n3xt

But you CAN putt with a sand wedge (or any other club for that matter). Someone on the PGA tour had to do just that for several holes this year when he knocked a removable weight off of his putter (changed the characteristics) by hitting it on the ground (not in the normal course of play). Decision 4-3/9

Also for his ball, even if there is a hill he should drop it on the hill. Yes it would probably roll down, but after the second time he does this the correct procedure is to place the ball at the place where the ball is dropped a third time. Again, he performed a wrong drop. See Rule 20-2c

Nice Challenge. Play them net. Each player gets the strokes for his handicap compared to your scratch score. Assuming you are talking Course Handicaps vs Index, you give player A 12 strokes, player B 14 strokes, and player C 24 strokes. Allocate them to the holes accordingly and you should have yourself a great match of 3 on 1.

So Mr Useless, what made you decide to go with uPro vs Sky Caddie, or Sonocaddie or any of the others? Are the Denver City courses mapped? How much is the unit? I'm about at the end of my current Sky Caddie year and with it costing me money to get it repaired for the 2nd time I'm looking at my options.

www.cogolf.org for the Colorado Golf Association. I go there every once in a while, the association tournament information is good, as well as the updates on the old Murphy Creek Course (CGA Home Course) is good too. check it out

I have to echo MunkeyGolfers recommendation of Yes! and the fitting process. I did the same thing with my center shafted Natalie and haven't looked back. The putts are falling like never before, and people that I play with comment on how my ball immediately starts rolling off the face.

However some of the golfers didn't get their 18 holes in (no pun intended) as the following article suggests that there were at least 2 complaints that Broomfield police responded to. And though Eagle Trace cooperated with police, it sounds like it was not a good situation for the kids with the women straddling golfers in the clubhouse. http://www.9news.com/news/article.as...3&provider;=top And what kind of charity accepts this money???? Strippers Anonymous? Eagle Trace.....The strippers choice for golf in Colorado. "How do you mark your balls?"....... Bad Judgement on Eagle Trace's part certainly, now will it hurt or help business.

Could be simple tendinitis, could be something else. Make sure you take an anti-inflammatory and ice it for a couple of days. Shouldn't mean you can't still golf though.

Munkey, you'll love the fitting. It's pretty quick, but the guys are good. As for me I'm playing 18 holes this afternoon, then another 18 tomorrow with a buddy, and finally another 18 in club match play on Saturday. I'd go for Sunday too, but I think the wife and the twins will want daddy home.

check out the hats at www.sundayafternoon.com They are lighter than the Tilley's shown, wear like iron (I've had mine for over 12 years), and come out looking great after a washing or after being stuffed in my golf bag. I have the adventure hat, but they have styles that can meet just about anyone's needs.

My suggestion is to keep what you are doing, keep the date, and see how it goes on Sunday. If it hurts too bad for you, take the time and help the newbies with their game. The alternative is to suck it up, drink a beer or two before to "lube the muscles" and hope it all heals by the time you play on a regulation course. I did the same thing at the practice tee for the first tournament this year, with the help of a little alcohol I made it through the full 18 though without a pretty score. I healed within a week and was back out at the course the following saturday. Hope you heal fast and have a fun time.

Why is she still only at the 'girlfriend' level. Before you know it she'll be wanting a new set of expensive irons vs a diamond, and she'll be looking for someone with a lower handicap. I think if I were you, I'd get her committed for life with the promise of raking the bunkers for her. Maybe you should get down on one knee on the 18th green with all her friends in attendance. If you are half the man she wants you to be you should practice this ala Camillo Villegas doing the spiderman thingy. LOL you lucky stiff.

Eric, A pretty good link. For another view on how to fix ball marks with a new style of repair tool that won't hurt the turf check out www.greenfixgolf.com

You are absolutely right Saks. I was thinking of my own strokes only.

Sandwedge 74, It all makes sense except for your 'across the board' comment. Each hole at your course should have a handicap number from 1 to 18. Generally the odd numbers are on the front 9 and the even numbers on the back. These are the relative difficulties of the holes in relation to the others. Your friend with 7 strokes would get his strokes on handicap holes 1 through 7 only. So it shouldn't be so bad for you not to be able to choose the holes as they are laid out to you by the course. Your friend only gets his strokes on the 7 hardest holes assuming an even distribution of difficulty between the front and back 9. Also remember that both your friends handicaps and yours are generally based on the best 10 scores out of your last 20, so shooting much better than their handicap should be a rarity. As they improve, it will get tougher for them if they are honest in submitting their scores and factor in ESC when submitting. Have fun, and play some closest to the pins on the par 3s for beer. It always brings out the best in me and my playing partners. Oh, and feel lucky, you'd be giving me close to 30 strokes over 18 holes. But I am improving and the handicap index is coming down.

I love my set and I love the driver as well. Without seeing your swing and setup, make sure you've got the ball far enough forward. What causes your slice is probably the face of the club being open at impact vs square. Moving your stance a little forward may be all the adjustment you need. But do yourself a favor, go out to the driving range and work on it and analyze what is happening during your swings. If you don't feel comfortable with that approach, by all means seek advise from a professional instructor. In most cases they will see things that you wouldn't be able to for a hundred rounds. Good luck and let us know how you progress. A year ago I maxed out at a 36.4 HC index, today I'm at a 26.8 and am still improving. David C.

