Wisguy

I bought a Callaway stand bag last year from Costco for $80 that is a terrific bag, better designed than my old Taylor Made one, which was oval in cross section, so it was almost useless on any sort of cart, plus had a really bad nylon web hand grip that was too tight to the bag. In addition to having plenty of pockets, including a soft-lined valuables pocket and an insulated drink pocket, the Callaway is also pretty square on the bottom and on the stand-side, so you can stand it up very easily on the back of a riding cart or attach it to a pull car with no problems with it flopping sideways or not staying put properly. Only issues with it are: 1) Not the lightest stand bag if you want to lug it; 2) no shoulder strap, just the dual backpack straps - I like a single shoulder strap for hauling it from car to clubhouse or for when I walk 9 holes and don't bother with a cart. But I swiped the one from the Taylor Made, so I figure if I didn't mind having a Callaway or TaylorMade bag without a single Callaway or Taylor Made club in it, how much worse would it be with a Callaway bag with a TaylorMade logoed strap on it?; and 3) no full-length club dividers, which kind of sucks, since I have a magnetic grip on my putter and used to use a 1943 steel penny as a ball marker, but it kept getting knocked off the end of the putter every time it hit against the steel shafts of another club in my bag.

My wife and daughter got me a Slazenger shirt for Father's Day, I believe from Dick's Sporting Goods, that is made from a very lightweight, wicking fabric. It is the coolest shirt I have worn and I've played in it on two 96+ degree days this summer. A buddy got several similar wicking golf shirts from Costco early in the spring that he likes and I believe he said they were only around $12-15 there. Of course with Costco, their inventory varies from store-to-store and once something sells out there, you might never see it back in stock again.

I've had a red fox chase my ball one time, too. I'm not sure if he actually picked it up because it was the longest drive I had hit in months and couldn't see too clearly from the distance, but if so, he at least put it down near where it landed. Once I saw a kestrel (a/k/a sparrow hawk, one of the smallest in the falcon family) hovering about 50 feet over a tee box and then he swooped down on a nearby bush, flushed out and caught a small bird in mid-air. That was pretty damn cool - he was close enough that I cold see the red and the blue markings on him. They are beautiful birds Kestrels aren't that uncommon - you can sometimes see them on telephone poles, but I've never been that close to one before. I was once playing on one of my favorite courses that is built on a marsh with water on nearly every hole and was looking for a ball that got near a bush right next to the water. A damn beaver was hiding under the bush, jumped out at me before rushing into the marsh, and I nearly crapped my pants. I've seen ospreys on that course several times and I've been swooped by a pair of falcons (F-16 Fighting Falcons) at about 200 feet from the nearby Air National Guard base. I've seen a weasel on a course once as well a few mink. I've had to chase deer off a fairway to hit a second shot, also. That photo of the cat that had been hiding under the cart above looks like a bobcat to me - I don't see a tail and mountain lions typically have greater body-length to leg height ratios. The cat in the picture looks to have a proportionately shorter body and longer legs characteristic of a bobcat. It's too stocky to be an ocelot and they are extremely rare in Arizona and, like the jaguar, have long tales not visible in that photo, although there have been a few jaguars sighted in far southern AZ and NM in the past few years who may be extending their home ranges north from Mexico and living permanently in the US.

The "correct fairway" would be the one 75 yards to the left of the one in which my tee shot lies, in other wards, the one directly in front of the tee. I've been playing 19 years and can only recall my ball landing in a divot a few times - I can't recall when it last would have done so. However, I'm sure there is some correlation between hitting the fairway and landing in a divot that at least partially explains why this event is rare for me, or else this reflects upon the abilities of the typical golfers at the course I play to hit the fairway and leave a divot. EDIT: wow, it appears that someone has given me an avatar. I have no idea who did so or who is depicted in that photo, though.

