JessN16

Then don't play with them. No one is forcing you to. Get it established what kind of rules your group will play under and stick with them. If I'm playing with someone who wants to be a stickler about the book during a casual round, sometimes I'll acquiesce to their wishes, but sometimes I'll pass on playing with them. It should be clear from this thread that different people enjoy golf in different ways. The rulebook, while it governs the entire game, is only enforceable across different players when in a controlled setting (i.e., a tournament). During casual rounds, the group on Hole 14 doesn't need to be concerned with what the group on Hole 7 is doing. If we'd play our own game and not worry ourselves with what Random Guy five holes ahead of us is doing, we'd all enjoy it. Sounds like the best approach to me. Jess

When "cheating" at golf becomes a commentary on someone's character in general, it is when someone "cheats" when the score matters to someone other than themselves. A friendly round on Friday mornings is different than a tournament, even the local Rotary Club scramble. I'll give you a partial list of times I differ from the rules (and only when I'm alone or playing with people who all agree beforehand this is how we're going to play): 1. Play all hazards, losts and OOB as laterals (stroke penalty plus drop at the last point of land it crossed before exiting play) in order to keep from clogging up the course. 2. Free movement (but not completely out into the fairway) if the ball comes to rest on rocks or tree roots. I'm not breaking my wrist or a clubhead in the name of casual golf. That's basically it. Sometimes my group used to play a mulligan but typically only when we didn't get a chance to warm up. But even if my group decided it wanted to carry 27 clubs in the bag and putt with croquet mallets, guess what? It's our game, it's our money, it's our time and we'll make whatever use of it we please. In a tournament or competitive environment? I'm a walking rulebook. But to say someone is a bad person if they move a ball a few inches during a practice round is way over-the-top. Jess

Almost the same as me. Interlocking for all shots other than putts and some chips, when I switch to a modified overlapping. If I use anything but interlocking on full shots, I feel like the club is going to go flying out of my hands. Jess

It can create potential problems with the epoxy that holds your club components together. My primary sport is bowling, and this same issue comes up in my "other" sport: When you have an item, be it a golf club or bowling ball, that is made of different materials, they will expand and contract at different rates relative to a change in temperature. For a bowling ball, this means the outer (urethane or urethane resin) shell reacts to heat in a different way than the core, which is made of different materials. In a golf club, on a driver, for instance, you might have a graphite shaft connected to a titanium clubhead via an epoxy resin. The graphite and the titanium will likely expand and contract at different rates, which stresses the epoxy -- which itself is expanding and contracting at different rates. The two times you're most prone to see damage is either after an abrupt change in temps -- in bowling, this manifests itself as taking a ball out of a hot trunk and rolling it down the lane in an air-conditioned bowling center; in golf, you're talking about much less of a temperature drop, but it's still significant (trunk temps can reach 150 degrees or more on a 90-degree day) -- or over a period of time when the ball/club has been subjected to repeated heating and cooling cycles (i.e., hot trunk during the day, A/C in the house at night). I got some old clubs out of my storage shed last week. They'd been out there for more than a year, and my storage shed absolutely cooks in an Alabama summer. One of the clubs was a driver. Sure enough, on the third hole, the ferrule detached from the head and backed its way up the shaft a couple of inches. The epoxy had failed. I fit and drill bowling balls as a hobby. The No. 1 trouble issue for a ball is normal wear and tear (balls typically need to be replaced once every couple of years on average), but the No. 2 issue is damage due to operator oversight, either by neglect of cleaning or leaving the ball in the trunk of the car. I've seen them literally crack almost in half due to expansion/contraction issues. Since we're talking about similar materials (i.e., the resins used to make the ball versus the epoxy resins used to hold clubs together), logic and chemistry suggest golf clubs are also susceptible. I suspect golf balls could also have issues if subjected to temperature extremes on a regular basis. Jess

Two reasons, really: 1) Lack of alignment devices on the putter. I roll the ball really well with that putter but sometimes off-line. I've considered getting a grinder and some paint and putting a notch in the top of it, and I might just do that at some point. 2) Damage. There is some scarring and cracking around the toe thanks to an inattentive bag boy who dropped it while unloading it from a cart, and then I did the same thing (actually took off in a cart without the bag being firmly roped into the bag stand -- WHOOPS). So the face is a little marred on the toe end. Since I can't replace this putter, I'm trying to prolong its life. Jess