And several Truisms to boot. . Don't buy a putter until you've had a chance to throw it. . Never try to keep more than 300 separate thoughts in your mind during your swing. . When your shot has to carry over a water hazard, you can either hit one more club or two more balls. . If you're afraid a full shot might reach the green while the foursome ahead of you is still putting out, you have two options: you can immediately shank a lay-up or you can wait until the green is clear and top a ball halfway there. . The less skilled the player, the more likely he is to share his ideas about the golf swing. . No matter how bad you are playing, it is always possible to play worse. . The inevitable result of any golf lesson is the instant elimination of the one critical unconscious motion that allowed you to compensate for all of your many other errors. . If it ain't broke, try changing your grip. . Everyone replaces his divot after a perfect approach shot. . A golf match is a test of your skill against your opponents' luck. It is surprisingly easy to hole a fifty foot putt .. For a 10. . Counting on your opponent to inform you when he breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of his own haircut. . Nonchalant putts count the same as chalant putts. . It's not a gimme if you're still away. . The shortest distance between any two points on a golf course is a straight line that passes directly through the center of a very large tree. . There are two kinds of bounces; unfair bounces and bounces just the way you meant to play it. . You can hit a two acre fairway 10% of the time and a two inch branch 90% of the time. . If you really want to get better at golf, go back and take it up at a much earlier age. . Since bad shots come in groups of three, a fourth bad shot is actually the beginning of the next group of three. . When you look up, causing an awful shot, you will always look down again at exactly the moment when you ought to start watching the ball if you ever want to see it again. . Every time a golfer makes a birdie, he must subsequently make two triple bogeys to restore the fundamental equilibrium of the universe. . If you want to hit a 7 iron as far as Tiger Woods does, simply try to lay up just short of a water hazard. . To calculate the speed of a player's downswing, multiply the speed of his back-swing by his handicap; I.e., back-swing 20 mph, handicap 15, downswing = 300 mph. . There are two things you can learn by stopping your back-swing at the top and checking the position of your hands: how many hands you have, and which one is Wearing the glove. . Hazards attract; fair ways repel. . You can put a draw on the ball, you can put a fade on the ball, but no golfer can put a straight on the ball. . A ball you can see in the rough from 50 yards away is not yours. . If there is a ball on the fringe and a ball in the bunker, your ball is in the bunker. If both balls are in the bunker, yours is in the footprint. . It's easier to get up at 6:00 AM to play golf than at 10:00 to mow the yard. . Sometimes it seems as though your cup moveth over. . A good drive on the 18th hole has stopped many a golfer from giving up the game. . Golf is the perfect thing to do on Sunday because you always end up having to pray a lot. . A good golf partner is one who's always slightly worse than you are...that's why I get so many calls to play with friends. . That rake by the sand trap is there for golfers who feel guilty about skipping out on lawn work. . If there's a storm rolling in, you'll be having the game of your life. . Golf balls are like eggs. They're white. They're sold by the dozen. And you need to buy fresh ones each week. . A pro-shop gets its name from the fact that you have to have the income of a professional golfer to buy anything in there. . It's amazing how a golfer who never helps out around the house will replace his divots, repair his ball marks, and rake his sand traps. . If your opponent has trouble remembering whether he shot a six or a seven, he probably shot an eight (or worse). . You probably wouldn't look good in a green jacket anyway! A sweatshirt will do just fine. . It takes longer to learn to be a good golfer than it does to become a brain surgeon. On the other hand, you don't get to ride around on a cart, drink beer, eat hot dogs and fart If you are performing brain surgery.

Got these off another message board..... A *Salman Rushdie* - an impossible read. A *Rock Hudson* - looked straight, but it wasn't. A *Cuban* - needed one more revolution . An *Elton John *- a big bender that lips the rim . An *Adolf Hitler* - two shots in the bunker . A Saddam Hussein - from one bunker straight into another . A *Yasser Arafat* - ugly and in the sand . A *Kate Winslett* - little bit fat but otherwise perfect . A *Glen Miller* - didn't make it over the water . A *Rodney King* - over-clubbed . An *O.J. Simpson* - got away with it . A *Princess Grace* - should have taken a driver . A *Princess Di* - shouldn't have taken a driver . A *Michael Jackson* - gradually fading . A *Ladyboy* - looks like an easy hole but all is not what it seems . A *condom* - safe but didn't feel real good . A *circus tent* - a BIG top . An *Anna Kournikova* - looks great, but unlikely to get a result . A* Brazilian* - Shaves both sides of the hole A Jeb Bush--too far to the right, out of play A Nancy Pelosi-too far left, clueless on how to get home from there