Well, golly, gee! Collared shirts? Is them like collard greens? I likes 'em wit butter and grits tha way mah granmammy makes um, yesirree! Respect the game? Well, hell, Dale Earnhardt, Sr. was a VARY respectableful man, so ivry time Ah wear my black Dale Sr. wifebeater out to the golf course, I's bein' verry respectin', not to mention Lickin'-It-All-Up-Ladies! smokin' hot in the eyes of them beer cart girls. Shee-it, Ah might even tuck mah shirt into mah cutoffs, Ah's that respectfulable. Yessirree! --------- I don't like stereotyping. I was discriminated against in my youth by dull-witted bigots because of stereotypes and I have made it my personal policy not ever to give weight to stereotypes, even against fans of country music; I have an exception to this rule for criminals. However, I think I am going to make a second exception to my rule and state that anyone who refuses to play golf in shorts because of "respect for the game" is not just a silly elitist, but is a person with his head stuck so far up his rectum that he can see what he just swallowed. I think there is simply no way that a guy under age 55 who follows his own personal no-shorts rule because of fawning adherence to some sort of old-fashioned "traditional values" (and not because of a medical reason such as skin sensitivity or a shocking scar) is anything other than insufferably pompous. Respect for the game!?!? Did you never see Caddyshack? Apparently not. If anyone knows Fore Left, I'll give you $10 if you can sneak into his foresome one weekend, wearing lycra cycling shorts. I'll give you another $5 if you spill Gatorade all over the crotch of his pants or sing some AC/DC and stand in his line of sight, playing air guitar during his backswing. PS: If you have golf shoes that look silly wearing them with shorts, very likely they look just as silly with your pants, too.

This is very true. I tried to teach my wife many years ago how to drive my manual transmission, which I figured would be easy because she had been driving for a decade and was a very good driver. She was doing great at the big empty parking lot and for the first ten minutes on the streets of a quiet neighborhood. Then a car approached us from the opposite direction going a bit fast and she panicked, stalled it and almost hit a parked car. She got out and said she would never drive another stick shift for the rest of her life, a promise she has thus far kept. I'm regretting this experience to this day, as there are several cars I'd really like to own that she is vetoing because they only come in a manual.

I've seen it twice, maybe three times, always when I walked on by myself. Once it was offered to me and I declined. When I first started playing, I got paired up with a real blue collar sort of guy, friendly enough, who pulled a 20-oz Coke bottle out of his bag, he took a few swigs, and dumped all but about 1/4 of it out. He filled it the rest of the way with Everclear. No exaggeration - I asked him if it really was Everclear. He admitted it was, that it calms his nerves, that he knew most doctors would say he has a drinking problem, but he just likes to get out and relax on a Saturday. It was about 7:00 a.m. at the time. He told me that once in a while he'll go to a more upscale course with bottle he had carefully removed the seal, fill the bottle about 2/3 with water, re-attach the seal, and try to get paired up with some "cocky rich dudes." He said he would make a scene of pouring his "cocktail" and offer some Everclear to the "rich dudes" who would think he was a drunk who was about to get blotto. After gulping about half his bottle of "cocktail" he'd get a bit loud and boisterous and obnoxiously try to goad the other guys to put some cash on the round, which they would think was easy money with how wasted he seemed. He said he usually took the other guys for enough to pay for his round at the nicer course. He could tell I was a beginner, he wasn't trying to get me to play for money, and I told him early on that I don't gamble anyway, so I don't think he was trying to pretend a bottle of his watered-down stuff was pure grain, I think it was the real deal. He must have had no liver left, because after 12 holes (bizarre little muni course that they expanded from a 9-hole course but never finished the other six holes), he still seemed about the same as he had before we started and was mostly finished with his bottle. On July 4th this year, I played a rural country club that was open to the public that had attacted a few foursomes of good ol' boy golfers all in US flag shirts, one with boom box blasting "Proud to Be An American" on the back of his cart, all of them pretty liquored up before 9am. The foursome behind us seemed to be hitting the bottle harder than the ball which was absolutely crazy, since it was in the upper 90's before noon. On the 13th hole, one of the guys ended up puking out his guts next to a port-a-potty and looked like he was going to pass out. Maybe he refused to leave them or maybe his buddies were as dumb as he was and never thought about him, but he rode with them the entire 18 holes, instead of getting driven straight to the air conditioned clubhouse. Morons. I'll have a beer or two sometimes on a round, but often will just stick with Gatorade or water. The one time I had four beers on one round of golf I ended up losing a bunch of balls, some of them probably not too badly hit, because I kept forgetting to concentrate on where they were going after I hit them and couldn't figure out where they landed.

