Buddon _Burn

Also following and have a few parallels - early 40s, lifted 'heavy' weights for a period in my 20s during my hiatus from golf and have had recurring shoulder problems ever since. Also occasional wrist/thumb issues. My shoulder/neck has deteriorated to the point where I've had 4 periods out of golf over the last 3-4 years (ranging from a week to the worst one being about 4 months). Had a lot of physio help following the worst instance (a fairly bad tear) but not recently. I've very recently taken up pilates with the aim of increasing mobility/strength in that area in particular but also overall given my flexibility generally is terrible for my age in my view. I've spent about the last 15 years working very long hours at a desk and think that is the main culprit here. My aim is to do regular pilates for a few months then likely add in some gentle strength work in the gym. I've had a recent realisation (better late than never) that I need to 'use it or lose it' and that golf could very realistically become a thing of the past for me if I don't do something serious about the path I'm going down.

Yep, it's impossible to overestimate how unhelpful/incompetent BA/Heathrow staff can be, and each organisation seems to ensure it has 'policies' in place to maximise/exacerbate this. Heathrow is unavoidable for me, but I've managed to fly with alternatives to BA since the most recent time they lost my clubs about 18 months ago.

I attended 2013 and 2018 and definitely agree re them - Phil’s round was one I wasn’t aware of for a while as I was following the leading groups (I think the final group was something like Mahan and Westwood). I’d count 2012 in with that as well and it’s such a shame that Lytham is out of favour - the run of holes late in the background are brutal a create and create and excellent theatre for drama. Sure Adam Scott was off line/wrong clubbed coming in but the run home is a proper test and it’s tough to hang on to a lead there.

1. Turnberry 2. Royal County Down 3. North Berwick 4. Barnbougle Dunes 5. St Andrew's (Old Course) Others I considered including/would toss up between to include in a top 10: Carnoustie, Royal Lytham, Muirfield, West Cliffs, Finca Cortesin, Hillside, Royal St. George's.

35-42=77. Front 9 was my lowest 9 holes in about 25 years and was still going great through 13, but three 6s in the last 5 holes put a dampener on it. Got a bit unlucky over the last few holes with a putt hitting an old pitch mark just before hole and a chip not releasing, but some really dumb shots as well resulting in two penalties on par 5s. Still, my lowest round in a long time so all in all happy with it. I've been doing a lot of work on my putting lately and that was very solid so it seems to be paying off.

I don’t disagree and for the record I’m a big Tiger fan, Scheffler not so much (although no issue with him). The point I’m making is that it’s just a different time.

I think also there was a lot of perceived excitement around Tiger because golf (the game, the tours, the industry, the politics etc.) had all been fairly dry from my memory in the years up to his arrival. Scheffler has clicked into gear when golf didn't need him as much (unless you buy into there still being a massive hole since Tiger stopped playing other than sporacially/the need for a player to overcome/distract from the LIV/PGA Tour divide, which I don't). There was plenty of other players coming through/LIV issues/industry developments + Covid and it's impacts to occupy a reasonable amount of that space in recent years.

You'll enjoy Bryson's episode on the fourth...

He looked so uncomfortable approaching the second putt... visions of Pinehurst.

A number of the others are also very difficult without wind, especially if the fairways are baked.

I just rewatched large parts of it and can confirm it is still very unpleasant. So much to say but it's all been said before.

Digging this one up from over a decade ago (!) but BVI I see you're still about on this forum so maybe you'll see this. Just a bit of nostalgia for me seeing Pupuke get mentioned, it's a great little course - I was a member there in the 1990s but moved overseas soon after and have never been back. I always dream of getting back for a round and seeing how it is now/how I'd get on. It's been so long that I see from some google images that the trees on the bank right of the 1st that were just little saplings when I was there are now fully grown and in play. I played a lot of golf there back in the day and have a lot of great memories of the course and that time. I had what remains my only hole in one on the second hole (9 iron - I suspect I'd need a bit/lot more club these days...)

Okay, got it. Seems like something LIV could resolve - probably one year of brutal relegation/qualifying and then just following on from that going forward. Maybe difficult if some of the guys on longer term contracts end up in the relegation zone, but they'd still have the ability to contest a genuine qualifying program to get back up (and without intense competition given so many PGA tour aligned players will never enter). If those guys don't get through all of that, then it's worth the PIF's while just paying out the remainder of those contracts - it's unlikely the top end guys (Brooks etc.) are ever going to be in this situation anyway, so it's only the Poulter, Pereira type guys who may get relegated and fail to re-qualify, and they presumably wouldn't cost LIV an unjustifiable amount to just pay out.

Is it just promotion/relegation itself or the fact it is done in a meaningless way (where there's so often been a work around to keep guys in LIV who should have been cut loose)? I don't see what the problem with promotion/relegation would be on the face of it if conducted properly and transparently - the accepted tours largely work in essence off the same principal. As we all know, there's already various tours with small fields/only three rounds that get OWGR points e.g. the Clutch Pro Tour in Europe (albeit a very small number of points but those are cherished and deserved by the guys working their way up on that/those tours) and also arbitrary invitational events with no cuts, e.g. Genesis. Given the no cuts thing is however the major sticking point, LIV really should be able to find a way with this e.g. have a cut and let the others play the final round solely for the team format but not counting towards the individual places. This feels no less contrived than the above examples or e.g. how the Tour Championship was run for years, with a comically artificial leaderboard that then needed to be translated back to reality for OWGR purposes. The team format, although very distracting to an individual event wanting OWGR points, should not be an impediment - there's plenty of Pro-Ams etc. around the world that are still eligible for OWGR points, which in my opinion entail the same issues but which are accepted.