Anchoring The Club - USGA Ruling

Well, I guess this is why I’m not in charge . . . I would have just ruled against the club . . .

But the USGA is taking a more nuanced approach . . .

Maybe I’ll get me a mid-length club . . .

 

 

as if . . .

Truths known only to an avid golfer! 

Don 't buy a putter until you've had a chance to throw it.

Never try to keep more than 300 separate thoughts in your mind during your swing.

When your shot has to carry over a water hazard, you can either use one more club or two more balls.

If you're afraid a full shot might reach the green while the foursome ahead of you is still putting out, you have two options: you can immediately shank a lay-up or you can wait until the green is clear and top a ball halfway there. 

The less skilled the player, the more likely he is to share his ideas about the golf swing.

No matter how bad you are playing, it is always possible to play worse.

The inevitable result of any golf lesson is the instant elimination of the one critical unconscious motion that allowed you to compensate for all of your many other errors.

Everyone replaces his divot after a perfect approach shot. 

A golf match is a test of your skill against your opponent's luck.

It is surprisingly easy to hole a 30 foot putt. For a 10.

Counting on your opponent to inform you when he breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of his own haircut.

Nonchalant putts count the same as chalant putts.

It's not a gimme if you're still away. 

The shortest distance between any two points on a golf course is a straight line that passes directly through the centre of a very large tree.

You can hit a two acre fairway 10% of the time and a two inch branch 90% of the time. 

If you really want to get better at golf, go back and take it up at a much earlier age.

Since bad shots come in groups of three, a fourth bad shot is actually the beginning of the next group of three.

When you look up, causing an awful shot, you will always look down again at exactly the moment when you ought to start watching the ball if you ever want to see it again.

Every time a golfer makes a birdie, he must subsequently make two double bogeys to restore the fundamental equilibrium of the universe.

To calculate the speed of a player's downswing, multiply the speed of his back-swing by his handicap; i.e., back-swing 20 mph, handicap 15, downswing = 300 mph.

There are two things you can learn by stopping your back-swing at the top and checking the position of your hands: how many hands you have, and which one is wearing the glove.

Hazards attract; fairways repel.

A ball you can see in the rough from 50 yards away is not yours.

If there is a ball on the fringe and a ball in the bunker, your ball is in the bunker. If both balls are in the bunker, yours is in the footprint

It's easier to get up at 6:00 AM to play golf than at 10:00am to mow the grass.

A good drive on the 18th hole has stopped many a golfer from giving up the game.

Golf is the perfect thing to do on Sunday because you spend longer praying than you would do in church.

A good golf partner is one who's always slightly worse than you are....that's why I get so many calls to play with friends.

If there's a storm rolling in, you'll be having the game of your life.

Golf balls are like eggs. They're white. They're sold by the dozen. And you need to buy fresh ones each week.

It's amazing how a golfer who never helps out around the house will replace his divots, repair his ball marks, and rake his sand traps.

If your opponent has trouble remembering whether he shot a six or a seven, he probably shot an eight (or worse)... 

It takes longer to learn to be a good golfer than it does to become a brain surgeon. On the other hand, you don't get to ride around on a cart, drink beer, and eat hot dogs when you are performing Brain Surgery !!!!

I like Ike

Golf was essential to his daily routine. When he awakened in the morning, he limbered up by taking a few swings in his bedroom with his favorite eight-iron.

He sometimes swung the club when dictating to Mrs. Whitman. At 5:00 p.m. he would rise from Teddy Roosevelt’s old Navy Department desk in the Oval Office, put on his golf shoes, and head out the door, leaving tiny spike holes in the floorboards. On the Ellipse, the greensward stretching south from the White House toward the Washington Monument, he would practice fairway approach shots. His faithful valet (or as he was known in military parlance, his striker), Sergeant John Moaney, would shag the balls while tourists peered through the iron fence.

