Pretzel

I don't think etiquette has gotten worse, per se, just that the standard for etiquette has changed over the years (for better or for worse, depending on who you ask). It used to be that you were expected to dress in shirt, tie, knickers, and a single-breasted jacket with waistcoat. Now there are many areas where golfing in jeans and a t-shirt is acceptable. Most perceive this overall trend towards more casual attire as positive, some believe that it's gone too far, and very few believe that things should still be exactly as they once were. As far as music and smoking go on the golf course, I would say it's generally inconsiderate to do either without first discussing it with the group you're playing in to make sure it's fine by them. If you do either you shouldn't be playing music loudly enough or puffing large enough clouds to be affecting groups other than your own, making it a moot point if you've already cleared it with your playing partners. The idea of music on the course has been a relatively recent development because prior to the early 2000's it was rare for anybody to bring a radio or other portable device capable of playing music out onto the course with them at all, just because you had to go out of your way to bring a separate device to listen to. It's obviously inconsiderate to play music loudly enough to disturb other groups, but if your group is fine with music and it's not being blasted then I see nothing wrong with it. Other groups might faintly hear it when they closely pass by you, but my threshold for "too loud" is typical conversation or the sound of a normal gas cart, since if you're as quiet or quieter than those it's no different from all the other noises you'll hear regardless when out on the course. I would also tend to agree with @DeadMan that music on the course has become less of an issue as society has adapted over the years to always having music players on hand and new social norms regarding that have been established. That said I have noticed much more wear on golf courses in general since the start of 2020, most likely due to the exploding popularity of the sport. More divots are left unfilled and ballmarks un-repaired, with more damage on the greens from people dragging their feet or teeboxes and fairways from people taking divots that were clearly made by practice swings (if it's turned 90* away from the hole on the tee box or middle of the fairway, it wasn't made by somebody hitting their golf ball). Disregard for the course is definitely poor etiquette, likely not out of malice but because many new or infrequent golfers may not know how to properly care for the course and it would be beneficial to expand education efforts in this respect. It also doesn't help that a staple of courses in days gone by, free ball mark repair tools handed out alongside scorecards and pencils, have all but gone extinct meaning golfers may not even have the proper tools (and somebody inexperienced using a tee can do more harm than good). I've also noticed that empty or missing sand bottles are far more common since the start of 2020, likely due to staffing shortages or simply the increased demand on courses meaning that certain smaller things (like refilling/replacing sand bottles) get overlooked more often.

Too much golf is when golf starts to cause injury, whether it be physical or otherwise. Obviously when I tore my hands up from hitting too many balls as a kid I was playing too much, as was when I more recently played 8 rounds in 7 days after 3+ months off due to winter weather and injured my back in the process. Non-physical injury usually comes down to relationships or your social life, and is trickier to define. Prior to a recent short-notice move, I was playing 1-4 times per week depending on how schedules worked out. My wife sometimes will go out to the course with me, but usually only plays a few holes and doesn't join me terribly often. Our work schedules meant that we usually had one shared day off, and on that day I either would never golf or we would golf together if she wanted to play. I also had a weekly league that I'd try to play in as much as work would allow, during which it was never an issue even if she wasn't working that day. Beyond that I would get out to play whenever my schedule allowed it and she was otherwise busy with work or her own friends/hobbies. If we had free time together, I avoided going to the course to play without her because there was enough time where our schedules didn't overlap that I could get my golfing in otherwise. Realistically it comes down to a balance for both people, because if either person is relying solely on the other as their only source of entertainment or company it can be very constraining for everyone involved. The person who relies solely on their spouse feels abandoned or neglected if the spouse goes off to do a non-shared hobby, and the spouse with a non-shared hobby feels like they never get to enjoy their own hobbies. My wife and I both have enough shared and separate hobbies and friends that it hasn't been too difficult to find that balance, but for others it can be more difficult. @Bman have you tried timing your golfing to happen while your wife is out to the mall or other activities you don't usually join her for? That alone could go a long way to both increasing your frequency of golfing while also reducing complaints within the relationship because it's not "taking away" from time that would otherwise be spent together.

