Chunky

Well, if the bunker is GUR then it more or less doesn't exist as a bunker as the rules go. They don't do that where I play, the bunkers get washed out, the mats under the sand stick out and some turn into complete water hazards and since there is no local rule or relief you treat them as a water hazard.

The pro's take free drops from TV cables or move the cable, same obstacle but different circumstances govern the option. So, I say your tractor is an unmoveable obstruction. If you do want to call it a moveable obstruction I believe you bring into play other issues with the tractor like if you hit it you get the option of rehitting your shot with no penalty.

"That only applies if the area within the bunker has been declared GUR. If the whole bunker has been declared GUR, relief must be taken outside the bunker. If it isn't GUR it must be played as it lies or treated as unplayable." This is only half right, if you have to stand in casual water or your ball in in casual water you get a free drop in the bunker.

I play a lot as a single and play alone often. I wouldn't say that I only play my best when I am alone, but as good as my best at times. I find my game has more to do with flow and people. If the pace is comfortable and there is some talk but not too much I play my best. If I get with people that talk more I get distracted and don't focus as well.

I'm not the first person to tell you that you are obsessive compulsive. When I get to a tee box I clean up the tees in my way and throw them near the marker in a pile that usually someone else has started and then hit my shot No big deal. By chance do you always look at your balls lie and clean up all the loose impediments all around it for a foot?

The rule is you get a free drop no closer to the hole in the bunker, nearest complete relief ( you must take complete relief) and one club length. If you don't want to take the drop in the bunker or can't you must drop outside the bunker and take complete relief and one club, no closer to the hole, or a line straight back from you lie in line with the pin how far you want or rehit from your last lie and this will cost you one stroke.

I can play from the tips and play in the low 80's and even break 80 occasionally, but golf is a game that is set up where par is average. I'll play where ever the foursome is playing from (even the womens occasionally). The beauty of moving forward is you can feel you are hitting the same clubs as the pros but of course not from the same distances. I will also make it a point to play forward on many golf course that aren't up to snuff and place squirrelly pins on hills and near edges all day and have inconsistent rough around the greens because you need to compensate for lousy conditions that create "lottery golf".

The longer clubs sping the ball less or at least have less traction due to their lower ball flght. THat's why you see the pros hit fades with them to land on greens because fades fly higher, have more spin and land softer. It is also good to note which holes are on flat greens, most greens slope toward you so they help hold the ball. Often downhill holes are flat. Anyway, flat greens let the ball keep rolling unless you can put some serious spin on a very good spinning ball.

Your over analyzing it. The big lie about sand traps is there is one way to do it. The course I play waters the course and between holes so erratically that the sand traps play different from hole to hole. When you dig your feet in you have to look down and see how deep you go to wet sand. The wetter and stiffer the sand the closer to the ball you have to hit. When you get to a quarter of an inch or so you use a straight blade and play it like a fat shot. The recipe is a full swing will go 1/3 the distance of your club and then roll some. Most people play wet sand too far back from the ball and bounce up into the ball and skull it. When the sand gets dry on top and wet below, one way to play it is to bend your knees a lot and try to skim through the dry part of the sand. This is a harder shot, it has to be real shallow and takes finesse to figure out the distance because done right the ball comes out very easy. Don't worry about the bottom of your club, worry more about staying down with bent knees, having a proper stance and swing plane will make you club do the right thing.

If you aren't good enough to use a 60 degree then by all mean lose it. If the greens are slow, I can get by without it. It is my favorite bunker club because they turn the sprinklers on the traps on my course and use shitty sand, so you need to use something without much bounce. Now if the greens are fast and you are faced with tight lies then a 60 degree is your club in tight situations, but most people can't pull off the shot. It is also a factor of how good you are at hitting various clubs different distances. In my case I am better at adjusting the longer irons and find I am more accurate with a four wedge bag.

you shouldn't be recording a handicap for match play and if it is stroke play the rules deny you the right to give putts, all putts much be putted. Sandbagging is actually not legal under the handicap rules, if you says he is doing it, then report him, he should be disqualified.

So, how is he slowing up the game? Once you establish a slightly larger gap, what's the difference a minute? It well be the same the whole round, so as long as you keep up with a slightly longer gap you are fine. How do you know, he isn't capable of an occasional good shot? Would you like to assume liability for his ball hitting someone?

Hey, if she was further away and wouldn't take her turn, I would say that waiting would put her in a too much time penalty situation. Unfortunately, tournaments don't track or penalize for this.

It is a matter of fact whether your ball went into a hazard, in other words you have to see it go there or see enough of the shot to be sure it did. This would be a red staked hazard or a yellow staked hazard. The rules don't give a darn whether you can see or the golf course is ill designed. So, bottom line is if not sure, re tee and hit again, you are now lying three after you second tee shot.

The course I play at has a posted handicap for each set of tees, meaning you take your handicap index and find it on the sheet and that will give you the strokes you get from a specific tee box. This is not a perfect system as you will come up with differences of 1.3 strokes which rounds off to 1 stroke. Anyway, the adjustment is figured out for you. If you have a mens club, who doesn't? Then they should have a conversion, if they don't they are pretty lame.

