Garnet Haze

One of my normal golfing buddies rolls the ball around on nearly every shot. I typically tease him by asking him if he'd like a tee instead.

Shot an 82 yesterday at my home course http://bloomingdalegolf.com/ . The greens had recently been aerified, and I had a real bad round putting. I had 38 putts which is 6 more than my average. I hit the ball real well and really thought I could have broken 80 if the greens were normal. Breaking 80 on this course is one of my remaining goals this season. Oh well, there's a lot more golf still left this year.

Shot an 85 at a private club near my house. This is the first time I've played a round there (I played in a scramble there earlier this year). Playing again on Sunday at another course nearby. We got a rain check from last weekend when we couldn't finish our round. Which really sucked since I was 2 over after 6 holes. But we were on the green and lightning hit less than a mile from us (simultaneous lightning and thunder). We dropped our putters and ran to the carts to get out of there. I wanted to go back and finish the round. My buddies told me that I'd be playing alone because they sure as hell weren't going back. Is that a sign of addiction when you're willing to sacrifice your life to play golf?

Me and a couple of my buddies were playing at a local course down here in Florida. One guy says to the other as he is getting ready to tee off, 'hey don't hit those birds over there'. There were a couple of sandhill cranes (big birds) and their chicks along with a stray egret, which were about 100 yards from the tee box and off to the left. Our buddy hooks a low line drive and nails the egret knocking it to the ground. We were all stunned, including the bird, who then struggles to get to it's feet with what appeared to be a broken wing. In it's dazed and confused state, the egret stumbles too close to the crane chicks and one of the adult cranes grabs the egret with it's beak and bodyslams the egret to the ground. Both adult cranes take turns doing this a few times, while we watched in horror. Then the egret regains enough sense to stumble the other way, across the fairway towards the woods on the right side. We watch this poor bird struggle to get to safety to suffer in peace. Then the first guy says to the guy who just teed off, 'hey, you need to go over there and kill that bird to put it out of it's misery'. Of course our buddy then freaks out. Every time we play that course now, when our buddy gets ready to tee off on that same hole, we'll make bird noises in the background.

PUTTING. You can recover from a bad tee shot. You can recover from a bad approach shot. You can recover from a bad chip, pitch, or bunker shot. But there is no recovery from a missed 4 foot putt. That's just an extra stroke on the scorecard.

I started to play golf seriously (took lessons, practiced, played more often) about 4 years ago. I started with the goal of breaking 100. Which I did within that first year. Then I wanted to break 90. Which took me a couple of years. Then I broke 80 in that same year. I ended my third year with a 13.1 handicap. For the last couple of years, I've played at least 2 rounds a week during my golf season (don't play Feb thru April, due to work) and practiced at least a few hours a week. Currently, I'm at a 10.9 handicap and my goal is to get to a single digit handicap by the end of the year. I should be able to do it, but it won't be easy. Now that I'm in the heart of my golf season, the handicap is steadily dropping. Now, just like everyone else, I've had my setbacks along the way. I've gone through periods of absolute frustration. I've had rounds that made my wonder why I even continue on with this game. But that just made me want to practice even more. I think my improvement comes from never being satisfied with my game. My golf instructor is amazed at my progress and tells me she's never seen anyone improve as much as I have. I'm not sure if she's sincere or she's just trying to pump up my confidence. My playing partners are happy for me and also pissed that I typically score about 10 - 15 stokes less than them now when we were about the same level a few years ago. Yesterday, I played with a good friend of mine that I play golf with all the time, and I scored 24 strokes less than him, and was almost embarassed about it. For me (and probably for most of us), golf is an addictive drug. The better I get, the more I want to play. I spend most of the moments I'm awake doing something golf related. Playing, practicing, watching golf on tv, reading books about golf, playing golf video games, excercising to get more fit for golf, posting about golf on message boards, etc. It hasn't interfered with my work or family life...yet. I started with the simple goal of getting good enough to play with clients or just play in charity golf scrambles in my community. Now I'm thinking about setting the goal of being a scratch golfer. Don't know if that will ever happen, but I'm sure gonna try.

Shot an 84 at my home course http://www.bloomingdalegolf.com (6651 yards, 72.0-130 rating). I was content with the score considering the difficulty of the course. But I double bogeyed the 18th by missing a short putt, which is the last impression of my round and the impression that sticks with me. Oh well, there's always next time.

Camilo Villegas I'm not sure he's overrated (rankings are what they are), but he's definitely overhyped. He has yet to win on the PGA tour. He is ranked 42nd in the world behind Woody Austin and Tim Clark. Yet he gets endorsements, tv commercials, and constant love from the announcers during tournaments. He reminds me of Andre Agassi when Andre was young with the long hair ('image is everything') and popular with the female audience. Maybe his game will improve and he'll finish with a career similiar to Agassi. But for right now, try winning a tournament first.

Ego definitely has a lot to do with it. But I think the use of GPS on courses helps golfers realize how far they actually hit the ball off the tee. Before then, most folks would use yardages on the course to determine their spectacular 300 yards drives. For example, the tee marker indicates the hole is 395 - I have less than 100 to the center of the green - therefore, I must have hit a 300 yard drive. However, these golfers forget that the distances are through the center of the fairway and they've cut off about 50 yards of that distance by taking the drive over the corner on a slight dogleg right.