Darn right they are! I don't hit the ball as well as I did even just a few years ago, in part due to losing my way with my swing and getting overly steep due to a lack of video feedback during practice sessions that I could use as a concrete reference as to what I'm actually doing. As a result I'm getting more toe strikes, which always felt like they were particularly painful and unforgiving with blades compared to how I remembered "more forgiving" irons being that I had previously used. I decided to try out some of the Ping Eye 2's that I bought for my wife because they're the same irons I had when I first got serious about golf and the "most forgiving" design I had ever played. Turns out I can hit shots just as poorly off the toe with those as any that I hit with my blades, the only difference that stood out was that the sole doesn't dig as deep into the turf if I miss it fat with my current overly steep swing. Similarly, they both hit some really nice shots when I make contact with the ball in the center of the clubface. Same went for going to a golf shop and testing out the T400's on the simulator just to get a modern point of comparison. Extreme misses might have gone slightly straighter or a couple yards further on the Eye 2's and T400s, but not enough so to make it an obvious change that I could attribute to the club rather than just the quality of the strike itself being slightly different. There's more room to miss on the larger clubfaces, so while I may have missed the same amount from the center it was proportionately slightly closer to the middle than the same amount of miss with a blade, but not enough to account for more than a few yards since really anything away from the middle (and particularly out on the toe) is punished heavily. I stuck with the blades even if I sometimes make myself look a fool for using them out on the course. I'm pretty confident the problem is not, in fact, the clubs but perhaps instead the nut that attaches to them.

Realistically it depends on your current swing and golf game. If your drives are costing you lots of strokes, either in penalties or because you're stuck having to "recover" from a bad drive the majority of the time it could seem obvious that you should practice with a driver more. The problem is that this answer of, "practice with a driver if your driver costs you strokes" isn't even necessarily universally correct. If the driver problems are caused by a major swing flaw that is present throughout your entire bag then a lot of the time it's easier to start fixing that problem swinging shorter clubs that are easier to control. I personally find swing changes easiest to make if I start by hitting a wedge or short iron at 50% effort focusing almost entirely on how the corrected motion feels, utilizing frequent video feedback to make sure what I'm working on is actually corrected, then work my way up to higher intensity swings and longer clubs from there. This means if I'm having driver problems caused by an obvious swing flaw I like to start with a shorter club to work on the desired change more efficiently and give myself a better foundation to work from rather than pounding away with a driver using incorrect mechanic. I still will hit my longer clubs (usually including the driver) towards the end of a range session to see how any progress I've made translates throughout the entire bag, but if making significant changes I will continue to focus heavily on clubs that are easier for me to control and correct until the changes are well ingrained. Generally speaking though it won't hurt your tee shots to have more practice with intent while swinging a driver, but it won't necessarily be the best or more efficient path to improving your golf game. The key there is that practicing with intent will give faster and larger results than mindlessly beating balls until you're tired. If you're working to fix something in your swing you need to focus on fixing the swing instead of how well or poorly you're hitting the ball. Utilize frequent video feedback because feel isn't real and most people are walking around with a 120fps or better video camera in their pocket nowadays. Focus on the process even if it means hitting shots that look, feel, and objectively are bad during the process of making an improvement because it will usually get worse for at least a couple swings (and sometimes a lot of swings) before it gets better. Practicing with intent is easy once you get the hang of it, but the hard part of figuring out exactly what you should be practicing is the reason that GOOD golf instructors are so valuable. Anybody can look at their golf swing and spot the differences between it and Adam Scott or other pros with really good looking swings, but it takes a lot of knowledge and experience to assess a golfer's current swing and game to accurately determine what the top priority for that golfer's practice should be. That's why it's impossible to give one universal answer to how much you should practice with a driver, because that answer is different for everybody and it depends on your swing, what works best for you when changing your swing, and the overall strengths and weaknesses of your golf game as a whole.

