Opoponax

I'm in the habit of telling people not to spend money on new clubs, that Top Flites work just fine for the vast majority of players, and that golf "technology" is a bunch of hooey. I just bought a Callaway ST Max driver (9.0) and made sure my kids each bought me a dozen ProV1's for my birthday. I wish I was kidding.

It's an automatic birdie for that hole.

I take that to mean they encourage this particular offense to humanity? If I ever run into this myself, I will write a strongly worded old man letter to the facility letting them know I'll never go there again. And I'm sure they'll take me very seriously. 😕

Unfixed ball/pitch-marks and unraked bunkers have always been a thing and are easily dealt with. If your ball falls into a shoe or splash disturbance, then just move it out of there no closer to the whole. Then rake up your marks and the marks the a-hole made too. If you see an unrepaired pitch-mark, then fix it. It takes all of 10 seconds. Like the OP, I was away from the game for some 15-17 years. The big breach of etiquette is the music thing. WTF are these people thinking??? Every course, from the most basic muni to the most expensive private clubs should ban this abhorrence immediately.

Hi. New here. Thanks for having me. 🙂 Anyway, the most demoralizing shot is when you stand over the ball and you really feel like you're going to hit a good shot. I don't know how to describe it adequately, but everything just feels right: from address to backswing to the split second before you top, shank, pull one almost completely laterally... it was all going to be so good, but now it's time to question existence itself.