A Golf Blog for the Rest of Us!
Well, looks like you got yourself in a little bit of a mess there. It was quite interesting to find out between 1990 and 2011 there were close to 170,000 golf cart related injuries. I can say that I contributed to 2 of those. Any of you have any interesting golf cart accident stories? Pics maybe…?
Hit’em long…yell FORE!!!
So regular season football has been on for two weeks now, and for two weeks I’ve had a few buddies come over to watch the games with me. Our faces are being stuffed with pizza, wings and chips. Beers are being guzzled. Ooh’s and aah’s spread throughout the room after big hits and great catches. Football season is in full swing and I love it.
It’s all of this that makes me realize what that one thing is that’s missing from golf that keeps me from having the guys over to watch a round – everything.
A long time ago I wondered the reason my buddies and I get together to watch football, along with the occasional baseball and basketball games, but we never do for golf, even though we all enjoy and play the game. But I’m thinking that sometime in the next few months, I may try to have a golf get together. But a few dilemmas exist.
1. It’s going to be limited to only certain months of the year. Think about it, if the weather is nice enough, we’re going to be playing golf, not watching it. It’s the same reason that, despite there being a PGA Tour stop only fifteen minutes from my house, I’ve only attended it three times. If the weather is nice enough to wander around a golf course, then I’m going to wander a golf course with my clubs in tow.
2. As mentioned before in the linked post above…it’s boring. Let’s face it, watching golf on TV is just not very exciting. “Hey guys, want to come by my place Sunday and watch the sun move across the sky?” Yeah, that’ll be a blast. “Hey man, I just painted my garage. Why don’t you head on over and we can watch it dry together?” If I was to actually ask either of these questions to my buddies, do you know what the response would be? “Thanks but no thanks dude…I’d rather watch a golf tournament.”
3. How do you plan ahead for it? Do you just pick a time and say come over then? What if it’s the final round and you’re only interested in one particular golfer? How much of that golfer do you really get to see? Let’s go to 13. Now back to 7. We’re going to head over to 17 now. We end up watching a bunch of practice swings before we see eleven seconds of real action…if you can really call it that.
You know, this idea is actually beginning to start sounding bad. I don’t want to have the guys come over and be bored. None of us want to sit and watch golf when we could be playing instead. And honestly, it just seems hard to plan for. So if I’m going to do it, it looks like it’s going to have to be a final round, which means a Sunday. It’s going to have to be in the cold weather, or else we’ll be playing. So that leaves a Sunday in the winter. And that, my friends, is football time. So it looks like my idea is going to have to be put on the shelf. Oh well, maybe one of our rounds will be rained out. Then there may be some time to watch golf.
Swing ’til you’re happy!
Once again it’s come down to that time of year when the U.S. battles it out with Europe for the Ryder Cup. Although I’m not a huge fan of watching golf tourneys, this one is a little different. Why? Because it involves teamwork, more than just golfer-caddy. In fact, I might even check the Ryder Cup odds and throw down a few bucks on it.
I don’t see anything wrong with wagering on your team. It’s like the Super Bowl for golf except the golfers don’t get paid. I guess it is more of a privilege to be there. An important thing to note about the Ryder Cup is that a good chunk of their profit goes back into helping develop the game.
Supposedly (do we ever really know), the monies earned are split amongst different organizations that promote golf to young kids or build and run training centers for the youth etc, etc… Actually, close to 3,000 free golf lessons were provided via Ryder Cup profits in 2011.
In 2004, the Ryder Cup was restructured and an agreement was formed between the PGA and it’s European counterparts to form the Ryder Cup European Development Trust. It pretty much takes a piece of the net profits and through grants, gives it back to grass roots efforts to spread golf through Europe.
Some of the key areas effected by this trust are to make golf available at schools, develop and organize a system for junior golf and make the game accessible to all. I have to say, I was not aware the Ryder Cup had this much of an impact. Talk about teamwork!
Hit’em long…yell FORE!!!
There’s one in every foursome – that golfer who will wait 275 yards out for the group ahead to putt-out and clear the green. Why? Because one time in 1996, all the f’ing planets aligned and he caught his 3-wood just right to roll one up on the green from (what he claims was) 275 yards out.
In our foursome, it’s Stinky Golfer Tom. I don’t know how many times I’ve bit my tongue when Tom is waiting from some ungodly distance for the group ahead to finish putting. “I’m gonna wait – there’s a chance I can reach them.” I want to scream: “IF YOU HAD A CANNON WITH A SNIPER SCOPE ON IT YOU STILL COULDN’T HIT THEM!” But I don’t. I just wait patiently while Tom eventually hits a worm-burner 50 yards down the fairway (much to the chagrin of the foursome on the tee behind us).
Of course I know – the one time I do tell him to not worry about the group on the green and just hit, he’ll launch a missile right at them.
Remember that board game “Ultimate Golf”? It combined 18 of the most famous holes in the world to make one course. Well, what if that course really existed? I would love to play a course where number 1 looked like the first hole at Royal St. Georges; the fifth like #5 at Cypress Point; and the 16th was exactly like the 16th at Oakland Hills!
It would be totally cool to play exact replicas of these great holes all in one course! Now I understand that sea-side and desert holes may be tricky, depending on where this “Ultimate Course” is built, but even without those types of holes, this course would be legendary!
Some golf course tycoon should get on this idea – it could rake in the cash!