My average drive goes about 300 yards. 230 yards forward, 70 yards to the right. For a long time,10 yards short of a 275 yard par-four was my best drive. Then I hit one that I saw got a lucky bounce off a sprinkler head or rock, we were in a drought, and by the time it stopped bouncing and rolling on a hard fairway, it was 300 yards out. Twelve years ago I actually spent a good $150 at the range, got out and played a couple of times a week, started getting stronger golf muscles, and better form, and was hitting the ball a lot farther. On a 400 yard par four, I was trying to lay up on the top of the hill in front of us so I hit a 3-wood, but caught it absolutely prefectly and was surprised to see it rise and continue over the crest of the hill. With assistance from the downward slope, it rolled down into the valley between the first hill and a second one on which there was an elevated green. When I got down to my ball, I was surprised to discover that it was about 15 feet directly to the left of the 100 yard marker. I parred the hole with 3W, SW, another guy in our group parred it also, but with D, 3W. In the past two years I've been playing a bit more than in the prior half decade, have a newer driver (Titleist 905T), and have been playing a great ball that goes as far or farther than anything else I've played, the Srixon AD333. I've had at least half a dozen drives in the 280-290 range and have had a couple of drives on 400 yard holes that I hit a gap wedge (usually my 100 yard club) to the green on second shots. Last month I had one 500 yard par-5 hole where I was trying to hit a draw to avoid a bunker on the right edge of the fairway 260 yards out. Instead, I hit a very slight fade but very solidly, and figured I was in the center of the bunker. Getting closer, I saw no sign of my ball in the bunker or marks running through it, and my ball was 20+ yards past it in the rough. There was a creek running in front of the green, so I laid up with a 9-iron hit a bit softly. I hit a 60 yard pitch to within 4 feet on my third shot. I'll usually hit at least one decent drive per round out beyond 250 yards, but have been getting puzzling results, with some drives seeming to connect hard with the sweet spot, have a perfectly straight flight, but I'll walk out and find it is a few yards shy of the 100 yard maker on a 350 yard hole, far short of where I think it should be. Mostly, those shots seem to come when I'm using assorted balls like Callaway HX Hot, Warbirds, Taylor Made Burners, or Nike PD Softs. Well-struck drives with either the Srixons or with a found Pro-V1 seem to get out there to the respectable distances. I think the internet forums tend to add 10-30 yards to a lot guys' typical drives. In the past decade, I've seen a couple of guys consistently hitting it out beyond 280yds, but they were assistant pros from another course on an off-day. I've seen a few big guys who could hit it a mile when they connected right, but, like my average drive, typically sliced it pretty badly, so I'm sure they were usually hitting mid-irons from the next fairway over on 375 yard par-4s. I'm an average height guy and I seldom see many people hitting it further than I do when I hit a decent drive. I think there are more 300 yard drives on internet forums than are actually hit on real golf courses. In 19 years of playing, I've only seen two or three drives hit in the 310-320 yard range, with none longer than that, even on windy days with a tailwind. I will admit, though, that I see a lot more guys in their 40's, 50's and 60's playing when I go out than big-swinging guys in their teens and 20's.

