OCdude12

Making my picks right now for a season long Majors pool, including THE PLAYERS, lets get some discussion going on who we think will play well this week. I think Furyk will have another solid week playing in his backyard. Finished T5 last year, T27 year before with a 76 in the final round, and played pretty well last week. I'm hoping he can keep the hot play and go for win #3 on the season. Harrington has also been fairly consistent this year, except for the Masters, and could be in a good spot for his first victory of the season. And for my wildcard pick of the week, I'll take Steve Marino to win. Guy has all the game in the world to win on Tour, just hasn't broken through yet. Plays well in the big tournaments and what better spot to win your first PGA Tour title. Thoughts?

So I played in the CA state am qualifying for the first time on Monday and although I did not qualify, I had a pretty damn good time and can't wait till next year to try again. I make this thread after reading the first few pages of Hogan's Modern Fundamentals book when he says something about the difference between tournament golf and casual golf is like the difference between ice hockey and baseball (or something along those lines). I've played in a couple other NCGA qualifiers for smaller tournaments and never really gotten super nervous since I didn't have high expectations, but this time I had the mindset that I would make it as long as I play my usual game. I felt pretty comfortable as I had played the course many times before and tried to just think of it as another regular round, but found myself at times thinking of the most random crap right when standing over the ball to putt. Tried to refocus but still found my mind racing. I guess it didn't matter a whole lot as I still hit the putts ok, but it was then I realized I probably need a better routine or something to get me focused on the shot at hand and that's it. Might use the rubber band on the wrist technique next time. What things do you guys notice you do during a tournament that you wouldn't normally do on the course and how do you get yourself to stop, think about it, and correct the problem if you notice one? One of the things I wish I had done was slow down and just breath for a few minutes towards the end. After shooting 41 on the front (par 36) I knew I had to shoot even on the back to have a shot and was doing just that until the last couple holes that I couldn't keep it together. Made birdie on 14, and after a huge par saving putt on 16 I was +4 for the round going to the 17th. I was so jacked up after making a big putt and full of confidence that I overswung on my tee shot to a long par 3 and sprayed it out right then couldn't get up and down. Then on 18 after a good drive had 140 in, downhill from a good lie in the rough. Granted I was trying to stick it close to make birdie, I put another poor swing on the ball and left it short right in a bunker instead of even having a chance to make a birdie putt. Save to say it was very frustrating to finish bogie-bogie for a 77 when the number I needed was 75, but hopefully next time I can manage the course a little better as well as saying to myself I've done this a million times before and just because its a tournament its no different. What things do you do before or during a tournament that help you level out and just play your game? What helps you get over a bad shot and focus on making birdies again?

I like this thread, makes for some good memories. http://www.mvgolf.com/ Spent a lot of summer days here as a kid. They had a junior card you could get that you would pay $8 for the first 9 holes and $5 for the second nine. Some of the holes seemed so long as a kid. I remember the 2nd hole as a "long" par three that has a creek in front of the green, measured around 185 on the card, downhill, but it was a big deal when you decided to buck up and hit the driver to go for the green, otherwise it was a safe lay up before the creek. Haven't been out there in probably 8 or 9 years, I can only imagine how small the place would seem now. http://www.golfsangeronimo.com/course-info/ This was the other course we spent countless hours at. Also an unbelievable deal for juniors, $10 for 18 holes until you were 17 or 18 years old. After our round we'd call our moms to come pick us up and in the time it took for them to drive to the course, bout 15 minutes, we'd look for golf balls in the bushes in front of the first tee. Sometimes we'd come out of there with 35-40 golf balls stuffed in our pockets, along with many cases of poison oak.

Quite possibly the most useless arguement(?) I've seen on this board. Should we get rid of the tee markers as well? Those things just get in the way and kill the grass underneath them...mods, get rid of this thread please.

I'll usually just keep score regularly with a circle for birdie, square for bogey, etc. and then go through my round again afterwards marking up the scorecard. In the box below the score I'll usually just go through each hole and put and F if I hit the fairway and a G if I hit the green and add them up out of the total. Then I'll go through total number of putts on each hole, and while I do this I also make marks, a big black dot on a hole if I threw away a stroke and a slash mark for a half a stroke (a shot where maybe its a hard up and down) to see how many mistakes I'm making. I don't always do sand saves, but sometimes I'll add those up too. Just got a Garmin Approach G5, might mess around with the scoring thing on that to see how it works, but don't think it does much more than just keep score.

