Braivo

The Golf Channel feels like a shell of its former self. I tune in for live golf, obviously, but I get the rest of my golf news and commentary elsewhere (No Laying Up, etc.).

Anecdotally, I've found that range finders slow the pace of play in my regular casual games. I wear a GPS watch that I simple glance down at and it gives me center of green yardage. I look, grab a club, and hit. My playing partners will use range finders but after a few holes they'll just ask me "What's your watch say?" and not even bother with the laser. Could be a different story with pros, but we will see. My guess is it won't change much. Slow players will still be slow, and finding yardages wasn't why they were slow.

Was watching the Australian Open tennis this morning and they have thousands of maskless fans in attendance at the event. I can't wait for us to get there. Hope that's what our summer looks like.

I have never really held a negative opinion of Reed. Tremendous talent. Probably a much tougher upbringing than most PGA Tour pros to begin with. Probably lights a fire that makes him as good as he is.

Hubie Halloween - Par. Old school Adam Sandler feel with many actors from his other films. Stupid fun that the kids and I enjoyed. Trial of the Chicago 7 - Bogey. Perhaps this is what happens when they take a true story and don't really dramatize it, but it felt flat throughout.

I enjoy watching the CT. The M-W format was great as it filled the early week golf void on TV. What Bernhard Langer has been able to do into his 60s is a great story. Sure, it's not the same as the PGA Tour, but these guys compete nonetheless. And they often visit areas that don't get regular Tour events, so it's a chance to see professional golf for thousands of fans that otherwise would not.

Yes. They required us to commit to 9 weeks of virtual if we chose that option. We can change our mind after 9 weeks. That should be enough time for them to iron out some of the protocols and get a better idea of what this virus is gonna do in the cooler weather.

Posting as a parent having to decide whether to send my kid back to school 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, with a mask on, or keep him home for nine weeks of "virtual" school. This is one of the harder decisions I've had to make. I'm not particularly concerned about him catching the virus, but rather I'm concerned about his experience in school with all of the masks, distancing, temp checks, Plexiglas, no extracurriculars, etc. For now I've decided to keep him home. I am not at peace with that decision though. He really should be gearing up for his freshman year of high school and all of the excitement that entails, but now it's just more of a holding pattern. Virtual school, even in it's best form, is not ideal for an adolescent, but neither is a very restrictive physical environment. No real good options here.

I played a ton of golf as a teen and into my early twenties and got pretty good at it (would regularly break 80). Then I had three kids in 4 years and hardly touched a club for 10 years! Maybe a few scrambles at work outings, but that's it. Then 7 years ago I found myself divorced and with some time on my hands so I picked up golf again. It has taken me all of those seven years to start to feel like I can play even close to the way I did back in my early twenties. Obviously some of it is age (I'm 40, not 25), but it just took TIME to get the feel back. It was a much bigger struggle than I anticipated. Perhaps I just relied on pure athleticism back then and I had to reinvent the way I swing. It wasn't until I set up a net in my basement and started swinging EVERY DAY that I started to see real progress and improvement. Anyway, has anyone else returned to golf after several years away? Care to share your experiences here?

Shot my best round in 20 years yesterday. 40-43 = 83 at Carrington GC in Monroe, MI. Parred the first 4 holes and birdied that last 2! I had three 3-putt bogies too. Best I've been able to strike the ball in two decades. A lot of practice paying off.

What if a vaccine never materializes (very real possibility)? Then we have to figure out how to live with this virus. Many pro athletes have tested positive and none have had symptoms worse than a common cold. Yet they are still operating as if this thing is a death sentence. We need to reach a point where we accept that this thing is not a major risk factor for almost everyone under 65 and adjust our behaviors accordingly. We don't test everyone for flu. Only if someone comes in with severe symptoms do they get a flu test. Time to do the same here. More and more the numbers they put out there are meaningless or can be spun. Every headline is about new "cases" but ignores the fact that most of them are very mild and cause no harm, but they want everyone to be scared all the time. Sad.

I may or may not have shook hands with people this weekend at a certain golf meetup. I also shook hands with a few neighbors when they stopped by recently to chat. I am a low risk group, but I am no longer "social distancing" so long as the other person feels the same way. You'd be surprised how many people are ready and willing to shake hands, etc. Anyway, back to golf. Great to see Michigan easing restrictions. It'll be nice to see rakes in the traps again and get rid of those silly pool noodles in the cups. EDIT: I've called several courses and even though the state is allowing two people per cart, most courses have not caught up or are not aware.

Paging Michigan folks who might be interested in a MI vs OH event this September.

FYI, We are trying to put together a MI vs OH match play style meetup sometime this September. Jump in that thread if you're interested.

I'm definitely interested.

I really think this weekend's Match broke the ice for other sporting events to start taking place without fans. Great to see The Memorial trying to move forward with fans by mid-July. Once the momentum starts to move towards restarting it'll happen quickly.