Here's one that bugs me, although it's not an universal rule of golf, but it is a rule of the men's professional tours: the no-shorts dress code rule. It is absolutely asinine to see grown men on hot summer days doing an outdoors sport in long pants, especially when they think they are especially dapper and are wearing wool dress pants instead of something cooler (I've worn tropical wool suit pants in the summer for years and do not find them remotely comfortable). I remember a tournament in the Midwest around 12 years ago, I think it may have been the John Deere Classic, where the temperatures were over 100 and I watched a husky Robert Damron walking around in pants that were absolutely drenched wet with sweat. There was nothing whatsoever classy about that look, I can assure you. I read some PGA pro's comments supporting the no-shorts dress code and it was pretty dumb, something like "Well, have you seen the legs on some of these guys? Nobody would want to see their bare legs!" There ought to be a rule that if the heat index gets above 80 or 85F, players can wear shorts. Some of them might not want to because their silly white belts look better with pants than shorts, but that retro fashion trend won't last much longer. Allowing professional tennis players to wear whatever colors they like (aside from Wimbledon) hasn't ruined tennis and allowing the PGA to wear shorts won't hurt the sport one iota. Afterall, athletes in almost every other non-winter sport, other than maybe judo or equestrian events (and who would want bare legs rubbing on hot horsehair, anyway?) wear shorts, weather permitting.

Well, the one that bugs me the most frequently is an unwritten rule that golfers from Illinois seem to think applies to them that they need not bother repairing ball marks on greens. I think the rationale behind this is closely related to why Illinois golfers will hit into my group even though they can see that the reason we're sitting on the fairway waiting is because the group ahead is still on the green; that example is, of course, a corollary of why drivers with Illinois plates will be 4' behind my bumper on the highway when they can see that the lane is moving slowly for at least 20 cars ahead of me.

I shot a 92 Sunday and it was a really bizarre round - the best score I've shot in a number of years (until this year, I've only been playing a few times a season since I became a parent and only 3 shots off my best round ever), yet I had no really memorable shots. I had a few OK drives in the fairway, one 250yds out, one 275, and I hit a few greens in regulation barely so, with my ball stopping on the outer foot or so of the green, and a few good shots with my 3W off the deck including one of about 230 yards that left me 20 yards shy of the green on a par-5. Otherwise, though, it seemed that every hole I sliced or hooked my tee shot, hit an approach shot 30 yards off the green, pitched or chipped it on the green and mostly 2-putted. I had a couple of bad holes where I sculled bunker shots sitting on heavily compacted, concrete-like sand and a few 3-putts. I had a few pars and on the par-5 with the good 3W shot, I sank my 15 foot putt for a birdie, but that's about it. I played a round of consistently semi-sloppy shots but only a few were worse than bogey (one triple) and had what for me was a good score. I started out trying to play smart golf, not taking risky shots, but after about the fifth shot that I mishit with a so-called "safer" club, I went back to hitting the more interesting, daring club when it felt right, with little difference in scoring. I only lost one ball the entire round, which is nearly unheard of for me, and that was when I tried to get fancy and hook a shot around a corner on a dogleg and instead of producing a hook, which I usually can do, my strongly held, slightly hooded 4-iron somehow produced a fade into a pond. It was weird walking off the course with a good score but a pretty blah feeling like I had accomplished a lot less than the last several times I had a 94. Maybe I should chalk it up to golfing in the mid-90's heat or maybe it was playing cart golf, which I don't like to do but this season I've been riding to accommodate a buddy with a bad knee who can't walk courses any more.

