sacm3bill

So someone else's phone can do the measuring, that person can report the measurement to you, and that's ok? See what I'm saying? Edit: Oh, I see MeFree cited the decision on this - wind speed and direction from an app are allowed anyway, so this is a moot point.

Yes, but weather apps report information that was obtained via measuring. It's a pretty fine line.

A lot of celebrity golfers have vanity caps. It is known. (GoT reference for y'all) Looking up his scores doesn't prove anything though - those scores can be the results of mulligans, gimmes, or completely made up for all we know. The fact that he's a 1 who shoots in the 80's in pro tournaments is telling. I'm not saying it wasn't nerves, or a bad day or two, I'm just saying it's not a stretch to believe some of these celebrity athletes' handicaps are not accurate.

Nothing on the top 100, but played 3 of the top 100 public, and all in one trip to Maui/Kauai in 2010: Prince Makai Wailea Gold I intend to cross these off within the next few years: Edgewood Pasatiempo Pebble Kapalua Plantation Bandon (all) Coeur D'Alene

Yep, I get that the odds of holing 3 putts in a row, if each has a 50% chance of going in, is (0.5) 3 . I've just never understood how to differentiate when you'd use the combined odds from when you'd use the single occurrence odds. In the OP's case for example, the odds of each individual putt is > 50%, so it seems to me that, just as in your flipping a coin 99 times, no matter how many putts he might've missed or made before a certain point, the likelihood that he would make any given putt is > 50% Or to put it another way: If the OP should be using the cumulative method, then it seems that one of the first two putts should be counted as a miss (instead of waiting till the 3rd, as Erik suggested), since the odds of making even 2 putts is (0.7) 2 , or less than 50%. What if the odds of each individual conceded putt varied? (In the OP's example he estimated them all to be pretty much the same, but they certainly wouldn't always be.) How would one determine which putts to consider made and which ones to consider missed, other than by using each putt's individual likelihood? (All the above prob sounds goofy to those of you who understand statistics - I guess my brain just isn't wired for that.)

I'm not sure what side I fall on overall, but I don't see a problem with that specific point. Yes, we still have uninsured, but there are theoretically fewer of them. And with the penalties being paid, the ones that are still uninsured are helping to subsidize the insured.

Getting 100% of his material at the expense of the GOP has nothing to do with the fact that he's simply not funny, IMO.

This brings up something I've always been confused about with respect to statistics. Intuitively, I agree that overall the likelihood is that one of the three putts will be missed. But from what little I remember about stats, previous results have no bearing on the next. If that's true, and if the likelihood of each putt taken on its own is > 50%, then shouldn't all 3 be one-putts? I know I'm missing something but not sure what...

You'd better update the Wikipedia page then: " Caffè Americano , or Americano (English: American coffee) is a style of coffee prepared by adding hot water to espresso ..." Seriously though, I was always under the impression that's what an Americano was. What do you think it is if not that?

For me, the epidemic or lack thereof is an important consideration when forming an opinion on whether call-ins should be allowed. The advantage of allowing call-ins is that you get the call right more often. The disadvantage is that players with bigger galleries and more cameras on them could potentially be penalized more often. So when forming an opinion, I take into account how often players with more cameras on them have actually been penalized, the answer to which is "extremely rarely". Combine that "extremely rarely" with the fact that players with bigger galleries and more cameras on them actually benefit in many ways, then combine that with the fact that no one is EVER penalized if they didn't actually break a rule, and I lean more towards getting the call right, rather than ignoring rules infractions in an attempt to bring 100% equity into a situation where it's impossible. And I don't think your analogy works. Your examples are things that any sane person would agree are morally and legally wrong. Whether to allow call-ins is much more nuanced, and therefore the pros and cons of enacting such a policy must be considered, which IMO must include quantifying the amount of "wrongness" associated with the potential for penalizing high visibility players by allowing call-ins. And that amount is certainly lessened by the fact that, historically, the incidence of players being penalized by call-ins is extraordinarily low.

4 hour round? I wish! :-)

I heard an interview with the author in which he was asked whether it bothered him that they changed so much from the book. His response was something along the lines of, "Not really - they changed so much that it's pretty much an entirely different story, so they can't even be compared."

Yes, that was my experience. I have a Bushnell that can be set in different modes. One mode displays the farthest object it scans (so you can lase a deer through the brush or tree branches), another displays the closest object (so you can sweep across the flag and it will register it instead of background tress and other objects.) There's a 3rd mode but I forget what it does...

Saw that too. Kept waiting for the "Not legal under the rules of golf" disclaimer read in the super fast voice.

I don't think the OP meant he went all the way back to the actual tee box for his next shot, nor that he teed it up. Since his tee shot only went 10 yards, I read "headed for the tee..." as meaning he headed back towards the tee to play his next shot from the correct spot, 10 yards in front of where he teed off. I could be wrong, hopefully the OP will chime in to clarify. Agreed. It's interesting though: Lately I've run into many people who think it's a 2 shot penalty for a lost ball, in addition to the distance penalty. I think what's happening is so many people are using the (informal/illegal) "take a drop and add 2" policy for lost and OB, that the "add 2" is being misunderstood as an actual rule of golf, wherein a 2 stroke penalty is added to wherever you play the ball from. Just a theory.

