cougar978

1) Having one group back an entire course up (I've seen it happen before) - playing a slow round on a crowded course comes with the territory, but idiots that take 20 practice swings and then can't hit it out of their shadow, people who plumb-bob putts for triple, etc get under my skin. 2) People who don't rake bunkers (I ended up in footprints on two separate holes during my round Wednesday - both of which made reasonably easy sand saves into bogeys). 3) People who are too lazy to repair pitchmarks - greens that take a lot of short iron and wedge shots are invariably going to get beat up over time, but fix your pitchmarks, for god's sake. 4) Par 5's that have fairway bottlenecks - I hit the ball 300+ and I HATE having to hit a 2-iron off a par 5 tee - let me go up there and maul one! 5) Drunks who think they're at an NFL or NHL game where it's appropriate to hoot and holler all the time (different from yelling/swearing after a bad shot or cheering after a good shot where it's brief). 6) People who see me hit the ball a long way and automatically think I'm going to Q-school or ask if I'm on a mini-tour or something. I'm really NOT that good compared to the top talent we have here.

Tournaments - wherever they put the tees. Any other time - tips.

If I'm on, I can give anyone a run for their money. If I'm off, I could lose to a total scrub.

I played 36 holes at Colonial Heritage today off the tips. Here's a picture of the 5th hole: http://colonialheritageclub.com/kemp...219/hole05.jpg The first 18 (never seen the course before), I decide to play ultra-safe and hit a 2-iron - there's about a 200 yard carry over the hazard to the left fairway - duck hooked it into the shit. Since the ball didn't cross over anything but the white tees, I went ahead and re-teed - duck-hooked another one in the shit. Go back to the cart, get a third ball, hit driver right to the edge of the right hazard. Pull the 3-wood out going for the green, push it in the trees right of the green. Blade a wedge over the green into a lateral hazard. Drop, chip onto the green, miss a 5 ft putt for an 11. Having never played the course before, I didn't know there was a drop area on the ladies tee. Had I known that, I probably wouldn't have made worse than bogey. Then the next 18, I hit 4-wood, 4-iron, gap wedge to 10 ft and birdied it.

If I'm concerned about the ball being OB/lost, I'll hit a provisional every time just to avoid the above mentioned situation - if you find your original in play then you just pick up the provisional with no penalty (it's a practice shot in essence).

I cheated a couple times in high school on JV and never got caught. Then when I was 16, we had another guy get caught cheating in the varsity qualifiers and coach booted him off the team (he was pretty well-liked too). That pretty much did it for me, and it forced me to work harder on the game and not take shortcuts. The more I think about it, it just shows an utter disrespect for the game and your fellow competitors. In the blitz and tournaments I play in, it's pretty much a mortal sin (get caught once and you're blackballed) - much more so than cursing and club throwing (still do that more than I like to admit).

I usually get the logo overruns at Golf Galaxy but apparently everyone and their brother knows they sell them now so they're always out of stock.

I just had an epiphany regarding purchasing balls off Ebay - there are some sellers out there that are hawking new Pro v1x's for $35/dozen or thereabouts. That sounds all well and good, but the more I got to thinking about it, it didn't add up. The most discount that I'm aware of on legit Pro v1's is 25%, and that's for logo overrun balls (which are just as good as the new ones). Anyway, the two major golf stores I use are sold out of the logo balls and I don't want to pay $45/dozen for balls, so I order three boxes of 'new' pro v1's off ebay for $105. This was on 6/26, and the product has yet to arrive. I contacted the seller several times, and got a response back stating that he would either cancel/refund my order or I could have an extra box for free (which basically wipes out all his profit margin if he's legit). I checked his most recent feedback, and people were complaining that the balls were fake, etc, so I contacted my credit card and had them put the whole charge in dispute so I think everything should be cool on my end. Now, I was curious as to who the guy is that was behind all these 'firesale' pro v1 prices, so I checked out his name and company name (don't want to give it out in public), and he has a facebook account with his real name on it and his location (Orange county, FL, in the Orlando area). I decided to do a quick criminal records check from the Orange County circuit court, and the guy has a rap sheet at least 2-3 pages long, including several felony raps for burglary, weapons possession, and check fraud. I hope he gets nailed again over this - my only words to him would be 'don't drop the soap'.