Surprisingly, never, even given my high handicap. That used to be my A-game shot when I was first starting out, though. (g) These days, instead of hitting grass burners for my I-just-goofed-up shot, it's a major-league topped shot where I attempt to drive the ball straight down into the ground with the bottom of the club. I usually hit a two-hop chopper to the shortstop in that situation. Happens about 3-5 times a round. Jess

There was a small company in or around Birmingham, Ala., that made handmade putters a few years ago and I was lucky enough to get one. The head was a modified blade style, made of brass. But the entire face -- no insert, the entire face -- was matte-finish carbon fiber. The putter had no visual alignment cues and it had a graphite shaft. The whole thing was black. Even the brass part had been painted. I don't know what this description is conjuring up in your minds, but I can tell you I've never had better feel from a putter in my life. I've tried just about everything. My current Golfsmith Tg System putter is a decent piece, but not as good as that old black brass and carbon fiber blade. I'm ordering some new putters from Golfsmith and if none of them work, I'm going back to my old handmade putter. No, I don't know the name of the company that made it, unfortunately. Jess

If I haven't had the chance to warm up, like others here, I'll sometimes take a second off the first tee. In my old group, we had the following: 1 mulligan per side (including the first hole if needed, and you couldn't carry an unused mulligan over from the front to the back, plus no mulligans on the green), and play all lost balls and hazards as one-stroke penalty plus drop no closer to the hole. Since we're talking about four guys shooting 90-100, this was done in the interest of not slowing down the whole course just because we happened to suck. Jess

I wear two gloves, always have. I love it. Biggest advantage for me is playing in the rain. I don't really have to worry about losing the club so long as I keep my hands dry. Jess

I'm going to be the contrarian in this post, I guess -- no, I've never used one, and I don't plan to. The only way I would is if someone knocked me over the head and I suddenly woke up at Augusta National, the Old Course, Merion, etc. I say "no" for two reasons. One, I'm not very good, and the only thing I'm going to do with that poor caddie is frustrate him or give him reason to laugh at me. Secondly, a bad knee makes walking a golf course a chore and really takes the fun out of a round. Since golf is expensive, I'd prefer to keep as much fun in it as possible. Since I don't have to worry about ever playing Augusta, I don't qualify for the Old Course (handicap too high -- I've heard you have to be below a certain number to get on out there) and I don't know anyone at Merion, I'm safe. Relatively new courses that don't give you the option of renting a cart kind of tick me off. Voluntary caddies, fine; caddies at historic golf courses, also fine. Caddy-only at a 2-year-old resort? Insipid. Jess

Same thing I've found. I have a 9-degree Golfsmith Cermet and a 10.5-degree Golfsmith Long Jon. The Long Jon launches like a rocket, but if I didn't hit it straight it's going to have a long time to make its mind up about where it wants to land. Advantages include the ability to go over fairly tall trees, and as long as I'm hitting it decent it's more accurate. The Cermet launches low and stays there. It's straighter, by and large, but easier to mis-hit. Advantages include an incredible amount of roll after the shot, and it's a draw-biased driver, so I don't slice as much. I'm about to put both in the closet and go with a Snake Eyes Mamba, probably a 9-degree. Jess

I did this very thing one year when I was a much younger man. I'd worked my handicap down to 15 just by playing once a week. So I decided to see just how low I could get it. I'd been going to college year-round, with no breaks, for three years, so I took a break one summer and did nothing but play golf. And when I say "nothing but," I mean it. I was on the course seven days a week except when lightning drove me off it. I took lessons. I worked on the range. Played 36 holes most days and sometimes 54 or even 72. I beat more golf balls into practice greens than I thought possible. At the end of the summer, my handicap had fallen to ... 10. Worse yet, I no longer enjoyed golf. I wasn't good enough to make money at it but I was good enough that there was no such thing as a "casual round" anymore. Everything was about improvement, scoring. There was no stopping to smell the roses. You actually have a third option with your $400,000 -- invest it. Even in a conservative investment strategy, you can get a return of about $20,000 a year on the interest. That's not much, but it is enough to scrape by on if you do something other than college. However, I strongly advise you to finish school. If you are 24 and your handicap is truly 10, I would think it would be difficult for you to get it down to zero at this point in your life. A lot depends on your natural talent, of which I know nothing about since I've never met you or seen you play. Do what makes you happy, but remember that happiness is not infinite. You have to mix what you love with what is practical. Jess

