Clambake

I clearly need to stay away from this thread....this is one where a person should look but not touch!

Bingo, you got me. Ironic that during a grammar thread my too-fast typing delivered a perfect typo. It was supposed to be "who could"!

Keira Knightley

There are truly some gems here. If we simply tracked the rate that these are piling up, who could probably forecast within a month or two the exact end of the English language as we know it. I must admit I keep checking back on this thread to see if any of my missives have made the list. Whew, looks like I've made it through another day!

Time and time again the laws of physics are always proven to prevail over the laws of governments, mindsets of people, mythology, and folklore. With a winning record of something like 100 Billion to Zero, you'd think at some point people would stop thinking physics is the underdog in this contest, wouldn't you?

I'd like to echo Tristan's perspectives and experiences. I wrote up my experience in the "Seemore vs. Edel" thread so I won't go into the details here, but my Edel fitting was both eye-opening and educational. I've had my new Edel for a few weeks and have only been able to get 3 rounds in with it, and while it is too early to be able to show statistically meaningful results I can absolutely so that it has made a significant difference in my putting. Two of those rounds were on courses with notoriously difficult greens; on one of them I've only broken 80 once before there, but I shot a 79 on a somewhat poor ball striking day - I made up for it on the greens. My distance control is much better, and I've only had a couple 3 putts in those rounds when I used to have a couple per round. And of those two 3 putts one was just a total brain fade on my part and the other was one of those times where a 2 putt was simply impossible - putting from 45 feet downhill to a pin location that was impossible to stop coming from above, leaving a 12 footer return (that I lipped out). Another area I've seen a big improvement is sinking those pesky 5-10 footers; here's where the improved aiming probably comes into play. I used to miss way too many of those straight-nothing-to-it putts from this make-able distance, and I find myself nailing a lot more them, saving par and the occasional birdie. Again, it is too early to be able to show that the Edel has reduced my putts per round by a specific number, but qualitatively I can absolutely see an improvement. As Tristan indicated, I was impressed with both the fitters at SDGI and in my fitting I had both Jack and Sherri working with me. And although I would certainly give them a high recommendation, I have no doubt that other Edel fitters will be equally as competent and easy to deal with.

Wow, I think NASA landed Curiosity on Mars with a less complicated algorithm. Aw, shucks, thanks! If I had known that I was actually in the running for such an award, I would have gladly stepped aside. I find that these awards really do change a person, and usually not for the better. Pretty soon I'll be insisting that the studio sends a driver for me, demanding the finest table at any restaurant in town, having an entourage....you know, the usual things that accompany award winning success. One day I'll have an "altercation" with one of the paparazzi that will find me standing on the hood of a police car in my underwear screaming "Get away from me, mother f______'s!!! I'm a f_____ing Member of the Month on The Sand Trap!!!" After a well-publicized court case, I'll then being taken away to rehab. Alas, Jetfan, my friend, I suspect you would handle this fame far better than I shall. You would likely find yourself in the running for the next Pope (hey, the last guy resigned, right? There's a chance for you), while I on the other hand will slide rapidly down the Lindsey Lohan Walk of Fame and soon find myself sleeping on the sidewalk in a pool of my own urine. Curses to all of you who voted reputation points! You're the root of my downfall!!!

You're posting this in Site Tech Support????? What, are you expecting an IT solution to your ailment????

The reason you're not scoring in the 70s now is because you're writing down numbers that add up to over 80. Sorry, but such an incredibly vague question gets an equally useless answer. Seriously, if you were shooting in the 70s you must have some notion of what's going on - you can't be that unknowledgeable. Perhaps if you shared details you'd find some helpful advice.

Don't know where you got that ^^^ number, but if you simply go to the PGA Tour web page and select Stricker, you can bring up his 2013 stats. Here is the page on Stricker showing 267.9 yard driving average. (Sorry it isn't super legible....the copy/paste seemed grumpy)

I can't speak to a fusion, but I had to go through a laminectomy at T12 a few years ago to biopsy a growth in my spinal cord, and then a second surgery to remove it a year later (it turned out to be a parasite - eewww!). It wasn't fun. My first surgery was in early September, and it took about a month before I could start putting and light chipping. It was mid-December before I felt comfortable enough to start full swings with low effort, and mid January before I could confidently swing at more-or-less full speed, and I played my first round in late January. It was probably another 3 months before I was pretty close to full range of motion again and had the back muscles feeling relatively normal. The second surgery was a year later, and the recovery was a bit quicker since there wasn't any bone work, but not by a lot. Even if the surgeon is able to avoid cutting muscle in the back, the process of pulling it aside to gain access to the spine detaches it and gets it out of shape, and that re-attachment just takes time. It is very tempting to start pushing it as soon as you're not feeling that much pain any more, but the risk of setting back the recovery can be pretty high and patience is certainly called for. If your doctor feels there are alternatives to surgery, I would exhaust every one of them first. We have close friends in the medical profession and my wife deal's with injured workers all the time and they see the overall success rate of back surgery; although it is much better than it was even just 10 years ago, there is still a lot of risk and the recovery is slow and often painful. Good luck!!!!!