That's definitely my favorite visualization of different laptimes I've seen before. Really highlights the strengths and weaknesses (slow corner vs straight line speed) of the two cars and the differing racing lines that different drivers take.

Along these same lines, when I warm up I like the last shot I hit on the range to be the shot I'm about to hit on the 1st tee box. I usually start warming up with chip and pitch shots, then move to the range to loosen up and observe any particular patterns that show up that day before moving to the putting green until it's 10 minutes before my tee time. 10 minutes before I go back to the range, pull out whatever club I'm hitting on the first tee and play it just as if I was starting my round. Just gives me a fresh feel to keep in mind when standing on the first tee. I'm comfortable knowing I can hit the shot I want to because I just did it right then. Mixing in my putting between the range warm up and the practice tee shot means it's both fresh in my mind and I know how it should feel when I haven't just spent the last 10-15 minutes getting into a rhythm of full swings at the range. I'm young enough it doesn't make a ton of difference yet, but you still "cool down" some between shots on the course or between your last range ball and your first tee shot unless you're rolling in hot with 30 seconds to spare straight off the practice tee with driver still in hand. If I do my putting it gives me that same cooling down effect, so it's not like I hit great tee shots on the range after warming up with irons and the first tee shot hit more than 5 minutes after the last shot is on the first tee box and feels very different as a result.

Yes, and those clauses include specific compensation for not competing in most cases outside of simply "you have a job if you don't compete". Non-compete clauses can and have been thrown out. To those saying that you signed a contract so your rights are meaningless, that doesn't apply to contract terms that are in violation of law. Contracts can and do have illegal clauses often, which is why every contract also includes a severability clause to enforce the remainder of the contract if and when any individual term of the contract is declared void in a court of law.

Those clauses are all well and dandy for employees, but are generally illegal for independent contractors. You cannot generally control whether or not an independent contractor can do work for other companies or organizations, and certainly not without specific compensation for such a term in exchange other than the job itself. Hence the potential tax implications if courts were to determine the PGA Tour is treating their players as employees.

In all honestly I hadn't paid enough attention to the actual LIV events to see if they had individual standings as well. Kind of hard to watch them when they change the method each time and/or chose YouTube of all streaming platforms to host their broadcast. That's the strangest part to me. Why dump all this money into players and not spend an equal amount on a broadcast slot somewhere so people could actually watch them play?

It doesn't hold any water to either the PGA Tour or the OWGR. The main argument in both of those cases would be strength of field, which is one aspect where most of the LIV events are not particularly exceptional or even good despite their attempts to get "the best of the best". The more important factor to whether the tournaments would ever receive OWGR points is the fact that they're team events. Neither the Ryder Cup nor the President's Cup award OWGR points, so there isn't even really an established precedent for team events like this to receive ranking points. I don't believe they will be successful in their bid to have their tournaments award ranking points, but I suppose only time will tell.