Short Game, Thought you would find the item below worth your reading. For more information about Dean Knuth's Tournament Point System go to www.popeofslope.com . Dean is the former handicap man at the USGA and helped devise the current system. There is some great reading there as well as tables identifying the probablility of scoring well below your handicap. The key to note in the article below though is that when implementing the system, more people came out to play because tournaments became more fair for everyone. Good Luck in the next one. Golf Digest, May, 1999, page 42 Sandbaggers Beware: A new scoring system helps Dear Golf Digest: I'm sick and tired of the same guys winning our club tournaments. These sandbaggers fatten their handicaps just in time to clean up. How can they be stopped? D.T. Miami This sounds like a job for "the Pope of Slope." We're talking about Dean Knuth, former handicap guru for the U.S. Golf Association. He's the stats whiz who came up with the USGA Slope Rating System and most recently a new Golf Digest world ranking for tour pros. Though now at the Inter-National Research Institute in San Diego, where he develops high-tech command-and-control software for the U.S. Military, Knuth is still waging war on golf cheats. His chief weapon: a simple formula called the Knuth Tournament Point System that awards points for top-five finishes in net events (five for first, down to one for fifth). Based on the points won in a two-year period, competitor's USGA Handicap Indexes are reduced for tournament play if they finish high more than their fair share. Knuth's procedure for weeding out handicap cheats has been instituted at a number of clubs and golf organizations, including the Pacific Northwest Golf Association. Entries in net events there have gone up dramatically since the point system reduced the handicaps of perennial winners.

Don't know about the growability factor of the 2008's but I am a very happy BB2006 owner. I absolutely love them. The only issue for me might be my swing speed may be a bit low for the steel shafts, but I did not want to shell out the extra $100 or so for the graphite. The sets come I think in 3 - PW or 4 - PW + SW I could be wrong about that however. I have a 4 through SW including the A wedge. If I had it to do over I would not have gotten the A wedge with the set but purchased something like this year's Callaway X forged with the Mac Daddy Grooves. But the A wedge I have looks like all the other clubs in the bag so it was certainly a trade off. I will probably replace with the better wedges over time. Given that the 2006 model clubs are not the latest, you should be able to get a pretty good deal on them out there so shop around, but be wary of prices that are "too good to be true". It's always better to deal with someone you know vs someone who comes off the street with an unbelievable deal. Callaway did away with their on-line registering of clubs in their last website release, but you should at least call them and see if they will send you the stickers with your name on them so that you can identify your clubs in case of loss. Overall, if they feel good, get them. They may take a bit to get used to on the course, but if you play on a regular basis, you'll find yourself loving them.

Well our club starts out this Saturday with the Earl Wilcox memorial blind four-ball. You play your 18 holes net THEN your partner is determined from a blind draw between the members of your foursome. It should be interesting to say the least. I'll let you know how I shoot as I am no doubt the D player in the group.

I have been using CaddieMasterPro for the past year and find it to be great for the basics. Fairways Hit, GIR, Putts, SandSaves etc. I was looking however at getting more detailed information on which direction I'm missing my clubs however. The Medicus E-Data Coach is a nice little unit, but it is still a little cumbersome and doesn't have a belt clip to keep the unit handy. At the 2008 golf show I heard they had a prototype that was GPS enabled as well which sounded great, but I would have to demo it to see if they got the usability issues taken care of. The hardest thing about getting detailed statistics is that you have to record every shot as you are playing, and in the muni world I play in, I find that it takes a fair amount of time to capture the info and I feel rushed. Hopefully the interface will get worked out, so that it is easier, quicker, and handier to use. Hope the info helps. David C. N3XT

Caveman, I think the most important thing would be to make sure you stretch well before you start swinging the club, and by that I mean make sure you take a few practice swings at the range before you start swinging on the course. On the course, I would say just be aware of yourself and your game. Try not to overanalyze anything, and make sure that your becoming a serious student of the game does not translate into multiple swing thoughts. Just take each hole as it comes, pick out small targets, swing easy, and enjoy being out on the course. After the round over a cold one you can assess where your game sits and see what you need to spend some practice time working on. Have fun tomorrow or Thursday and let us know how you felt about it. I have a tee time on Thursday, weather here today is 80 degrees with some wind, but there is a 60% chance of Snow tomorrow night with a high Thursday of 46. Probably not going to happen, but the first tournament of the season is Saturday when we should be back in the low 70's David C. N3XT

Personally, I would say no. I wear contacts and don't worry about the rx. However the G30 actually has a fairly low sun blockage level. In my opinion they seem to brighten everything to a certain extent. I would not recommend you investing in the rx lenses without first seeing how you will react to them. Phoenix should have some Oakley dealers there that should have a G30 lens or two that you can see for yourself what they do. For bright days on ski slopes I've used the blue iridium and the red iridium lenses with quite a good effect and would recommend those before the g30s for you. Being here in Denver I get a lot of the same intensity of sun that you get and at altitude as well. I use the Heater style of lens so that I get maximum eye protection from wind as well as sun. With smaller lens styles my contacts would dry up on the slopes, though it has not been much of a problem on the golf course. I hope this helps, David C.

Last year I went without using sunglasses, this year so far I've pulled back out my Oakley M-Frames and put in the golf specific G30 lenses. Absolutely love them. I keep a Black Iridium Lens for super bright days, and yellow shooting glass lens for when I'm playing at dusk. I've had the Oakleys for years now and just love them.