Clambake

I've traveled the world extensively on business and have seen all parts of the tipping culture, ranging from places where to tip is unthinkable to areas where it is off the charts. I think our tipping culture here is a reasonable balance of pricing and the ability for someone to directly influence some of their pay for performance. Japan offers the traveler a stress-free approach where you never have to concern yourself with tipping for anything and to offer one can be seen as an insult, but it doesn't really let you recognize those that have truly gone above and beyond other than to offer a sincere "domo arigato gozaimashita". I've been in other places like Malaysia where the tip was part of the negotiation process before you even received the service. In business, it would always be nice if we could pay our employees a totally variable compensation based on the job they do, but between collective bargaining agreements and the difficulty in objectively valuing each employee's contribution differently, this is a nearly impossible compensation methodology to achieve. Many places end up with bonus schemes that have a nearly-guaranteed bonus (e.g. 10%) and if you do really great you get higher (like 20%) and if you do really bad you get lower (like 5%) based on management's determination. In the service industries, tipping provides a means to skip management as the middle man in this scheme and put it directly in the customer's hands. There's a nice efficiency to this.

Around $400 for a full custom putter sized just to you. Not that much more than an off-the-rack Scotty. The variable weight and variable lofts are extra.

Flipping through one of my boat magazines, I see that "Mine Games" (the yacht Elin's new boyfriend owns) is for sale because Cline has a bigger boat on order. I'm guessing that Elin told him "It isn't big enough" and he mistakenly assumed she meant the yacht.

You're dealing with a classic business conundrum - getting better product so more people may join, and having more members to entice a better product. As a consumer, I wish to pay for a service I know I can get, not one that I may get in the future. But hey, I really wish you luck in getting there. I'm running a startup company myself and dealing with a similar struggle to raise capital and get our product into the market, so I understand what you're trying to do. The SCGA does an awesome job of lining up member outings at a lot of very desirable courses, including a number of the private clubs as you mention. In addition to those you indicate, they've got Sherwood, Bighorn, and some other hard-to-get-on clubs set up in the coming months (BTW, Fairbanks Ranch was last week). I'm also a member of the NCGA, and they don't get nearly as many choice offerings as the SCGA, although I do have to give them kudos for arranging Olympic Club last fall.

LOL! I was okay waiting for mine, and had been prepared that it was going to take awhile since I order it just before the PGA show and Edel was busy with the show. But the instant I got the tracking email from FedEx saying it was on the way, I became absolutely insufferable in my impatience. I knew the plane wasn't going to fly any faster or the trucks driver any quicker, but somehow I thought if I kept checking status on the FedEx site it might hurry it along. For you it sounds like the best news - you'll have it in time for the SoCal outing!

When it comes to a new putter, we're all worse than a 6 year old on Christmas morning, aren't we?

There is probably no more expressive or flexible word in the English language than "f____". It can be a noun, and adjective, and a verb. Sometimes all in the same sentence, as in "F___ the f___ing f____ers". Or, as comedian Lewis Black says, in New York it isn't even a word....it's a comma.

Supply and demand. And after Tiger's win at Bay Hill, I expect demand is up even more than normal. Sheesh, think what they tickets will go for if the Masters happens to the venue for Tiger's 18th or 19th major!

On the plus side, whenever you want to stop for a minute there is a ready-made bike rack right by the side of the road!

StubHub has a zillion of them: http://www.stubhub.com/the-masters-tickets/2013-masters-4-9-2013-4076942/

I've looked into it before as I've been kind of obsessed with getting onto a lot of private clubs around here, but they have very little accessible in Southern California. The couple clubs they claim to have in the San Diego area are really low end clubs that just aren't very hard to get on to if you want (one even sells tee times to the public). Perhaps they're providing a better service somewhere, but not in SoCal.

