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I think the captain's picks were a bit of an issue for the U.S. team. I heard something on UK radio (not sure if I remember the figures totally accurately) that said the European wildcards scored 9.5 points and the US scored 2.5 (all Finau?). That is a decision that sits with the captain and his leadership team so it is something that Furyk could have done to make a difference. You could argue that Tiger played his way in but tiredness was always going to be a factor - didn't he play 19 times this season which is as close to the max he played in a season at his best? Then add the fact that he won (and presumably celebrated) and it must have taken its toll. I guess he really really really wanted to play and it is understandable that he couldn't see his own potential fatigue so when asked I suppose he said yes I am definitely up to it. That is when the captain makes the call. Phil is a harder call to understand for me - he played well in Mexico at the start of the season but some of the rest of his performances have been really poor. He also hasn't looked in great shape imho (although that is never really relevant for him).

Given that the thread is getting a bit of activity I thought I would post an update on my specific situation. So far I haven't added a 7w into my bag. I'm a bit slow to upgrade clubs at the best of times so I spent about 18 months just living with the clubs I had to see if I could get a combo that works better. I eventually picked up a 4H from Benross which was (i) cheap relative to other hybrids (b) adjustable. My thinking was that it might work better out of the rough than a wood and so far it seems pretty good. I saw a second hand 9w going cheap near me the other day though and it did make me wonder...

Generally I think it is better to save golf swing advice for those people who are willing to pay you for it. For most of us that means nobody but even in the cases where someone is paying, I suspect it isn't always received well.

I work from home most of the time so spend most of my time barefoot. Just recently I bought some Merrell low-profile running shoes to try them out. They feel really comfortable so it got me thinking about what I could wear on the golf course. For most of my year the course is wet so grip is an issue and I'm not sure if very thin soles would work. But for the summer at least I am tempted to give my 'barefoot' shoes a go. It doesn't look like True Linkswear is available in the UK though. It is definitely something that you have to transition into slowly - even though I spend a lot of time barefoot around the house when you start racking up the walking miles it can make your muscles ache. I was reading a book on barefoot running just recently and one of the points they raised was that flip flops cause you to curl your big toe in a way that doesn't fit with how it is designed to work. I'm not sure if this is a big deal as (a) I don't wear them (b) a lot of people around the world seem to wear them as a main item of footwear, but in terms of general foot health it is maybe a thing.

I have some friends who go to urbangolf in the city. It has several simulators that you can use and you can get a course of lessons there too. I've never been but have heard good things from everyone that has been there.

Well done to Paul Casey - he's put in some good performances over the last few years in the tournaments I've watched and it was good to see him finally get a win. I also enjoy the little conversations he has with his caddy during the coverage. Obviously pretty impressed with the way Tiger is coming back. He seems a bit softer edged at the moment. Caught him smiling a few times during the round and the media people seem to think he is much more engaging during interviews. Will be interesting to see if this is the 'new' older Tiger or if he hardens up a bit as he gets more into contention. I did think though that a couple of times when he was picking the ball up or changing clubs around the green he looked like his back was bothering him. Not sure if he said anything afterwards but I wonder if it is 100%. Could be just the process of getting back up to speed with playing regular tournament golf - I hope it holds up.

I can believe this - I paid for a weeks access to sky just to watch the event (PGA app didn't have it in the UK). I watched Tiger play the 18th on the final day then switched off. And this is from a fan of Rickie who really wants him to do well. The only reason I watched this event was to see Tiger.

I'm not really a fan of his but I can buy the fact that your first win is a pretty emotional deal. He has had a lot of publicity in his career already and the weight of that must be pretty tough to bear. He went from being the next big thing that everyone was talking about to the next has been pretty quickly in his first year as a pro. To come through that, working your way up from the Web.com tour and then on to win an event deserves some credit. Not only has he bagged a million bucks for winning but he gets into the Open and exemption for the PGA next year? Getting emotional about that is fine as far as I'm concerned. I'm still not buying his scientist thing though.

Is a rule a rule if you can't tell when it has been broken? I think they need to do some rewording so that it is possible to decide whether it has been definitively broken or not from video evidence. Even something as simple as if your hand touches your shirt near your chest then that is deemed to be anchoring. Still want to putt that way? Then you need to wear a tighter shirt or move your hand further away. This whole gray area of 'my hand is close but not touching honest and I just feel more comfortable in a loose fitting shirt' just seems pointless. I know there is the whole 'golf is a noble sport and players will call fouls on themselves' thing but even so imho the rule making body should be independently able to determine if any of their rules are broken.