I remember a short while back someone posting something about Bubba, he actually has his own youtube channel with a bunch of other videos that are pretty funny. If I remember correctly, he actually says in one of the videos that it wasn't his house and he was just renting it for the week during the Bob Hope Classic. Mentions how he hoped the owner didn't see the video of him doing it. I'm also a huge fan of the other videos of him and the Ole Wooden Stick! I highly encourage people to watch some of them, gives a little taste of what life is really like for these guys.

About the growing in the fairway issue, here's one for you...They're already starting to narrow the fairways at The Olympic Club in preperation for the 2012 US Open. Now, maybe they're just growing it in to change the course for good, but a couple of the holes are about 10-15 yards grown in on certain sides. I had a buddy play Pebble on Monday through work, just shot an e-mail to him, he said the course was just playing ridiculously hard. Weather wasn't the greatest in Norcal on Monday, he said there were about 25-30 mph winds with rain on and off all day. He's a pretty good golfer, about a 1 or 2 handicap, and shot 84 with no birdies and nothing worse than a bogey. He also mentioned since the wind was so bad, you just had to play to the middle of every green and hope to get lucky, and holes 9 and 10 were playing close to 500 yards since they were into the wind. Weather here is beautiful right now, hopefully its nice for you still nice week. Here's his last response... "Yeah, def had to start over the ocean. Hit my 135 club and yardage was 105 and just barely got on the front. 17 was playing 2 ½ clubs as well, luckily the pin was on the right side of that green, so it was a 4 iron for me and just snuck on. Around the greens is where you can eat up a lot of strokes with the rough. Next time I go out there, I would definitely play some holes differently. You can attach some of the shorter ones and then others you just need to survive."

I've only seen it on a couple courses. One that sticks out in my memory is Napa Valley Country Club, played there one time probably 6 or 7 years ago and I remember is starts off with a short downhill par 3, and for some reason, I also want to say you hit off a mat. Could be mistaken about the mat, long time ago, but definitely a different way of starting things. Someone mentioned closing on a par 3 as well and the only course that does that and sticks out to me is Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz, CA. Awesome, awesome course! MacKenzie course that's semi-private, pretty expensive ($220) but you can find deals every once awhile. Normally I would say its pretty anticlimactic also, but in this case its almost nice to end on a relatively difficult par 3 (169 yds over a creek) since the rest of the course has already done a pretty good job of beating you up by that point. Its a slightly elevated tee with a hill to the side that anyone waiting for a match to finish up can watch from pretty easily. If you're a serious golfer and are in Santa Cruz, I highly recommend trying to get out there as the Monterey peninsula is about and hour drive from there and the only other golf course real close is a slow round at DeLaveaga.

http://www.gusjohnsongetsbuckets.com/ For anyone that wants to keep the weekend going...I know Gus got me through a couple long hours of work late last week with his motivational words of wisdom. RISE AND FIRE!!!

Sweet St. Mary's and Joseph!!!! The Gaels are still dancing, who woulda thunk we'd actually make it this far? Thanks for the props senorchipotle, now time to take down the Bears from Baylor! I'm trying to book my flight to Houston right now and its looking like its going to hurt the wallet a bit, but who knows when the next time the Gaels will be back here so I'm gonna bight the bullet. Do any of you guys have tips for finding cheaper last minute flights somehow? I've been looking on every travel website and the cheapest I can get a flight for is like $750. I have a free flight on United but the days I'm traveling doesn't allow it to be used. Damn, last minute planning, they should have specials for college basketball fans this time of year if your team is still in it. Any tips?

I'll accept most of what you're saying. As much as I hate to defend Gonzaga, they do still have some solid wins in there against Wisconsin, at Illinois, at Memphis and only narrowly lost to MSU and Wake. Agreed, we do only have the 1 win against Gonzaga in the WCC championship, but we have no bad losses and didn't have the chance for any other big wins really. We missed our chance to play UNLV in the Diamond Head Classic championship by losing to a USC team that had just got back to full strength and as a mid-major on the rise, we struggle to schedule games against BCS schools that gain nothing really from playing us. I'm more excited that we made the tournament and drew an opponent that we are fully capable of beating with the potential to play a struggling Villanova team and a chance to be the cinderalla story of 2010. As a school that last won a tourney game in 1959, I would have thought my buddy would at least pick us as one of the big upset teams in the second round as I would much rather face Nova than any of the other number 2 seeds. Either way, I have Kentucky and Evan 'The Villian' Turner's Ohio State Buckeyes in the National Championship. If you haven't already been introduced to him, for everyone's enjoyment, let me introduce Mr. Rainmaker...

