sjduffers

I think you wanted it to be called "Twister with a twist". Ah!

Hey, that's nothing! I once played with a player that took 1 minute and 40 seconds on average. I timed him on several holes for several kinds of shots (driver, approach, short game and even putting), so I had data to back up my talk with him. I then told him he was slow because this and that, showed him the the 40 seconds rule in the current rules (5.6), and gave him his time. He said, Ok that may be a "bit" slow, and he indeed sped up for the rest of the round, taking only 50 seconds on average. 🤦‍♂️. Happy to see the improvement, but not happy enough to want to ever play with him again, lol ETA: Never mind that immediate memory does not last more than 8 seconds and it's way longer than that between practice swings (plural) and the actual hit, both with this video and the guy I was talking about.

Top Gun: Maverick. Yes, I just only now saw it (and not in a theater: I haven't gone to one of those in ages)! I give it a birdie from long range. The flying sequences are really cool and the storyline makes some nice callbacks to the original Top Gun, from the bike ride along the plane taking off (without a helmet, of course!), the low fly-over, the buzzing of the aircraft carrier, the volley ball scene, the bar fight, "Balls of Fire" on the piano, Tom Cruise running, the story of Iceman (paralleling Val Kilmer's) ,etc... All the cliches and corniness are there, including the politically correct casting (1 black, 1 latino, 1 women in the top 6), but I really enjoyed the movie anyway, even on the smaller TV screen.

3 birdies today and a fourth lipped out. They are (or would have been) all repeats. Hard to nail the last few! I am also still chasing my first round with 4 birdies. This is the closest it's ever been. Shoulda, coulda, ... damn it! 🙂

My Away portion is actually more like a second Home portion with fewer rounds played (with a few other courses here and there), hence why it's lacking a bit behind. The remaining holes on the Home portion are the toughest ones, although one or two are probably somewhat gettable. After all I did manage to finish all 18 last year, but it was probably a fluke...

I already did, @bkuehn1952, in the birdie challenge thread. But thanks for the mention.

Hole in one on #16 of the home course (upgrade from birdie to eagle)! Normally 186 yards from the blue tees, today the flag was up to about 176 yards, uphill into the wind. My 5 wood caught the right side of the green and the ball released to the left towards the hole. It looked close from the tee but I didn't see it drop. As I walked up there, nothing, except my partners' balls. I looked in the cup, and there it was! And of course, beers all around. It's my second one ever, and with the same club from about the same distance (on a different hole and golf course).

I am talking relative to par. It's easier to score a 5 on a 500 yards par 5 than a 3 on a 200 yards par 3, for say a 10 handicapper. It's the other way around for a 30 handicapper, who has more difficulty stringing good shots together. So turning a 200 yard par 3 into a 500 yards par 5 raises the par from 70 to 72, increases the total distance by 300 yards, but is also easier (relative to par) for the 10 handicapper. {Note that the course rating would increase too, while the slope may vary little]. That's all that I am saying.

I have done this exactly (6 instead of 9), in a tournament no less! Both clubs were next to each other in the bag and needless to say I reorganized the bag after that fiasco. I guess I was not focussing and even though it didn't feel quite right at address, I didn't investigate why and just went ahead. My bad. Shit happens.

These guys hit the ball so good that it is almost safe to say that their smash factor is very close to 1.5, so divide the ball speed by 1.5 and you'll get a very good estimation of the club speed (so a 175 mph drive relates to a 117mph club speed). But yes, an additional data point once in a while would be nice.

He sure did, but that is fine since the 2019 rules revision. A better question, should he have hit the shot instead of going to the drop zone hitting his 3rd? Maybe with the toe of a putter, but his (long-ish) putter is really appropriate for that... After Straka hit his in the bunker, going to the drop zone was probably a good call, as long as he could get it somewhat close, which he did. 👍

Previously, the PGA Tour has only banned LIV players AFTER they hit their first tee shots on a LIV event. Before then, it was only: "this is what will happen if you go ahead". So, yes, I could see him finishing his season on the PGA Tour and moving on to LIV afterwards, but that the fact that he won't admit it now make him look like a fool, who is disrespecting everyone he is talking to. Not a fan.