My wife and I took my grade school daughter out to Blackwolf Run for the final round and had a great time - it was awesome how close we could get to the players and the several I watched come off the 18th green were very accommodating with autographs. In the future, I would definitely see any other LPGA events within a reasonable drive and if I had to choose between competing PGA and LPGA events on the same weekend, I would actually pick the LPGA event. The crowds in Kohler were no better than moderate in size - less than half the people that were at Whistling Straits for the Wednesday practice round for the PGA Championship back in 2004. I really expected a lot more fans would be there. I guess that says something about the LPGA Tour. Sjs3, probably the biggest problem with women's athletics, regardless of the particular sport, isn't lack of respect from men. A bigger problem is lack of interest by women. If it's not figure skating, gymnastics, or the Olympics, most women don't pay any attention to spectator sports, whether the athletes are men or women. The average American adult female is probably five to ten times more likely to want to watch some utterly vapid reality TV show than any sort of sporting event that isn't gymnastics or skating. I saw a lot of couples at the US Women's Open, many with kids. I observed quite a few families there with only a single parent, and most of the time it was the dad, not the mom, bringing the kids there. And I saw a lot of college-age guys there and quite a few other men there with friends, but relatively few women there with other women to watch the golf. If women want their sports to become more popular and respected, they need to step up and start watching female athletes themselves, not sit back and whine about inequality or chauvinistic attitudes.

Anna Kournikova was not the flash-in-the-pan, overhyped dud that so many people (particularly women who have a bit of the jealousy thing going) make her out to be. She was a semi-finalist at Wimbledon in 1997 in singles and how many women in the past 20 years can say that, maybe a dozen? She had a WTA #1 ranking in doubles and was a finalist in 3 majors, winning two of them (1999 and 2002 Australian Open). How many players in the open era have ever won a major, singles or doubles? Not that many, let alone two of them. No, she didn't have a hall of fame career, but she was more than just a pretty face. And in that regard, I can't recall a prettier athlete in history in any sport.

I've been playing the AD333 for a year now and it's the all-around best ball for my game I've ever played, at least that I've purchased (bought some at 2-for-$25 at Dick's). As background, I shoot in the 90's, have only broken into the 80's once, but typically have quite a few holes where I play a lot better than my average would indicate - I am very inconsistent and usually have several snowmen or worse on my scorecard and may make more than the average number of 3-putts, hence my scores that say "mediocre golfer." Not playing more than a couple times a year for five years devoting myself to the parenting-a-young-child-thing has been my biggest problem. When I'm hitting well, with my old balls (usually Nike Power Distance or Mojo, TM Burner, Callaway HX Hot or Warbird), I was hitting my driver around 275 on really good drives. I can often shape shots when I'm behind trees, facing a stiff cross wind, trying to aim away from hazards, trying to hit a draw with my driver for extra distance, etc... but I am not at all consistent in doing this or achieving the desired amount of curve or height to my shots. However lacking in skills I generally am, I have played a number of Pro V1 and Pro V1x balls that I've found or bought in an used ball barrel, and they are my favorite ball. I have hit a 300 yard drive (w/maybe 5mph wind assistance) with a Pro V1 and I can often get them to stop or spin back a bit with wedges or short irons. I like the softer feel of the Pro V1 compared to most distance balls and like how they are firmer and feel more precise than low compression high-handicapper balls like the Noodle, clicking off the clubface on well-hit shots. I feel like I can tell when I've hit a good shot better with a Pro V1 than I can with other balls. I don't play Pro V1's regularly because at $4 a ball, it's not economically senisible for a golfer of my skills to spend that much on a ball that I'm likely to lose within 4 or 6 holes and in spite of hitting more shots that I noticeably liked with a Pro V1, I cannot say my scores are typically lower with them. The first time out with the AD333 on a relatively flat second hole with no wind, when I wasn't yet warmed up, I hit a draw into the center of the fairway 285 yards out. I hit a 290 yard drive later that day. I've had a couple of 400 yard holes with the AD333 where I've had a gap wedge into the green and on one par-5, I hit driver, hit 9-iron over a tree to lay up in front of a creek, and then pitched 60 yards onto the green. Last week I came about 5 yards short of the green on a short 275 yard par-4 hit with a 3-wood (new Ping G20 - best club I've ever hit). The AD333 is a harder ball than a Pro V1, but softer and more solid feeling than a Burner, HX Hot, Pinnacle etc.... I've had at least half a dozen 8-iron shots with an AD333 back up on a green and once even had a 7-iron shot from about 155 stop dead. No ball I've played, other than a Pro V1, will consistently back up for me except with a sandwedge. I haven't played many other mid-upper end balls for comparison's sake (just those I find on the course), but despite supposedly being more of a distance ball, I've found the AD333 has really good feel and stopping ability. The AD333 is a tougher ball than a Pro V1, about the same as a Pinnacle as far as resisting scuffs. I'm not a good enough putter to notice much difference (I've got a STX putter with a plastic inlay face that's pretty soft, so most balls putt the same for me). I also like the fact that I'm always the only one on the course playing this relatively obscure ball, so I don't have to worry about someone else hitting it by mistake and later saying "Oh, I didn't notice your Titleist was a 2 and mine was a 4." However, the AD333 is becoming even more rare these days, as I believe it is discontinued. I should have bought a gross of them when they were on sale at Dick's, as $12.50 a dozen is a heck of a bargain. I've not found them anywhere online except at $20 retail plus S&H; and I'd prefer to spend a bit less on a ball than that. I've never played the Tri-Speeds but have thought about buying a dozen, especially since they come in yellow and I seem to lose a ball every round that isn't hit far from the fairway, but gets lost in with dandelion fluffballs, goose feathers, leaves, etc... and I think I'd probably find them if I had been playing a yellow ball. If you know where to buy the AD333 at a discounted price online, please advise. I'd like to pick up a few more dozen. Hope that helps.