Eisenhower teed off for a full round of golf about eight hundred times in his eight years as president. Almost every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, he played three-hour, eighteen-hole rounds at Burning Tree, an all-male club in the Maryland suburbs. On twenty-three trips to Georgia, he played roughly two hundred times at Augusta National, where friends built him, on the 10th hole, a spacious three-story house known initially as Mamie’s Cabin, then more commonly as the Eisenhower Cabin. (Mamie herself never played but approved of the game as a stress reliever for her husband.) Ike was a respectable weekend golfer, usually shooting in the 80s, but he had a congenital fade and an unreliable putter, and he sometimes blew up with a torrent of hells and damnations. (Ike almost never used stronger language, and he disapproved of off-color stories. He would turn and walk away if a friend unwittingly tried a dirty joke.) The United States Professional Golf Association helped build a putting green and sand trap outside his office on the South Lawn in 1954. In the spring of 1955, when some unruly squirrels created divots in the green, Ike ordered them shot. Eisenhower was accustomed to having his wishes become commands, but in this case the offending animals were caught and removed.

Read more: http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/exclusive-excerpt-ikes-bluff-president-eisenhowers-secret-battle-save-world#ixzz2BQhP3CrW

Alice Cooper points the finger at famous golf cheaters

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

 

Credit: Ian West/AP

Veteran rocker Alice Cooper has confessed he regularly cheats at golf – and he’s outed celebrity pals including former U.S. President Bill Clinton and tycoon Donald Trump for also bending the rules on the links.

The “School’s Out” hitmaker is a famed fan of the fairways and has credited the sport with helping him to kick his crippling booze addiction in the 1980s.

But he’s now admitted he can’t help moving his ball to a better position when his opponents are not looking, and insists he’s not the only star who likes to get a sneaky helping hand on the course.

Cooper tells Q magazine, “Everybody’s cheated at golf. You might give yourself a better lie, a little nudge here and there. Only when I’m playing with my friends, though. In tournaments I play straight up golf…

“The worst celebrity golf cheat? I wish I could tell you that. It would be a shocker. I played with Donald Trump one time. That’s all I’m going to say. President Clinton never had a bad lie in his life, let’s put it that way. It doesn’t matter where the ball goes, when you get there it’s sitting up because there are CIA guys in the woods (moving the ball), you know?”

- WENN

http://blog.chron.com/celebritybuzz/2012/10/alice-cooper-points-the-finger-at-famous-golf-cheaters/

Lazne Kynzwort Golf Resort, Czech Republic

They Say: "Golf Club Kynzvart is the youngest golf club in the Czech Republic's smallest region, which now has the most courses (10) relative to area and population. The club is located on the fringe of the Slavkov Forest, in the imaginary centre of the other courses, which are located within a 50km perimetre around Kynzvart. The two nearest golf courses are Bohemia's oldest one, with origins dating back to the times of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy - in Marienbad and in Carlsbad. Golf Club Kynzvart may not boast a long tradition, but it offers its members a role in creating it. The history of the club started between 2004 and 2008 when it was officially established and the construction of the course commenced. The architects used the features and characteristics of the castle and the neighbouring nature and, combining traditional and modern elements, created a varied parkland course."  

http://www.golfkynzvart.cz/en/

6620m (~7262Yds), Par 72, Slope ?

#1 short par 4, but there is a large tree and a large bunker pinching the landing area. . . in the sunshiny autumn glory this day I effortlessly hammered my drive over the trap with a power fade away from the tree. We (2-ball scramble) bladed our 2nd just over the green, 2putt par.

#2 medium par 4, a little downhill, very tight fairway . . . totally feeling my oats, intentionally hit a tight draw down the right side of the fairway . . . not to much trouble getting to the green, but that pin was on the edge of a hump that made birdie not happen.

#3 Long par 5 . . . not too much trouble on the drive, just stay in the fairway, but then we got confused by the meterage, and both hit 5irons into the water on the left . . . mine landed right of the water and just followed a hidden slope into the water . . . gad I was irritated.. . . from there another 5iron to the green and flounder to a 7.

#4 par 4-- so wide open I was guarding against the fan-slice, and hit it on a beeline at that hump on the right . . . our playing companions start to grouse about my expertise on the tee . . . 8^D . . . nobody ever notices how bad I putt, OTOH . . . not a real good approach, but up-and-down. . . 

#5 par 3. . . hashed a 5iron. . . over the water but . . .we tried to play this ball, even with the scramble drops, just impossible. . . double bogey . . . 

