ppine

Newtogolf's post is important. I do not like hanging around people that are used to having a staff. I just went on a raft trip with a friend of almost 50 years. We do our own trips, and it is important for everyone to pitch in as it is a lot of work for guys in their 60s. My friend just retired from being a doctor, and never really figured out how to help for the good of the group. He kept wanting to consider himself a "guest." That is after we had some long discussions about being part of the team. He will not be invited back. I would not want to play golf with people that are used to having a caddy either.

I like the idea. Fairway woods have always been an erratic part of my game. I carry a driver and tee the ball high and hit it okay for my age. It is pretty straight most of the time. Now I use no other woods. For a typical par 5 I hit driver, 3 iron. A decent 3 iron with no wind is about 215 yards. Hitting the irons well is the secret to scoring better. This is especially true from about 120 yards in. I played a par 3 course with a hippy dippy guy that was a native drummer. He played barefoot and carried only a 7 iron. He parred most of the holes and taught me an important lesson about equipment. He putted with it by hitting the middle of the ball with the sole of the club. Very impressive for a guy that did not consider himself a golfer.

I would rather not play with people that are shirtless or wearing sleeveless shirts and cutoffs. Golf is one of the last places in the US where civility is part of the game. I like remwha's post. On the other hand, I resent people that are elitist. Finding a course with good people is important, especially if you walk on as a single.

Golf is a highly mental and emotional game. It matters even more than equipment and how much you practice.

Not everyone is destined to swing like Fred Couples. It all depends on how high you set your sights and how much time you are willing to invest in the game. At 65, I don't really think long term anymore. I do what works. If I spend the time on the short game I will be shooing in the 80s. If not more like the 90s. For a casual golfer that is okay. If you wan to break 80, by all means take lessons and play twice a week.

I really like playing solo. Then it is all about golf and it is easy to focus. Usually the course is quiet and there is minimal waiting for the next shot. Those are the conditions when I have posted my best scores. One of the great advantages is having plenty of time to re-hit a shot that ended with a poor result. Then a different approach can be used. It is easy to find out how honest people are, by watching them when they think no one is around. It is a chance to be honest with yourself, or not as the case may be.

A different course once it dried out. Plenty of water and tight fairways. Thick rough near the greens and pin placements on the edges of greens. The greens were very challenging and lighning fast. Some players had serious difficulties trying to hold the greens with their approach shots. I thought there was some great skill on display on Sat and Sun. Day was able to handle the mental pressure of the course better than everyone else.

A game changer for me has been to keep the left leg weighted throughout the whole swing with wedges. This eliminates some sway and weight shift making for better ball contact. I use the modern method of keeping the ball in the middle of the stance. Now taking a divot is automatic because I am hitting down on the ball and not trying to get under it.

Who cares? I applaud anyone that defies the strict conventions of the sport of golf.

The real story of Norman in a nutshell is that he was different and golf has very narrow boundaries of what is acceptable at the PGA level.

try some metal polish and a rag. Brasso would probably work, but there may be better ones.

So now pro golfers are hitting an 8 iron 185 yards or more. That club used to have more loft than today's PW. Tour players take the new de-lofted irons and then have a club guru flatten them some more. Do they try to impress each other with how far they can hit their irons? The whole thing has gotten out of hand. Now the move is from 3 or 4 wedges to 5. That means something else needs to be left out of the bag and the other clubs have to get tweaked to cover the gap. The world was a lot simpler when people carried a couple of woods, irons 2-9, a PW and a SW. The new forged Hogan irons have the right idea, they show the loft on the sole of the club in degrees and nothing else.

Moe Norman is the best kept secret in golf. He was a Canadian that slept in his car. He wore funky clothes and sold stuff that he won in tournaments out of the back of his car. He was kind of unusual looking with a crooked smile. Golf sponsors gave him a hard time and didn't really give him a fair chance. Norman was one of the best ball strikers in the history of the sport. He had a compact, reproducible swing to the extreme. He played with the same tee for several years. He could hit shots across bridges from more than 175 yards. He and his swing were not sexy. But he is probably the least appreciated and most interesting golfer in history.

Play ready golf, walk like you mean it and be polite. Once in awhile people do outrageous things. Last week some nimrod pulled his pull behind cart onto the middle of a green. It seems to be popular on some public course for people to bring their wedges and other clubs onto the green next to where they putt.