I've been watching the PGA tour this year on the PGA tour live app and it has been great. Currently it is $40 a year and I would definitely pay a bit more to watch more events and more of the final round. I think it is definitely the way to go - sports like golf should go direct to the consumer. It seems to me that the PGA could cause sky and the European tour a problem. I don't want to pay a large amount of money monthly to Sky to subsidise their premiership deal. And why would I bother about not really being able to watch the European tour when I can get more and more of the PGA tour direct to my device? The money the PGA must have spent on getting their broadcast capability set up is a wise investment imho. They could go worldwide with full coverage and grab a big piece of the global golf viewing pie. In comparison the European tour seem stuck in the Stone Age technology wise.

Could the rule not be something like no part of the club can be deliberately kept stationary during the stroke? Then whether you anchor or not isn't specifically the issue. A 'normal' stroke will always move the club but an anchored stroke will always try to keep it still somewhere. So if you are anchoring there is a good chance that you will be filmed at some point during a round keeping a part of the club still. And you couldn't justify a long putter technique that involves keeping something still because it breaks the rules, so players shouldn't even be doing anything near it. And players with normal strokes don't even have to worry about it because their stroke will automatically be ok. You could try to do an anchored stroke where you move the club around but that would defeat the purpose of that type of stroke in the first place. It would also be easier to prove an infraction because the proof depends on visual information.

I just bought a Weber Spirit 3 burner and so far (couple of weeks in) I am very pleased with it. I'm definitely on the gas over charcoal side of the fence based on my perception of the relative convenience and the fact that I prefer the 'gas cooked taste'. My big requirement though is that I can leave it out year round and not have to worry too much about it wearing out in a year or two. It remains to be seen how that works out. My previous grill had wooden shelves and they rotted away pretty quickly. All metal construction on the Weber seems a more sensible idea.

I started thinking about this after seeing a tour player being interviewed where he said he had a great round putting. The analyst back in the studio then pulled out his SG Putting stats and said it was about average. Made me wonder how the tour player who spends all his day looking at stats and practicing would not know what good looks like. Ok, so sometimes the brain tricks us into thinking we are better than we are, but maybe the stats aren't telling the whole story. My guess is that because SG Putting only takes distance to the hole into account it is missing a big part of the equation, namely 'magnitude and direction of break'. This means that a player can think they putted great because the made a lot of big breaking putts (and they actually did) even if SG Putting puts them at average. As an example if the tour average from 8 feet is 50%, I think that this probably breaks down to something like (made up numbers for illustration) - tour average for a dead straight putt from 8' = 75%; - tour average for a stinky left to right 3' break from 8' = 25%. So the break makes a big difference to your chances of holing the putt (obviously). It then also makes a difference to putting a rating on how good your approach shot was. Hitting a wedge to 20' with a straight putt slightly up hill is much better than 20' downhill with a huge break. Imagine 2 pros (A and B) playing together on the same course. They both leave themselves exactly the same distance from the hole on every approach shot and they both make the same number of putts. Player A always ends up with the straightest possible putt. Player B always leaves a putt with as big a break as possible. At the end of the round their strokes gained for approach and putting are going to be the same, but Player B will have had a much better putting day. Player A will have had a bad putting day but a great approach day. On average relative to the field etc etc you get a mix of good leaves and bad leaves on your approaches so there is probably a tour average for the 'amount of break' the SG Putting number reflects. But if you have an off wedge day where you leave the ball close but in the wrong spot all day but putt great to save your round, it doesn't look to me like Strokes Gained will reflect that. This is obviously an extreme example but I think it shows that SG around the green isn't capturing enough information to definitively say whether a player has a good or bad day putting. So maybe the tour pro does know something that the analyst doesn't.

I have a Nikon range finder and it really helped improve my scores. I have used GPS on a phone and never really found it convenient. I can see a watch might be better than a phone but I do tend to laser features around my target area, just to get a handle on where the best miss might be. When I come to replace it I will definitely go range finder again but this time with slope as I think that feature could also help me get better. Trouble is the Nikon isn't really showing any sign of wearing out so unless I lose it I might end up using it for a while.

At about 7 seconds there is a guy screen right in white who looks to be walking out of one. I think there is some kind of bank or elevation at the right side of the green and the bunkers are on the other side of it. The fairway comes in from the right side of the camera shot so it would make sense that the bunkers are oriented towards the incoming shots from the fairway. The guy in white has come up short right from the fairway and ended up in the bunker. Camera man is long left of the green from the perspective of the fairway.

My guess is that it is here - 16th hole of the new course https://www.google.com/maps/place/40°38'53.8"N+74°41'59.3"W/@40.648274,-74.7003565,188m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d40.648274!4d-74.699808 The shooter is standing by the road to the north east on what looks like the tee for the next hole.