#6 par 5 . . . played left of those trees . . . many people cut the corner, but that's not fairway, it's rough, and deep in places . . .I didn't realize the hole played so short, and tried to hit a 5wood short of the water . . . 5iron woulda been better . . .  looking for my ball in the deep creekside rough was no fun, especially with our companions complaining about the speed of play . . . duuuuuude, we bin waitin' on you most of the time! . . . double bogey . .. should be simple drive, 5iron layup, and wedge.

#7 par 4  . . . too upset and hurried to get a photo of the tee . . .hit a good drive to the back side of the hump before the sandtrap . . . hit a weak 4iron at the left side of the green, short, then up & up & down for bogey.

#8 very short downhill par 3 . . . hit a half9iron to 3 ft and made the birdie.

#9 par 4 from the back tees is a fearsome t-shot . . . like 200m water carry . . . we didn't have that, we had this trick shot around the trees . . . hit a little halfdriver to the middle, then my partner hit a sparkling 7iron right at the pin, I tho't it might go in, but it wound up 20-odd ft past . . .then we 3jacked from there. . . oops.

 #10 par 4, kinda hairy looking tee shot -- mind games -- just a drive & pitch hole if you can get past that . . . 

#11 par 3, very little bailout room here, ob all down the right side, and tree trouble on the left. . . I hit a high 5iron counting on a fade onto the green, but it hit a tall pine solid . . we weren't sure where it went . . . bounced back 40 m toward the tee . . .chopped it up and 2putt bogey.

#12 par 5 . . .very tight landing area. . . downhill pinched by a w-i-d-e creek that crosses the fairway, not reachable, but playing on your mind planning the hole . . . trees, of course, and then some bunkering on the right . . . Hit a rope down the right side with no draw on it. . . straight into the bunker . . . hadda pitch out short of the bunker and try to go from there . . . 5iron/8iron 
from there . . . that elevated green is tough . . . 

#13 par 4, shortish, but a huge mass of bunkering on the right as the hole doglegs left around those trees . . . in my total confidence, I just slapped my drive over all but the last bunker on the right, just short of it --- whew --- just a shortiron from there, 2 putt par . . .kept thinking we'd get another birdie, but just couldn't really get close enough.

#14 par 4, not so much happening, just rail it straight down the right side, short iron onto the green and 2putt.

#15 par 4, likewise, don't remember at all . . .

#16 par 5, hit another good drive -- not well placed -- in that bunker on the right side. . . all day long worried about overhooking and just kept hitting it straight . . . hit a towering 9iron out of the trap, laying up short of what we tho't was the creek crossing the fairway . . . turned out to be covered in the fairway . . . just played safe from there, 150m out with water on the right side of the green . . layed up with a 7iron in the middle pitched on, then made an 18ft par putt. Nice when the strategic golf works out. . . 8^D . . .

#17 is another hairy t-shot for the first timer. . . Not knowing anything, I just hit a half driver down the left side. Turned out alright, left a half-wedge to the green, 2putt par.

#18 par 3 -- I really don't like par 3s to finish a 9, and especially not an 18 . . .hit a solid 5iron, pin high, into a bunker right of the green, behind that evergreen . . . both days . . . we used my partners ball w-a-a-a-a-y on the left side, off the green. Bogey . . .it was funny the next day, our competitors were in the same place, and made that 40m shot for a birdie. . . .

so:

#s 1,5,6,9 on the front, and 10,11,12,13,16,17,18 are all very good holes, if not great....
the par 3s are an excellent mix of challenges and distances.
the par 5s are a very good assortment of holes, with the challenges not on the t-shot so much, but more on the 2nd and approach shots, if you see how I mean . . . 
the par 4s are well-mixed, too, but there's a kind of sameness to several of them that could be better with more variety...

For the most part a mature course (despite it's newness) and if the trees grow in some on those bland par 4s it might move up on the scottsdale scale . . . I'd say a high 3 right now. . . 

Lost Ball . . .

In Arizona , you might  want to accept the fact that your golf ball is lost. Take the  penalty stroke and move on. There is a reason you don't go into  the cactus, where it's dry and hot  looking for your golf ball. X-Ray of this  snake

 

 

 

Ryder Cup 2012

Why do women like US golfers?

Because they can be on top for two days and still come second...!

Boom Boom

 

I think women like the sensitive way they weep afterwards, too . . .