Jeepthrills

First round in six months. I shot a 48 (+13). The score was not what I was looking for, but considering that it was 35 degrees with snow flurries and constant winds at 25 MPH+ it's not too bad. I played the first three holes triple, double, double. Great basketball stat line, but not so much for golf. This is even worse when you consider that the next hole is my all time nemesis. Let's assume that I play White Lake Oaks 20 times per year (low estimate) in my regular Sunday morning round and that I am in my 19th year playing there. I have made par on this hole 4 times and never made birdie. There has never been a more appropriately numbered hole than the 13th at White Lake. It is a 90 degree dog leg right. There are trees tight up the right side that end at a large pond. You can't hit driver for fear of going through the fairway. Anything too short leaves you with no way of reaching the green. A perfect tee shot leaves you with about 200 yards into a green set back into the trees with a marsh on the left and the 14th tee box, which is protected by huge trees, on your right. Once you get to the green it is the toughest one on the course. Good luck stopping a put from above the hole and forget about any side hill lies. OK, enough about the design. I hit a perfect tee shot, put my second just off the back fringe. Mediocre chip left me with about 12 feet right and about 4 feet above the hole. Drained it. From there I finished reasonably well. Three great drives. Including one that left me hitting from 130 on a par 5, after a lost ball off my first tee shot. If I could have made a putt I would have fared much better.

It's been a while, but I am back. I'm looking forward to getting back up to speed.

Is it from BHM Golf? Sorry, but I still hold a grudge.

I am 39 and will be 40 in October.

I am an exercise physiologist and I teach Sports Medicine and I can assure you that working out and looking like a bodybuilder do not have to go hand in hand. It is a matter of how you train. It does not benefit these guys to look like Mr. Olympia, but being stronger, leaner, more flexible and more cardiovascularly fit all can and do help the golf game. I spent a lot of time in the gym during the off season and I am looking forward to my return to the course. Last Summer I started getting back in shape and my distance came back quickly. I am now stronger than ever and in the best shape i have been in close to 10 years. I am confident it will carry over to the course.

I got the e-mail and figured it was like the ones they did in the past where you had to buy it and then would get a refund. Guess I should have read the e-mail before hitting delete. Now I have another reason to dislike him.

I should have been more clear about the 8 seed. We did lose to San Jose in 1994 as the 1 seed. However we did not win the Presidents Trophy that year. It was the first time in history that a 1 lost to an 8. Don't get me wrong. I am as big a Wings fan as there is and I am not bashing them or the fans. My original comment was that even as Hockeytown, they are struggling to sell out the Joe. This is obviously an economic thing. I would take a 1/2 filled Joe over a capacity crowd at almost any arena. Detroit has the most knowledgable hockey fans in the US and I would argue the world.

100% agreed. Making it to the highest level in any sport still takes a great deal of natural ability. Tiger showed that at an incredibly young age. He then worked harder than everyone else to become the player he is. If he had not gotten out of the highchair and made a good swing his dad may have just thought it was cute and never done anything with it. Look at some of these guys who play high school basketball and football. They mature early, work incredibly hard and rack up big stats. Then they end up in college and are being dominated by better athletes who may not work as hard as them. When you combine the natural ability with the hardest worker and the guy with the drive to win you get a special athlete. Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan. To say that anyone can do this by working hard enough is crazy.

I simply said LeBron was a bigger star than Kobe. He is not in a class with Tiger, Jordan or even Babe Ruth or Ali.

I don't disagree with you at all about Detroit being a strong hockey market. It's just a lot different due to the ecconomy. Detroit and Michigan are at or near the top when you consider support of the Wings, NCAA and youth hockey. The fringe fans are just not going to the games anymore. Crazy when you consider that they are hands down the top franchise of the last 15-20 years.

Being in LA I can see why you might think Kobe, but he is not even close. LeBron is a bigger star.

Best record in the NHL regular season. As a Wings fan I can tell you how unimportant it is come playoff time, as we have been bounced in the first round by an 8 seed more than once.

As I have done the past couple years i am breaking my goals into two groups: Personal and League. Personal: Drop my H.C. to 12 or lower . That would be a five shot drop and I think it is achievable this year. Practice more : This could easily be labeled Practice some. Last year I rarely got to the range or hit balls. My schedule was crazy. Now that I am a teacher I get 10 weeks off for the Summer. I plan to work on at least some aspect of my game 5-6 days each week. Break 40 at White Lake Oaks : I have hit 40 on the nose a handfull of times and 41 even more times. Get back into shape : I spent the last 15 years in the fitness industry, but let my workouts take a back seat. I have said for years if you want to cut back on your workouts just start managing gyms. Teaching is not the most active of jobs, but I have joined a gym for the first time in years. I am on Spring Break right now and have been 4 days in a row. I actually have even more reason to do this. I had a physical on Tuesday and my cholesterol and triglycerides are through the roof. I started meds yesterday. I am down 5 pounds since the start of break, but still up from where I have been for most of the last 5 years. The fitness thing is actually easy for me. I tend to respond quickly and actually love working out. Birdie #13 at White Lake and #1 at Heather Highlands : These are the only two holes that I play regularly that I have never birdied. Have more fun : I think this will happen as I spend more time on my game. Fun for me is shooting low scores and winning matches. League: Much the same as last. Most of these were met but one major one eluded me. League Champs : My wife and I had our best year ever individually. Both our averages were our best ever. However this did not always translate to wins. We lost on position night when my wife made a tripple on the last. Double would have won it outright. I birdied the last to make up 3 shots but we needed to take all 6 points to win. In her defense I crapped the bed the previous week to put us in that spot. Low Men's Average : I have held this title for three straight years, but we picked up a new player this year who I have never plaed with. All I know is he is "good." Average below 38 : You may look at my handicap and think what the Hell? We play a course that is 31 par. I actually had a chance to finish last year at 37.9 but finished with a 41 and 39 to kill my chances.