I tried stack-and-tilting last summer and my big problem is I tend to overdo it and increase the angle of attack such that I start pushing/hitting irons fat. I still tend to 'swing the bucket' with a forward motion, but it's not as pronounced as it was last year.

I've seen some posts referring to a 'flying wedge' as a swing thought - I'm just curious to see what that means in terms of mechanics. I just have my weight slightly forward, sync up my belt buckle and hands, pick the appropriate start and endpoint for the given distance, and have a smooth, controlled swing (if you make smooth contact, the ball will land smooth). BTW, I had a 'flying wedge' on the first hole Saturday after I bent the shaft on a bunker shot that hit a hard spot under the sand. The wedge 'flew' into the ground and finished the job breaking the shaft. Since the bending of the wedge during the stroke made it unplayable, and not my subsequent throw, I went back to the parking lot and replaced it and shot 67 with my beat-up spare Vokey and got a $70 skin

My dad played the stadium course in either 1995 or 1996 - I don't think he broke 100 but he did birdie 17.

Because they haven't played or they have unrealistic views of their own games. I am playing better than I have played in 10 years and I still lose sleep over my game. I had a dream a few weeks ago that I was teeing off on the first hole of a tournament and my driver came flying out of my hands and went further than the ball. Every time after I finish I go over my round and try to analyze what went wrong on any bogeys(+). This is the most physically and mentally consuming sport I've ever played (vs. baseball and football anyway).

I played at an NAIA school for two years (no scholarship). Most of the dudes that play NAIA and JC shoot in the mid 70's. For D-1, you need to be under par constantly and play well in junior tournaments (AJGA, etc) to get on a coach's radar. If you're 15, you need to be in the low 70's consistently to even get a sniff.

OK - 7th hole at the Hamptons is a 560yd par 5 with tall grass on either side of the fairway (by tall, I mean unmowed, native grass that's knee-high). I lose my tee shot right and it goes into said high grass. After finding my ball, I find another ball directly behind my ball and remove it, therefore in theory improving my lie by eliminating the abanoned ball from my swing plane, but not distrubing the grass. I hack my ball out of the tall grass back into the fairway. Would I be subject to penalty for improving my lie by removing the abandoned ball, or is it considered a loose impediment and therefore no penalty? BTW, the high grass is not staked as a hazard (through the green).

This afternoon. Nice 80, dickhead.

It's nice to know that all the work I put in during the freezing-cold winter, hitting balls and wedges until I couldn't feel my hands, putting in wind chills in the 20's, and hitting the incline treadmill is finally paying off.

No. I would get destroyed out there.

I shot 3-under on Saturday

I found an old VIP 1-iron from the 1960's or early 70's in the 'homeless club' bin at my college course. I put a new grip and stiff shaft in it and used it to hit balls off the range until I could consistently strike the ball on the center of the face - that summer my handicap went down to a +1.5 (that was before I wrecked my left wrist being drunk and stupid).

If I were you (and assuming you're the only player out there), why not backtrack and play a couple holes again while you wait on the grounds crew to finish their jobs? I don't think anyone would have a problem with it, and it's basically free practice time while you're waiting on them to mow, etc.

Well, they had the course set up like they thought it was the US Open - 6900 yard tree-lined course with 3-inch rough, rolled greens that ran to at least a 10-11, and the heat index was near 100. I was even through 15 and then went bogey-double-triple to shoot 78. 71 is winning so if I can go low today and the leaders f**k up, I still have a shot.

I've carried a 2I for 17 years (same one too) - I can still blister that thing 250-260 and it holds the line better than my fairway woods.

A famous scene from Major League..

I have a bad grip and a bad swing - yet I can score. I don't need a video camera to tell me that.

I think that's actually the best time to press on - if you can teach yourself to successfully make changes on the fly, it will have a tremendous benefit on your game. For example, I shot 78 the first round in my last tournament, but that was with a 35 on the back nine (I was surprised I didn't break any clubs on the front - 43 with a triple and a double). I just made a few small adjustments to my swing and position of my hands at the point of contact and started striping it. I went from thinking about WDing to shooting a 75 and being in the top 30 on Sunday.