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You will notice in the image “net2” that there is a sand box in front of the net… I usually hit off of that as a way of both working on balance and ensuring a visual marker for a forward swing bottom. I have a mat that fits nicely in that space, off of which I hit balls, when I work on pitching and chipping... But again, most of the time I hit off the sand.

I thought this might be useful to those of you who are “do-it-yourself” oriented. The front facing panel into which I hit golf balls measures 9’x 9’ The net proper was purchased from Gourock Netting – http://www.gourock.com/ These folks can custom cut any kind of net you want, but I just bought a 10’x 10’ panel. The frame is constructed out of 1” schedule 40 PVC - along with the requisite 1” slip connections (to solvent weld the connection points together I recommend using purple primer and #721 PVC cement). The front of the frame is outfitted with insulation padding – PVC is susceptible to degradation from UV light (i.e., it turns brown and becomes brittle) so the padding covers the front frame while the rest of the frame is covered with whit duct tape, and the connection points are treated with white Krylon Fusion paint. Both the net and the padding are fastened by zip-ties. Total cost of constructing the net was around $150.

This is good to know… next time I attend a PGA event I’m going to wear crampons, the same crampons I used to scale the north ridge of K2.

That’s a great baseball swing… And when I started playing golf that’s exactly how my swing appeared. Start your downswing with a lateral hip slide (right side) – this will allow your hands to drop in the slot while maintaining the lag angle; and subsequently, help you get to a firm front side. Of note: do yourself a favor and work on your grip (Google “Golf Grip”) before you ingrain a swing, i.e., your left hand looks a little funky to me.

The only place at which I would risk getting caught for trespassing is the Playboy Mansion… and of course I would play as many holes as possible.

The way I track Ups & Downs: Missed GIR and scoring a par equals a successful Up & Down Missed GIR and scoring a bogey+ equals missed Up & Down

I can appreciate that some people want to keep their clubs looking showroom new, but that really is kind of silly in the final analysis… don’t you think. Our clubs are, after all, metal sticks that we swing in the dirt and sand. They aren’t Faberge eggs on the end of golden rods. I shouldn’t poke fun though – I lay my golf clubs to sleep in a hyperbaric chamber nightly.

The humidity, coupled with the heat, is the killer. It’s a dry heat here. I have come to find that almost no one here in AZ wants to golf after noon, and the green fee is reflected in the abundant absence. There is a course that is just about a hard 5 iron from my house where I can play eighteen with a cart for $10, and that price will hold until the beginning of October.

One of my favorite quotes pertaining to women… “Can you trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die?”

I have three different brands: Peak Vision, Oakley, and Tifosi. The PV sunglasses come with a graduated tint and they are pretty good ($70). The Oakleys have the G30 lenses which could be considered “golf” sunglasses. I find these to be very nice sunglasses, and I consider them to be very expensive (to the point of ridiculous - $140). My favorite sunglasses are the Tifosi Tyrants. The set comes with three interchangeable tints for varying light conditions, and they are priced right ($60).

The contact sounds sweet, and your backswing is sound (not too long at all)… but you’re casting – it’s ever so slight – but you are casting. You’re letting go of your lag a millisecond too early.

That’s right I said it… moving sucks. The whole process is fraught with the stink of misery; from the packing of boxes, loading said boxes onto a moving truck, driving the truck, fighting the boredom of the road, and unloading the truck, to setting up all the household stuff in residence. However, I do take solace in the fact that I have moved from Denver (where it again snowed recently) to Surprise, Arizona (where it is likely never to snow). This is not my first sojourn to the Valley of the Sun. In the early nineties I attended ASU for a spell so I am familiar with living in this kind of hot and arid environment. My fiancé, on the other hand, is new to desert living. She continually asks me how hot it will get. When we pulled into town in the beginning of May the temperature had reached ninety-five and she thought that it was really quite hot. I had to tell her that we can expect an increase of another twenty-five degrees before we are set to simmer in the sweat of summer – but it’s a dry heat. The critter factor is another issue with which she is having some difficulty. We both are originally from Massachusetts. I grew up in Chelmsford and she lived in Woburn, and in the taxonomy of critters there really isn’t too much going on in New England. The same can be said for Denver. But the desert is a different story. She saw a scorpion the other day and just about lost her uterus from all the tension based screaming. I’m not necessarily a big fan of venomous things, but a scorpion is the very least of my concerns. The two things that scare the ever living shit out of me are sharks and snakes. I believe that I took care of the shark situation when I moved from the coast. Now I must begin to think about the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake; and of course, how to score some good antivenin. Today is day thirteen after the move, and the ritual today is the same as it was the first day we awoke in our new abode. Every morning I wake-up and look lovingly at my fiancé and ask her if today will be the day that we actually get our house in order so that I can get to play some golf… Moving sucks.