Go to the club's website and look under "Guests". Most clubs have a good list of guidelines on what to expect, dress code, tipping policies, etc. And a nice gift is always in good taste and shows that you value the member's gesture. If you don't know the person real well and it is a small club, you can call the club and there is probably someone there who knows what the member's favorite beverage is, so you can get them a bottle of something you know they will like. ProV1s are always appreciated, but a nice touch is to have them personalized or marked "Thanks!" or some other way to make them a little more special. And make sure you have it nicely wrapped - don't just hand the guy a box of balls and say thanks. Make sure you follow up with a nice thank you note afterwards (a handwritten note, not an email!). This is also a good time to provide the gift - spending time with them may help you learn more about what they like to drink or what ball they like, and that makes it easier to follow up with something they'll appreciate. But regardless, what they will really be appreciating is that you took the time to show your appreciation - what you give isn't as important as showing you put some thought behind it.

The 18th is a pretty tough hole. If you hit driver the lake is easily in play on the right, and several large bunkers impinge on the left, making the landing area pretty narrow. A couple of the bunkers also have a pretty tall lip, so sometimes it is hard to hit it high enough but still have enough club to get to the green. The green is somewhat narrow but long front-to-back, and has no bailout area on the right (all water), and anything left will roll down a hill into rough or into brush (if there aren't spectators standing there). Making it a little more challenging is that it is almost always into moderate breeze coming in from the ocean; the 18th and clubhouse are located down alongside the lagoon in a valley directly open to the ocean, which funnels the onshore breeze right into your face off the tee. If you challenge the tee shot and the wind and try to hit it long up the gap, you're rewarded with a fairly short iron into the green, but the wind will grab any errant shot and push it towards the water or bunkers Any safer tee shot leaves you with a mid iron in, which for the ladies was probably a 6 or a 5, again dealing with the wind along with a narrow-ish green. The 18th is clearly the toughest hole on the course, and I've seen many people (including me) come to the tee with a pretty good round going and then finish with a double bogey or worse.

I watched it too, both because some of the players are easy on the eyes and I'm also familiar with the course so I was interested to see how it presented on TV. It is an interesting course, and having played it a number of times it is one of my favorites in this area. What isn't seen on TV is how hilly the course is - there are very few flat holes, and one is either going up hills or down them. I was kind of surprised when Aviara was selected, though, as I think it is a very unfriendly course for spectators. There aren't many good natural viewing areas, the holes are well separated from each other and have significant distances from green to the next tee box. I suspect 90% of the fans had to hang out around 18 and the rest were the intrepid souls who trekked up into the hills. That hole plays downhill all the way, with a significant drop on about the last 1/3, and the ladies tees were set up so far forward that it looked pretty easy for them to carry to the point the ball would easily run. The wind also comes over the ridge just west of that hole and swirls down the canyon, making it also a downwind tee shot. It probably only took about 230-235 carry to get it onto the steeper downhill slope and run it up to the green. Good shots to be so on line, but not quite as impressive distance-wise as it seemed. What makes it harder than it looks on TV is all the uphill, downhill, and side hill lies. But I was really surprised at all the 3 putts coming in, especially from the players in contention. The greens there aren't super easy from a normal public course perspective, but it is a resort course with manageable contouring, and even when set up to run fast they aren't that tough.

Tatoosh is pretty cool, and she is for sale if you're interested at a price of about 120 million Euros. She was in San Diego a few years ago and we took our boat up alongside for a good view. On the port side she carries a 44 foot sailboat as one of her deck toys (you can see the black mast sticking up in your picture. There is a cool website called marinetraffic.com/AIS where you can find out where ships and large yachts are at any given time. For the fun of it, I just looked up Tiger's "Privacy" and she is just entering the channel in West Palm Beach after departing Miami Beach earlier. But the funny thing is only a 1/4 mile in front of Privacy is "Mine Games" which looks like it just came in from the Bahamas! I wonder if Elin is on the top deck giving the finger to Tiger and Lindsey as it passed in front!

