BCEagles722

You need an official GHIN handicap to play, or you might be able to have your club pro contact them, but not positive if that would work. You might get lucky and the starter won't check your handicap, but it rarely happens, and really isn't worth the risk. Make sure to bring your handicap card or a print out of your handicap form the GHIN website as they won't just take your word for it and they won't let you look it up there.

1. St Andrews - Old Course 2. Bethpage Black 3. St Andrews - Castle Course 4. The Country Club (Brookline, MA) 5. St Andrews - Jubilee 6. St Andrews - New Course 7. Brae Burn Country Club (Newton, MA) 8. Red Tail (Devens, MA) 9. Belgrade Lakes (Belgrade Lakes, ME) 10. Sakonnet Golf Club (Little Compton, RI)

A friend and I are making the trip out to Long Island for the Belmont on June 5th and want to combine it with a round at the Black that morning. Since we want to get to the Belmont sometime early in the afternoon, we would like to get one of the first slots in the morning. Anybody have a good guess as to what time we should get there Friday? I did a search and found most people say 5pm or so, but wasn't sure if it would be extra crowded because of the Belmont. The other option is heading over to Bethpage after the Belmont (so we would probably get there around 8 or 9pm). What are the chances we would be able to get out in time to get a full 18 in on Sunday showing up at that time? Thanks!

There isn't a ton of great public public golf right around Boston, so your best bet is to drive a little outside the city if you have the time. If you have to stay in the city, the munis the poster above mentioned are all average courses IMO (mostly due to mediocre course maintenance), so your best bet is probably Granite Links in Quincy, however I have heard from a few people it is a little overrated and overpriced. Pinehills in Plymouth is supposed to be a great (two of the top public courses in MA), and Red Tail in Devens and The Ranch in Southwick are both fantastic courses. Another course I really like is Butter Brook in Westford, which is the most reasonably priced of any of these courses.

Like Kcas said, you only play the Primrose (9 hole course), but when they play the championship course they take the 1st tee and fairway and play it to the 2nd green, and play 8 (as a par 4, not a par 5 like you will play it) and 9, so you will get a little taste of what the course is like for all of the tournaments that have been held there. It is still a great course though, very well maintained and it has some challenging holes, and you will get to walk by a few of the holes on the main course (#14 is a long par 5 that you will cut through and is one of my favorite holes on the course). Also, are you sure you're not playing Brookline HS? I'm pretty familiar with Brookline and I have never heard of Brookline Academy, and with a quick google search nothing came up. Brookline HS plays at TCC, so I think maybe that's what you meant.

If you decide to get an iPhone wait until after the Apple WWDC next week to see what the new iPhone will be like. There will most likely be a 32 GB option announced that should be released in late June/early July, so that will help with the music storage issue a little.

The Celtics will absolutely beat the Magic. Chicago is a better team than Orlando.

But let's face it, 3rd place in the Big East, ACC or Big XII this year (and most years) wins the SEC...

I think what you're missing is that if a stock goes up 10%, you make just as much money if you have 5 shares at $100 or 100 shares at $5. Obviously there is a better chance for a $5 stock to double or tipple over a few years (or to be bought out), but there is also just as much of a chance that the $5 stock will be cut in half or more. There are lots of bargains to be had right now. Do your research and you will be able to find a lot of relatively safe, profitable investments.

What makes you think the NCAA will punish UConn enough to hurt them? Chances are they will get away with a slap on the wrist (maybe a scholarship taken away for a year or two), and that's it. Just look at what the NCAA has done in the past. Michigan got essentially nothing (had to erase all wins, lost a scholarship for four years and couldn't play in the postseason for four years) for having a booster pay five of their players over $100,000 each. USC has gotten nothing yet for the Reggie Bush scandal (and chances are when they do punish USC it will hardly affect them). The NCAA is a joke, if it didn't punish those two schools enough, there is no way it gives UConn anything substantial.

Name: John McGrath Email Address *: Same as forum address Licensed Owner of Scorecard (Y/N): Y Number of Rounds in Scorecard: 37 Operating System (and version): Mac OS X 10.5.6 1-3 Sentences about why you'd be a good choice: Most of my rounds are 9-hole rounds, so I have been an advocate for 9-hole support since I purchased Scorecard (last spring). I think that I would be a good person to test Scorecard 2.0 because I would use this particular feature heavily during the beta period. Also, I have used the statistics Scorecard provides to help improve my game dramatically (dropped 8 strokes last summer).

You clearly have not watched Griffin play much this season. Was Michael Beasley overrated because he got all his rebounds against some bad Big XII teams? How about Kevin Durant? Beasley is an unbelievable rebounder, and not just because of the competition he is playing against. I saw him play against Purdue in NYC this past november in person, and he blew me away with how perfect his timing was on nearly every rebound opportunity. Also, to say he is a "little girl" because he got knocked in the nose and got a concussion is an idiotic statement. Should he have risked further injuring his brain by playing through the pain? And to further prove you have no idea what you are talking about, he didn't get hurt in the Big XII Tournament, it was a regular season game. All of that said, I think Oklahoma will lose to Syracuse tomorrow night. Griffin is a rare talent, but outside of Warren they don't have enough offense to hang with Syracuse.

Trust me, you're going to want a laptop in college. So unless you plan on getting a laptop to go along with your desktop before you go to college, you might want to reconsider...

So is it looking like it won't be ready before the season starts in the northeast, as it sounded that was your original goal?

The re-sale value from the PGA value guide uses ebay to get their numbers, so for that TM FW listed above, the $94.64 is based on 526 listings of that particular club.

That's the trade in value. If you look at the re-sale value, it's $94.64, which is much more accurate for what you can sell it for online.

I have this one ( http://www.groovesharpener.com/ ) and it works great.

The past two summers I caddied at a country club with many members who are high up at prestigious business firms, and a lot of them were out on the course with clients 2-3 days during the week with clients, plus another round or two over the weekend for pleasure.

Erik, is there an way, or are there any plans, to make a round count towards your stats, but not handicap? In MA the off-season is from the day after Veteran's day to March 31, but you can play year round on the Cape. During the course of the off-season, I'll probably play around 10 rounds, and I would like to have the stats from these rounds counted, but at the same time want to be able to keep an accurate handicap (I use Scorecard to keep my handicap because I don't want to pay the $60 dollars to get one at a course since I really don't ever need an official one). Also, is the next update with 9-hole rounds still planned for early 2009? Thanks!

You should be able to find out here: http://valueguide.pga.com/

Probably not the advice you're looking for, but if you can't find anything else that works, baseball player Moises Alou always claimed that by soaking his hands in urine it toughened them up, which allowed him to not wear batting gloves. In all seriousness though, I've always found that if you just tough it out for a little while, you will just develop calluses and won't have to worry about getting blisters anymore.

I just put in an order today for everything below in my sig. Should be here in a couple weeks!

I have Under Armor leggings that I wear under my pants, they work great. Something similar to these: http://www.underarmour.com/shop/mens...ng/1004037-001

I played Leo J. a lot as well this past summer (I live in Newton). I would love to play nicer courses more often, but, as a college student, I just don't have that much disposable income, so I guess you get what you pay for. It's too bad though, I think that, similar to Ponky, with a lot of work it could be a great course. It's a Donald Ross design as well, but it's just not maintained at all.

Couldn't agree with you more DD. Not sure if you've played them before, but if you go a little west of the city (30-45 min), you can find some nice, and most importantly, affordable courses (Butter Brook and Stow Acres are the two I've played). It's a little bit of a drive, but it's definitely worth it.