On behalf of the many of us here who are from SoCal, I'd like to disavow any similarity or commonality with SoCal Blade. He's giving the 15 million of us who live here a bad name.

Doesn't matter to us if you want your messages to be illegible and difficult to read....just makes it easier for us to ignore

I think she misspells here last name. It's missing an "A".

Just wash it normally and wipe it with a soft cloth and keep a headcover on it to keep it from getting dinged. The gun oil was for the carbon steel Scotty's that used an oil finish and needed periodic treatment to keep it from rusting. No worries like that with SS.

It seems pretty much any thread on putters ends up having at least one post from LBlack slamming Scotty for copying the Anser. Of course he conveniently ignores that every other putter manufacturer out there also has designs in their portfolio that look very similar to the Anser as well.

Chas, you're right. The tapestry reveals a lot about the long putter saga. Here Harold, Earl of Wessex, and his foursome have just checked in with the starter. Harold is picking which cart to use, but one can see two of the members of his foursome on the right have what are clearly long putters: And here is Harold and his group celebrating at the 19th hole after Harold made a 50 footer for birdie on 18 to win his Nassau: In this next image, one can clearly see the Odyssey head shape on the long putter above Harold's head (the guy on the far right). This scene depicts Harold being slain by a member of the R&A; (the guy on horseback) for using a long putter. Rules making was a bit harsh back then. BTW, the R&A; were simply called the "R" back then since they weren't yet ancient. So, Chas is correct - there is positive proof that the long putter has been used since before the Norman conquest. Even then, the R&A;, er I mean the R, were unable to stem the tide of long putters on the golf landscape. Here we are again, 970 years later, and they're still trying.

Samantha barks. Samantha also bites.

I've got a rangefinder, used to have a handheld GPS, and have tried the apps on the phone, but I like my Garmin S1 better than all of them. Although the price of the phone apps is very attractive (often free), I didn't like what it did to the phone battery and also found it difficult to view in bright sunlight. The phone, laser, and handheld GPS all required digging out a device to look at yardage. Yes, I know that having to pull a phone out of your pocket or pull a device out of the bag isn't exactly challenging and physically difficult, but there is something about the freedom of just a quick glance at the wrist to have all you need to know. It's also great for those times when it is cart path only and is one less thing to carry out to the ball. I know it sounds funny, but the watch is so easy and unobtrusive it almost feels like having a caddy whispering in my ear what my yardage is. If it would only carry my bag for me also. And Chas, you point it, such goodies are perfect little birthday presents. If your wife is anything like mine, she automatically thinks golf when it comes time to buying me a gift, but she has no idea what to get. Something like a Garmin S1 is sooooo much nicer and practical than getting one of those golf gifts that sounds good to the spouse but is useless to the golfer, like a gold plated putter.

