RoyalMustang

Worst thing in golf? Effing cheaters who break the rules to brag about shooting XXX, who just straight up cheat when nobody is looking, that won't play you in a money game when you call them out, or worse, get called out for cheating during the money game and want to argue about it. My grandfather always said that you can tell a man by playing a round with him. Cheating on the course? Do not do business with him; you'll get screwed. Do not spend time socially with him: eventually you'll be tarred by association. A person of good character is so on or off the course; same with a person of poor character. Another wise person said "it's what you do when nobody is looking that defines you, not how you act when everyone is watching you". I think Ichiro put it best in his HOF speech, paraphrased: "if you want to be a good teammate, be responsible and accountable to yourself. If you didn't get the hit or dropped a fly ball, it wasn't because you were up against a great pitcher or the sun was in your eyes. It's because there was something you could have done better." Golfers who cheat aren't accountabie to themselves. Nor will they be accountable to anyone else if they can get away with it. One thing I always loved about golf is that it supposedly a game of honor and more than "just golf".

That's an interesting point. I bet each player's mental makeup has a lot to do it. In baseball it's often the opposite: you'll often see players with "new dad energy" after having their first child. Baseball is all-consuming with one off-day every 2 weeks or so, insane travel, and is a battle just to stay healthy and on the field. It seems that for players, getting married and having kids gains them a new perspective on life and allows them to leave the diamond behind for a bit each day, at least when they are playing at home or during the offseason. For me personally, having my first kid and racing a bicycle as a pro made me more efficent. I streamlined my activities, planned my workouts and meals so that I could get in the 18-hour weeks required to race a bike at that level. Saturday mornings and my wife is at work? My 1-year old goes in the Burley and I tow him around for 50 miles. We take some apple slices to feed horses along the way. I'm only averaging 19mph instead of the normal 21mph on that country loop but the effort is the same, and towing a light trailer is actually very good for your pedaling efficiency. But cycling is slightly different in that there's less technical analysis, less mental makeup. You've got the legs or you don't, and the path to getting the legs is pretty clear if you've got the talent. I need decompression from my sport or job: during Nature Valley GP one year I read most of "Too Big to Fail" between stages. Nothing is worse than sitting around all morning, waiting for the stage to start, knowing your going to be in the pain cave at kilometer zero when the field is single file for the first 45 miles, fighting for wheels, averaging 29mph. That sense of dread is not something to carry with you all day.

Same! You can give everything on the field of battle and still be a good person off of it. Steve Prefontaine comes to mind. A guy who could not lose in front of his home fans: he refused to let them down by coming in 2nd at Hayward. Yet he loved being out at the bar as the life of the party. He regularly drove up I-5 to the state pen in Salem to introduce inmates to running. He came to classrooms, talked to kids, signed autographs, inspired people. He shared his love of running, and of life, to anyone he could.

Great perspective! A friend shared a story that will always stick with me. He and I were both climbers and had spent months in Yosemite over the years. His uncle worked for a summer in Yosemite as a supervisor for North Delaware (the concessionaire for YNP). One day, he sat down to breakfast in the lodge food court and began chatting with the guy next to him. They hit it off and had breakfast every day throughout the rest of the summer. That guy never said a thing about rock climbing during their shared breakfast conversations. Never said a thing about being the world's foremost trad climber, the guy who put up the world's most famous boulder problem in Midnight Lightning, the guy who put up Astroman (argubaly the most famous trad climb in the world and the climb which every trad climber aspires to send), the first guy to have a pair of climbing shoes named after him, the guy who trained Tom Cruise (and was his climbing double) for MI2. Literal climbing world god. For all by friend's uncle knew, this guy was a fit-looking carpenter or mason. it wasn't until my friend visited his uncle in the Valley that summer (he was enrolling in the fall at UC Berkley and getting a PhD in neuroscience) that he joined his uncle for breakfast and met his uncle's now old-friend Ron Kauk.

Hooters is shutting down: should be some unemployed potentials looking for new gigs. And if you want a sleazy rich divorced guy, Inwood might be your best option to waitress at!

I've been golfing back again for a few years now, and I've played in a lot of events. A few weeks ago I played in my first "open" event. I hate to sound like a snob, but I loved everything about it! I'd encourage anyone else who can enter to do so. I posted awhile back and was encouraged to play in it. I'll do more of them going forward. For starters, there were lots of good golfers. The event was for indexes of 5.4 and lower. Despite it being in Dallas in the summer and carts being allowed, at least 1/3 of players walked (as I did). People were generally very, very nice; nobody was taking things too seriously. it wasn't a US open qualifier or anything like that, and I wasn't paired with anyone who was realistically in contention. I assume they paired like index players. Nobody played well: I think we only had 11 birdies total in our 4-some. But that was OK. It was a good group and I'm playing with at least one of my group mates going forward. Second, many of the players had their (legit) WAGs tagging along. It says something when your hottie WAG doesn't mind walking a 5-hour round on a muggy Saturday with you. My wife got used to being the only wife showing up at previous events; this time, she made a friend in our group with a wife of one of my playing partners, who happened to be a year behind me at SMU. Everyone I spoke to seemed to be successful professionally, in shape, and really have a lot going for them. Everyone thinks of successful career professionals as guys who can't hit a driver out of a wet paper bag, but that wasn't the case here. I compare this to the US Am Tour events I used to play with. As time went on, 85% of the paticipants became fat out of shape guys. They can't hit the ball very far. So, instead of getting into shape and getting stronger, they complain about course distance. Over time, my flight moved from the regular men's tees to the 4th tee box up at the national championship, 6,100 yard tees for the 4-7 flight open flight; lame. The last event I played with the same: I know the course and we were senior or ladies tees all day. We had longer tees at the 4 man charity scramble last fall! We wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by not having 1/2 of the field in the 70's. Plus if a day was cart path only, it pretty much ensured a 6 hour round, the way those guys waddle. They all treated it like it was Sunday at Augusta. Lots of temper tantrums, arguments, even a thrown club. One guy got into my face about double-tapping a putt (which was accidental-I'm not good enough to control a double-tap on a tentative downhill 3-footer), said I should be penalized and accused me of lying and doing it on purpose, even though that rule was abolished years ago. He then proceded to shout "F***" on several holes after hitting a bad shot and shooting 105. Not to mention miraculously finding more than one sure OB ball launched into the nearby neighborhood miraculously close to the fairway. Maybe they all just happened to hit a trampoline in the back yard, angled perfectly back toward the course at a 45 degree angle. I also played at the monthly members tournaments when I was part of a CC, but I dropped my membership 3 years ago. Those were fun and sandbaggers were kept in check by the rolling tournament index. You can start with an 8 index, but shoot 75 every week on a 72.5/132 course and you'll soon be a 3. Too bad the course went to s*** due to lack of maintnenace. At any rate, playing with a better group of players, even if I barely qualify as a "better player", was really enjoyable and I'd recommend it!

