Mac62

^^ Both great choices. I've played both the Noodle ("Long and Soft" or "Easy Distance", depending on your swing speed) and Gamer. Both are inexpensive balls which feel good off the club and perform reasonably well. The Gamers are a bit more expensive than the Noodles, but I'd give them the nod as the better ball if the few extra bucks isn't a big deal. People shy away from Top Flite because of their reputation over the years for rock-hard distance balls, but the Gamer is probably the best ball they've ever come out with.

And therein lies the obvious I was missing - I didn't realize the International Team didn't include Europeans! Thanks gentlemen!

A lot of it comes down to personal preference and/or how you hit particular clubs. Example: a friend of mine took his hybrids out of his bag because he hits nasty hooks with them almost every time. He can hit a beautiful 4 or 5 iron with a slight draw, but give him a 4 or 5 hybrid and that thing is going to make a snappy left turn and probably end up somewhere ugly. I, on the other hand, can't hit a 4 iron to save my life (and 5 iron isn't much better), but I love my 5 hybrid. I used to carry a 7W and loved it. Even if the wheels were falling off and I couldn't hit anything else to save my life, it seemed like I could always get a decent shot out of that 7W. Hybrids were relatively uncommon at that time, but when they became more popular I tried them and found that I could hit them from some challenging lies easier than the 7W, so it came out of the bag to make room for hybrids.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but it seems strange not to see Justin Rose on the International Team. #8 OWGR and #5 FedEx Cup rankings, 7 top 10 finishes this season, one of their best players at the Ryder Cup last year and he's not in the lineup?

The two courses I play most often (from the tees we usually play) are just under 5900 and just over 6000, which are right in my comfort zone. Any time I play an unfamiliar course I'll choose to play from whatever tees are closest to 5800-6000, and I'll err on the short side rather than the long side if forced to choose. I'm paying to enjoy the round (at least in theory, lol!), so I see no sense in torturing myself by playing longer tees and being pissed off all day long. Quote: ...I have a friend that's convinced he can hack it at 7500 yards.... I'd definitely "hack" it at that distance, in the truest sense! Playing a 7500 yard course would surely guarantee me a score upwards of 100 and a long, miserable day. I'm sure I'd get my money's worth from ESC.

Golf is difficult, but when you started out you couldn't miss the ball if you tried? That's not the experience of most new golfers, you must be blessed with tons of natural ability. You've played 15-20 rounds of golf, don't really keep score, try to make double or triple bogey on most holes, but have a 16 handicap? I'm an 18 and with anything more than 2 or 3 double/triple bogeys, the chances of breaking 90 are circling the drain unless I have an otherwise pretty solid round (lots of pars and a few birdies mixed in). And if I'm not breaking 90 fairly regularly, that 18 handicap is headed right back up into the 20s. So you "crushed" a bunch of 200+ yard "blasts" again and again using a driver with a caved-in face, and never noticed anything wrong with it until you were done? Hitting the ball 200+ (assuming that means 210-220 yards and includes rollout) probably equates to a high 70s/low 80s swing speed - Bubba Watson, who plays a G30, has a swing speed somewhere around or upward of 115 mph and can't manage to cave his driver face in. And you say you don't top the driver as much as you used to when you started , but above you said that at the start of your young golf career, you couldn't miss the ball if you tried ? I'll gladly apologize if I'm wrong, but at this point my troll meter is pegged. The OP either defied astronomical odds and somehow got two defective drivers in a row, or we're being trolled by somebody with an anti-Ping agenda. Maybe one of the mods could run an IP check and see if the OP's address returns to taylormade.com.

I voted yes (it's a sport), but TBH I've never really thought about it and don't much care what anybody else thinks it is. If somebody wanted to argue with me that I was playing a "game" rather than a "sport", I'd just shrug my shoulders and say "OK, whatever". Either way, I enjoy it and am getting some exercise and having fun with friends, so call it whatever you want.