I'm not "old" but I'm older than the OP and a couple of the others...what I can say about getting paired up with people I don't know is this: As long as they're nice, I don't care whether they shoot 65 or 165. In my mind, it's always been me (and my playing partners) against the course. I don't play for money and I'm not good enough to play for competition, really. So me and my friends always cheered each other on, hoping at least one of us parred each hole. I've got no problem playing with teens, kids, really old guys, Martians -- doesn't matter to me. Just show reasonable etiquette, don't act like I'm beneath you, don't act like an idiot after a bad shot, and we'll probably get along great. Age is irrelevant; attitude is extremely relevant. Jess

When I first started playing (with a handicap of 36.x or higher), my home course used to kill me. No. 1 on Vanity Fair Golf & Tennis Club is a 540-yard par 5 that, for good players, is pretty easy, but for a sprayer can get tough. Also, the green is the stereotypical postage stamp. As I got better, I realized I could score pretty well on that hole so long as I was properly warmed up. My preference is for the 18th hole to be one of the five hardest holes on the course. I love the "big finish." Whether I do good or bad, having the 18th be memorable for its difficulty gives me a sense of closure to the round. But it's not absolute: Vanity Fair's current layout puts the 18th hole somewhere around 11-14 on the HDCP scale, I forget where. It's the only hole with water but you really have to jack it silly to get into trouble. The hole is shorter than average, narrower than average, with a St. Andrews-style pot bunker fronting the green. It gives golfers a lot of options. It's become one of my 5-10 favorite golf holes in the world. Working backwards from that hole, you have a par-4 (17th, one of the five hardest on the course), a par-3 (16th, arguably the easiest hole on the course) and a par-5 (15th, the longest hole on the course and not all that easy -- the only easy par-5 on this course is the 1st). The two holes behind that stretch, the 13th and 14th, are both long par-4s (the 13th is the hardest on the course and one of the hardest golf holes I've ever played). So from the 13th forward, you get an amazing variety of holes that culminates with something in-the-middle, difficulty-wise, but one in which you are completely in charge of your own score no matter what your ability level is. Jess

It's also good to hear you had a great attitude toward letting him help. I've found you can honor an older person just by listening to them. Many of them are very aware that their time on earth is coming to a close, but they can still feel useful if they can help someone. Young people can do so much for their elders just by letting them know they are still useful. Feelings of uselessness leads to depression more quickly than anything else I know. Jess

If you're in NE Alabama, go play Goose Pond Colony in Scottsboro. It's in my personal "50 best" course list. Also, I'd love a report on Gunter's Landing from anyone who has played it. Heard it's a really neat course. Jess

I usually don't care about being paired up. If the course is busy, it's a foregone conclusion. However, 99 percent of the time, the issue of pairing up comes up before you pay. The guy will ask, "you are aware that you'll probably be paired up," and you accept it. No one asked us at this course, they just took our money and that was it. The worst part, though, was that it was unnecessary. We had a four-hole cushion in front of us. We would never have gotten close to the group in front of us before the turn, and if we had, we could have gone around them then. If the course is crowded, sure, introduce me to new people -- I'll probably like them. But if there's no reason to do it, why do it? Jess

Let me clarify: If the IOC feels Americans will dominate, they are slow to let the sport in (at least in the summer games; the X-Games-like stuff in the winter games plays right into U.S. hands, although the U.S. isn't viewed historically as the top winter threat anyway). More so bowling than golf, but who would you say would be the favored nations in those two sports? In golf, it would be primarily the U.S., the England/Ireland/etc. and South Africa. Sure, there would be others, but I'm talking about the bulk of the field. In bowling, it's even more pronounced. The U.S. and Australia would be my first two picks, and even then, it would be a heavy advantage to the U.S. When the U.S. bowlers bowl the Japan Cup, they typically mop up, to the point that the Japan Cup changed its format recently to ensure the brackets were set up so the TV finals wouldn't be all-USA. As for golf and "artistic," golf is indeed "artistic" when it is compared to tennis, bowling, football, etc. But not when compared to ice dancing, gymnastics or synchronized anything. Jess