Pace of play is a threefold problem: 1)The course itself 2)Slow players 3) USGA rules don't make play fast. First of all imagine a course that is old with greens that are small and curvey, bunkers around them with different types of sand, some with not enough sand, greens that roll at three different speeds and change daily, uneven watering, 16 holes that you can bounce off the green into OB or 8inch high grass. Blind shots on fairways that bounce toward hazards with tall grass. Sure you can play it in 3.5 hours and I have walking it, but it ain't going to happen when you start putting just a few foursomes in front of you, especially when a public course can't resist the temptation to pile them on as fast as they can. Next slow players, these idiots have no concept of time or what they should be doing to speed up. My belief is a Marshall should stand over the group and say stuff. Like it's your turn do it and why didn't you check out the putt instead of standing around waiting and so on. USGA rules don't encourage fast play, you want add two strokes to your score or would you rather have a chance of making par, that means you need to find your ball! More than half of golfers don't go back to the tee for a white OB stake, so make it one stroke and call it a hazard, too many courses use white stakes to try and control speed of play, but it doesn't work. So it isn't just the golfers it's the whole system.

If the gap in your nine iron and six iron is only 20 yds, then you only need one iron at most to fill the gap between them. At this point it all depends on how serious you are about golf. If you intend to play two or three times a week you will gain distance and the gap between the nine and six will increase. Otherwise, just go have fun.

I played with a guy a year ago, he wasn't crossed handed but he had a very odd swing. The general way his swing worked was he picked the club straight up to just right of his head (right handed) and then dropped it in and hit away. The day I played with him he only carried a 7 iron and a driver, no putter and shot something just over par. About three quarters the way through the round I asked him if he had ever hurt his arms. He said as a matter of fact he had broken both of them and had, had a lot of lessons and came to this swing as the best way for him to play. He also, said that lots of guys wanted him to play with him to hustle some golf because his swing looked so bad that people couldn't believe he could play!

I like the titleist nxt tour. Travels well and not as as much back spin as the pro v. I don't worry so much about distance as how it reacts to the green. A short chip with a pro v will check, hit it harder and it will check more, you end up with the same distance, meaning to control the ball you have to get all fancy with the face of the club. It get more complicated, at this point I'm trying to keep it simple.

I would have looked him in the eye and said I didn't realize you guys were so slow. The ones that get me are the guys that get upset because your ball landed and rolled to a stop 30 yards behind and you knew that was the best you were going to do.

Ha, Ha Ha, you didn't get to be a 12 handicap with that BS swing philosphy! But good job sounding like a 25 handicapper who refuses to fix an awful swing because they feel comfortable with it. Funny thing is those guys are more comfortable with their swings than their scores! If only they could make the connection.

I joined a public course and go as a single all the time. Now, I know a lot of single players and we run into each other and get paired up a lot, by dumb luck. I also end up on a lot of threesomes. I know more people at that course then some of the long time members and I only have been a member for under two years. I have ended up on some occasional threesomes for awhile which is fun too, but I don enjoy being a single because it really frees you up to play more golf because I rarely have to wait more than 20 minutes to get out. Here's the bad news you get to the course and decide to sign up as a single an go to the desk, you thought they were busy but guess what they get you out in five minutes. I can't tell how few practice buckets I have hit. I really want to hit more but I don't get enough 45 minute or hour waits!

Isn't that what a good preshot routine is about. I always liked Anika Sorenstans analogy. There is the three foot box about three paces behind he ball, this is the office, you look at the hole and size up the hole and the shot you want to hit, then you do a practice swing or two for rehearsal. Then you step up to the ball and do your preswing routine, which is exactly the same everytime. That's how you go from BS'ing with your pals to the shot.

I think you're on the wrong track here. I've been wanting to try different bounces on my wedges, but I need to use them a bit to see. Your swing will have some influence on this not to mention on how much you like to open and close the face as you use the club. Also, if you play public courses that tend to be hard and dry and bouncy in the summer you may want less bounce as to fluffy moist ground. Somebody tell me if I'm wrong here: It seems to be conditions would influence bounce. Wouldn't wet densely packed sand trap want less bounce than a fluffy one. What about winter fairways that are mushy, maybe less bounce and nip the ball because the extra bounce gives too much contact with the ground. I'm curious if the pro's change wedge sets in different conditions or maybe they just adjust how much they open and close the face. Phil is a great wedge player wouldn't you love to pick his brain.

You're not going to get much specific help to your putting here. We can only guess. Basic beginner mistakes (when I say beginner it could be 20 years the way some people putt) are: 1) Not keeping your head and neck still (this creates aim issues) 2)Using your wrists to move the putter at any part of the stroke (this creates distance control issues) 3) Wrong putter (putters have different lofts and depending on how you postion your hands in respect to the ball you can use more or less loft 4)Convention says there should be a similarity between your driver swing and your putting stroke. (forget this if you driver swing is inconsistent and unconventional (this usually means better golfers have given you advice and you have't listened to any of it) 5)Most weight on your front foot. 6) Play around with ball position in your stance. If you tend to be too far forward the tendency is to miss to the right and too far back misses to the left How's that for a start! A good putting stroke has way more going on than most people have any idea about. My keys when I get off line is check ball position, get more weight on front foot, focus on the spot on the ball I want to hit with the putter as I swing. This gets me on line and at least a lot closer most of the time. The thing I hear most of the time from people having issues with any club is that their swing is different but it works best for them. Yah, right and right now you're having problems! My putting sucked for 20 years finally I started reading the golf magazines and when I found style of stroke I liked I concentrated on the advice that worked for that stroke. I went from I wonder where it will end up this time to, How come I haven't made a couple of 20 footers today!