sjduffers

I have nothing intelligent or really funny to say about this other than my mind went straight to the bubble gum comment when I first saw the picture. So there is that. 🙂

The 10 footer without hesitation. If the putt is straight, I might take a chance on the 20 footer, but otherwise I am confortable with the 10 footer.

I thought it was less, like inside a week: 3-5 days perhaps. Regardless, if you're gonna get the 'rona, it's probably much better to be vaccinated and have a breakthrough infection than not.

I am the first with goals! Yeah!! Seriously, I have the same set of goals as in 2021 (both met): Complete the birdie challenge either on the home course, on the away courses or (of course) both. I managed to finish the home course in 2021, so let's repeat that. The other goal is to stay in the single digits another year. A third (implied) goal is simply to just keep enjoying whatever round I am playing, with whomever I am playing it, wherever. Easy! Done. 🙂

I met both goals: 1. I completed the birdie challenge on the home course in August, including a couple of difficult holes that I had never birdied before. I have 3 holes left on the away course(s), but given that I am not playing away very much or with much variety of courses, it's likely to stay that way in the next 2 weeks. 2. I managed to stay in the single digits all year, with a low of 6.5 and a high of 8.9 a couple of months ago, before starting to go down again: currently at 8.1 The third (implied) goal was to keep enjoying myself, and I am doing just that! 🙂

Other than the usual slight soreness at the injection site (although I may be confusing this with other vaccinations: they are hard to keep track of!), no, nothing. It was Shingrix, FYI. YMMV.

Oh, I am with you! I've got all of those already, including the flu shot and the 2 shingles shots. My comment was more in the line of: while they were quite wrong initially, as the mortality rate proves (800,000 dead out of 50 million cases in the US, roughly 1.6%), eventually, this pandemic will become endemic and similar to another flu.

I think with further and further mutations, the virus will survive and will become more and more benign, to the point that it will be like the flu and a yearly vaccine that approximate the expected strains for the year might be needed and/or available to reduce the likelihoods of getting infected and that of getting really sick from it. Many people, particularly those at higher risks will keep taking that yearly dose, and many will ignore it, just like with the flu. Eventually, the "COVID is just a flu" folks will be right, after maybe 10+ millions people will have died, some of them included. Until the next thing...

I tend to put the ball back in my stance, just a bit, to both lower the trajectory and to make sure I make contact with the ball first and the wet turf later. Other than that, I try to keep myself and the clubs dry (eg making sure the rain doesn't fall in my neck area, install the bag cover over the club heads, etc...) and if that fails, I use rain gloves, one on each hand, and make sure they are wet: the wetter they are, the more traction they keep. Don't bother removing them to chip and putt!

A French drain is not a surface ditch: the drainage is via a pipe, buried underground, with weeping material to capture the water and direct it into the pipe, not simply using a depression (the surface ditch) and its slope and gravity to capture and eject water. Conversely, a ditch is excavated and forms a hole, much more than a depression, which can indeed become full of water and meets the intent of a penalty area (water hazard), whether it is dry or full of water. A French drain is neither a ditch (permanently exposed hole, whether containing water or not), nor a surface ditch (a mere depression). It is a constructed device which normally does not interfere with play (it shows just as a small depression), but can become obstructive when its top soil is disturbed and reveals the rocks making up its construction: then it qualifies as an immovable obstruction (like a cart path).

It too think that's the case: it's a French drain. (Diagram from Wikipedia). There are rocks on top of the pipe, and if they are exposed it should be treated as an immovable obstruction (same as cart path), but if the sod on top is consistent with the rest of the area, even though it is in a depression, it should be treated as the general area, unless explicitly mentioned as GUR and/or in a local rule. This is what @Rulesman also stated, above, per the R&A.

Thanks @Rulesman. You explained it way better than I did, but I am glad that my understanding was sound. 👍

This sounds like a French drain. If the rocks that are part of its construction are visible (meaning the sod on top of it is gone), it is a free drop as a man made object, just like a cart path. If there is grass on top, even though it's a visible depression, I don't think it can be a free drop, unless the course has a local rule allowing that.

Ok then. By the time I really try for it (say another 10 years or so to be in the mid-70s), I will play from less than 6000 yards, maybe 5700-5800. It still not an easy task, considerably more difficult than the no-sixes challenge, which itself is not so easy.

I never knew the odds are so low. I used to regularly play with an older gentlemen in his late 70s into his early 80s and he was shooting his age about 10 times a year (he was playing 2 to 3 times a week at that course), from the very forward tees: always down the middle, hardly ever a penalty stroke, a decent approach and good to very good short game. I told him I wanted to be like him when I grow up... 🙂 Shooting my age is my long term goal in golf. While in theory, it could happen any day, realistically I would have to wait another 15 years or so for it to happen, and if I can still play golf adequately then, even without breaking my age, I'd be ahead of the game, walking on this side of the grass. 👍

Aren't your 5W and 3H fairly comparable in distance? Sure one may go higher than the other one and land more softly, but personally I would go with: Dr, 5W, 4H, 6, 8, Pitching Wedge, Sand Wedge and Putter. [With Pitching Wedge at 46 degrees, part of the iron set and Sand Wedge at 55 degrees in my case. I am thus skipping the Gap Wedge, which is 50 degrees, also in the iron set]

#7 at Pebble Beach: from the back tees, it's just over 100 yards and the pros typically use some sort of wedge, but I've heard Sir Nick Faldo talk about using up to 6 and 5 irons with the wind into coming from the ocean. I haven't played that hole (yet), but I believe him.

