates for the long poles and the roll of astro-turf. You could fly in and see it working. *shrug* --Donnie

Still available, and it's in Chapel Hill, NC (sorry, not used to forums that don't show your location by default). I can break it down and do some kind of palleting so it can be shipped, but it'll cost a little extra, and shipping won't be cheap or easy since there are some VERY long poles when you are talking about shipping. But we can build a wooden crate for it if you're willing to pay for that. --Donnie

Have you got a point to make? I'm sure the biggest part of the problem is few people have room for something like this. The other problem is I need a buyer pretty close, most likely, because shipping is such a bear. When you buy from DSG, part of the hefty price tag is in them driving it to your place and setting it up for you. When I bought it I got it used and it wasn't set up. But I figured it out just fine, and now have it marked well for re-assembly and can take good pictures as it comes down, so the next buyer will have it even easier...but I haven't taken it down yet because it works and a local-ish buyer can come try it. --Donnie

Price drop: $3500! --Donnie

Err, there are some women golfers with those same stats, too. Or are you on the side that golf isn't a sport, either?!? I can't for the life of me understand how anyone can argue on one hand that golf *is* a sport, and then argue that driving a race car *isn't.* Both take incredible amounts of coordination, some amount of endurance, and a lot of mental toughness. If you seriously play golf and believe golf is a sport, but do not believe driving a race car is a sport, then I request you please go do a one day racing school or even high performance track day. Ride with an instructor, then try to replicate what they do. And if you have a heartrate monitor, by all means, throw that sucker on for the day. And if you're not a runner, go out the next day and see how hard you have to run to get your HR to the same levels and maintain them for whatever length one of your sessions of driving was. Hydration and fitness are HUGE parts of auto racing. Without those, you have no chance. But on top of those, to actually compete, you have to be damned good at a lot of things. I've competed on the same race track with some of the best race car drivers in the world (barely). I've played on the same basketball court with former and current NBA players (barely). I have just as much respect for the athletic prowess of the race car driver as the NBA player. Sure, both are different animals, but both possess a LOT of things that the average Joe can't get from any amount of "practice", too. --Donnie

You can get a good idea of what it is, albeit with earlier software, here: http://www.deadsolidgolf.com/ You get swing information *and* ball information, and it will simulate a "real" round of golf, although the putting is obviously not very interesting. I'm actually pretty sure new DSG simulators and the comparable ones are $50k, but got too lazy to confirm that and I know $40k is a safe number. --Donnie

I agree about his spotty past, but there aren't many reasons why he'd lie under oath about this, either. And no, athlete's do NOT get many injections outside of a doctor's office, anyway. Especially not from some guy with a little black bag in a hotel room who isn't any kind of doctor. --Donnie

I'm guessing these don't pop up too often for sale, but I have a complete working Dead Solid Golf simulator for sale. Here is the most important thing you need to know...it's 23' deep, 13' wide, and 10' high. Please don't contact me until you've confirmed you have the room for it! The second most important thing...you use REAL GOLF BALLS AND CLUBS with it. Yes, you can hit your 400 yard drive swing attempt at it all you want. The screen can take it. And once it hits, it will simulate the rest of the ball flight, including spin. Then it will show you your club head speed and angles so that you can work on your swing. There is optional video swing analysis, but I do NOT have that. Also, this is running on an older Mac OS9 system. They have upgrades for that including a new PC, but you have to work with DSG on that part. It does still use the same ball flight and club head hardware. New, these are over $40,000. Yes, that's with the newer software and such, but that's under $10k for the upgrade. I'm asking $5000 for this unit and that's for local pickup only. You can see much more info here: http://djbforsale.blogspot.com/2012/05/dead-solid-golf-simulator.html PM me or post if you have further questions that I should have added to this. It's located in Chapel Hill, NC. And you can try before you buy as it's completely setup and working right now. --Donnie