It doesn't look like Elin is suffering too much on her rebound either and she's getting in another dig on Tiger. Apparently her new boyfriend, coal billionaire Chris Cline, has a yacht that is larger than Tigers, and to rub it in it is berthed right in front of Tiger's "Privacy". Tiger's is the one on the right, and Cline's "Mine Games" is on the left. I love the one upmanship with billionaires and their toys.

It smacks of a proposal written by someone who has never actually tried carrying a football and running with it. I'm not really sure how one can run effectively without leading with the head - it's just the way physics works (shades of the weight forward thread elsewhere on the forum). The way the NFL is heading, there is going to be more contact in the Lingerie Football League. Hmmm, come to think of it I think I'd rather watch that league anyway!

It sounds like your alignment sticks are likely not really in alignment if they're not spined and pured. If they are not certified as straight in a way that can be repeated every time you lay them on the ground, you may find that a slight curvilinear problem which means you're not accurate, and therefore you're really practicing bad habits. I got mine in Home Depot but the guy in the hardware department certified them as straight for only a slight extra charge. From my recent Edel putter fitting (which was outstanding, by the way), I found that my eye doesn't line up the straight aiming line on the back of a putter accurately and that I was best off with a single aiming dot on the top of the putter and no lines. Extrapolating this to my alignment sticks, I assume that the same thing is happening here and that I'm not perceiving the aiming point correctly. Therefore, I think I'll be ditching my alignment sticks and will just place a couple dots on the ground. This clearly has been the root of any mishit shots in the last year, so now that I've figured this out I'll be scratch before the month is out.

Probably must a matter of time where he starts doing reviews for something he sees in a magazine ad.

And promptly writes separate reviews for the cover, for the sticks, for the cover on one stick, for the cover on two sticks......

I looked into playing in HK when visiting there a few years ago, and as I recall there was one public golf course there. Seven million people and one public course. There were about 5-6 private clubs, and that was it. I think if you're into golf and live in HK you go to Mission Hills in Shenzhen for the weekend. And have a high limit on your credit card.

I don't think the course design had much to do with the slowness. The LA muni courses were older but tended to have a lot of parallel holes and fairly short rough, so errant tee shots were findable without much effort and often playable. And the greens didn't tend to be very fast, so that didn't seem to hurt it much. I didn't see a particular demographic that would inherently contribute to slowness, although I did see one funny and very aggravating experience (more on that below). But it seemed like there was a nice microcosm of society on the LA muni courses just like any other place. You'd have all parts of the spectrum from doctors and lawyers to unemployed roofers and gardeners. Hey, I even saw a recently acquitted former NFL player turned murderer at Griffith Park once. But what one did see is the fundamental result of relatively few muni/public courses in a metropolis of over 8 million people: tee times way too close together and fivesomes. I recall a few courses had times spaced 6 minutes apart. It was pretty much a given that if you had a tee time later than about 8:30am you would already be 1/2 hour behind before you even started. And although fivesomes weren't every group, you'd always see fair a number of them. I also found that there wasn't that much difference between weekdays and weekends. I attributed that to a combination of the entertainment industry and the very large service industry. It seemed every time I'd pop out on a weekend I'd be teamed with people who either worked nights in restaurants or clubs or people from the TV and movie business, usually trades people and the occasional actor. Seriously, if I still lived on the west side in LA, I would not have golf as a hobby. It was simply way too time consuming and frustrating. The one funny/aggravating experience was at Rancho Park once before the Japanese bubble economy burst. Many Japanese business men would fly to LA for a few days of golf, as it was cheaper for them than playing locally at home. One day we got caught behind a group that had apparently come into town, went straight to the Callaway store on Century Blvd, and then to Rancho. They had all brand new gear consisting of Callaway's finest at that time. It was also apparent that this group had a mix of the senior manager and a couple underlings, so for those familiar with hierarchical Japanese business, you can start to picture the dynamic we experienced. They'd get on the green and all go mark their ball, and then all come off to the side of the green and wait while one person walk all around the green trying to read his putt, go line it up and eventually hit it. Then he'd mark his ball and go to the side of the green, and the next person would do the same. The process repeated until eventually all were in the hole, after which there would be much bowing, mostly in deference to the senior leader. It was really pretty funny to watch for a couple holes and then became extremely frustrating, so we just jumped around them; I don't even think they noticed.