My wife has absolutely zero interest in golf and we're both perfectly okay with that. We have our things we enjoy together and we have our things we enjoy apart. I don't bug her to play golf, she doesn't bug me to watch chick flicks or go shoe shopping with her.

Thing is, I'm sure that the Patriots are just the tip of the iceberg. It would be naïve for anybody to think that every other team in the league is pure as the driven snow and the Pats are the only big fat cheaters. The Pats got caught and have been under increased scrutiny ever since, probably at least in part due to their fairly continual success, but I don't believe for a second that they're the only team seeking every little advantage they can get to win - honestly or not-so-honestly. I'm not absolving them of blame or trying to justify it by the "everybody is doing it" defense - I'm not saying it's right, just that they're not the only ones doing it. Football is a multi-billion dollar industry and players/coaches who aren't winning don't hang on to their big money contracts for long.

Nah...who'd want a washed-up loser like Spieth as one of their endorsers? [/sarcasm]

Seconded. Something's not right here. [ETA:] As a n=1 counterpoint, I've been hitting a G30 driver for several months, have topped and skyed my share of shots with it and had no problems whatsoever. I have, however, in the past, somehow managed to crack the head of a Taylormade R11s driver.

Nah - as soon as he bogeyed a hole, the speculation would start that he was 'done' and they'd be looking for the next latest and greatest.

How about George Thorogood's "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer"?

Can you imagine the satiety factor (or lack thereof), though? I'd be pissed-off hungry about 23 hours a day eating a diet like that!

I average 2 rounds per week, year-round - so somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-125 rounds per year. That's only for the last couple years, though - for about 25 years before that, I played anywhere from 10-30 rounds per year (probably closer to 10 for most of those years).

Purely in terms of weight loss, calories in < calories out is all that matters. When you take general health and body composition into the picture, macro/micronutrients matter considerably. Adequate protein intake (along with strength training) helps preserve muscle mass, carbs provide energy for training/activity and fats play a role in many hormonal functions of the body. I don't think in terms of "good" and "bad" when it comes to food - I eat what I want and try to hit my calorie and macro targets every day (around 1g protein per lb. of lean body mass, 0.45g fat per pound of body weight, fill the rest in with carbs and/or more protein/fat). A professor of human nutrition did a 10-week diet in which he ate Twinkies, Little Debbie snack cakes, powdered donuts, Doritos, Oreos and various other junk foods (along with a multivitamin, one protein shake and a few veggies). His diet was about 80% "junk food". He stuck to 1800 calories per day, and lost 27 pounds in the 10-week period. His blood work improved (LDL dropped, HDL increased, triglycerides down) and his bodyfat dropped about 8%. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/ His premise was to prove or disprove "calories in < calories out" vs. people who insist you have to "eat clean" (whatever that vague phrase actually means), maintain certain macronutrient profiles, etc. Obviously he doesn't recommend his "Twinkie Diet", but the results were interesting. No doubt the improved health markers were due to the weight loss rather than the diet itself (and probably wouldn't stay great if you took the diet long-term), but it proved that you can lose weight eating whatever you want as long as you're taking in less than you're expending.

I live in AZ, where we play in 100+ degree heat from June until September. I wear one of the wide-brimmed "Soaker" hats that you can soak with water, and wet it every chance I get. I also have one of those "cool cloths", which I keep wet and wear around my neck between shots. I hydrate before going out and usually drink six to eight 16 oz. bottles of water in 18 holes (even riding in a cart), and usually bring along a 32 oz. bottle of Powerade/Gatorade as well for electrolytes. You know the water is getting sucked out of you when you drink that much of it on the course and never have to pee once! When I get home after the round, I drink water until (hope this isn't considered TMI) my urine is back to straw- or nearly-clear colored. Proper hydration is always a good thing, but it becomes real serious business when you're out in the heat like that for 3-4 hours. One of the guys who regularly golfs with us starts his round out with a Bloody Mary, then switches to beer for the rest of the round - never touches a water bottle. He can't understand why he always feels like crap by the 11th or 12th hole! He nearly passed out (and not from being drunk) on the 14th hole a few weeks ago, we practically had to carry him back to his cart - where he opened another beer. I like a beer or two on the course as much as the next guy, but when it's hot like that I save it for the 19th hole and stick to water/Gatorade on the course.