Her 66 on Friday at Blackwolf Run with a 1.28 putt/green average suggests that she still has some form left from prior glory days and her putting isn't altogether worthless. Her 80 on Sunday was less promising, however, but there were 7 players shootingin the 80's on Sunday. I think having the father she had and the adolescent golf career that she did has not been beneficial for her maturity. I watched her play the 7th hole on Sunday and she snagged her tee shot in deep rough and only advanced her second shot about 3 feet. I'm sure it never got caught on television (and maybe she knew that and it explains why she did it), but after her fourth shot missed the green, she shrieked loudly. My daughter, who has a girl's golf book checked out from the library with Wie on the cover, had been particularly interested in following Wie, but was looking toward the green and turned around, somewhat alarmed, and asked "Who just screamed?" It was not exactly the foremost example of sportspersonship or maturity I've ever seen. Wie was definitely displaying a less-than-positive attitude from her body language on Sunday, that's for sure.

Almost every golfer I saw in the last four groups on Sunday at the US Women's Open in Kohler had earphones in and was listening to an MP3 player on the practice range. I think one of the reasons they're not allowed on the course is the difficulty in monitoring whether they are hooked up to some electronics that can receive calls from walkie talkies or cell phones to prevent coaching in the middle of a competitive round. Having said that, I saw an awful lot of coaching and receipt of advice from caddies, especially on the greens. Didn't one of the first great female golfers have a putt on a hole at the Women's British Open 90 years ago or so when a train rumbled by 50 feet from the green? The story goes that someone asked her how she kept her composure in light of the train and was able to sink her putt. Her response was "What train?" Now that's concentration. It was kind of annoying not being able to take pictures during the competitive rounds except sneaking in a few with the cell phone's camera. I sure saw a lot pro phototographers and their DSLR's were as loud or louder than any typical amateur digital camera, most of which can be silenced. Did have one clown sitting at the 8th green who got calls on his cell phone and didn't know how to silence it.