Since I don't see a specific thread for this yet, figured I'd start one where we can discuss match-ups, upsets, favorites to win it all, etc. Ok, so I'm a Saint Mary's College alum and we're matched up against the Richmond Spiders in the first round. I think we got a great draw here as they are a similar sized school and don't have the big name school intimidation factor of an Oklahoma St. or Clemson. We can hang with anyone when we're playing at our best, so I'm picking us to win and get matched up against Villanova. So this is where I was inspired to write this. I also picked my Gaels to beat Villanova in the second round seeing as they finished off the regular season terribly and think as long as we limit their guards and knock down our 3 balls, its anyone's game. Also, I feel as if I'd be betraying my own school if I didn't pick us. I mean, assuming we win our first round game, how many other shots are we going to get at taking down a struggling 2 seed and really make a name for good ole SMC? My friend picked against us in the second round and I thought it was absolutely absurd that he could actually pick against us in what would be the biggest game in our school's history since something like 1954. Is it not our obligation as fan's from a small school like Saint Mary's to pick us to win at least a couple games? How much more can you sellout than that?

Age: 24 Height: 6'-0" Where are you from: CA How Long have you been Playing: 10 years Best Score: 71 Favorite club in the bag: Hybrid Golf Books / DVD's that have helped you: Harvey Penick's Little Red Book Where do you play: All over the San Francisco Bay Area Best courses you've played so far: Pebble Beach, Spyglass, Olympic Club, Oakland Hills, Pasatiempo, Bayonet Things you enjoy most about golf: Competition -between myself and others, good place for alone time. Goals for 2K10: Shoot under par, qualify for State Amateur and as many amateur championships as possible.

No, its not a new PGA event, instead a competition a group of my buddies and I are starting and there has been much debating back and forth on some issues so I come here for suggestions. So the premise behind 'The Victory Cup' is that we have 4 guys from Nor Cal and 4 guys from So Cal, so we thought we'd get some "friendly" competition going between the two in a Ryder Cup style format. The first round we are playing at Metropolitan Golf Links in Oakland, playing a 2 man scramble match play format, also testing our drinking skills as each player must consume at least 4 drinks every 6 holes (beer or shots) for a total of 12 drinks in the round. However, after multiple arguments on how to divy up the strokes we still haven't come to a conclusion. Here's the breakdown of player's handicaps for each team and then I'm open to hear what you guys would think is the most fair way of giving strokes: North Team Player A: 1.7 index, CH of 2 Player B: 3.8 index, CH of 4 Player C: 4.1 index, CH of 5 Player D: 7.7 index, CH of 9 South Team Player A: 9.0 index, CH of 10 Player B: 16.6 index, CH of 19 Player C: 21.2 index, CH of 24 Player D: no index, giving him a CH of 13 Now, some people have been saying to take a simple average of the 2 teammates course handicap's to create our team handicap and some have been talking about using a system of 35% of the lowest players handicap plus 15% of the highest players handicap. I have no idea if one is better than the other or if there is a certain formula other than either of those two that would be fair to both teams, but if we don't come up with a solid solution soon, could make for quite the argument in the parking lot beforehand, (the South whines a lot about the number of strokes somehow won't be enough). Thanks for any and all suggestions and let's go North!!!

"Golf is a precision club-and-ball sport, in which competing players (golfers), using many types of clubs, attempt to hit balls into each hole on a golf course while employing the fewest number of strokes ." -Wikipedia Life is pretty boring if you never take a chance. In a tournament when there are hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, yes, sometimes you do ask why people go for the big shot instead of laying up (Phil hitting driver off the tee at Winged Foot, not a par 5 but still), but otherwise, why not go for it in 2? Maybe that's just me, but isn't the fun part of golf when you pull off a hard shot, especially when you're just playing for fun.

I nominate this for post of the year...well played sir.

Agreed. I don't know if you were swinging slower because you were inside and didn't want to break anything or if that is your actual swing speed. I'm not very good at critiquing swings, so the only thing I would say is to maybe make a more aggressive move at the ball. Kinda looks like you're just passing through the ball which would make me think your misses are chunky and weak fades. Maybe something to practice could be making your normal practice swing, pausing at the top, and focusing on turning your hips just a little bit more than what feels normal and then finishing your full swing. Won't know the results till you can see the ball flight, but I think Rexx had some good points. Work on making a better turn and I think you'll see improved results pretty quickly.

Did the free trial of Golflogics for my iPhone awhile back and was not impressed. Thing froze on me at about the 10th or 11th hole and I compared it with a friend in my group who had another gps and it was off by about 10 yards. That, added with how it drains the phone battery was enough for me to scrap the app (ha, that rhymed). I look at my phone enough anyway, when I'm on the course thats the last thing I want to be dealing with, plus it drains the battery like no other. Seperate device for me for sure, now to find a good deal!