I did quit, for about 6 years. It started, actually, because I got too good. "Too good" means I got my handicap down to about 10.5-11. That's when it quit being fun. Because at that point, I started *expecting* to shoot good shots and when I didn't, I would get mad at myself. I practiced voraciously, got plenty of lessons, and could never get any better than that. The minute I quit practicing 3x a week, my handicap ballooned back up to around 15-18 and settled there. It took awhile to get accustomed to being an average golfer again after having been just a tick better than average. Then, my Dad died. He was the one who introduced me to the game. On top of that, two of the guys in my regular foursome got married within six months of each other, and there went golf. I had been losing interest since Dad died, anyway, and that was the excuse I needed. I quit. I'm just now restarting. The 25 handicap is an estimate. I played nine holes a couple of weeks back and shot 50, and I don't expect to get much better. Now I play just for those 3-5 great shots I'll hit in a given round -- mixed in with 97 others that are either just OK or go sideways into trouble. Jess

Yeah, definitely take this as a lesson learned about loaning out clubs. I showed up one day at a public course, me and a friend. We start to head out to the course and the starter says, "We're putting you with another group." The course wasn't particularly crowded, so we asked to be allowed to play as a twosome but were told we could not. This was after we had already paid, conveniently enough. So we get lined up with these guys and immediately, they wanted to play for money. Well, we didn't want to do that, so that was strike one. Strike two stemmed from the fact I was 25 and the time and my friend 27, and these guys were both in their 40s/50s, and I could tell they didn't want to be out there with "kids." We get to the first tee and all of a sudden, it smells like someone died. I turn around and look and they've both got cheap cigars lit. They talked during our shots, didn't observe the 90-degree rule with carts and were generally pains in the butt. Forget green courtesy; they did everything but perform "Riverdance" right there in our putting lines. When we finished up, I went to the clubhouse and informed them we'd never be back. That was 10 years ago, haven't been back. I'll play with strangers when it's necessary or when I get to pick which ones I go off with, but this was ridiculous. Jess

I was driving the golf cart over rough terrain once, hit a particularly big root, bounced off the seat and when I came back down, jammed my right hand awkwardly against the steering wheel. Broke the ring finger on my right hand. Former playing partner in college was riding in the passenger's seat of another guy's cart one time and got hit by a crow that flew into the cart with them. Cut him down the side of the face and on the left shoulder. Countless hit-by-golf-ball stories and thrown-from-the-cart stories. Guy I went to college with drove his ball into a tree, and it stuck. The tree was rotten. So brilliant boy that he was, decided to climb up the tree and fetch his ball. Rotten limb he was standing on broke, he hit the ground from about 8 feet up and gave himself a mild concussion. Oh, and I was riding with the guy that got hit by a crow a few years after that, when he was looking down at his cell phone while we were cutting across the parking lot and he hit a car head-on. He twisted his right foot and ended up not playing the whole round. Jess

And bowling should be included. It and golf are the two most glaring omissions from the list of sports. If the Olympics are truly a test of what great sports are supposed to be, they cannot leave out golf and bowling, yet expect me to tune in for synchronized diving. That's a total farce. How many people worldwide compete in synchronized diving? What crowds show up to watch such a thing? Where are the synchronized diving leagues? By and large, they don't exist, nor does roughly half of what is included in the games currently. The Olympics seem to be concerned more and more with what is "artistic." If a sport is popular in the Americas, but not necessarily elsewhere, it is handicapped (see the fight over whether baseball is included, regardless of its popularity outside the USA). Both bowling and golf have been around for more than at least one century, and are played across the world. As popular as bowling is in the U.S. (it's the No. 1 participatory sport in this country, outflanking even golf and running), it enjoys a great following in Australia, Japan, the Middle East, Europe and the Pacific Rim. In fact, one could argue -- particularly since it wouldn't take much effort to build a special place to house the contest -- that bowling has a bigger beef about the Olympics than does golf. But both should be included. Otherwise, the Olympics loses credibility as an arbiter of sport. I haven't made it a point to watch the Olympics now in 20 years. I'll only tune in if nothing else is on. Jess

