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DwightC

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  1. The new shoes are much better than the old ones--more comfortable and more waterproof. The rangefinder business is just one of those things. Back in the good old days, local knowledge, a yardage book and a good caddy (on a certain kind of course), made enough difference that I'm not sure skill in estimating distances was ever really a fair differentiator, but there's no arguing the changes. For sure yardage books aren't what they once were. For hits and giggles, take a look at the specs for a modern set of irons and compare to the pre-2000 norm. Not to ruin the fun, but in most iron sets the lofts are least a club stronger, two clubs or more in game improvement sets. You'd think those guys have forgotten the difference between a mashie and a niblick. Oh, and graphite is the new hickory. Not.
  2. Bacon Park in Savannah is a Donald Ross design that I haven't laid eyes on in decades. But it's probably worth checking out--per the website it was 'renovated' in 2014. My grandfather played to a 4 handicap there back in the middle of the last century. And back then he complained that Augusta National charged five dollars for parking during their April tournament. That Bobby Jones fella sure had some big city ways, living up there in Atlanta.
  3. 16 different guys win. No repeats. Don't really know why. And it's not going to play out that way. A question for the crowd--has the Tour ever gone 4 full years with nobody winning a major twice?
  4. Well, I respect the Game. I play by the rules and take good care of the course. Wish I walked more. And, I take my game seriously. I practice, take lessons and so on. Wish I did more of that. Myself and my score? I don't take those two too seriously. At least I hope not. Last week I had a tee time to play with a buddy who's currently being treated for two kinds of cancer (talk about winning the lottery!). Fortunately, he is, as my late father in law used to say, in pretty good shape for the shape he's in. But, the golf would have been secondary, and I'd have cheerfully given him any putt inside the flag stick. Sometimes the golf should be secondary.
  5. A couple of points that I don't think have been made: 1. 'Dynamic pricing' is a better way to manage tee times than one off discounts to college students (or lefties, or blondes, or socialists, or whomever). Not sure how I feel about dynamic pricing for tee times, but it appears to be a coming thing, and will probably trickle down and out from the niches where it's already been adopted (not to hijack the thread). 2. College kids can't, by and large, legally drink and are pretty notorious for not running up big tabs in the pro shop, restaurants and other income streams that a privately operated course depends on to make its budget. By contrast, seniors may buy equipment off the internet and fish balls out of the water hazards, but they do hang out for lunch and beers, and frequently staff the men's association and the ladies group, etc. which organize the tournaments (another revenue stream), and so on. 3. For whatever reason, discounts for juniors, active duty military, teachers and first responders generate a warm and fuzzy feeling of positivity for the facility in a way that discounts for college kids don't.
  6. Can't really help you. But my son and I learned to play golf thirty years ago at the old Herman Park course, back when it played like a hardpan track in a Dan Jenkins novel, before it was redone, the nines reversed and an effort made to turn it into something upscale. A scruffy muni track patrolled, not by course marshals, but overweight Houston cops on golf carts, featuring 'ding man' who (when the cops weren't looking) tried to extort 50 bucks from passing golfers 'because your ball hit my car over there'. We loved the place. We lived about five minutes away and early on Saturday mornings I'd take him out to hit balls on the driving range and we'd listen to the elephants trumpeting while they were being fed in the zoo across the drive. Very happy memories. Good luck finding a place to make your own. Oh, and after we got a bit better we started driving down to Southwyck (sp?) in Pearland, which in the aftermath of the S&L crisis was where the University of Houston golf team of Freddy Couples days practiced. That was a much better place to actually play golf. I've got no idea what kind of shape it's in now.
  7. Good advice by and large . . . a coupla thoughts: 1. To the first point that she has a say in all this too--that's true not only at the basic 'hands off' (unless she's eager) physical respect, act like a gentleman level, but also more generally. One, the other, or the next attractive girl you encounter may take a look at you, a couple of dates, even a test drive, and decide she's not interested. That's life. As my mother used to say to me half a century ago, 'better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all' (it's a quote from some poem). Let's see, you're an 18 handicap. I'll bet somebody breaks your heart before you break 80. At least once. Like I said, that's life. 2. If you're lucky enough that one of them shows some interest in, say, going out to a driving range, well, be a cheerleader, not a coach. Find stuff to laugh about. The noble and ancient traditions of the spiritually profound game of golf can wait for another day. So can swing tips and strength building drills. If you get in a putting contest, or something goofy, well, girls have been letting guys win at stuff like that for ages, and nowadays, I understand that turnabout is fair play. And, remember, if she's game for a couple of hours in one of your pastimes, you owe her a couple of hours in a yoga class or cooking lessons or whatever her deal is. 3. 'Be yourself' is great advice. But don't, as my daughter once put it, 'fly your freak flag' (still not sure what that means, but the guy disappeared from the radar). So, good luck. Enjoy the highs. God knows you'll suffer through the lows.