You mean apart from McNamee saying he injected Clemens himself? Clemens only defense for that was that if it was illegal stuff, he didn't know that, but come on...it's just not normal to need to inject ANYTHING as an athlete that isn't a controlled substance. --Donnie

Yeah, I've got a buddy who is a hard core ultramarathoner. The Leadville race has been his nemesis...failed to finish it twice, even though he's finished a BUNCH of other 100 mile races, including the Tahoe Rim Trail one and a couple others at decent altitude. But Leadville is just a bit worse as far as being above 10k for basically the entire thing with some killer climbs to nearly 14k on that course (it's a different course than what we ride on the MTB, and while it's kind of similar, it's still worse). And when I say that I don't like riding on the road much, believe me, no need to defend it. If that's what you enjoy, or if that's just the closest thing to getting what you enjoy, it's all good. I really want to see one of those criterium races up close...those dudes are every bit as crazy as the big world cup downhill guys! You *will* crash in those, and it WILL hurt! Sucks about the ACL, but glad you've found something you can do and enjoy as far as that goes, too. I've had both my knees scoped for internal cartilage damage. While the actual problem and repair wasn't NEARLY as involved as an ACL, both involved impact zones in the knee and thus required a full six month rehab before I was allowed to jump in any way again. It was horrible. I wasn't a cyclist then, so I have no idea how it would have affected that, but I'm sure it wouldn't have been good! --Donnie

I agree with you on all of it. The Clemens trial was going so damned well for the prosecution and it's just so damned obvious the dude did it and lied about it. Then it fell apart THAT badly?!? Nah, something was up there. --Donnie

Depends...at least some of these guys were using steroids legally via doctor prescriptions. Now, those doctors may have been doing something unethical and/or illegal by prescribing things that weren't medically necessary, but that's a different animal to pursue entirely. But even if they were all acquiring and using the stuff illegally, the point here is that nobody was trying to go after *that*, since it's all minor on the grand scheme of "drug use" and the penalties that would be involved, yet perjury was somehow bigger. Which means, IMHO, it was all a big waste of time. It seems like the big change in the Lance situation is far more people willing to state they saw Lance do illegal stuff. That's because they saw all the Bonds and Clemens kind of crap, so they apparently were more forthcoming with info for the feds. Then the feds still didn't think they had much of a case, but they were allowed to turn all that info over to the USADA. So now all those guys are on record, so apparently the USADA feels like they've got enough to go after Lance again. So while I don't think there's hard evidence in the samples that he did anything wrong, the samples were "sufficiently good" that with corroborating first person accounts, it could explain why his blood was always right on the edge of acceptable levels. Which is still dumb. Because not only were there no tests for some of this stuff, there are still not tests for some things. You can over-do your altitude tent training and get high enough levels of some things that you're "illegal" for competition because it's been defined that way. Why? Because there are drugs that will boost those things that aren't detectable, so they just defined a range that's basically impossible to achieve naturally. So many of the guys use the altitude tents to get those things right to the top of the range. But there are other things that you can't do with an altitude tent but could just be a genetic freak and be on that edge, too, and either that's Lance's blood -or- he was doping to that edge. But if you can't detect it in a test conclusively and you have some former teammates saying he did it with a syringe and not naturally, who you gonna believe? I think the USADA can just choose to believe the witnesses and call it a day...it's not a "due process" kind of situation. --Donnie

Well, there are other options to Howard that would work, but otherwise you're correct. Wade's game requires the kind of dynamic athleticism that just won't last much longer. And that'll hurt them for a couple years since they probably won't be able to get rid of him, but he'll turn into a liability fast. --Donnie

Wow, nicely done on the tour. I'm training for the Leadville 100 MTB race in August. I'm an avid mountain biker, but don't care too much for road riding. But I did get myself a nice road bike fitted well for me to train with, and have done a century ride about a month back as part of my training. I do *not* care for group rides, though, so most of my riding is solo or with a single buddy, so we stay sub-20 average generally. I'm also 6'2" and don't give a crap about getting very aero since I'm using it as a training tool, so that doesn't help the speed. My regular long rides on the MTB are up in the 6 hour range now, so I feel like I'll be in good shape to finish Leadville, though I certainly won't be competitive. But for that race, most of the 1700 competitors are really just trying to finish it. --Donnie