GaijinGolfer, I disagree. I was born in the 60's and I've never in my life heard anyone use the term "Oriental" in any fashion other than to distinguish a person of southeast Asian ethnicity from someone of different ethnicity and no, I've not lived in a prejudice-free bubble. I've heard older family members and their friends refer in a derogatory fashion to "Japs" but I had a great uncle who fought in and was wounded in the Pacific in WW II; I never heard these not-exactly-prejudice-free relatives use "Oriental" in a similar manner, but have heard these people who lived through the Second World War refer to Germans as "Krauts." In a group of around eight people born in the 60's through the 80's, I once asked a friend whose parents are from Korea why the term "Oriental" had become so politically incorrect and no one else had really heard it used in a derogatory fashion, either, certainly not as a slur. Your argument makes as much sense to me as someone who demands to be call "a person of northern European ancestry" because he once heard someone say "those *(&(%%! whites" or "that damn Caucasian." It was not clear if you were labeling me ignorant or intolerant, or were making a more general proclamation, but if the former, well, that's a bit of an ironic statement since you do not know me at all. The analogy between Oriental and Scandanavian is a perfectly fitting one since the terms both refer to origins in a particular part of a continent. The comparison between Oriental and Coloured is not so fitting because everyone has heard people use the latter term in a derogatory fashion, even though it once was sufficiently acceptable to be used in the full name of the NAACP. Like it or not, sometimes we have to describe other human beings. When I can, I try to use neutral descriptions like "The guy in the light blue shirt" or "that tall woman with the long black hair" but sometimes we do not have that luxury. It can be difficult to distinguish between peoples of one southeastern country from another, even for people whose ancestry is from that part of the world. To do so relies on stereotypical facial feature differences - is that a good thing? And how do you distinguish people from Singapore, Indonesia or Malaysia apart from those from other parts of Asia? Say you've got two people in a room in identical uniforms with similar body shapes and sizes, one with southeastern Asian ancestry, one with southern Asian ancestry. If you identify one of them as Asian, there will be confusion as to which one. If you identify one as Korean or Japanese, what if you're wrong about their country of origin - I don't think many Koreans like to be called Japanese or vice versa. And what if the person is a fourth generation Californian - calling him Japanese or Korean may be even more insulting, even if you have the family ethnicity correct, as the person may very well prefer to be known for what he is, an American. The term "Oriental" as a neutral, descriptive term about regional ethnic ancestry simply makes sense. But making sense doesn't always make sense to some people. But turning back to the main topic, I was within about a dozen feet of Amy Yang and Na Yeon Choi on Sunday both as they walked off the practice green and as they later walked to the first tee (one of the things I thought was most interesting about an LPGA event - the public can easily get a feeling of real close proximity to the athletes, more so than when I saw the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits and more so than with any other professoinal sporting event I've attended) and their sleeves were rather tight and did make me wonder if they had some sort of mild compression effect on muscles. I"m sure the fabrics do have some wicking functionality, but the thought of wearing long sleeves that day (let alone a few days earlier when the temperatures were 10 degrees hotter) really did not seem too sensible to me. I suspect that the primary function of the long sleeves must be cultural, to prevent tanning, rather than cooling, or athletes from every country would start wearing them. When do modern athletes avoid accessories, clothing, etc... that are legal to use and can enhance their performance? You don't see world class sprinters wearing baggy shorts and singlets or tennis players wearing cotton any more, do you? When I play golf on hot sunny days, I put on generous amounts of sunscreen everywhere I think I'll be exposed and I can't ever recall my arms feeling like they were overheating (unless they were clearly getting burnt because I didn't have enough sunscreen), in comparison with, say, my head, neck, or torso. The arms move around enough that I think that movement tends to cool them off naturally.