Meanwhile, another ball somewhere else on the planet didn't go in, because you know, the butterfly effect...

Ah! Ah! Brian, oh, Brian! In you idyllic portrayal of California you forgot to mention the lack of water, the huge fires, the smoky skies, etc... Yet, golf courses have been really busy, with golf being a COVID-blessed activity. Of course the rates have really increased a lot, nearly all the incentives removed, yet at times it's difficult or very difficult to make a tee time. Supply and demand... Anyway, back to our beloved challenge. out of the goodness of my heart, I'll let you win the Away Composite one (I am not playing much away these days anyway) as I have already completed the home course challenge with a ringer score of -19 (yes, there was an eagle in there too!). So, there is that. Good luck with the remainder of the challenge and it's good to have you back playing. Take care, buddy!

I completed the birdie challenge today, with a birdie on #14, a long (390+) uphill par 4 dogleg to the left with the fairway slopping to the right all the way, and a very steep green. I overshot the green a little bit (on the back collar) and was faced with a 30 footer downhill with a big break (several feet, maybe 4.5 to 5) to the left: an all or nothing proposition as the pin was not in a flatfish spot. It went in perfectly, but could have gone another 4 to 6 feet past the hole easily. Anyway, that was the last birdie missing for the challenge (I have only birdied that hole maybe 3 times ever), and since I also had an eagle earlier in the season, my ringer score is -19, or 51 (par 70). Pretty cool!

Funny! As to why his uniform is already dirty, maybe a double-header? Do they change in between games? Not sure...

I lol'd at that video. I feel it's me at times. Thanks for the laugh.

That's Ok, but not a very ambitious goal at all. It should be pretty straightforward to get within 10%. 30 ft is a typical distance for a first putt (even for the pros), and you should hardly ever 3-putt those, so the key is to be within 3 ft (or 10%). Put it another way, when you have a cross-country (or cross green) putt of 90 ft, a decent result is to be around 6ft, or 9ft if you want, so 10%. 20% puts you. way too far out. To the OP, I was the worst putter in the world when I started. It took me almost 4 years of playing 9 holes after work on Fridays to get my first par, because I was on very few greens (1 or maybe 2 at most per 9), but because I was 3-putting from everywhere. I fixed this by practicing dialing in the speed correctly. And that also means hitting the ball reliably with the center of the face. Then hone yours skills on reading greens, but the most important part remains controlling the speed. FWIW, some 15 years after I made that first par, putting is the strength of my game and I only 3-putt about 2% of the holes according to my stats (in GolfPad), or about 1 hole every 3 rounds, on average. You too can do it: it's much easier than drastically improving one's long game!

I had a new one today. A group of 4 guys is teeing off before our group (we had only 3 today), but one of their members is late to the course so they take it slow, chit-chatting on the box and what not. Finally, the missing guy struts in, not walking any faster, driving his remote controlled push cart, and they get going: 3 and 4 balls per player. From the blue tees. I didn't think that all (or even most) of them had he skills to play those tees. It's going to be a long day, I said to the rest of my group. We had no idea, how long! We can see already a big gap ahead of them, and there must have been a gap in the tee sheet. So after waiting what seemed like half an eternity to hit our approches, we proceed, hit our chips and putts as needed, and only 3 of the guys ahead have yet teed off, and at least one is hitting mulligans... They had played the first hole in well over 20 minutes. We finish and walk past them towards the white tees where we will be hitting next. They totally ignore us, won't invite us through and that's when one of my partners says out loud (to be heard by them): "I don't have six hours for this, so let's go past them to the third tee." We never hit from those white tees and instead walked around the slowpokes, under the tunnel below the freeway, back up on the other side and played the third hole, a par 5. We finished the par 500+ yards hole (3 shots + chips + putts as needed for 3 people), walked off to the 4th tee and they were STILL not on the third tee. Well, this seemed like the right decision, we congratulate ourselves. And the rest of the round proceeds normally and at a great pace: we have about 3 holes open in front, and on #11 catch up with the previous group, a foursome. No big deal, we can chip and putt on the previous green for a while as the slow group is now about 3 holes behind. We keep going like that until the end and by the time we walk off #18, the snails are making it to the tee of #14. That's a whole 5 holes behind, mind you, and that's with us having plenty of time to practice our short game as we move along. We were done in just over 3 hours and 20 minutes, so these guys were on pace for 5 to 5 1/2 hours with nobody in front of them, not playing in a tournament. This is an easy course, flat, open and I walked it once with nobody in front in under 2 hours. I just couldn't believe it. That slower than the definition of slow. Horrible.

All I had to do was post that and of course in the next round, I did make that birdie, with a very nice 5 wood from 198 yards, to the back pin, inside of 3 feet. Easy putt. 😉 Only one left now, the hardest hole on the course, but no matter, I already won as my ringer score is now -18 (I also had one eagle in the season), for a smooth 52 (par 70)!