  8. The money doesn't move the needle. The score does. Be a helluva way to break 80.
  9. Been away from the game for almost ten years--one abortive attempt to return five or six years ago. Retirement, the Big C, back issues, blah, blah, blah. Let's just say life got in the way. So, my goals are pretty rudimentary: 1. Return to golf at the most basic level--play and practice regularly. Obviously, if I don't attain this goal, all else is moot. 2. Join a men's association and start competing at the most elementary levels. The camaraderie will keep me going and the mild discipline of competition will keep me focused and honest, increase my practical rules knowledge, etc. Nothing intense here--somewhere you can find me way down in the high handicap flights. I would rate this as the important goal. 3. Start carrying a handicap (or whatever you guys are calling it after the 2020 introduction of the new system). I think this would occur fairly naturally if I click with a group in goal 2. But if I'm a sporadic participant, and life generally gets in the way, I could see this goal slipping into to 2021. I admit that I can't offer the level of specificity some of you guys demonstrate above. My apologies, I'm just not there yet. But I wanted to enter into the spirit of the thing.
  10. Well, interesting question, because it's close to home. Next fall I may be spending a couple of months in the general vicinity of Freehold, NJ, with some time for golf, so I've wasted a little time on the internet seeing what's in the general vicinity, in a nutshell, a well regarded muni, a semi-private club and two private courses (Trump National and something called Due Process Stables) are all around the corner. From what I can tell, getting onto Trump National is probably doable, and Due Process Stables, probably not). Neither of them look like they're worth the trouble (and I don't know or care what the greens fees are). If I want a spur of the moment 'soul of golf' experience, I'll drive an hour south to Atlantic City Country Club. And I will do that. If I want a 'soul of golf' experience that requires some planning ahead and connections, there are far more interesting alternatives to chase down in the New York Metro area. I probably won't bother. More generally, and without getting all political (I hope) . . . the world of golf has some wonderful people who in the current era have developed and underwritten some magnificent tracks (Mike Keiser, the guys behind Ballyneal or the Sand Hills Club, etc., etc.) The world of golf also has a slew of parasitic operators who use golf courses as keynotes to high end resort/retirement communities or part of the amenities in a high-end luxury experience for a certain type of customer that I have no desire to associate with. In my opinion, Mr Trump, in his private capacity and not as POTUS or the C-in-C, and the operations of the Trump Organization, very much fall into the latter category. His customers, well, to use a phrase my daughter taught me, they aren't my homies. I'd rather hang out with the members of the men's golf association at the nearest muny, or intellectuals, or bird hunters, or retired military, anybody who doesn't use his bank balance in a hand measuring contest. So, for me, I guess the answer is no, both philosophically and where the rubber meets the road.
  11. More on Doak's scale. Thinking it over, it's really two scales--6-10 are a way to rate the world's top courses. 1-5 is a way to rate the rest of the world. 3 is average, 1 is awful, 5 is really good, 4's would be 5's except for some drawback, and 2's are either 3's in lousy shape or 1's with some TLC. It seems to me that most of this crowd ought to be able to find an accessible 4 or 5. Depending on where you live. Two further observations--yes, the scale is subjective, but any course that the USGA uses for qualifying or regional events probably rates as a 5 (unless it's in the top half of the scale). And, the scale doesn't address what to do with a course that has the bones to be a 6-10, but is the victim of hard times or poor maintenance. The Fallen Angel problem is a conundrum, and, unless Doak has blotted out the memory of Apache Stronghold, he's aware of it.
