sjduffers

This was a decent week: I added one birdie to the home course sheet and one to the away courses (and had another duplicate there).

Sure, it looks a bit odd, especially when DeChambeau is doing it, as he looks so stiff. However, other things look odd too: remember Michelle Wie's putting stance? Putting is really such a personal thing. I say let them have it (and/or have at it)!

Yup. In my case, it was the 6 iron that didn't go anywhere, lol. To make matters worse, I used to have the 6 and 9 iron right next to each other... Not anymore!

You realize that you can take more than one club with you when you walk across, right? Assess your distance from the cart (a rangefinder or GPS helps), and take the club for that distance and inclination and also take one more and one less, at least.

ETA: I just ordered a pair, for under $40: can't beat that!. We'll see (or not, pun intended. 😜). Thanks again.

I am a dummy. I didn't even think of that. Ah! Yes, I should do that and have them just for that reason and maybe in case of emergency (instead of relying on the previous multifocal pair). Thanks!

I sort of had the opposite problem. For a number of years, maybe more than 10, I have been playing with multifocal glasses and had adjusted to the narrow vision field, the need to look at things through the proper part of the glasses, etc. I had seemingly no problem playing golf with them, except at dusk when my depth perception seemed slightly different, and taking my eyes off the ball for even a minute moment would mean I could never could get back on it. With my current swing (and improved) swing, I noticed that when I take the club back, my head/eyes turn away from the ball slightly and due to the narrower than normal field of vision of the multifocal glasses, the ball is now blurry at the top of the backswing, and that I can't regain the focus on the ball before impact. Sure, I can play with that but what if I didn't have to? As my far vision has slightly improved with age, while my near vision is essentially the same as before and essentially all the golf activities are with the far vision, I decided to try some sunglasses for golf made with only the long distance prescription. Voila, no more ball out of focus. There are two drawbacks to this approach: a) I need to lift my glasses to deal with the scorecard (or the phone where I record my score) and b) the problem at dusk is even more severe now as I must revert to my multifocal glasses when the light is too low to handle sunglasses... and spend time to readjust the vision to the multifocal lenses and hit a ball now pretty guaranteed to be out of focus. I try to book tee times when I can finish more than an hour to half an hour ahead from the official sunset time. But overall, I think it was a good change. PS: Contact lenses were never an option due to a) astigmatism and b) I once, many may years ago, had to fight an eye doctor for several hours to get them out of my eyes after an afternoon try!

One round with Tiger, one at Augusta (could be the same round, even better!) and some sweet clubs. I wouldn't even need to sell them. Just change driver, woods and irons every other year, wedges every 6 months, and putter whenever...

Of course, there are plenty. But enough to use a lot of the double carts, in the middle of the day on a week day? Not likely. That said, I don't care one way or the other. I am not in the cart with them, and if I was, I am partially vaccinated (second dose is in a couple of weeks). I was just commenting on the seemingly vastly disparate policies on the various courses around here (all municipally or county owned), for no apparent reason. Again, I don't know, and I don't really care.

Very doubtful. Unless they are all essential workers, in which case what are they doing on the course in the middle of the week anyway? 🙂 You see, a lot of folks riding carts are fairly young (definitely below 50 which is the new threshold age around here for first vaccinations), and should probably walk instead... I'll never understand that one: old folks are walking a lot more than young ones. Perhaps just to save money? I know I do, both to save money and to exercise. Yes, that's more likely. But then the cart sharing policy is all over the place: some courses allow sharing, some sharing with a plastic curtain in between the seats and some no sharing at all (unless from the same household).

I only have two goals this year. Complete the birdie challenge either on the home course, on the away courses or (of course) both. I managed to finish the away courses last year, so let's repeat that. The other goal is to stay in the single digits another year. I am just happy with the little game I have: it won't get much better and I don't feel like working at it at this point. I have a decent short game (except from greenside bunkers, but it must be a mental thing), am not and will never be a long hitter, but don't make too many course management mistakes so I am ok with taking a bogey here and there. I am just enjoying whatever round I am playing, with whomever I am playing it, wherever.

One the munis I play has partially restored its old ways but is not quite there yet. For example, the benches are back, there is one ball washer that I saw but many other holes didn't have it, yet (and I didn't see a cart going around with a bunch of ball washers hanging in there...). The water jugs and the rakes are still absent and the foam noodles in the holes were brand new as of this week! It's still 2 masked customers max in the pro shop and credit card payment only (no cash). But then, I saw multiple carts going around with 2 players: were they all related? Doubtful... How does any of this make any sense? Dunno, and don't really care. Other courses still have the strict protocol they instituted 10 months ago (for the reopening after the complete shutdown), completely intact: online payment only, the pro shop is still closed, one per cart, no cart in the parking lot, no rake, bench or water jug. And these are muni courses (or at least county public courses), so why all the disparate measures? Dunno and don't really care, either. There is still no open restaurant (inside seating) in any of those clubhouses, but the county allows 50% seating inside restaurants as part of the graduated tiers of restriction (we are back to the orange tier, out of the purple and red tiers, and probably going to yellow in a week or two). Does that make any sense? No... and you know the rest of what I was going to say.

Yes, grass grows pretty much all year around here, and of course more so in the wet months that are called “winter” here. There is no dormant period to speak of. Patches of bare ground or dried out areas are usually in non watered or underwatered areas, such as between the tees and fairways or off to the sides, in order to save on watering. Bare ground can also be the result of damage by carts or other heavy equipment that turns into muddy areas following the few days of heavy rain that we do have once in a while. It can take a long long time for grass to regrow there...

