chasm

The thing is, most golfers would give up the game if they stopped conning themselves. In their heads they are the player who made that perfect approach to the 16th green, rather than the player that hit only two fairways during the round. In reality, they are much more the latter than the former - but were they to acknowledge that fact, they'd have to quit because they lack either the time, or the inclination, or both, to put in the effort required to change. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's a game. If you don't intend to make your living at it, it's perfectly OK to have fun and pretend to ypurself that you're not hopeless. After all, most people believe they are above average when it comes to driving a car. We all know that's not true. Overestimating one's ability to drive a golf ball is trivial, by comparison.

If you watch the Scottish Open in a few weeks you'll see a traditional links (Gullane) that has massive elevation changes. They aren't all flat.

Speaking as a Brit who has played plenty of links courses, the "is Chambers Bay a links" debate seems silly. It's obviously a links course in its character. Mickelson made some interesting remarks about it being a links course that has been upscaled to the modern game - longer than most of the UK links courses, more scope to use the driver, but still the same character and requirement to run the ball into the greens. I think he's right. Looks an absolutely terrific course to play, anyway. And it makes a nice change from the usual target golf into receptive greens.

I do go to real gyms, yes. A remarkably high proportion of the guys I know who are "jacked" are using steroids. There'd be no advantage to Woods in looking like them, it would reduce his mobility. I've also spent a lifetime racing bicycles, I know a fair bit about PEDs of various sorts. I don't really care whether Woods is a steroid abuser. If I was forced to bet, I'd bet yes, but that has as much to do with my knowledge of what goes on in general as with anything specific to him. And as I pointed put in my first post in this thread, the subject is his retirement. And he should.

[URL=http://www.brancepeth-castle-golf.co.uk/home.aspx?showmobile=no]My home course[/URL] has five par threes, two of them about 150 yards, both over ravines that require you to hit the green or risk big trouble.the signature hole of the course is a 200 yard par three, again over a ravine, which may be the most challenging par three I've played. It's the ninth, check out the video flyover on the linked website to get an idea. The course was laid out by Harry Colt in 1924. I'm told his approach was to look at the terrain, decide where he'd put his par threes, then fit the rest of the course around that. He knew what he was about, these are terrific holes.

I'm not aware that anyne has suggested that only steroid abuse can lead to joint and connective tissue injuries. You're protesting too much. As for the fact that a number of golfers have acquired a lot of muscle mass, I'd be as suspicious of thenm as I am of Woods. Steroids are principally useful for allowing athletes to sustain bigger training loads. They can recover more quickly from intense training, and therefore put in more work. I have very little doubt that quite large numbers of pro golfers have used them. Ironically enough, I doubt it has done them much good. The most muscular are not necessarily the longest off the tee, and in the long run I think it probably shortens their careers. I'm inclned to believe that this is what has happened to Woods, but you're under no obligation to agree.

He's ageing, alright. He's just doing it slower than most. The guy is a walking advertisement for continuing to undertake strenuous exercise into old age. He never bulked up, though, so I don't really think PEDs were responsible.

It took me very little time to break 100 when I started playing aged about 40. Maybe three or four rounds? But three caveats: 1. I took lessons from the start, so by the time I played my fourth round I'd probably had three lessons. 2. The course I started playing on was quite short, about 6200 yards. I was shooting in the low 90s regularly there when someone invited me to play the Ailsa course at Turnberry, and I shot about 115. 3. Regularly breaking 90 took much longer, I hung around the 18-20 handicap mark for quite a while.

It's pretty well documented that steroid use is associated with a higher incidence of joint and connective tissue injuries. And while it is perfectly possible that he bulked up without resorting to pharmaceuticals, the combination of events ( and association with a PED - dispensing doctor) looks suspicious, to say the least. Remember Gary Player, years ago, being derided for saying there was a PED problem in golf? I'd say he doesn't sound so silly now. Whatever, this is the Woods retirement thread. He should walk away and not look back. It seems clear that the combination of mental and physical issues he now has make it very unlikely that he will get back to anything close to his previous standard. He's not yet 40. Better to find something meaningful to do with the second half of his life than waste it in a futile attempt to recapture the first.

In a two-ball on my home 6400 yard course I'd expect to be finished in under three and a half hours. I'm afraid I just disagree with you about golf being much of a workout, unless you're unfit to start with. The golf swing requires flexibility, and muscular power certainly helps, but it isn't mainly about power - you just have to watch some of the 120 lb female pros knocking it 250 yards off the tee to know that. A couple of months ago I went for a weeks hiking with a friend of mine - he's a relative youngster, at 58 - and we had no difficulty covering about 80 miles in five days over relatively hilly terrain, carrying our packs. That's about as far as one would walk playing three rounds of golf per day. Swinging the clubs doesn't really add much stress. Playing golf, like any activity, is obviously good for you, and it may even be enough exercise to keep you healthy. But a workout? Certainly not.