16th on the New course? The path they are standing on looks like it cuts across the fairway but actually the fairway is off to the right. There should be some bunkers to the right of the green - can't see them but looks like one of the guys is walking out of one at about 7 seconds in.

I am thinking about getting one or the other of these and was discussing it with a friend the other day. He came straight out and said Arccos was way better which was a surprise to me as I have been using the GameGolf app and thought it was pretty good. I think the fact that Arccos detects the shot automatically is a big plus, but equally I can see if it fails to do this consistently and makes the occasional error it would get very frustrating. I also think that tapping a club with GG as part of a pre shot routine might actually be beneficial in terms of getting you into the zone. I don't really use the app while I'm playing - I mainly analyse my game at home and then feed that back into my yardages and club selections. I can see that an AI caddy might be useful but I feel like it would need to take into account a lot of the information that you only get by standing behind the ball and playing golf. Ok I might have 150 to the green which is an 8 iron but what about my lie and the length of the grass and the slope of the ground and that tree I need to get over and the softness of the green and the hump I can bounce it off etc. The AI and the course data are going to need to be a lot better before it can make those kind of decisions. I have gained some benefit from just using the app on its own so I think I will probably give the GameGolf tags a go to see if it is technology I can get into the habit of using. I wouldn't be surprised if the app on its own is enough for me as I have a pretty good memory for the shots I hit during a round anyway.

Is it a 140 characters thing where taking a picture means you can say more? A lot of things must be a bit weird for him at the moment.

It will be interesting to see where he goes with it if it doesn't get funded. Maybe his usual market just isn't tuned in to kickstarter and his marketing hasn't been good enough. He doesn't seem to have a huge following on twitter or facebook which must matter. If he does decide to fund it himself and just do it anyway I would say that marketing is going to be his biggest issue.

I thought that the GTA mods were really just for pc and even then aren't supported by rockstar games. To do things on Xbox might involve a bit of hardware adjustment just to get started and even then there are probably restrictions on what is possible. I have also heard stories of people sending their Xbox and some money to a 'reputable hacker' to get the hacks applied with varying results. i was involved with an unreal tournament mod back in the day and it is a great way to get into game development. If you have a pc then there are lots of games that officially support modders (like giving out instructions on how to do it). If your son is interested that would be the best way to go. If it has to be Xbox and it has to be gta5 then I think it might be a more complicated situation.

I think it is definitely possible (depending on the course). I've regularly played 9 hole rounds on local courses in the UK (which are possibly set up more for walking) in just over an hour as a single, pair and three ball. That is obviously without meeting anyone in front though and it assumes a certain level of fitness and efficiency of playing routine. I guess simplistically if you assume walking 7000 yards (approx 4 miles) and 100 shots at 30 seconds per shot then that gives a baseline of about two and a quarter hours (but that would be a pretty epic performance)

I maybe wasn't clear in the original post but I know my full swing yardages and my intermediate distances for my current set of wedges. I'm just wondering if there is a better way to arrange the gaps based on the experience of others. I like the clock face system for hitting intermediate distances so I'm interested in how to optimize it. When I bought my first set of wedges I only thought about the gaps in loft. I then worked out out the yardages afterwards, but that means I ended up with some uneven yardage gaps. So second time round I am going to look at things by distance i.e. I am going to buy a wedge that goes X yards with a full swing. My current wedge profile looks like this (distance along the x axis, %age effort on the y axis, each wedge has a different color) So I could bunch the full swing yardages closer together, but then I lose a high lofted wedge around the green: Or I can spread out the full swing yardages: Or maybe I can learn to hit more intermediate distances with each wedge. 4 wedges and 3-4 distances seems to be a common approach so I am just interested in how people put their yardages together. Or maybe, like me, they just bought the wedges and then see what yardages they end up with.

I'm considering updating my wedges so I started thinking about the distances I wanted to cover with each one. My current full swing yardages from PW are 122 110 90 70. I then use a 10:30, 9:00, 7:30 system to hit intermediate yardages. I'm wondering if it would be better to tighten the full swing yardages (120 110 100 90) or make the gaps a bit bigger (120 105 90 75 or 120 100 80 60). I'm leaning towards making the gaps a bit bigger and learning a way to consistently take 10 yards off to fill in the holes. What yardages do you play with your wedges and do you think bigger or smaller gaps is the way to go?

I was just watching PGATourLive and an ad for the Champions Tour was playing. I think the voice over said that the odds for a hole in one are 2500 to 1 (presumably derived from pro stats). Assuming 4 par 3s per round then something like 1 every 600 rounds