I get where Bluecollar is coming from - there is a lack of objective data from a scientific approach to golf club testing. But I also suspect that if there were truly such a thing that data would likely be misused and misunderstood by those trying to buy clubs and those trying to sell them. Initially, it would seem there would be some value to taking a robot and testing different drivers hitting the ball in different spots, for example balls hit did center, balls hit 1/4 inch toward the toe and heel, etc. Theoretically, this would give a better objective understanding of how well each driver hits the ball under identical conditions. Perhaps one would see that a R11 hits it 4% farther than a Callaway XHot on dead center hits, but the distance falls off faster on mishits with the R11 than the Callaway (my example here is purely made up and not meant to be indicative of these clubs' actual performance). Some buyers might find this useful information - someone who has trouble hitting the sweet spot may then find the Callaway better than the R11 (in this fictional example). But the problem is that no golfers hit like that robot. One would almost have to take detailed measurements of their club dynamics and then program the robot to mimic it perfectly to get useful advice. And most golfers themselves have sufficient variability in their swing that it would negate much of those results. The danger in having such objective data is that the club sellers would of course jump on any data that makes their club look a little better: "Proven in Robotic Testing: The New TaylorPing Callamade is 6 yards longer when struck 11 millimeters from the Sweet Spot!" Buyers would be swayed by this whether or not it mattered to their individual swing or not. We already certainly see this in advertising such as the Rocketballz claims of 17 yards longer, and this advertising is powerfully persuasive. So much of hitting a club is subjective to the user and those things that make it subjective vary completely from user to user. What we perceive when we look at the head, how the balance feels in our hands, how the shaft feels as it is loading up, the sound made at impact, the feel of any vibration through the grip.....these are all things that make each of us perceive clubs differently, and these cannot be measured objectively. But most players don't even really know what makes these factors different or how we perceive them. One example is with putter shapes and how Edel has built a business around how the eye perceives the different head shape - a head may look good to you, but why? Another example is where Mizuno research showed that impact "feel" with irons is almost all about sound, and not what the hands perceive. Players will say that the Mizuno forged clubs feel like butter hitting the ball and they love that, but in Mizuno research they could make people think the feel was completely different simply by having headphones on and changing the sound pattern. To me, the only really useful club reviews are those that focus on one or a few clubs specifically and offer a detailed explanation of how the club performs for that particular reviewer and why. The reviews in something like Golf Digest to me are totally useless. For example, they'll say "One of the longer drivers tested" and "Some testers found this longer than their current club". So what? Unless I know what their current club is, that is a useless piece of information. For all I know they could be hitting an old Macgregor persimmon, and having the new driver be longer is no surprise. And unless I know what their swing tendencies are there is no way to relate that to what I'm looking for in a club. Detailed reviews such as you'll find on forums like this tend to offer a lot more information, and that makes it easier to assess if what the reviewer is discussing is applicable to yourself. And the various comments from other forum members may help ferret out the needed information. But even with that information at your disposal, it is still not sufficient to make a buying decision. Reviews may help you narrow down the field, but then you need to go get the only objective information that is really going to matter - how you personally hit it as measured with a launch monitor. So, I understand where the OP is coming from in his opinion that club review data is often too subjective, but I feel that trying to get an objective 3rd party perspective is not very helpful. Instead, seek out detailed subjective explanations, examine your own capabilities and compare them to those subjective viewpoints to narrow down your choices, and then use launch monitor data to objectively finalize your decision.

If they find someone and that works out, please PM me with their contact information so I can send a picture of my wife. I love her dearly, but I think I could deal with this as long as it gets me on Augusta. She'd understand.

I'm still wondering about the thread title where it says "USPG Approved". USPG? Why would a 300 year old Anglican missionary organization (the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel) be approving golf balls??? Is it because you wouldn't have a prayer finding one of these in the rough?