I've been accidentally hit into and I've accidentally done it myself (last week, in fact). The difference is definitely the intent. For anyone to do it as "motivation," though, is the invitation to whip a behind. Jess

Two quick stories... * Playing No. 10 at Vanity Fair Golf & Tennis Club in Monroeville, Ala. : Hole is a par-5 that is virtually unreachable by anyone with a brain, because they'll never go for it. To go for it, you either need to hit 350 off the tee so you can get around the trees at the dogleg, or you need to hit into what used to be the No. 8 fairway, then launch one over the trees from about 200 out and try to stop it on a two-tiered green that slopes away from you down to a ravine. In fact, it's such a bad idea that the club finally let that area grow up and staked it as OOB. Well, we're on the green putting and all of a sudden, a ball comes crashing onto the green, one-hops under one of my friends, nearly giving him a cheap vascectomy in the process, before screaming off the back of the green. My friend is dancing like his pants were on fire and we all stared back at where the ball came from. No "fore," no nothing. The guy who hit the shot is grinning like a mule eating briars and his friend calls down, "He's sorry about that." So we finish the hole and go onto No. 11, and wait. About five minutes later, those guys get there and before we ask them if they're intending to play through, the guy who hit the shot goes to the tee box. His buddy is apologizing profusely and thanking us for letting them go ahead. Dude who hit the ball never said a word. Unless he was mute, he needed a beating. We were just too shocked to administer it. * Playing at Frank House Memorial in Birmingham : We teed off on a Saturday and Frank House is overplayed, badly. Rounds take 5 hours all the time. First hole, we're in the fairway waiting to hit to the green, and we hear a ball hit the fairway behind us. Turn around, ball comes rolling to within 10 yards of our carts. I'm playing with the same guys I was in the first story. Second hole, we're in the fairway and the same thing happens. About two holes later, the final straw: We're waiting in the fairway, and just about the time I walk away from our golf cart, they hit our golf cart on one hop. I went over and picked the ball up and stuck it in my bag and made sure they saw me do it. Predictably, they met us on the green. There were four of them and four of us. Guy asked me what I was doing and I told him, "keeping your ball. Don't hit into us." He then proceeds to tell us that we'll either let him play through or we can expect to be hit into all day. I didn't know it, but one of the other guys in our group had already taken off -- he'd seen a course marshal. The marshal came over and took the guys completely off the course. When we made the turn, we saw them back on the course, but looking like they had a nice case of the redass. Stupid people! Jess

LOL...that's the post of the day right there. At my home course, the members had their own golf carts and you'd rent sheds on the property. Our first was a 1964 Harley-Davidson three-wheeler that we'd taken the governor off of. After it got too unreliable to use, my dad and I took it home and we used it to carry stuff around our property. With the governor off that thing, it would do at least 20 mph and probably closer to 30 or even more. I had a friend in it with me one day and was screwing around in our driveway and after taking a turn at full throttle, I slammed on the brakes, and here it came up on two wheels -- the center front wheel, and the left rear. I just stepped out of it onto the gravel, which of course unloaded the left side of the cart and it slammed back down on three wheels. WHAM -- with my friend in it. He had a slightly bruised tailbone for awhile. After getting rid of that one, we bought a 1974 E-Z-Go electric. When my course expanded to 18 holes, they put in a continuous cartpath on some of the holes but didn't really engineer them properly. One of the paths turned uphill, to the right, on a curve that had a negative radius. I went around that thing one day at a good speed and here comes the cart to my side. Again, I just kind of stepped out of the thing but this time, the cart kept coming. I literally caught it by the roof and set it back straight. Worst story I can tell is a guy who was working at a muni in Birmingham and they could chain their carts together and drive them like a train. He had a train of about 20 carts going and went around a curve to fast and dumped them ALL on their sides. Totalled a couple of them and skinned up the other 18. Boss was NOT happy. Jess