7th row floor seats for Billy Joel in Charlotte when I was 10. That would have been 1982. Piano Man performed close enough you can see his fingers move will make you a fan, I don't care what you think about him otherwise. :) --Donnie

Well, and worst of all with baseball is that they didn't have any proof anyone did anything illegal, they were basically just chasing guys for perjury! Millions spent chasing people for perjury. *sigh* --Donnie

I agree with everything you've said above, but I will say this...it will be interesting to see how OKC grows from this. Assuming they don't lose any major pieces and keep building, a guy like Harden *should* be much better down the stretch next year. Wade is a better player and always will be, but Wade has a lot of experience that Harden doesn't have but *is* getting. And Durant is a little behind Lebron in that department, too. OKC will still be very interesting to watch, and if they play in the finals again next year with similar squads, I don't see it going 4-1, anyway. And Harden's numbers will be MUCH better, though still probably not Wade's. --Donnie

My point is why is there no outrage that we're putting the money in there at all, though? Sure, I hear your point that we've spent it, might as well let them do their jobs. Which is fine, since cutting off USADA funding isn't going to stop *this* investigation (doing that kind of thing takes time...lots of it). But why do we keep this funding going? As for what Lance winning Ironman is worth, like I said, it's worth more to Ironman than it is to Lance. His Nike deal isn't going away any time soon no matter what comes out of this doping thing, and he's got plenty of other stuff going on (I mean he's part owner of Trek, IIRC, as well as holds a stake in a lot of the products he "endorses" now...smart business, since you can't stop endorsing your freakin' owner). And there's no guarantee he'll win the championship if allowed to compete. Hell, he hasn't even proven he can win *any* full distance IM, let alone Kona. He's won a HIM and done very well in a few others, that's it. --Donnie

Well, apparently they wanted to silence this particular conspiracy theory now. Plus let Miami win it at home. :) --Donnie

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. You're not in favor of it, but you're still okay with it somehow? And going from the top cyclist in the world to "trying to be a top level ironman guy", even if he made it to *the* top, is kind of like Jimmy Johnson quitting NASCAR and spending his time racing in Grand-Am GT. Sure, you still make money, but it's nothing you're going to *get* rich on, it's just enough to get by for most people. He just happens to not need to do it for the money. Same with Lance. There aren't even ten triathlon pros in the world who make enough money to support a family. Lance doing Ironman is definitely better for Ironman than it is for Lance, in fact. And trust me on this, the fact that the WTC has a rule in place that keeps him from competing due to the USADA investigation will not be in place next year. They're not going to change it mid-year, so he may not be eligible to compete until this investigation is over -or- the end of the year arrives, but he'll be back in Ironman next year if he chooses to be. --Donnie

Well, I was a kid then and certainly couldn't afford golf, but I had my own putter and would compete in some of the league competitions they had, which were the stepping stone to pro status. Those competitions were no joke...a perfect round was about as rare as a perfect bowling game, but in general the top pros were only three or four shots from the perfect game in each round, too. Putt-putt was definitely a step above run-of-the-mill "miniature golf" as the holes were pretty consistent, at least. I still remember having a few of my own higher quality putting balls, too, so when you'd play 18 you'd have to go request the "plug" for the hole. Some ******* operators wouldn't give you one and would just make you take one of their balls for the hole to "eat", but that really sucked because those balls were TERRIBLE, even on 18 where you had to hit the snot out of the ball. Ah the good ole days... And now I suck at golf in general, but I am a pretty good putter as long as I read the green well, anyway. Guess I have Putt-Putt to thank for that, just like your grandfather. --Donnie