The LIV wouldn't stop them, they'd be glad to have more players there. They'd be even happier that they didn't have to pay to obtain those big names. For the anticompetitive actions specifically, however, investigations will focus on whether the PGA Tour is engaging in any horizontal or single firm conduct. An easy way to think of this is that horizontal conduct is like a cartel or collusion between businesses to keep out competition, and single firm conduct is the type of behavior of your stereotypical single-company monopoly without outside assistance. If the PGA Tour is working together with other organizations (PGA of America, USGA, R&A, ANGC, OWGR, DP World Tour, etc.) in an attempt to blackball LIV players from competing in other non-PGA Tour events that would be a prime example of illegal horizontal conduct and more specifically it would likely constitute a group boycott. A group boycott is pretty self-explanatory, in that if the PGA Tour is requesting that the other organizing bodies for tournaments prohibit or otherwise restrict the entry of LIV players it would be a clear example of attempting to coordinate a refusal to do business with targeted individuals/businesses, which is the textbook definition right there. For conflicting event releases the fact that the PGA Tour recognizes specific circuits and blanket approves conflicting event releases for players with another geographic "home circuit" while blanket denying all conflicting event releases within North America is also in danger of violating regulations prohibiting market division between competitors. In terms of single firm conduct the PGA Tour is already skirting a fine line when it comes to running afoul of regulations on refusing to deal. It is specifically prohibited to refuse to deal with customers or suppliers (players being suppliers in this case) if the refusal to deal has or intends to have the effect of preventing those customers/suppliers from dealing with rival companies. Refusing to allow for any conflicting event releases within North America could be an example of the PGA Tour suppressing competitors to maintain their monopoly on professional golf in North America, particularly in light of the blanket approval on releases for foreign players who wish to compete in specific tour, not just any tour, in a different geographical area (it would be more easily defensible if it was blanket approval for any event outside of North America rather than only for specific tours). Requiring that players play in a scheduled PGA Tour event, even one the player was not registered for, over any competing event on its own is a bit of a grey area here specifically due to the classification of players as independent contractors. The PGA Tour cannot control the hours when independent contractors perform work for them, nor can they control whether the players also work for other businesses. They can only specify the minimum/maximum amount of work required of their contractors or any specific events the contractors must be working at. The PGA Tour does specify these terms, stating that regular members must play at least one new event (player has not competed in for the last 4 seasons) per season unless they play at least 25 or more events in the previous or current season, are a life member, veteran member, or dual member of the PGA Tour Champions. They also specify that players must attend at least 15 events per year, or meet specific exemptions, to be a voting member. The PGA Tour does not specify which events a player must attend, nor do they specify that a player must attend a certain number of events to retain eligibility at all. Prohibiting competition in outside events with limited and mostly-discretionary exceptions is not a particularly strong legal position when you're classifying players as independent contractors - it would be akin to Uber prohibiting drivers from working for Lyft on days that Uber was also operational or DoorDash prohibiting drivers from choosing to work for GrubHub instead on any given weekend. Realistically the case here, both on the independent contractor and the anticompetitive behavior front, are all in very grey areas of the law. Very few things are clear cut or black and white in the realm of employment law, so it'll be some time before any of this shakes out properly. The one thing the PGA Tour is going to be most desperate to avoid is a reclassification of their members as employees rather than independent contractors based on their rules effectively prohibiting players from working for any other professional tour outside of specific "approved competitors". They'd be much more willing to take a slap on the wrist for not allowing players to compete in conflicting events compared to the monumental fines and penalties that would be levied alongside that kind of employee reclassification.

The DCI wedge set is most likely meant to resemble the Triple Grind High Performance Wedges in shape and sole grind, but aimed at the players who were using DCI irons rather than their Titleist Tour Model blades of the time. The wedges from the DCI Gold iron set were most likely meant to more closely resemble the appearance of the irons themselves, without any distinct appearance differences or sole grind changes between the wedges and irons. The DCI iron set ones would also have been a convenience option for the average consumer, being able to order/purchase everything together as a single set at what was almost certainly a lower price compared to purchasing their wedges separately (since, in all honestly, the majority of golfers don't care about sole grinds or bounce spec of their wedges). The bulk of the differences would be in the sole grind and bounce though, but I can't seem to find any spec for the DCI Iron set's bounce figures for direct comparison since it's blank on the Titleist website. Obviously the DCI wedges have much more heel, toe, and trailing edge relief grinding to set the leading edge lower when manipulating the clubface for different shots around the green while the DCI iron set wedges have minimal heel and trailing edge relief to match the grind profile you'd find on the rest of the iron set. The other difference would just be that the DCI wedges were available in Copper Beryllium or stainless steel, while the DCI iron set wedges were only available in stainless steel. As both options were a cast clubhead it's almost certain that they used the same steel alloy for both of them.