I disagree. Par 70 can be just as difficult as par 72. It's not just the number of strokes you take, it's also the holes you take them on. For example, a course I play often has 3 par 5s and 5 par 3s for a total of par 70. From the tees I play (the Blue tees, known as the back tees, around 6200 yards), none of the par 3s are shorter than 175 yards, with one at 200 yards over water, uphill, while the par 5s are all in the low 500 yards range. I spend many more strokes (bogeys mostly, but an occasional double too) on the par 3s than I do on the par 5s, I can guarantee you. If you would (and could) turn a par 3 into a par 5, the course would become a par 72, its length would be close to 6500 and it would most likely play easier, not harder, for a competent golfer. QED. So, for the shooting your age purpose, getting a 70 on this course in my 70th year would do, without having the feeling of getting off easy. Thank you very much!

I went with par 70 and 5500 yards, also the course/tees must be rated. I don't have a whiff of getting to my age for another 8-10 years at least, since I am 63 and haven't broken par yet (I was 1 over several times).

Are you sure about that? He also drove the Citroen 2CV in For Your Eyes Only (1981). If you don't remember what that looks (or drives) like, here is a refresher: [And they made it look like it goes A LOT faster than it actually does...] You're welcome! 🤣 PS: Growing up in France in the 60s-70s, one of my friends had one of those, and we even once took it on to the Autobahn in Germany: the scariest road trip ever! 😂

You're saying you can work on a project for the US DOD, and also work on another project for the Chinese military, for example? I seriously doubt that, but I don't work for either one...

Hey, I was watching (some of it)! Are you calling me nobody, lol? I DVR all PGA Tour events (adding an extra hour on Sundays) and watch some or very little or none of it from Thursdays to Sundays, always fast forwarding through the commercials, otherwise it's impossible to watch at all. I'll have to add the 50 players events to my schedule. Ha! I agree that the main season (Jan-Aug) is likely to be more interesting. Overall, it may be a good thing: we'll see. I don't watch the Korn Ferry Tour and those fall events may feel more like that. True the fall events will still be there to watch, but I am not sure they will be more interesting. We'll see.

Yes, but the viewers get sort of a prolonged off-season too. There was obviously a bit less interest in the fall season before but it's going to be even more pronounced now. Is that a good thing? I think not.

That is a very significant change. Without those Fedex points, the top 70 players have zero incentive to play in the fall other than "working on things", or not get rusty sitting at home for 3 months. Previously, every event, even in the fall season, was 500 pts to the winner, except majors, Players, and WGC tournaments (I think), which were worth 600 pts./

I might add that if you use the line on the ball to align your putts, you must make sure that the line is lined up properly with your target (spot on the putting line), and that the putter is aligned with the line on the ball. And in order to make sure of that, it can't just be by eyeballing. Can you evaluate those things with a laser? Or get a putter fitting (which will effectively do that as well)? I was using the line before and was lipping out tons of putts, until one day I asked my (full swing) instructor to have a look at it, and he said, that's because the line on your ball is lining up with the edge of the hole (on a 15 to 20 ft straight putt). He said: "don't use the line, show the white part of the ball on top, pick a dimple to look at and let your brain do all the adjustments to get lined up". I did and enjoyed and am still enjoying much greater success... and it's much faster too!

Made a cool one today: #18 is 403 yards fairly straight. However my drive wasn't: it was more of a hook into the trees and not quite in jail but not good. I hooked a 5 iron around the tress, hoping to stay short of the bunkers, which I did. So now I have a 30-35 yards pitch to the hole. I line it up, strike it nice but a bit firm, it takes off, one bounce and dunks in the hole: easy birdie! 😂 I never had a dunk like that: it's really nice, with the flag sound effect and your buddies going wild!! ETA: This was at the end of the first 9 (starting on the back), so for good measure I also birdied the next one #1, but the regular way: fairway, green, 1 putt. And I already had that one...

Good one, Oh Caffeinated One! I guess when my buddies on the course won't stop saying that I need one of those cause it's gonna give me 17 more yards, again ... and again?

The network TV boadcast (NBC, CBS) has needed an upgrade in quite some time, indeed. The best thing they added recently was the shot tracker: it really makes watching more interesting. The network broadcast is unwatchable, except during the majors with their limited commercials. The only way I watch golf on TV nowadays is to DVR a round and watch it later, fast forwarding through most of it (and definitely all the commercials), and I do that with the majors as well, but there is a lot less fast forwarding for those...

That's what I do as well, pulling the laser from its pouch as I make my last couple of steps and the push cart glides to a rest. 2 seconds later I have a measurement, and after another 5 seconds or less to think about what I want to do, I have a club in my hand. Get in position, a mini-practice swing (say 5 to 8 o'clock) to find the bottom, a waggle, and the ball is in the air well under 15 seconds after I get to the ball. I have never been accused of holding people up...