Many of us will be back at work before these guys hit the course. We won't be tested daily, we won't be outside all day. There will be an inherent risk to going back to daily life. The tour pros, and other pro athletes, should accept that same risk as we do.

How it works: TaylorMade Driving Relief skins match The TaylorMade Driving Relief supported by UnitedHealth Group skins match takes place Sunday at historic Seminole Golf Club in Florida. The team of Rory McIlroy-Dustin Johnson will face the team of Rickie Fowler-Matthew... I'll be tuning in Sunday for sure. It'll be interesting to see DJ carrying his own clubs that's for certain. Ranger finders too!

Right!! Odd. And family members are not allowed, but representatives from manufacturers (i.e. sponsors) will be allowed? To be honest, I really don't like the idea of holding events without fans. Think how anti-climactic it would be to win your first PGA Tour even in front of ... no one? Can't even run over and hug your wife and kids? Also, if there are no fans, why travel to all of these different events? Does the venue matter that much if there are no fans. Why go to Detroit in July to play a boring low interest course? Why not just hold all of the events in Florida to minimize travel? I hate to be pessimistic, but I see a good chance of this never happening. One person will test positive somewhere along the line and they will shut it all down again.

Speculation. There is little data to show people getting infected from surfaces. Almost all cases can be traced back to gatherings in close quarters. Like that call center example, almost no one on the opposite side of the floor go the virus, despite sharing bathrooms, elevators, break rooms, etc. Given they've shown that sun also breaks the virus down, and the absolute remote possibility that someone in a group ahead of me a) has the virus, b) coughs or sneezes enough then touches the rake, c) I happen to touch the exact same rake at the exact same spot within a few minutes, and d) I then touch my face with that same hand. Plus, all of this assumes that there's enough viral load on a surface to get a person sick (which hasn't been show to be true). Additionally, we have moved the goalposts. The initial measures were put in place to "flatten the curve" to avoid hospital overrun, not "eliminate all cases". The goal of "zero cases" is driving an insane amount of measures that wouldn't be necessary if we had kept the "flatten the curve" standard.

The Tour released a comprehensive plan for starting on June 11. 2020 PGA Tour Health and Safety Plan - The Fried Egg The PGA Tour releases a detailed health and safety plan, Southern Hills gets another major, and Steve Stricker hires a pair of chauffeurs Highlights of the plan: Players pulling their own clubs? haha. Will they clean them and put them back too? How long will that last or how many times will they forget? If everyone has been tested so much, why do they still need to "social distance" like that? Seems overkill. From what we know about the virus, transmission outdoors on a golf course is very unlikely, seems some of these measures are too much imo. I'll be happy to see live golf on TV though.

And almost none from touching shared surfaces. The whole "we sanitized everything" is just theater. Same with pool noodles in the cups. Chances of catching the virus from touching a rake someone used 15 minutes before you? Essentially zero.

Yes. Younger lives are more valuable than older ones. It's a tragedy when a 30 year old dies. It's not when an 80 year old dies. Everyone feels this whether they will admit it or not, but it's true. The funeral for an 80 year old will have an accepting tone. A funeral for a 30 year old, or a kid, is a very somber and devastating. People say "he had so much life in front of him" for a reason. The loss of a younger life is more tragic, and a younger life has more "value" in the sense of time left. My life is more valuable at 40, where I am raising kids and have significant responsibilities and many people depending on me, than it will be when I am 80 and retired. Simple truth. My life is more valuable than my 96yo grandmother, and my 14 year old son's life is more valuable than mine. Would I die to save my son? Yes. Would I die to save my grandmother? No. Do they throw up a massive search operation when a 85yo dementia patient goes missing from a nursing home? No. Do they pull out all of the stops when a 9yo kid doesn't come home from school? Absolutely. Should we shut down the entire country to save thousands of 80 year olds? No. Should we shut down the entire country to save thousands of kids? Perhaps. This doesn't even account for the impact that shutting down the country might have on kids via poverty, abuse, parental suicide, etc. Like it or not, life has different values at different points and everything is a trade-off.

It absolutely matters. Shutting down the economy has costs too. Like it or not, life comes with risks and trade-offs. The capitalist economy has saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people out of poverty over the years. It is the greatest force of prosperity ever known. Giving some nursing home residents a few extra months/years is not worth shutting it all down, plain and simple, especially when we could isolate those people anyway until this thing is over. Personally, my 96yo grandmother is in a nursing home and tested positive for the virus (since has recovered). During the shutdowns my Dad almost died of a heart condition he couldn't get treated because they had shut down all surgeries for a time. He had to wait for his lungs to fill with fluid before they'd make an exception and operate on him. How many people like him didn't get a slot in time? There are consequences (often paid for by younger people) to shutting everything down.

They never put things this way on the news, unfortunately. Tragic, indeed, but we are reacting (shutting down the nation) as if these are thousands of kids dropping dead.