This is why the only time I play in scramble tournaments is when it's either set up for members/guests of a private course (with strong discouragement/penalties for cheating), if it's for a charity I like, or if it's on some private course I'd otherwise be unable to play and want to try out. When I was a plus handicap years ago I played a scramble with one pro and two other plus handicaps because one was a friend who wanted to put together a team of ringers to win the event. We shot a 52 (par 71, 19 under) on a course regularly used for US Open qualifiers, and we still "lost" to a group of guys who regularly struggled to get the ball into the air on the range and out on the course. My buddy had assumed that blatant/obvious cheaters like that would've had their scores tossed out since it was a reasonably large event that was put on by the local PGA chapter, but it wasn't and they kept the not-insubstantial (but not amateur disqualifying) prizes for winning. After that experience I decided to only play in scrambles if I liked or wanted to try a particular course and had some friends to just enjoy an afternoon with while potentially supporting a cause I agree with. Outside of private events that are organized by courses or specific groups that will monitor and prevent cheating, I don't go into any scramble with the expectation of doing anything but having fun with friends out on the golf course.

The one on the left looks to be from from the DCI wedges collection with wedge-specific grind profiles. DCI Wedges (BeCu and SS) The one on the right looks to be from the DCI Gold iron set, which could be ordered all the way to the lob wedge if desired with sole grinds that would match the iron set as opposed to being specific to the wedges. DCI Gold

Does this mean the LIV might pay me and my ugly mug to show up at PGA Tour events and get rowdy to put on a bad image for the Tour?

Found out why they didn’t put him on the mediums after looking more close - they had none left. His last set was used at the start of the race. Makes the decision make more sense with that information, but definitely unfortunate for Sainz to lose out on an opportunity based on how the team used their compounds through the practice sessions (teams all get the same allocation each weekend nowadays). A soft tire would have been unlikely to last the 20 laps without degrading enough to risk Hamilton and Russell catching up to Sainz.

That and the Ferrari is one of the slower cars for straight line speed. The Ferrari was noticeably faster in sector 2 than the Red Bull so they needed Medium tires to gain more ground there to make a pass with the long DRS straight. Because Red Bull was faster in sector 1 Sainz couldn't get close enough before the final hairpin to make any attempts at a pass, either at the hairpin or at the end of the long straight. Mediums he could have had a chance, might have been passed back at the very end if the tire wear was worse than it was for Leclerc, but he would have had a chance. Hard tires just meant the race was over right then and there.

My biggest question for this race was why on earth would Ferrari put Sainz on hards when there were only 20 laps to go and the Ferrari already proved to be gentle on the tires this weekend. They knew they couldn't pass with the same hard tires unless they were both 30+ laps old, and yet they put Sainz on the same tires as what Verstappen had just taken. 20 laps to go the only chance to pass is with mediums, and with 20 laps to go the mediums aren't likely to fade enough for Verstappen to make a pass back on Sainz. Even without the safety car reducing tire wear for the end of the race it was already foolish to do the change for hards instead of mediums, because the absolute worst-case with mediums is still a 2nd place finish (no chance of Hamilton overtaking) but the absolute best-case with hards was always going to be 2nd place.