No, I'm not using Aimpoint....yet. I will, because I absolutely believe in the approach and the ability to reduce much of the guess work through physics and proven science. However, I've been rationing my golf expenses a bit since I joined a startup company a couple months ago and am working without salary right now. My wife doesn't mind my playing (and I'm doing that a lot), but I'm trying to not run too afoul of her generosity. I'd join the SoCal group outing but I'll probably be in Asia at that time. Glad you agree that physics works. But it seems you're trying to make this a completely digital argument where if Aimpoint cannot deliver a perfect solution to you all wrapped up with a pretty little bow then it must be worthless. Yes, you can't tell within 0.1 degrees what the exact slope is. Yes, the stimp can vary slightly between holes. Yes, the wind might be blowing a bit, as well as other variables. But what it will do is get you very close to the ball park with much more certainty, reducing the effect of a lot of those variables. It is still a game of skill, but Aimpoint will augment one's skill with a practical way to take advantage of the physics to make you more effective. Why is that so difficult to grasp, or perhaps even more important why is this so argumentative?

SoundAndFury, I know exactly what you're talking about. I lived in LA for about 20 years, mostly on the west side, which is kind of no man's land for golf. We'd play at places like Rancho Park, Balboa, Woodley, and the Griffith Park courses, and not only are the rounds slow but the traffic woes would pretty much ruin the day. I last lived in Brentwood and it would sometimes take well over an hour to get home on a Saturday from Balboa just barely over the hill. What was supposed to be a relaxing day often had me fuming by the time I got home. Probably the worst was Rancho Park. One day several coworkers and I decided to take a weekday off and play Rancho, assuming it would be better than the weekends. Boy, were we wrong! After a slow slog through the first four holes we arrived at the 5th tee to find a small crowd of people. It turned out that we were the 5th foursome waiting on the tee . Counting the groups on the green and waiting in the fairway and there 28 people playing that hole at that moment. On a Tuesday! It was #@$&ing; insane. One of our group had enough and left, and the rest of us stuck in there. The front nine alone took over 4 1/2 hours, and fortunately a lot of people must have bailed because we "blazed" through the back nine in only two hours. It was so bad that I literally gave up golf. It started as just a break for a few months that lasted years. It wasn't until I moved to San Diego and was talked into playing again by a coworker that I discovered the game could be fun again. The public golf here doesn't fly around the course in 3 hours, but it seems most rounds are 4 to 4 1/2 hours (and occasionally well under 4 hours), and then the traffic getting home is almost always quick. And there are a little over 90 courses within a 30 minute drive from my house, counting all the private, par 3, and exec courses, so we have great variety as well. By the way, I didn't find the private club option to be very workable in LA either. I had a couple friends who had belonged to Braemar, but they left because a combination of getting tired of the course (which was very target golf) and the weekend rounds were getting too long. I had an opportunity to join Riviera, but at that time they had 1200 members for 1 course and had gone to a lottery system for weekend tee times. In retrospect I should have done it anyway, but at the time I didn't really appreciate how special that place was and I didn't want to shell out $100k only to find that I couldn't play any weekend I wanted to. Bel Air CC had a great junior exec deal at $45k but some pretty big assessments coming up. Unless one wanted to drive a long way (sitting in bad traffic) the options were pretty slim. For those of you condemned to public muni golf in LA, especially the west side, you have my deepest sympathies. You do have some course options now that weren't there when I lived there, like Rustic Canyon, but you have to drive a ways to get there and that is no picnic in LA.

Tssk, tssk, tsssk. When are all of you going to realize that when you see a thread started by Logman it's a perfect time to just get away from the computer for a while and do some productive things in your life, and when you come back simply find another thread to read instead?