mirv

i have a similar issue with the first "eagle" i ever made. it was a short course and had a par 4 that was a mere 230 yards. i hit the green with a 3-wood and sank the putt, but i just couldn't ever quite bring myself to say it was an eagle. i felt like it was - and i still consider it to be - a great birdie on a long par 3.

there's a local 1-man scramble tournament coming up in a month or so and i've played a few practice rounds in that format. against par 70 i've shot scores of 63 (my irons were spot-on this day), 67, 68, 69 and 70, so on average i'm about 3-under par in that format. i could probably shoot scratch if you gave me one mulligan anywhere from tee to green, and then one mulligan putt (as opposed to a mulligan on every shot on the hole).

this sounds fun. i'm in!

i played a casual round with a friend. the course was pretty packed this morning, so since we weren't going to be tearing arse around the course, we decided to each play 1-man scramble format. my friend managed to come in with even par 70 and i shot 63 (i had 10 birdies, but 3 bogies offset it a bit).

there are two basic ideas that my scramble groups tend to stick to: the best putter in the group goes last. this way, if the other players in the group miss, he's had x number of looks at the line and should have a pretty good idea of the break and speed. the other is that half of the group will play safe off the tee, the other half will bomb away. this gives you pretty good odds of having something halfway decent out there. if your bomber goes in the trees, then you've still got mister "i'll just hit an iron off the tee" sitting in the fairway. other than that, yeah... not much to it.

i keep it pretty stripped down. clubs, tees, balls, a couple of coins in my pocket for ball marks, and a towel if it's rained recently. i have a skycaddie, but a lot of the time i don't even use it. i fancy myself pretty good at picking out the proper club just by looking at the lay of the land and getting a general bearing off yardage markers.

i went with ball marks/divots. at least a couple of times per round, i find my ball in a divot and/or have to repair half a dozen ball marks along my line on the greens. slow play a close second for me, and music on the course comes in a solid third.

i don't particularly expect it to happen, but i'd love to see els win it. he's right there in contention and has shot a better score with each round, but will probably fall apart tomorrow.

i definitely expected luke to make it to the weekend. i'd been saying all week "i'll be shocked if bubba makes the cut." he's just too wild off the tee for that course. i didn't really expect rory to make it to the weekend, either, after missing so many cuts recently.

he's not wearing his underwear. there wasn't a k-mart nearby.

out of curiosity, does anyone know the slope/rating of the course as the pros have to play it? golflink is telling me the regular stats are 140 slope and 74.4 rating for the lake course (which sound intimidating enough already), but i'm guessing it's even higher for a major setup?

for years i was anti-practice. my "practice" came from playing an average of 72 holes a week. over the past year, i've become far less anti-practice, but i still don't find myself on the range very often. however, i went to the st jude classic last week and was amazed by the pros abilities from around the green. i turned to my dad and said "i think i need to start spending a lot of time around a practice green somewhere."

favorite club in the bag is probably my nike vr-pro 8.5 driver. most consistent club, ehh... 8/9/PW are all pretty equally consistent.

i voted yes. you don't write down "70" (or whatever number) on your scorecard at the end of the day by walking. you do it by swinging the club and getting the ball in the hole, and martin has demonstrated he's capable of doing that at the top level. he's a special case and deserves an exception.

i saw a video once where an instructor was talking about lee trevino, and how trevino always used a very open stance. he said this was actually a good drill to stop hitting slices, because when you're set up open, you can't come across the top as easily. you have to keep the club coming more down the line, almost blocking it, towards the target. so the instruction went, this encouraged you to stop swinging over the top.

played a course about 90 mins north of here called Tannenbaum that's 6600 yards, 72.7 rating and 142 slope. most of the fairways are pretty narrow and lined with trees on both sides, and the greens have a lot of slope and undulations to them, so it's a pretty good challenge and a nice layout. i really wish it were closer to where i live, i'd be a member. anyway, played 36 holes there today. started off a bit shaky and came in with 86 the first time, got it down to 83 the second round.

golfballnut.com is where i do all of my recycled golf ball shopping. i ordered a box of 48 titleist pro v1x's several months ago and figured i'd get the usual assortment of slightly scuffed, slightly off color golf balls since i had purchased the grade one notch below "mint." well, i couldn't tell that they weren't mint when i opened them. no scuffs, no discoloration... i would have sworn someone had just emptied out a bunch of sleeves of new balls into the box. i've ordered from them 3 times in the past year now and been quite satisfied every time.

i typically hit a mid-trajectory straight drive. even when i hit a drive that goes way off line, it's very rarely a slice or a hook, but more often a dead-straight pull/push.

i went with "no." i don't doubt he has more tour victories (he will very likely pass snead's 82 victories mark), and those victories might include 1-2 more majors, but i feel like jack's record will stand.

there's a course about 90 mins north of where i live called Tannenbaum, and it has a par 3 almost identical to this one. i can't tell if there's any trouble short of the green in your pic, but at tannenbaum if you're short, there's a large creek cutting across in front of the green, and then woods and rocks if you go long. i've played Tannenbaum four or five times and always look forward to that particular hole, but i only recall making a par on it once. it's tough to judge something that drops that drastically.

i wholly agree. there's a par 3 at a local course here that really rubs me the wrong way. from the tips, it's a shade over 200 yards long and is angled slightly sideways - the tee box and fairway go straight ahead, but firing it straight will actually just miss the left side of the green. to fire at the center of the green, you have to carry the ball over the edge of a pond that lines the right side of the hole. beyond the water is a large and fairly deep (3-4 foot) bunker placed directly in front of the center of the green. the green itself is shallow, maybe 8-10 yards from front to back (but about 40 yards from left to right), and the greens on this course are also very firm and generally about a 10 on the stimp, so landing and holding your tee shot from the 200 yard range is not a very easy task. behind the green are some small-medium mounds (nothing that'll stop your ball), then it slopes away rather sharply to trees. so you certainly can't leave it short, you're just about as doomed if you go long, and actually sticking it near the flag is a very difficult shot for most people (myself included). i finally just decided to hit my tee shot at the left side of the green and try my best to either 2 putt or get up and down, whichever it may be. more often than not, though, i wind up carding a bogey. bottom line, it's just not any fun. it's not even a fair challenge, it's just flatly ridiculous. and other than that particular hole, it's a pretty challenging yet fair golf course. the other par 3s are 135 yards, 160 yards, and 150 yards, so that's all well and good, but that one hole... no thanks.

as fate would have it, thursday was the only day i could make it there anyway, so that works out.

this'll be my first time to attend a PGA tour event. i'm pretty excited to see mcilroy and DJ.

Dustin Johnson -4 Tiger Woods -3 Bubba Watson -2

i live in arkansas and i've not heard of such a hole... there's a 630 yard hole at a course in little rock, but it's still a par 5. i was looking at the yardages for the upcoming US open earlier - one of the holes was a 520 yard par four. there's also a 670 yard par 5 thrown in, in case that 520 par 4 hole wasn't enough on its own.