I was at the U.S. Women's Open at Blackwolf Run on Sunday and wondered about all the Korean players wearing long sleaves, yet I've noticed that none of the Japanese or Taiwanese or American or European players wore them, so a google search brought me to this thread. If a fair skinned person is wearing protection against the sun for dermatological reasons, that strikes me as a sensible decision. If an athlete is wearing long sleeves to avoid social stigma attached to having a tan, that strikes me as being silly and the product of backward thinking. Who do the Korean LPGA players think they are fooling by trying to avoid having a tan? They are famous athletes in their country and people know what they do for a living. Athletes who compete in outdoor sports, particularly golfers and tennis players, get a lot of exposure to the sun and everyone knows that - a tan for a professional golfer isn't a sign that the person is a laborer who works in the fields, it means that they have become so skilled at a rather elitist outdoor leisure activity that they can make a good living as an international athlete who spends hours a day outside. Years ago there was a guy on one of the athletic teams at my school who was a distant member of the Saudi royal family and he insisted on wearing long sleaves and would even put a towel over his head at times to avoid the sun. On a 90+ degree day, we asked him why he would make himself so much hotter than he needed to be and he arrogantly explained that he did not want his skin to become darker or people might think he was a peasant. This "lighter skin is superior" cultural trend is akin to the caste system in India and is primitive thinking. On Sunday we kept seeing the same woman in the crowds who was the opposite of the Koreans - a relatively young (in her 30's) woman who had exposed her skin to the point that it was beyond tan - it was a mahagony brown. We nicknamed her Mel for melanoma. That sort of sun worshipper is also silly. And one more comment on the "Asian" vs. "Oriental" terminology debate. It has always struck me as one of the very most asinine of the politically correct so-called rules that the term "Oriental" is considered improper. It is not now nor has it ever been a derogatory term, it is a descriptive term. It signifies that the person's ancestry is from the Orient, that is Southeastern Asia. Anyone who compares the term with "nigger" or "spick" or "wop" or "kyke" is being ridiculous - those terms always have been derogatory terms, meant to demean the person to whom they are addressed. Oriental is no more of a demeaning term than saying "white" or "Hispanic." My ancestors were from northern Europe and I don't take offense if someone refers to me as white, so why should someone who is from or whose ancestors are from Japan, Korea, Thailand, China, etc.... take offense if someone similarly refers to them as Orientals? I can assure you that Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Finnish people do not take offense if someone refers to them as Scandinavians and they do not throw a childish little tantrum insisting that they be called "Europeans" instead. What's the difference between the terms "Scandinavian" and "Oriental?" They both refer to people from a specific portion of a continent. I'll answer that question: the only distinction is that members of the first group do not get themselves into a tizzy over a completely inconsequential issue of semantics, whereas members fo the second group often do. Asia is the world's largest continent. It has a huge variety of different ethnicities and cultures. Demanding that people use the term "Asian" to refer to all of those peoples promotes vagueness rather than specificity. A person born in Vladivastok or Mumbai or Tehran is every bit as much of a resident of Asia as a person born in China, Korea, Japan or Singapore, but would it make sense to refer to all of those people as Asians, also? I only hope that some of these politically correct opponents of the term Oriental are put in a situation where they are told to meet an "Asian" they do not know and embarass themselves by approaching a person of southeast Asian ancestry, only to find out that the person they should be contacting is of southern Asian ancestry instead. As for the argument "How about having some respect for what a group of people want to be called?" I respond, how about having some respect for common sense, rather than irrational hypersensitivity? I wonder if there is something about American cultural history that makes people so absurd about terminology that labels ethnicities. Take the term "African-American." One might be accused of bigotry for failing to use that term, yet it is an overbroad, vague term that the rest of the world thinks is ridiculous. I had friends whose parents were born in Egypt and Morocco, and I have a friend who married a white South African girl. Those people all have more current ties to the African continent than 99% of the people wishing to call themselves "African American." Shouldn't we call them African-American, too? They aren't Sub-Saharan African-Americans, though. I've known several people who were from the Caribbean, from Africa, and from countries in Europe who are dark-skinned and their ancestors were from Sub-Saharan Africa, but they are not Americans and they hate being called African-American - to them it makes as many wrong assumptions as nearly any term used to lable a group of people. They, and the rest of the world, prefer the simple, descriptive (if not always perfectly accurately descriptive) term "Black." OK, lecture over. I guess I may not be very sensible hoping that others will prefer common sense over the irrational.