As a Bulls fan I was disappointed that they lost last night and dropped to the 7 seed. It looked to be a sure loss to Boston. However, my hopes were bouyed when I heard that KG is potentially out for the playoffs with his knee injury. Don't get me wrong, I would never root for a guy to get hurt, well maybe Kobe, but I am all for taking advantage when the door is opened. Without KG, the Celtics are a pretty good team, but not a superpower. If he does not play in the series I will say Bulls in 6.

Alltime: Jordan Right Now: Tiger Jordan changed sports and advertising. He took being a spokesman to an entirely different level. He is the reason Tiger makes the kind of money he does off the course.

Detroit may be Hockeytown, but as far as no problem sustaining hockey teams you may want to ask Mike Illitch about that. Season ticket sales were way down and there were plenty of games where tickets were available on game day. In fact, just the other day I heard an ad on the radio saying playoff tickets were still available. This is with a team that are the defending Stanley Cup champs and had the 3rd best record in the league and was in contention for the Presidents Trophy until the last week of the season. I'm not insinuating that the Wings are struggling in Detroit, but it's not like the last 15 years where it was an automatic sellout. I will remain optimistic and pick them for the cup, but I am more concerned with Vancouver than San Jose. Luongo is the best goalie in the world and I hate those damn Sedin twins.

I said other. I think this is largely an individual thing. Some people will excell (damn them) in a very short time. Others my spend years on end never getting better. I feel that it is a combination of hours put in x quality time x ability x technique. If you are high in the natural ability area and get instruction on the right technique you can cut that curve down a ton. However, if you have no ability and continue to do the wrong things over and over you will never be an expert. Even at 20,000 hours.

I took thrid and got my prize the other day. I was expecting a hat but Erik also threw in a very nice Adidas polo with the Newport Cup logo, a bunch of Sand Trap tees and a Titleist glove. I would have been happy with the hat. Thanks to Erik and Leupold for getting my season started the right way.

I bowl on an every other Saturday night league. i have improved a lot over the last 3 years and came into last night at a 173 average. I was as high as 178 a month ago, but have not bowled well of late. Last night I was awful during practice but then started with a solid strike in the first and again in the second. Mix in a few lucky strikes and a couple good ones and all of a sudden I had nine straight and a perfect game going into the tenth. I tried to keep myself composed. I had been reading an article in Maxim between frames, but finished it before the 9th. Long story short, I went down and picked up my towel to dry my hands, but cleaned my ball instead. My brain was totally on overload. I put the ball down and dried my hands then tried to compose myself and go through my routine. I threw a mediocre ball and got a 9. I picked up the spare and got a 7 on my extra frame. I ended with a 276. This is 34 pins better than my best game ever and I am obviously happy with 103 pins over average, but I can't help think of what could have been. With my 24 handicap it was a 300, but not the same. Before this year I thought there was no way I could ever come close. However, earlier this year I had a 3 game series of 672 where I hit the pocket on almost every shot. In fact, the game I had the worst score (205) I actually hit it on every shot and just caught some bad breaks. After last night I am actually pretty confident that I not only can, but will eventually have a 300 game. Any 300's out there?

I love belts and belt buckles. They fall just behind watches in my accessory collection. I wear anything from a huge cowboy one with a bull skull to a very basic black/white reversable one that I picked up at Golfsmith on clearence. I was recently drawn to a kiosk at the mall where they had a ton of really cool buckles. Then I walked around to the other side and saw all of their watches and ended up with a watch instead. I have a great Sean John one, although I think P. Diddy is a complete ass. One of my favorites is one i will not wear to the golf course. It says F*** Off, without the *'s about 20 times on it in various scripts. It's more of my feel good belt.

I worked in the fitness and physical therapy field for the past 15 years and I now teach Sports Medicine. Although your injury is one of the more severe ones in sports, a full recovery is very possible. I agree 100% with the people that said follow your doctors instructions to the letter. If you were a football or basketball player, you would be looking at up to 1 year, but with golf you should be fine by late Spring. One mistake a lot of people make is they stop their rehab when they are feeling "pretty" good. Stick with it to the end. I would suggest looking into a workout that will help strengthen the lower legs and ankles as well. Make sure you include stretching. One of the side effects of an achillies tear is the build up of scar tissue in the area. This can reduce range of motion. Believe it or not, but a complete tear can actually be better than a severe partial tear. With a complete tear they can reatach it to allow for the best recovery. Good luck. Keep us updated with your progress.

I just finished the 4th book in the Twilight series. The first one was pretty good, the second was only fair. Three and four were both good. Realistically, the entire story could have been told in one or two books.

We have had a pretty heavy Winter and I have not played since October, but today my son's 5th grade basketball team "shot" their way into next weeks championship game.

I have a confession to make. I am currently reading the 3rd book in the Twilight series. I am a high school teacher and I got tired of hearing how they were the greatest books ever written so I picked up a copy of the first one at WalMart for $8. It was a good, not great, book. It was a little slow at times and there were about 200 too many pages of "I love you so much." "But I'm a vampire and I'm bad for you." Book two was more of the same, but still a good read. So far book three is the best. It's no Harry Potter, Eragon or Lord Of The Rings, but still pretty good. Anyone else reading it?