One of my prized golf books is "The Crosby: Greatest Show in Golf" by Dwayne Netland published in 1975. We're now a few weeks past this year's ATT National Pro-Am, but I thought you might enjoy a few anecdotes from the book: The very first Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, known as the Clambake, was played in 1937 at the Rancho Santa Fe CC near San Diego. Sam Snead won it in wet and muddy conditions following a hard rainstorm, and when presented with the first place check of $500 replied “If you don’t mind, Mr. Crosby, I’d rather have cash.” In 1957 at Cypress Point, Henry Ransom attempted to recover from a bad tee shot down by the water at the 16 th . He hit three shots that nailed the cliff in front of him, and the third one ricocheted back and hit him in the stomach. Henry ordered his caddie to pick up the ball and stalked off angrily with the comment “When they start hitting back at me, it’s time to quit”. 1964 found Arnold Palmer trying to play his 2 nd shot on Pebble’s Par 3 17 th from the rocks by the 18 th tee. Jimmy Demaret was the roving TV commentator, and informed that Palmer could lift and drop keeping the line behind the position of the ball, Demaret remarked “In that case, his nearest drop would be Honolulu.” One year, trumpeter Harry James and his pro partner finished the 18 th on day 1 at 18 over par, but the scoreboard boy accidentally transposed the digits an put an 81 on the board. “Never mind”, snickered comedian Phil Harris. “by the time they finish they won’t have to change that board.” Many of the early celebrities in the Crosby were known to consume more than a bit of liquor. One of the hardest drinkers was Phil Harris, and one year Harris and Crosby were traveling together through Scotland by car, and passed the lights of a distillery. “Look over there, Phil. They’re making it faster than you can drink it.” Harris replied “Yeah, but at least I got the bastards working nights.” Phil Harris was kind of the early version of Bill Murray, always quick with wit yet serious about his game. One year when Crosby was hospitalized, Harris filled in for Bing as a TV commentator. Chris Schenkel observed that Johnny Miller had just hit a bunker shot with a smooth touch. “Yeah,” agreed Harris into the microphone. “As smooth as a man lifting a breast out of an evening gown.” Watching on TV from his hospital room, Crosby said that he was pretty drugged up but that comment woke him up fast. Clint Eastwood first visited the Crosby in 1952, sneaking into the awards dinner where he and a friend went around eating up all the left over desserts. Later when he was starring on Rawhide, Eastwood was asked at a dinner if he played in the Crosby, and he commented “No, I’m not. I guess they don’t like cowboys.” Shortly after he received a personal invite from Bing in the mail, with a little note “By the way, we do like cowboys.” Dean Martin was another regular, and with a 9 handicap he was a respectable player. One year, he described his round at Pebble: “I didn’t get a par until the fifth hole. Then I brought out the vodka. I played great the rest of the way. Those Russians have all the answers.” Bob Hope was paired with Jimmy Demaret in 1953, and asked his partner “Can I get home from here?” on the 13 th fairway at Pebble. “I dunno”, replied Demaret. “Where do you live?” Strolling by a roving radio reporter at Monterey Peninsula CC, Hope was asked for a quick rundown of his day. Hope’s reply: “On behalf of Crosby – and who wouldn’t want to be half of Crosby with the loot that guy has – I’d like to say this is the place for the elite, where ocean and golf ball meet.” Although we say this year’s ATT Pro-Am played in spectacularly gorgeous weather, the Crosby was known for its tough weather conditions. LA Times columnist Jim Murray described it this way: If Bob Hope and Bing Crosby ever want to get together and do a picture on the Crosby golf tournament, I’ve got the title for them – ‘The Road to Pneumonia’. They ought to call it ‘The Penicillin Open’. The Smith Bros. ought to sponsor it. [Ed - a cough drop maker] Seven thousand guys fight to get an invitation to an oxygen tent and fever chart. They can get the same sensation standing in a bucket of ice, turning on a 10,000 horsepower fan in their faces, and hiring someone to spray them with a fire hose and shoot sand in their eyes.” In another year, Jim Murray said this about the Crosby tournament: “Of all the tournaments, my favorite of all is the Crosby. The trouble with the pros is that they don’t know how tough this game is. They usually tee up in nice sunny weather with a slight breeze at their backs, the fairways hard, the greens medium fast, and the crowd quiet and respectful. The Crosby is something else. That’s the tournament where they find out what a chamber of horrors 18 holes of golf can be. I have to think its good for them. Into each life, a little Crosby must fall.” There, I hope you enjoyed a little Crosby falling into your life too!

Speaking of attractive athletes, I rather like Cal pole-vaulter Allison Stokke: And although figure skating isn't my cup of tea, I don't mind watching Tanith Belbin either:

Yeah, I know that I've got to log some hours to build up the saddle tolerance again (i.e. butt calluses). But my stock saddle IS pretty bad and just doesn't fit my sit bones very well. I did pick up a Cobb today to try, and even just sitting on it in the garage I can tell it is a much better alignment with my pressure points. And thanks for the encouragement about getting back into shape. I'm not obese or anything, and at 6' 2" and 180lbs most people think I'm fairly slim, but I have a thin frame and know that I'd be better at around 170lbs with the weight a bit better distributed, i.e. less gut and more muscle. It's funny that while riding around my mind is thinking of how riding will help golf. When I used to ride I'd grit it out on a climb thinking it was making my legs stronger for climbing and time trials, but now I'm as my legs are burning I'm thinking that I'll be gaining some yards off the tee and walking up that steep hill on the 13th at Torrey Pines won't be as difficult! Different motivation and priorities now..... That's pretty impressive - that's a pretty competitive category in a tough format to race in. I used to race in high school and a bit in college, and made it to Cat 2. But that isn't as impressive as it sounds. I lived in northern Idaho when I first got my racing license and normally the entry level is Cat 4, but due to a shortage in Cat 3 riders in that region the authorities were randomly handing out Cat 3 to some new people like me. They also had a rule then (don't know if they still do) that if you place in top 3 of 3 races or top 6 of 6 races you automatically got bumped up a category. So in my illustrious racing career I was in a number of races where they only had 3 or 4 riders in that level, so by placing near last in a half dozen races I was automatically pushed up to Cat 2. I went from being fairly uncompetitive to totally embarrassed! I imagine if I stuck it out a little longer I would have been Cat 1 just by finishing another half dozen races, even if I was two hours behind the leader on a 60 mile race.