cbetofop

It can cut both ways though. As a high handicapper I'm very aware of the effect "overplaying" can have on others, especially a good player paired with me in a competition. I do all I can to be ready to play, and if playing a bad shot using my handicap to get back on the fairway, instead of trying to pull off impossible shots from the rough or trees. It is very demoralising then, when a good player behaves as if you're not there, walking ahead to the tees, walking off greens, only looking after their own ball and quietly disapproving. Even worse if you are in a 3 ball with 2 good players who know each other. Etiquette goes both and all ways

I'd go along with this. You are a much better golfer than I, so don't take it the wrong way, but I have always struggled over the back 9, hitting between 9-13 more shots than on the front, so I experimented and started at the 10th a few times......and still shot more on the "back" nine! Could be just a bit of tiredness and the mental watershed of the 9th hole, moving on to ANOTHER 9 could be doing it....play the course from the 1oth and see what happens

Bloody awful result. A real anticlimax. Just like the Masters really. Most of the gallery will have gone home by the time of the presentation! I've turned over to ESPN

Looks like a god awful result in the open, a true legend of golf beaten. What a terrible disappointment

Well, it's 8 a.m here.....coverage has just started and I'm hoping for a Watson win. Weather is predicted to be OK with showers not long after Tom starts his round, with a 21 - 25mph wind. Should suit him perfectly! http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/...t_weather.html

Kaymer for me. More controlled and less expectation on his shoulders. I fear Rory could blow up in the next few years, but I hope I'm wrong

Tom Watson at 6 under

I don't envy Tiger his unofficial entourage though. On the BBC coverage a well respected commentator, Peter Alliss, said that in years when he played (1950's 60's) when a ball was lost the spectators would fan out and search methodically. Most of the half-wits today were trying to "talk to Tiger" instead of helping the man find his ball! Vicarious fame, I ask you! How he concentrates on any shot with cameras clicking, people moving about and f*****g idiots shouting "in the hole!!!" on the tee shot of a par 5, I'll never know. These morons should be banned from golf courses. Some of the crowd at the US Open were a disgrace.

I'm watching the Open with great interest. I hope Tom Watson goes on to win this. What a magnificent golfer and what a magnificent man in the way he conducts himself and calms others down. A lesson for all of us

When you won't break your'e round even when your'e desperate to poo.....(and they provide toilets on the 9th tee)

I think in club comps the rules are paramount. But I think in informal matchplays between playing buddies some rules can and should be relaxed, if only to speed up play, depending on how busy the course is. Trouble with advice..... although I am off 25, there was a time it was 16 and it is frustrating to play with someone who declares an "about 14" and then basically ignores any difficult shot whilst telling you what your'e "doig wrong"! I usually ask which club they belong to and what their exact h/c is, that cures it

Although she retired in 2004, there has never been anyone more elegant on a golf course than Marie Laure de Lorenzi.

On Sunday had the kind of round a dog would curl it's lip at, but it rained during the round and I ended up in a bunker which had the consistency of thick porage on the 17th.......used a 9 iron and dug the ball out to within 3 feet and potted to get 2 points (stableford)

Good Topic! I can relate to so many of the things written here. For me it's not knowing why one shot is really good and solid, and the next one, feels no different but doesn't produce any kind of result. That and lost balls that my playing partners and I have watched land in the fairway, and when you get there are just gone. I hate looking for golf balls after a good or reasonable shot.

New Zealand