Alright, so I'm in the same boat as the OP as well now. Been looking at GPS units and am between the Bushnell Neo for $100 off amazon or getting the Skycaddie SG5. I've found the SG5 for around $265 on ebay or amazon but I've noticed they are coming out with the new SGX (I think thats the name of it) in a couple weeks. I'm wondering, do you guys think I'll be able to find an SG5 for much cheaper, say around $200, once the new model comes out?

Have lost some clubs in my day and found some clubs in my day, always turn them in and have got my club back after being turned in. For the guy that said he doesn't turn them in, what about when you lose a club? Do you expect to get it back or do you assume people are greedy like you and keep it? I worked at a course for a little bit in the shop and clubs would get turned in all the time. They always went to the lost and found bag and the owners would usually call to see if it was there (if it was a nice enough club, otherwise the bag mostly just had old raggedy wedges), however if it was a pretty decent wedge the rule was usually let it sit for 2 months and if no one called it was free game. I never took any of the clubs, but my buddy got a nice Titleist Oil can wedge that barely looked used.

Sorry for the confusion, mdl had it right, we did 3 throws per 9 (each player) the first go round and then the 3 + 3 the next nine. I think we'll probably stick with the 3 and 3 for each nine as it was a nice balance between golf and shenanigans, with no throws inside 10 feet. Unrelated to throwgolf, another format I tried with a guy a couple weekends ago that was pretty fun is match play with no strokes given, however once a player goes 2 up, then the other person gets a stroke on the next hole. Keeps it pretty even the whole time and usually makes the match come down to the last couple holes.

This weekend a few of my buddies and I played a couple rounds and in the second round we decided to play a slightly different variety of golf than usual. Its a work in progress and we hope to have the rules hammered out by summertime, but basically we played teams of 2, low score wins the hole with the second score as the tiebreaker, but here's the kicker...each person must THROW the ball 3 times and it does not count as a stroke. That is what we went with on the front nine, 3 throws a person, back nine we decided to go with 3 individual throws a person and 3 team throws to add more throwing on each hole. Safe to say it got tough at times keeping track of who used how many throws and what not, but it definitely made for some good laughs and an added challenge. I used my first throw (a fantastic throw to say the least) to get out of some serious tree trouble and back in the fairway leading to a "birdie" and a win of the hole somehow. The other team did a pretty good job of using their throws from bunkers or hard chips where they were shortsided, sometimes going with the underhand lob instead of the overhead baseball throw, great strategy. Other times we saved the throw for the green, throwing it in the hole from a few feet away to win or tie a hole. However, that's where some rule changes need to be made because we ended up just dropping the ball in hole a few times kinda defeating the purpose of throw golf. Any suggestions for changes? We thought either no throws from inside 5 feet or just no throws on the green period. I'd kinda like to keep throws allowed from at least 10 feet away, keeping it interesting at times when a beer pong type throw could come in handy, but thats just me. You guys plan any games that are incredibly fun like this, or a variety that you can still be good at after a few drinks?

We used to play a 3 club scramble at a short course in high school. I would use my driver, 7 iron and Sand wedge, putting with the sand wedge. Funny how well you can actually play sometimes with limited options. If I had to use just one club, I'd probably go with a 6 iron. Can get plenty of distance with it and could probably hood the face enough to get somewhat of a straight roll going on the green. Probably ok practice for your touch too.

+1. Best words I've heard in awhile. Unless you're on the PGA Tour or in another serious tournament, people have no reason to play a round in more than 4 hours. Focus on your shot, hit the ball. Ever notice you play your best when you are in a good rhythm and not thinking about much? Slow golf and worrying about what others are doing does nothing good for anyone's game. The bench on the first tee where I play has a quote on it that is a good reminder for every round, "Play well, play fair, play fast".

Again, thanks guys for the words of encouragement. I'm definitely going to try my damndest in the next year to improve and play in as many amateur tournaments as I can and then go from there. I was going to start with just the city championship coming up here in a couple weeks, but have since signed up to be a member of amateurgolf.com to see what tournaments they have in my area also. I signed up last minute, yesterday, for a tournament this weekend at Stone Tree golf course in Novota, CA. If you guys are ever in Nor Cal and looking for a nice course, I would recomment trying this place out. Played it a couple times, can get a little windy, but always in GREAT shape. Anyways, gonna keep swinging in my apt tonight and do a little putting on the carpet, been raining here almost every day for the past 2 weeks. Cheers!