I've only had one eagle. Now I've only been playing seriously for a few years, and have just gotten to a point where I can have opportunities. I've made the green in two several times on par 5's, but couldn't convert the putt. However, the one time I did get an eagle was at a 520 yard, dogleg right, par 5 at my home course. The only way for me to get a shot at the green in 2 is to have the tee shot cut the corner over some large oak trees. Then the next shot is about 220 to 230 yards out with a pond that splits the fairway (which really doesn't come in to play) and a large bunker system guarding the front right of the green (which definitely comes in to play). I hit the drive off the tee perfectly: cutting the corner, avoiding the trees, and landing right in the middle of the fairway. The second shot was a 3W for me, which landed just off the left side of the green in the rough. From there I was able to hit a decent pitch shot that just tracked in to the hole for eagle. I yelled pretty loud after that, which was kinda embarassing since a twosome was on the next tee box about 50 yards from the green I was on. I apologized for the outburst, and they just laughed and said 'nice shot'. I love this game.

I agree that golf snobs give the sport a bad image. Most people associate golf with characters like Judge Smails or Shooter McGavin from Happy Gilmore ("damn it people, this is golf"). But the real problem is the same problem you have with any gathering of people. And that's just people being inconsiderate and intolerant with each other. This is the cause of all the other problems - slow play, playing partners being jerks, poor etiquette, etc.

I had that happen to me a couple of weeks ago. I had a stretch of rounds this season where every score was between 79 and 85. Didn't matter what course I played, all my scores were about the same. This went on for months. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I had a terrible round that we didn't get to finish due to weather, but it would have been over 100. The next round was a 91 at a fairly easy course that I play every week. For whatever reason (probably just mental), I couldn't do anything. I'd hit tee shots out of bounds. If I hit the fairway, I'd mishit my approach. If I got to the green in regulation, I'd 3 putt. I told my partner that I needed to quit for awhile. We were playing at least twice a week and I thought maybe that was too much. I spent a few days just working on my short game and trying to regroup mentally. I went out on the next round and shot an 85 at Champions Gate (fairly tough course). I've been playing much better ever since. Apparently, as I was told, this happens to a lot of golfers. It's mostly just a mental block. It seems that just focusing on the basics and taking time to collect yourself mentally helps.

I have to admit that I've had very few golfers added to my group that I thought were jerks. Most golfers I've met have been great to talk to during the round and were generally fun playing partners. Some were better than others, but I haven't played with too many that were rude enough to borrow clubs and then slam them on the ground. However...several years ago, before I started to play golf seriously, I took my girlfriend's father out for a round of golf. He was an avid golfer and I was going to do the traditional gesture of asking for his permission to marry his daughter. I figured a round of golf would give us a chance to talk. We get to the course and get paired up with a single. This guy was in his late 20's - early 30's and looked pretty serious about his golf. Their was a foursome in front of us, and this single kept hitting into them all day. Finally, we get to the green on one of the holes on the back 9, and one guy in the foursome in front of us stomps back towards us with an iron in hand. He starts yelling at the single in our group about how he hits into them. The single then yells back at him (shut your mouth, go back to your tee box, etc.). Then the angry guy yells back to his friends for support, since this has now apparently escalated into a rumble. Angry guy then starts to attack the single with his iron, just swinging it at him by not hitting him. My future father-in-law and I go over to break it up and angry guy's friends come over to help restrain their partner. Eventually cooler heads prevail, but the whole time I kept thinking 'all I wanted to do was spend some time with my girlfriend's dad and we end up getting into a brawl on the freakin' golf course'. Anyway, my FIL and I laugh about it now.

I think my buddy might be one of those flogers. He very rarely replaces or fixes divots on the course. Rarely fixes ball marks on the green. Tends to have trash (wrappers, napkins, receipts, etc.) fly out of the cart and I have to go back and get it. The worst was actually yesterday in our Monday night league play. My buddy has had problems with a particular par 5 on our league's course. He tends to hit his tee shot left and into a group of oak trees that overhang fairly close to the tee box. He has actually hit one tree square and the ball flew back towards the tee box and over our heads. He actually had negative yardage on his drive. Well last night, he decides to out think himself and hit 3iron instead of driver. Tops his 3 iron and his tee shot only goes about 30 yards. In his anger, he proceeds to launch his 3 iron into the air. He wings this thing like the hammer throw at the Olympics. It flys further than his tee shot, up into the oak trees he was trying to avoid, and gets tangled up in the heavily overgrown Spanish moss in one of the trees. The 3 iron never comes down. Now this is all during our league play in front of our opponents. Both of whom tried as hard as they could to hold back their laughter. We all spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out which tree the club got stuck in, and couldn't even find it. These oak trees are huge, probably 70 to 80 feet high, and covered in moss. Oddly enough, he did the same thing last week during league play with the same club. Got pissed off, tossed his 3 iron, hits a tree, it dangles for a second, then falls to the ground. Now, I'd be lying if I said I've never lost my cool on the golf course, and tossed a club. But I wouldn't do this in front of opponents in our league. Although I'll give him credit, I must have laughed about this the entire rest of the round and the drive home.

Mulligans are something else that I forgot to mention. We have our understood exceptions at the beginning of our round - two off the first tee, anything inside the leather is good, no distance penalty on o.b. shots. But if my buddy hits a good first shot on the first tee, he'll save the second shot for later in the round as a mulligan. I'll usually let it slide, but I'll give him a little grief about it also. "When have we ever carried over that two shots off the first tee to other holes". He mainly just uses that excuse to justify his mulligan. Now, a mid-hole mulligan is something he hasn't tried yet. However, if my buddy and another playing partner of ours both hit a shot into water or o.b., he'll convince both of them to take a mulligan. Kinda like cheating by collusion. I've tried to be diplomatic before in telling him that cheating the rules of golf won't help him get any better. But I'm not really sure he considers it cheating. He just feels some rules aren't fair...according to him.