True, but it was not like that at all. These were clearly defined divot holes (meaning recent ones), in the typical divot shape, occurring seemingly uniformly in common landing areas, every foot or even less. Just a course with lots of play (aren't they all these days?) and seemingly little maintenance. And indeed, there were also areas with bare ground and areas less watered. California is in another drought after all, as we had another pretty dry winter following the one last year... I should have taken a picture, but sadly I didn't. And it's a course that is a long drive from home (85 miles or so each way), so I won't making the trip back anytime soon...

Yes getting hit by lightning is rare and it still happens alright, but getting hit twice is extremely rare. However it happens more in areas susceptible to have lightning in the first place. Not every situation is equal in the face of global statistics. Some courses are bound to have more instances of balls in divot holes than others. This course is one of them, apparently: did I mentioned that the divot holes were all (or nearly all) unrepaired and there were a lot of them? I also have played lots of times on courses where I don't ever recall being in a divot hole and their overall maintenance was much better too. Hence my correct statement. It varies. A. Lot.

Sort of. Nor does saying as a blanket statement that it is a rare event. It varies. A. Lot. I know it happened a lot more than usual that day. 4 times between two players in a single round is a lot.

Fun (or not so fun) fact: I played this weekend on a course that used to be in great shape, in a gated community, etc... It must have fallen on hard times, which is weird in the COVID-growth era. The fairways were like mine fields, unrepaired divot holes everywhere! My cart partner and I combined for being in 4 such holes in our round, at 2 a piece. It was in a tournament round too. And no, hitting from those, the results were not fugly or tremendous, kind of in between... But it just shows that the odds of being in one such hole may not be 3-5 per year for everyone! And now: And that's without mentioning the gazillion holes on the green, following aeration (it's that time of the year after all, around here). At least we were covered by a (local?) rule that allows moving the ball out of such a hole to start a putt. Yeah!

I finished birdie, birdie (at the home course) today, but I already had those 2. Arggggh!

I'll take the hot one, no question. I hate freezing my ass off, and with some (bad) luck, I'd had to wait on the group in front, and I sure don't want to do that in 40 (35 with windchill)) weather! Cold is one thing, but cold and windy is way worse, IMHO.

I agree. No, in a foursome. I stated in a prior post in this thread that I have played by myself in just under 2 hours, walking. Trust me, I am not one of the slow ones... 👍

My post was not aimed at you directly. The "exception" clause was perhaps a bit too strong. What I really meant to say is that a lot of times, people don't allocate the proper weight to putting, whether it is too much time (the ones who seemingly always putt for $1M) or not enough (too eager to take gimmes), and that there is a way to play fast and putt out. It's not mutually exclusive. I get it that you find all your time on the course enjoyable and if you can do it daily, more power (and enjoyment) to you! I am very content playing 3 times a week and would much rather be done in say 4 hours than 5 or 6, as it happens sometimes. As I clumsily said, I have witnessed people, in the group ahead of me, routinely taking 10 minutes to putt out, and so I made the (only very "slight") exaggeration that they are always putting for a million bucks and reading from all sides, multiple times. But it does take some doing and lollygaging to spend 10 minutes putting out... And no, it's not their best round in their life when they start doing this on hole #1, and then go on #2, etc... Anyway, enjoy your golf course living. I am just a little bit jealous (usually playing on munis)!

I take exception with that. I can (easily) play in 3.5 hours, walking, and putt out as well. In fact, the putter is probably the best club in my bag. What I don't do however is pretend that every putt is for a million bucks (who pays that anyway, as I want in on that action...), read the f**ing thing from all sides, twice, and only start doing all that when it's my turn, then proceed to miss the putt and do it all over again. I routinely see fairly fast groups tee-to-green that literally drop anchor on the green for maybe 10 minutes! Stop. Doing. That.

Perhaps it's because I am playing on sub-standard courses when it comes to maintenance, i.e. munis, but in the decade or so that I recall (i.e. when I got more serious about golf than just knocking the ball around), I have been impacted negatively, to varying degrees, by playing from a divot hole in the fairway more than a handful (or maybe even two?) every year. I am not complaining about the rule, but I am saying that it's not really a one-off thing... at least for everyone. Of course that situation arises even much more when taking unfilled holes in the rough and around the greens into account [which I know is ]

Given that I can play a round with nobody in front of me to slow me down in just about 2 hours walking (on a flat-ish course), I consider that having a hole open in front to be slow play, unless you are on pace for say 3.5 hours for a 4-some. There is no reason (other than slow play) that a round should take 4 hours and 15 minutes. In many cases, it ends up being much more, because if you are on pace for 4h 15mns, all it takes is one bad hole by a couple of the players, looking for balls and whatnot, and voila, now you are over, by 5-10 minutes, easily, because there is no effort or ability to speed up to compensate. Btw, IMHO, the PGA Tour gives a horrendous example for people to follow, with 2-somes playing in about 5 hours!

I don't think that "wasting 21%" is the correct interpretation of that number. It just means that 79% of the doses shipped to the state have made their way into people's arms already. The rest are still being assigned to the counties, various health systems, etc... and are in reserve for the appointments being made right now. When people don't show up (as when they double book, etc...), the few doses that risk being wasted because they have already thawed out and need to be used in the next few hours are given to people on standby lists, or sometimes counties call up county employees nearby. Anybody getting a dose, even out of the normal order of priority is better than throwing doses away. In California that number started around 33% (meaning 67% was not "used" yet), but it wasn't wasted doses, it was just inefficient allocations and vaccination centers, lack of staff, bad appointments systems, etc... The number has climbed to around 82% even though the total number of doses shipped (to the state) has gone from about 2 million to about 10 million doses between those 2 measurements. It does not mean that just under 2 million doses are being wasted right now. It just means the distribution of doses and actual vaccinations is doing a bit better than a couple months ago! But it could be better still...