Egress from a flipped car was one of the biggest arguments against the implementation of the Halo in Formula 1, and it actually happened in 2018 to Nico Hulkenburg with the additional complication of the flipped car catching fire. The marshals were luckily able to extinguish the fire and right the car for him to escape safely, but he was entirely unable to escape on his own before that happened. The other main issue with flipped cars in F1 is that the entire chassis can become electrified and dangerous for marshals to touch with the large hybrid elements of the car. There are indicators lights for marshal safety to show whether the electrical cut-off has been activated and the car is properly neutralized, but in the event of an urgent extraction it would be a choice between risking marshal safety or risking the life of the driver inside the car. As much as we'd all like to pretend to play the hero in such a scenario, the reality of the situation is that there's no good answer as to what the right thing to do there is other than attempting to ensure marshals are equipped to safely attempt extractions even on electrically live vehicles. The counter argument to this is that rollover crashes such as this didn't have all that much better of an outcome in years before the introduction of the aeroscreen and halo devices. In many cases drivers were still trapped even without the halo/aeroscreen simply because the gap to escape, created by the angle between front and top-rear of the crash structure, was too small or presented at an angle that made egress from the vehicle impossible for drivers. In other cases drivers could be at risk if the top of the crash structure became damaged and allowed a rolled vehicle to sit lower and potentially compress the driver into the car. Thankfully, however, rollover crashes like this are rare and most would agree that the safety improvements are worth the potential risks. Since the introduction of the halo there have been three crashes that I believe best highlight the advantages of the halo (and similar designs) and would have almost certainly resulted in either fatalities or life-changing levels of injury had the halo not be in place. The first is the 2020 crash of Romain Grosjean, where analysis afterwards showed that the only thing preventing the barrier from flattening or removing the driver's head was the halo itself. The second is the 2021 entanglement of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton at Monza, where Max's rear tire would have fallen directly on top of Lewis Hamilton's head and forced his helmet down into the steering column, potentially crushing it. The final is the 2018 Belgian Grand Prix when Fernando Alonso's entire car landed directly upon Charles LeClerc's halo before continuing to slide forwards off the other side of the vehicle, an incident which without the halo would have certainly resulted in a direct strike to the helmet of a driver by the body of another car. There are certainly risks with the halo, but I personally believe that the benefits vastly outweigh the risks and thus far this has been borne out in the incidents we've seen since their introduction. It is only a matter of time, however, until the halo or aeroscreen ends up potentially impeding vehicle egress in a more dire scenario and the debate will re-open once more. Ultimately the truth of the matter is that racing at the highest level, with these speeds, is always a risky endeavor and it is virtually impossible to eliminate fatalities entirely no matter what safety precautions are taken. The best we can hope to accomplish is to prevent the largest number of injuries and fatalities as possible, and work to continuously shore up weak points such as equipment and training for trackside staff to more efficiently and effectively overcome challenges presented by designs with net-positive safety benefits, as well as continuing to innovate with designs that improve driver safety without turning the car into a sealed tomb.

The only thing surprising to me is that so many people are surprised by the idea that professional golfers might be interested in earning tens of millions just for appearing.

Tiger has always worn metal spikes, barring a short stint of trying Softspikes at the end of 2018 before switching back, so that's not particularly surprising. IIRC he's been using the ProStinger "hybrid" metal spikes before and since.

No, Sergio was complaining specifically because that rules official started the 3 minute clock before Sergio even arrived to begin searching for his ball. He started the clock when Sergio was still approaching the area. Edit: Whoops! Jumped the gun and didn't read that the same information had been posted already.

That's not a consequence of the new ground effect cars, it's just a consequence of Mercedes' shitty aero and suspension. If they managed the porpoising like most other teams already have they wouldn't have this issue injuring their drivers.

Unfortunately I'll have to move myself to the definitely out group as well because I was reminded of plans that were made long ago. I'll have to catch the next one! Definitely In: @iacas @billchao @boogielicious @Hardspoon @Divot Master @RJohn23 @saevel25 @Braivo @Slice of Life @Carl3 @Carl3's dad (tentatively) @RFKFREAK Definitely Out: @klineka @ejm1994 @georgep @ChetlovesMer @Pretzel

Definitely In: @iacas @billchao @boogielicious @Hardspoon @Divot Master @RJohn23 - I'll bow out if you get to 12 more regular members and I'm #13. Or I can be in the 13-16 group. @saevel25 @Braivo @Slice of Life Definitely Out: @klineka @ejm1994 @georgep Not Sure Yet: @ChetlovesMer @RFKFREAK @Carl3 @Pretzel I believe I should be able to make it, but have to check and make sure I don't have any conflicting plans first. If there are no conflicts, I'm all in!