The look of fake fingernails (although, I do like the look of large fake breasts) People who say “Hot water heater,” Why would one need to heat hot water? Henry James and every word of soporific crap he has ever written. The New York Yankees and their fans Kate Gosselin

Maybe I’m misreading what it is that you are trying to convey… But I don’t think one tries to “make putts break;” instead, one tries to play the break – one tries to play the contours of the green. Having said that… all putts are straight line putts to a target. Sometimes the target is the actual hole, but not very often.

I wonder what advice Ty Tryon would give the young lad.

Here’s another statistic… 90% of people suck at life too.

Although I know very little regarding the P90X training system, it seems to me that it is really no different than enlisting the help of a personal trainer. The real infomercial scams are the exercise products that claim to help people spot reduce adipose tissue. For example, the Ab Rocker and that sensational neoprene waist belt are the two items that immediately come to mind

May I suggest an anti-anxiety cocktail before the round: 1.5 mg of Xanax and 12 oz of Absinthe That should do the trick...

I built an 8’x8’ front panel frame out of 1” sch 40 PVC (there is of course the accompanying support structure to ensure the front panel stays upright)… total cost for the frame was about $40. For the netting I suggest going through these guys: Gourock Netting This company can make custom nets to any dimensions – great customer service too. This is the one that I bought. http://gourock.com/mcart/index.cgi?I...=IT823&code;=13

You might want to check out these cases. http://www.skbcases.com/sports/product/golf/hard.html I own the SKB Staff Case, and I love it.

For those of you who are interested – I find this book very useful. Real Men Do Yoga by John Capouya (ISBN: 0-7573-0112-6) It highlights 21 star athletes that do yoga, and it is routine based. That is to say, it shows one how to do yoga without the esoteric stuff.

Pre-shot routine… Get in the habit of engaging in the same ritual for every shot, and doing it in roughly 20 seconds.

To help mitigate the soreness of lifting weights one should be as diligent about the post workout routine as one is about the actual workout routine. -It’s all about diet: be sure to fuel the body with the proper amounts of both macro and micro nutrients, and stay well hydrated. -Rest: sleep well and sleep often (if it is possible) this is the time when the body repairs itself. -Cardio: aerobic exercise helps to oxygenate the body electric (sorry, a little Walt Whitman there). -Stretch: any kind of yoga program will suffice. The human body is relatively dumb, that is to say, it doesn’t know if it’s sore because it was lifting furniture or lifting weights… breaking down muscle is simply breaking down muscle. I have to say too, there are a lot of misconceptions regarding flexibility and muscle. I have read on this forum some say that the more muscle you have the less flexible you are and that’s patently false. For example, look at male gymnasts, those guys are both very muscular and very flexible – flexibility is a developmental condition. I’d like to say this too, when you are lifting for golf you have to realize that big muscles have no direct effect on how well you play golf. It’s important to develop a lifting routine that will benefit your golf swing – the actual act of swinging a golf club. I do two kinds of lifting; one is the regular kind of body building routine (bench, curls, squats, etc.), and the second is Olympic style lifting (clean and jerk, high pulls, etc.) with the addition of some plyometrics. I do Olympic lifting every other day. It’s the Olympic style lifting that has really made the difference in the off season. This kind of lifting will develop the fast-twitch muscle fibers, strength, and - believe it or not - a certain degree of flexibility…. and aside from the actual mechanics, I believe that these are the essential elements to both a sound and powerful golf swing.

Ah yes… the polemics of religion. Below is the documentary Zeitgeist (for those of you who are familiar with this work, the first 30 minutes serve to shed some light on our little discussion… the remainder of the film is a whole other animal). Enjoy…