One of our local courses does a "5i only" tournament every year - 5-iron only from tee to the cup. I haven't played in it yet, but it would be interesting to try!

A lot of the elite WRs went in the first two rounds. There were a few left, but I over-thought it on some of them because although they're good receivers, they don't have a QB to throw to them (Mike Evans/TB, Deandre Hopkins/HOU, Brandon Marshall/NYJ, etc.). We're not a PPR league, so 5-yard dink passes into the flat don't do me much good, lol. Emmanuel Sanders was still available in the third round (and Peyton was available as a QB too), but I got burned by them in the second half of last season when Denver changed their offensive scheme and handcuffed Manning. Kubiak scared me away because he's more of a "ground and pound" kind of coach and I don't think Peyton will be throwing near as much this year as he has in the past - and with DeMaryius still there, he'll probably get the majority of looks anyway.

Lynch was my first pick (#3 in the first round), then Forte (#8 in the second round).

Not arguing for one side or another, but you make a good point. The range at my home course buys and uses only clearly marked, limited flight range balls. They all have black stripes around them and "PRACTICE" stamped on the ball. I wouldn't bother to steal one of them because my game is short enough without using a ball that's going to knock 10-15% off my already lacking distance. If there's a ball other than that in the mix, it's one that found its way onto the range from the first fairway (which parallels the driving range), and isn't a ball the course bought - 100% guaranteed. Another local course uses a mix of whatever balls they happen to have, marked (mostly, anyways) with a red felt pen stripe around them. I'm pretty certain that most of them are lost balls they've recovered off the course. No way of really knowing what balls they bought or what balls were "donated" by players. It's pretty much a moot point for me because I only play one model of ball and the chances of a nice, new e6 popping up in the range balls at my home course is pretty close to nil. If one did happen to show up in the pile and I decided to snag it, I'd have a very clear conscience that I wasn't stealing something the course bought, because I know 100%, without a doubt, for a fact that they would never buy e6s for use on the range. To me it wouldn't be any different than picking up a stray e6 I found out on the course. Either way it's a moot point. The most likely scenario is I'd set it aside to hit on the range with my driver. I can afford to buy my own balls, and if it's spent any time at all on the range it's probably not in "like new" condition anyway.

I'd be pretty close to that: Driver 5W 5H 7, 9, PW, SW Putter 7150 yds would be a long course for me - I'm not a long hitter and would probably use the 5W often to even have a sniff at GIRs. I'd probably even need the 5W for a couple of those long par 3s!

I've played the e6 exclusively for a couple years now and like how it fits my game. I'm more of a sweeper than a digger, don't have a real high trajectory or swing speed, and therefore don't put a lot of spin on the ball. I feel much more comfortable running my pitches/chips up to the pin than trying to throw darts and getting them to stop/check up close to it. I consider the e6 as kind of a "middle ground" ball - it doesn't bite like a tour ball, but it doesn't just carom off the green like a rock-hard distance ball either. Another factor is that my home course (where I play most of my golf) is a desert course and has hard greens. You rarely leave a ball mark, and even tour balls don't bite hard - backing a ball up is all but out of the question. My .02 to @stealthhwk - which ball you're using is probably much less critical than just picking a ball you like and getting used to how it behaves on the green. You could probably go from a Top Flite distance ball to a ProV1 and not see a very noticeable swing in your scores attributable to the ball. I don't play anything but the e6, am very used to its feel/performance and I've swung from 82 to 97 (and everywhere in between) in the past couple months, playing the exact same course with the exact same ball and clubs.

#3, but the draft order inverted every other round so I'd go from #3 pick to #8 pick in the 2nd, 4th, 6th, etc. rounds.