  12. That Doak scale is kinda fun. #s 6, 7 and 8 are the old Michelin star system for restaurants (don't miss if you're in the vicinity--one star, worth a detour--two stars, worth a special trip--three stars), and #s 9 and 10 deliver on his promise of hair splitting among the three star experiences. #s 1-5 are, sadly, an acknowledgement of the world we live in. Oh, and personally, a 5-ish, maybe a 6. For anyone who can read the techno-gibberish of so much marketing hype for new golf balls and the latest greatest iteration of some weirdly named driver without laughing, how about 5.625?
  13. +1 that there are no bullies here. You've simply got a market incumbent (Acushnet) that has historically used its IP portfolio successfully to defend its market share against new entrants and a new entrant (Costco) that is significantly larger than the previous smaller potential competitors. What Acushnet has to have concluded is that the opportunity (golf balls) is so trivial in the greater scheme of Costco that an aggressive letter would deter Costco. It does not appear to have done so. If Costco has concluded that golf balls are representative of a class of opportunities which are collectively an attractive brand extension opportunity for Kirtland Signature (niche markets where the market leader defends its position with a combination of brand equity and an IP portfolio), I would be looking to de-escalate the situation, if I were Acushnet.
  14. Guys-- Thanks for the feedback and the suggestions. The list of threads was a good start to resuming on this website (if I can restrain myself from pontificating about Costco golfballs), and, seriously, that post about conscious/unconscious competence/incompetence was really, really helpful (you need a strategy and sense of timing in taking lessons, as well as in practice and on the course). And, all the comments on conditioning, yeah, I think my first step in all this is to meet with the trainer about tweaking my cardio-focused gym routine to refocus a little on core body and flexibility issues. Everything else--lessons and new gear, I'll take one step at a time. Demo days always were fun. Lessons, I was always a lessons junkie. Anyhow, thanks and keep the comments coming!
  15. In the end, I don't think this is about corporate bullying or protecting intellectual property. None of us know much about Acushnet's IP portfoliio (other than that they use it as a powerful marketing tool), and, when you are talking about well established corporations with market capitalizations in excess of $1-billion each, they have legal budgets that can take the litigation expense. So forget the bullying claims. They may not be entirely rational actors, but they aren't kids on the elementary school playground, either. What you've got here is, basically, 'when business models collide.' The warehouse clubs strip out layers of distribution and virtually all promotional/marketing clubs, put the stuff on a pallet, and see what moves as thousands of member/customers parade up and down the aisle. If it moves they pile more on pallet. And that's about it. Forget manufacturing, forget supply chain management (well, dip your toe in it for the house label stuff), and forget R&D--those are problems for the vendors. OTOH, Titleist, AFAIK, doesn't sell golf balls to golfers--it sells them to distributors who in turn move them to retailers, who then, with the assistance of enormous marketing efforts by Titleist, sell them to you and me. Titleist gets a competitive edge from (1) making a better golf ball, and (2) a marketing budget devoted to player endorsements, etc. Them's the facts, as they say. The letter Acushnet sent Costo attempts to defend both of its strategies, saying, in effect, you can't sell your better golf ball with violating our patents, and you can't claim your golf ball is as good as ours. Everybody is focusing on the first claim, but I'll bet the second claim may have been what tipped the balance at Costco and led them to file the declaratory judgement action. Now, generally, a corporation isn't going to file a declaratory judgement unless it relates to (1) something vital to the corporate interests or (2) a matter of broader principle and the facts are very much in your favor. Here, you can rule out the first--Costco can do very well, thank you, without golf balls, club sets, gloves, etc., just sticking to tennis balls and vodka, groceries and apparel. Golf balls, well, don't leave money on the table, but it's a sideline (which may be what Acushnet was banking on). So that takes you to the second reason--it's a matter of bigger principle and you've got good facts. I suspect that's what's going on here. Now, before you can make an example out of somebody, the facts have to be in your favor. That implies that the patent infringement claims are baseless, or at least that Costco and its counsel think they are. Where does that leave Acushnet? With a big problem, if you ask me. Their letter strikes me as the sort of thing they send out routinely. Earlier in this post somebody reeled off a list of smaller companies that had been successfully intimidated by a legal threat from them. So, they sent a letter out. Snuff that problem before it gets big. And on to the next fire. Instead, ka-blewie. They've drawn the black bean. Costco is going to use their sorry hide the beat a message into market incumbents in everything from bath towels to baby food. Hmm. I would, if I were Acushnet, take this opportunity to de-escalate the situation. The world is big enough for Titleist and a good private label golf ball.
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