chris6

Breaking 80 is about minimizing mistakes, and keeping your 'misses' manageable.A LOT depends on the following factors. 1. Keep your drive in play 2. No OB shots 3. Convert your up and down opportunities successfully. 4. No double bogeys 5. No three-putts In a nutshell, the major thing that's going to get you to drop below 80 is not absorbing extra strokes for bad shots. Your short game needs to be dialed-in as much as possible

This is a common problem among more advanced golfers. That's why you often see the good golfers bunched up into clique groups. You knew your buddies weren't very good. You also encouraged playing at a course that was probably far beyond their ability. Just because you can afford to play there doesn't always mean that it's going to be enjoyable. If your friends are struggling, suggest playing from shorter tees, or suck it up and help out.

People who like to use golf as a means to engage in conflict-related discussions are engaging in borderline inappropriate behavior. They are not there to enjoy the game of golf. If they are not self-aware enough to understand when they are making people uncomfortable, then the best thing that you can do for yourself is to not play with them. Sometimes it happens that you get stuck with these people when getting paired up on the tee sheet. If it is really bad, I'll just stop playing at the turn and cite some excuse. Physical problems are easily defensible and don't make it seem like something else. If it's a tournament, complete your round and ask to be placed in another group. If it's casual play with 'friends', talk with your other playing partners 1:1 and just tell them 'look, I don't care for this kind of dialog and behavior when I'm out on the course. If Jim continues to be a dick, I'm quitting after 9.' In any case, my solution is to just stop playing with them, sometimes permanently. Many years ago, we had a friend who had an uncontrollable temper and would routinely slam his clubs into the turf, throw clubs (anywhere), and who would curse until it just became a negative experience for everyone. Some of our friends thought it was funny. I did not. The next time the topic of golf with these friends came around I was really clear with everyone that I wouldn't play with people who behaved that way....and they stopped inviting me, and it didn't matter to me. The same is true for 'course drinkers'. I'm not interested in spending my afternoon chugging beers and cocktails all afternoon in the sun while trying to play for score. For the other scenario, my rule is that as long as I'm not signing your score card, playing in a tournament or playing for money, you can do whatever you want.

Greetings, We’re anticipating buying a house in the Treasure Coast area of Florida (Jupiter, Stuart) and would like to find a public or private golf course membership that won’t break the bank. It seems that most courses have very heavy equity commitments between $25k and $175k. Is there anything available for the working man / non-millionaire lifestyle segment? We used to have a Club Corp Membership at a private club in WA state that, while expensive, was a good overall value and didn’t require a second mortgage or liquidating my retirement fund to sign up. Prefer a course with range and practice facilities. Less concerned with restaurant and amenities, although that’s welcome. Thanks for your help. Chris

Miura operates a very exclusive dealer model. Essentially, one dealer per state (except California, which is always split in 2). This makes it very difficult for club fitters to market and sell the product. That's the first problem. As an example, you're in NY - big state. Upper and 'City' are two totally different markets. Imagine now that you want to buy, but you're upstate and the only authorized dealer is in the City. That's really inconvenient. Most people aren't going to lay out $2-3k for a set of custom made clubs without actually demo'ing them first. If demo'ing requires driving 4-6 hours round trip, that's pretty unlikely. That's the second problem. Sometimes smaller golf shops that have a smaller local presence have special arrangements with these singular 'statewide' dealers whereby they order direct from the single dealer at a small discount (5-15%). A lot of times the smaller stores will try to resell the clubs new. This is against Miura policy, and they actively monitor. It is entirely possible that the small shops will sell sets that they don't have in stock, and they're banking on the fact that they can hold you off for 3-4 weeks while they put their order in through one of the state dealers, take shipment, build and deliver. That's risky. Head availability is based upon foundry orders and logistics can sometimes backlog a single head (like a 7 iron). Can't sell a set if one of the clubs is missing, or if you're waiting for a state dealer to be more efficient. FYI, a lot of these state dealers are very small shops - vry small. Additionally, think about the cash outlay on the money transfer. Small independent clubfitters and small resellers don't typically have 10's of thousands of dollars to float the Miura whacky supply chain. Imo (and I'm probably a minority here), Miura has created exclusive territories that have the net effect of being in a lottery for a NYC taxi cab medallion. Direct access to product is the name of the game, and (outside of CA), there simply aren't enough dealers within a reasonable distance to promote a 'one dealer per state' model. Maybe they don't get it. A state is a huge territory. Massively huge when your customers want to touch the product before they buy. There's no possible way I'm driving hundreds of miles to test drive a golf club - I don't care what it is. Incidentally, Bridgestone has the same problem. I really wanted to buy a J40 430cc driver last year. Unfortunately, no one carries them locally. How do you justify spending $400 on a club sight unseen and without ever trying it? Not going to happen. so I bought a Titleist, like it just fine, but it's not what I wanted. My feeling is that Miura has an opportunity to qualify its dealer network based upon smaller regional territories and sales volume. I play Miura tournament blades. I wouldn't change to anything else unless I was signing an equipment endorsement contract that required it. I would say that the easiest electronic outlet is everyone's favorite ecommerce site (-bay), and more often than not you can find used Miuras there. They're less expensive used, but still very expensive, and if you've never tried the clubs that won't solve your dilemma. Hope that helps.