More Distance, Softer Feel, Starts Fires . . .

The scientists recreated the conditions on the days of the fires in their lab. They used high-speed video cameras and “powerful scanning electron microscope analysis” which showed that when the titanium clubs struck or grazed a hard surface, very hot sparks were produced. The sparks were up to 3,000 degrees and lasted up to one second. When they used stainless steel clubs, there were no sparks.

Chemical engineering and materials science professor James Earthman said:

“Rocks are often embedded in the found in these rough areas of dry foliage. When the club strikes a ball, nearby rocks can tear particles of titanium from the sole of the head. Bits of the particle surfaces will react violently with oxygen or nitrogen in the air and a tremendous amount of heat is produced. The foliage ignites in flames.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/21/a-golf-club-so-hot-its-a-firestarter/?tid=hp_mm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdsYHgG3jlI&feature=player_embedded

the unfinished symphony of Roy McAvoy

Roy 'Tin Cup' McAvoy: Well, I tend to think of the golf swing as a poem.

Clint: Ooh, he's doing that poetry thing again.

Roy 'Tin Cup' McAvoy: The critical opening phrase of this poem will always be the grip. Which the hands unite to form a single unit by the simple overlap of the little finger. Lowly and slowly the clubhead is led back. Pulled into position not by the hands, but by the body which turns away from the target shifting weight to the right side without shifting balance. Tempo is everything; perfection unobtainable as the body coils down at the top of the swing. Theres a slight hesitation. A little nod to the gods.

Dr. Molly Griswold: A, a nod to the gods?

Roy 'Tin Cup' McAvoy: Yeah, to the gods. That he is fallible. That perfection is unobtainable. And now the weight begins shifting back to the left pulled by the powers inside the earth. It's alive, this swing! A living sculpture and down through contact, always down, striking the ball crisply, with character. A tuning fork goes off in your heart and your balls. Such a pure feeling is the well-struck golf shot. Now the follow through to finish. Always on line. The reverse C of the Golden Bear! The steel workers' power and brawn of Carl Sandburg's. Arnold Palmer!

Romeo Posar: Unnhh, he's doing the Arnold Palmer thing.

Roy 'Tin Cup' McAvoy: End the unfinished symphony of Roy McAvoy.

Tin Cup

now, I hate, Hate, HATE the end of Tin Cup where he hits 5 balls into the water hazard, going for the par5 green in 2, dumbass . . . but I love, Love, Love this spiel, the unfinished symphony of Roy McAvoy, and, of course, Rene Russo . . . 

Abandoned Golf Courses in Myrtle Beach

Most of the town’s 28,000 citizens are transplanted Northerners, lured there by golf. From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, five new courses opened every year in Myrtle Beach, until it boasted 120 courses – one for every 200 residents. Back then, golf’s popularity was soaring, and the demand for more courses seemed boundless. First the town fed on the sport’s allure, then the housing boom fed on the golf boom. Developers put homes and condos alongside every fairway of every new course, using the locations to boost the homes’ sales prices. The housing mania had so much momentum that when golf’s popularity waned in the second half of the decade, developers simply dropped golf from their equation. They leveled the courses and turned them into more housing tracts. That worked until the housing bubble also burst and real estate prices plummeted. Most of the 22 courses that closed in Myrtle Beach turned into residential developments, but half a dozen weren’t converted in time. Instead, they were abandoned. Those were the courses that interested us

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/13/fairway_to_heaven_what_happens_to_an_abandoned_golf_course_partner/

There was an abandoned golf course in suburban SanAntonio, near my office: Turtle Creek, a common name for courses in Texas . . . seeing the rolling fairways woolly in neglect made me incredibly sad . . . it seems like a step backward -- civilisation wise -- if you see how I mean . . . this Salon snob has missed the essential pathos entirely . . .

GCP Mar 2014

temp 9c
time 3:40
1st round at GCP this year . . .
temp greens . . . 8^/
New Club Management . . . apparently dissatisfaction over quality of greenskeeping . . .