I carry my bag. I've played 36 holes in a day plenty of times, so I suppose the answer is I could play 12 or 14 rounds a week. Of course I wouldn't - I have a life. Golf is just a walk. There's nothing difficult about walking ten miles a day, even for a 60 year-old like me, so I find it a bit difficult to conceive of one's physical stamina being the limiting factor unless one is elderly or in poor health.

The Masters is my least favourite, I think. Over-manicured and a bit too pleased with itself. Plus I always feel that it is insufficiently penal to those who are wild off the tee; it seems to me that hitting the ball straight with the driver ought to be pretty fundamental to winning a major championship. I like both the Opens. They're opens, for a start, and they move around a selection of interesting courses that are usually set up to challenge different aspects of the game. More like a golf tournament, less self-congratulatory.

I'd advise him to quit. He's never going to be more than a shadow of the golfer he was, and the longer he goes on, the more marked will be the contrast between what his fans expect, and what he can deliver.

Where you choose to play from is immaterial. And the rating/slope system should prevent someone from achieving a low handicap - at least, a low handicap relative to golfers of similar skill levels - simply by playing a shorter course. Obviously, there's no point in a short-hitting amateaur thinking they might be able to break par from the US Open tees at Pebble Beach. But there's no point in them thinking they're a scratch golfer when they're playing a 5000 yard course, either.

Speaking as an older golfer, I completely disagree with this. The whole point of the handicap system is to allow players of varying abilites to compete against one another. If you're a short hitter, your handicap will be higher to compensate. There's no need to shorten the course as well.

Sure. But there are some pretty impressive stories, too. The oldest regular golfer at my club is 85. He was a 5-handicapper in his day, and can still hit the ball 200 yards and play to 15. Pretty amazing, really.

I'm absolutely not disputing the fact that swing speeds have increased, you know much more about that than I do. I am, however, sceptical about the supposedly improved athleticism of most pro golfers. Obviously Woods, McIlroy and a bunch of others show the evidence of long hours in the gym. I wonder, though, how much better the more heavily-muscled Woods is than was the slimmer, lighter version that turned pro and ran away with the Masters? Plus, many top pros are conspicuously overweight. Westwood (who also spends a fair bit of time in the gym) is fatter than "Fat Jack" was in his fat period, and there are plenty of tour pros who look flabbier than he does. People in the fifties and sixties were, in general, slimmer and fitter than they are today. Golfers may not have worked out much, but if one looks at footage of Nelson, Hogan, Palmer, these were not couch potatoes.

Yes, Nicklaus in the early 60s carried a fair but of weight. He was extremely strong, though. [quote]Lot more of the Craig Stadler types back then than now. [/quote] None that I can think of who were quite as big as Kevin, though. When Craig was being called "The Walrus" he was substantially slimmer than his son is at a similar age

Up to a point. I'm no spring chicken myself, but so far not so decrepit that I can't get the ball down the track. But I play with some older guys, and one of them very much fits the description you give. I hit my 7-iron as far as he hits his driver, but he's never out of the fairway, chips and putts pretty well, and generally gets round in close to bogey figures. So far, so good. Has he "very little frustration"? Certainly not. I never play with him without him bemoaning the fact that he can't hit the ball like he used to. If I say "good shot" he invariably says "but it didn't go very far, did it?" However, he's still out there...

What would I do for an extra forty yards? Keep doing what I'm doing, I suppose. Practice, take advice, try to get better. I've got a bit longer in recent months, but am typically driving the ball only about 230 yards. 250 is a big hit for me. I think my main limitation is that my angle of attack is too close to the horizontal, I need a more positive launch angle. Forty more yards may be beyond my scope. But making 250 the rule rather than the exception would make a significant impact on my scores.

No doubt he'll reply for himself. And the trees comment makes no sense to me. You can't regularly drive into the woods and play to 7.5.

Really? With a 7.5 handicap?

Have a look on YouTube for "Jack Nicklaus swing slow motion". I think you will conclude that in his prime he was hitting the ball as hard as anyone. He (and Hogan, and Player and so on) certainly weren't holding back for fear of mis-hits. I don't think there's much doubt that there has been some improvement in the physical conditioning of a lot of top pros, so maybe the average swing speed on Tour has risen over the years. But most of the difference in length is not in how hard they hit it, it's in the equipment; and much of that is probably the ball. Anecdotal, but the pro at my home course took a persimmon driver onto his trackman set-up a few months ago, and was surprised at how little distance he lost relative to his new Ti driver. He found the club much less forgiving, as you'd expect, but a centred strike was getting out there pretty well.

Spot on.