Totally. I wasn't a huge Scottie fan because he plays so well and I always root for an underdog, but he genuinely seems like a normal guy, with normal friends who aren't pro golfers or part of his entourage. My buddy sees him over at Inwood tavern every once in awhile, just being a regular guy, hanging out. If Tiger was from Dallas, I don't think he's be seen too often over at Inwood swilling Irish Car Bombs and playing darts.

https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/45745697/scottie-scheffler-take-success-golf-point Scottie gets it. I love this attitude. He wants to win more than anyone duing the tournament, but at the end of the day, who he is as a person isn't tied to his identity as a golfer. That's a superb distinction that takes some real maturity to understand. Sure, the world may know him as the world's best golfer. But he may prefer to be remembered by his friends and family as "if my car broke down at 3am and I needed help, he's the guy that would take my call and drive out to help me ". I know I would. I see so many people that tie their identity to a sport, a culture, a group, a fanbase. Tons of pros are like this: all they know is golf. All of their friends and staff are part of the golf world. They literally have no identity outside of golf. No hobbies, no interest in educating themselves. Just golf. It's like this for elite amateurs as well in all sports. I know folks who literally carry "I'm a golfer" around on their sleeve with their conversations, their clothing choices, their lifestyle choices. When I raced bicycles at the elite level, we'd be sitting around all morning (stages typically start at 1pm and end about 5pm) and 2/3 of my team would be sitting aound, talking about pro cycling in Europe. Or bike tech. Or power meters. Or nutrution. The other 1/3 would be talking about good books, the current economic and finance climate, or philosophy (we had a few that had liberal arts backgounds). One was getting his MBA at the time, another going to med school, a 3rd a remote working chemical engineer for Daimler. Those folks were a lot more interesting than the "I'm a pro bike racer" folks. That begs the question: if all that disappeared tomorrow, who would you be? If I'm rendered a quadrapalegic tomorow and can no longer golf, have I lost my identity? For me personally, no. I love golf, I play golf, and I want to get better at it. It's fulfilling. But being a golfer is not part of who I am as a person. if it all goes away, it's inconsequential to who I am as a person, father, husband, neighbor, and citizen. I also love his perspective on winning. It's fleeting and not fulfiling long term. The process is what counts more than the result. I won a national title in a different sport a decade ago, something I'd been training towards since my late teens. The joy lasted about 24 hours. Then I was back to my routine, wondering what was next. Ask anyone back in the day who broke 4 minutes for a mile (when breaking 4 minutes was a big deal) and they'll say the same. Lifetime goal, checked off. What's next? a 3:56 mile of course. More efficent training, better nutuition. But only a loser would go though life as "Hi, I'm XXX and a 4 minute miler. Nice to meet you".

For me it is a bit of a float. It almost feels like the club goes weightless at the top and I then I suddenly feel it again later as I'm turning toward the target. Almost as if I dropped the club and re-caught it. There's no tension, then suddenly an aggressive sling and good release. I've certainly felt this and hit bombs for drives when I've done it. Most of the time, there is tension, I'm pulling my hands through too soon, and it's a bad swing.

I'm trying to figure this out as well. The best balls I hit feel effortless, because of proper sequencing. Load and drive off that back foot, giving my hands time to shallow, makes for a good swing. Ball goes straight-ish and a long way. The issue is finding that "flow" on a consistent basis. Too tight or too quick: the ball can end up in the next neighborhood over. I'm seemingly incapable of managing it throughout an entire round. Counting or deliberately pausing at the top, to reduce the arm and shoulder tension, seems to help, but then I forget and it's gone again. It's been an issue ever since I started playing as a kid. I was leading a tournament one time though the 14th hole and what happened? I got quick and tight, carded a 12 on the next hole. I'm beginning to think it's my makeup to be tight: my wife (who is a PT) sure thinks so. I'm just incapable of relaxing much, even in day to day life. I always have to be going, progressing, pushing myself. Just yesterday I was at the water park with my son and he challenged me to see how many laps I get on the big slide (8 stories tall). I was able to get end to end in 2:15 without slipping on the wet steps and get in 12 laps total. That approach doesn't work well in golf. FWIW, relaxing and letting the terrain and forces dictate your movements is very hard to learn in skiing. It's how elite skiers release and move down the fall line but teaching someone how to relax and redirect the forces they've created is somehow difficult.