JessN16

Playing from a different set of tees doesn't solve the problem in a lot of cases. Going off the whites at RTJ Capitol Hill's Judge course, which is near my house, may cut down your forced carry off the tees on three or four holes, but there is still water abutting 12 holes and there are still several greens with forced carry over sand. It's been my experience (some of it personal) that there are two ways someone plays to a high handicap: Either they can't hit for distance, at which point playing from forward tees would be a great help, or they lack consistency. In the latter case, if 60 percent of their drives are going to fly 220 into the fairway and 40 percent are going to go off screaming left or right, changing where they tee from makes very little difference. I'm in that second group. My handicap was 15 when I was at my peak about seven years ago. But back around 1993 or 1994, when I was still in the mid-20s, I'd shoot around 115 on really tough courses and I continued to shoot around 115 even afterwards when I was peaking. The reason wasn't tee-to-green distance, it was the bunkers, the water -- stuff you find when you go off-line. A couple of those courses I played from the whites and then from a different set of tees and shot basically the same scores. It would also help if courses rated themselves accurately. Case in point: RTJ Capitol Hill Judge, from the whites, is 69.3/129. Vanity Fair Golf Club is 70/127. VFGC is not the world's easiest course but I promise you if you play each course 10 times, anyone between 10-20 HDCP will shoot 20 shots lower, aggregate, at VFGC. AT LEAST. As for requirements to play certain courses, if it's a public course, player performance should be irrelevant as to who can play it and who can't. As long as people don't take 5 hours a round -- and I've seen even 5-handicappers pull that mess -- I don't care what they're shooting in front of me. Even at my worst, the group of guys I played with would typically run up on people because even though we stunk, we stunk quickly. Jess

Two courses have done it for me... Living in Alabama, we have the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. There isn't an easy course on the Trail, period. I've played most of them but the Ridge Course at Oxmoor Valley in Birmingham absolutely destroys me every time I play it. I've never gone around in less than 110. A couple of years ago, I played the Ridge twice sandwiched between three rounds at other courses in the area. My scores for those five rounds were 90, 110 (Ridge), 89, 118 (Ridge), 92. There's another course in Birmingham called Heatherwood. It's only about 5,400 yards but it's tight as a rubber band. No rough to speak of, just fairways leading into dense forests. It's a golf course that was built as an excuse to build an expensive neighborhood around and through. Most of the par-4s are 350-yard doglegs. But the way they're built is maddening: 190 off the tee, turn left or right, then 160 to the green. My driver is one of my best clubs but I don't use it more than 2-3 times out there. I've played it three times and the fewest number of balls lost in a round so far was 12. Jess

CPHoya, I'm a guy. No worries, though. Thanks for the humorous response. And thanks to everyone else, too. I promise I've been reading a lot this past week or so before I made that post, but I'd reached a point where I wasn't going to understand anything else unless I asked for help. I hope I'll get the chance to play a few rounds this year and re-learn the game firsthand. I'm fortunate to have a lot of good courses nearby (but unfortunately, you are very correct about greens condition as it relates to greens fees). Jess

I'd divide it into two categories: With weather and without. With weather, the British Open isn't so much golf as it is trying to land a hot air balloon on a coffee table in the middle of a hurricane. No question it's the tougher test then. When the weather is calm, I give a strong edge in toughness to the U.S. Open. The distance factor just wears you down. Both are incredible mental tests but from different aspects of the human psyche. The British Open tests the imagination. The U.S. Open tests mental endurance. You see your 10th consecutive par four at 470-plus yards and you'll start wondering if it's too late to take up baseball. And I think you also can't forget this: I think, from purely a pressure standpoint, that being on the first page of the leaderboard on the last day of the Masters has to get an honorable mention, especially once you get to Amen Corner. You get that particular course with those galleries and those greens and it will fold a lot of people up. Jess

Hello all, This is my first post other than the three I had to get to make this post...(g) Anyway, I walked away from the game about six years ago, actually a little longer (I hadn't played regularly since about 2000). It was a combination of several things, including the death of my father (my original playing partner) and the fact friends and I had moved away from one another and I no longer had anyone familiar to play with. At the time I quit, I'd been making my own clubs for awhile. I'd built a ton of woods for myself over the years and a set of XTR II irons out of a Golfsmith catalog. I don't know what the prevailing opinion of Golfsmith here is but I'd played a whole bunch of different manufacturers, including upper-level stuff like TaylorMade, King Cobra, etc., and I matched up better with my Golfsmith stuff than anything else by far. Building things for myself gave me extra joy. Until recently, I had not considered ever playing again. Like a lot of folks, I suppose, I got hooked into the U.S. Open telecast, and that's when the bug started. Then I got back in contact with two old friends and that added to it. Over the last eight years, my sport of choice has been bowling, to the extent that I have my own "amateur pro shop" set up at my house where I custom drill and fit bowling balls. As I've been thinking about getting back into the game, I've started to wonder if my equipment is up to snuff. Eight years ago I could have a fairly intelligent discussion about clubs and balls but right now I'm lost. I think I've got a bag full of Wal-Mart special balls (with a couple of sleeves of Srixons mixed in) which have been stored outside in a metal building in some serious Alabama summer heat for a couple of years. As for clubs, I assembled a Golfsmith Long Jon driver back around 1999 that was 350cc and regarded as a whopper for its time; now I see clubs 25 percent bigger on sale everywhere. For a full list of what I'm playing, see my signature. At the time I quit, I had gotten good enough to break 90 as often as not. I was more likely to shoot right at 100, though. I'm sure right now I'd embarrass myself completely. So I pose the question to you, fellow forum folk: What has changed since I quit? I feel like I've emerged from a time capsule. Jess

Jack at least until Tiger catches him. Not enough people, IMO, appreciate what Jack was able to do given the technology of the time. Jess

My home course now, I suppose, is the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail course in Prattville, Ala. There really isn't a direct link unless you get it from www.rtjgolf.com and follow the click-thrus. For the longest time, it was Vanity Fair Golf and Tennis Club in Monroeville, Ala., which has no Web site, unfortunately. Jess

Newspaper editor, and I also cover college football for a Web site. Jess