Totally. I also expected that having so much importance on finding a lost ball would tend to bog the pace down, but it wasn't any slower than I'm used to for these types of tournaments.

I played in a charity tournament last weekend. The format was four-person team best ball: Each player plays their own ball all the way to the hole, and the combined 2 best scores on each hole count as the team score. They threw in an added twist that I'd never heard of before which turned out to be quite fun: Each team was given a special ball (they were of various bright colors to help distinguish them, but were basically cheap regulation balls), and each person on the team had to take turns playing that ball as their ball for the entire hole. If your team still had that ball at the end of the round, it got put in a drawing for $200 cash. [Note: This tournament wasn't played under the official rules of golf in that 1) I don't think there's any such thing as a four-person/two-best-balls format, 2) I don't think you can implement a local rule requiring a particular ball to be rotated among the competitors, and 3) Mulligans were for sale. (This tournament has been a scramble in previous years, so it's still pretty loosey goosey). That said though, the tournament director did ask that we all play by the official rules, including no more than 5 minutes spent looking for the colored ball.] I figured there was no chance of us not losing it, since the course was bordered by a lot of ball-eating forests, 2 of us on the team were sprayers (me and my brother-in-law), and one (my father-in-law) was a short hitter with no chance of clearing some of the hazards in front of some of the tees we were playing from. But somehow, despite several close calls that included finding the ball on the last hole with seconds to spare in the allotted time, we still had it at the end. 4 out of the 10 teams lost theirs. We didn't win the $200, but I thought it was a cool idea, as it brought some interesting strategy into play. First, you needed to decide what the order of playing the ball would be because you want to try to get the ball to the weaker players on the par 3's or holes with the least trouble, and you don't want the short hitters to have the ball when they have to carry a hazard. Then, if you were the one with the colored ball on a particular hole, you had to weigh how aggressive to be depending on how much you brought the risk of losing the ball into play vs. whether you might be required to provide one of the two best scores on that hole, which depended on how everyone else was lying. Other considerations, resulting from still trying to play by the rules, came in to play as well: At one point my FIL hit his tee shot with the colored ball into a deep ravine with tall grass. After he hit his provisional safely across, I suggested he go up and hit that one before looking for his first, since he wouldn't have been able to get a club on his first even if he found it, so if he did find he's have to go back to the tee with it and risk hitting into the junk again. By hitting his provisional from a spot past where his first was likely to be, it becomes the ball in play and we can go back and look for the first without having to play it if we find it. Anyway, just thought I'd describe this twist as I thought it was novel and fun. And btw, my wife won $50 for longest women's drive.

Good job man.

Touche!

I'm with you on this one. I saw a "Playing Lessons with the Pros" where someone was doing this - Ian Poulter I think.

I think I see your point, I just don't agree with it. :-) The difference is, we don't have clear video evidence of Zach doing anything wrong. With Tiger we do, and we're considering ignoring it. By your argument there are no fair competitions in any sports. The 3 refs in NBA games aren't going to see every violation that every player does.

I voted "always have agreed with it", but I could be swayed. A question for those who are against: Consider a case like Tiger's this weekend, only instead of the ball moving a tiny bit, it moved a couple inches. I.e., in such a way that there can be no doubt that either the player is lying about it having moved, or honestly was not watching the ball when it did. But the camera still caught it. And the player says "No, it didn't move". How would you rule? Point being, no matter how the evidence was obtained, we know the ball moved. So are you only going to go by what the player says, are you only going to go by what the evidence shows, or are you going to take it on a case-by-case basis, and make a judgement call on whether the player should have been able to see the ball move or not? (Ball movement is just one example - the same questions apply to any rules infraction.) Seems to me there are serious issues with only going by what the player *believes* happened, and just as serious issues with having to make a judgement call that depends on how much the ball moved, should the player have seen it, etc.

Yeah, but that view is: "Since we can't police every player, no player should be accountable for any rules infractions". I think that's worse than the current situation, where some players are a bit more in the spotlight than others. After all, they know they're in the spotlight, so should know to be more careful. And all they need to do is know the rules and play by them, and we'd never even hear about rules violations. Plus, there are perks to being in the spotlight that make up for the heightened scrutiny, such as fewer lost balls, and help with moving those 2-ton loose impediments. (I'm referring to the Tiger boulder incident.)

Ah, gotcha. Then I'd say we're in agreement for the most part, the exception being I think any estimation is going to be more accurate if you actually play a ball. But I now understand the objection that you and Fourputt have to that.

Other sports have referees and judges constantly watching all the action. Professional golf tournaments have something like 1 rules official every 3 holes. Maybe you'd prefer that rules violations go unnoticed, but I guarantee the rest of the field would not be cool with that.