Caddie1966

Congratulations Jamie, as a member, I can attest to the great support you have provided. The mods are very helpful, inventive, positive and just good people. It makes all the difference in the world to have a forum as open and as fun as this one. Thanks for your tireless efforts.

Take care of yourself. Golf can wait for the medical ok. I am playing less due to the excessive heat in TX and playing only as early as I can to avoid the heat. I am also drinking as much H2O as I can ou there.

Wow. That’s Dechambeau territory. Congratulations.

Date 08/06/2023 Course Name Denton Country Club Gross Score 79 Course Handicap 10 Gross Strokes over/under par 8 Net Score to Par -2 Net Score 69 Net Birdies or better 7 Longest Drive 308 Good driving and putting day. 28 putts. Rest was ok. 4 over on the par 3s which is unusual for me. Did smoke the first tee shot though.

My wife and I played Brackenridge Park in San Antonio TX December 30 in 2012. Brackenridge was the home of the Texas Open in the 30s, 40s and 50s. It was the first course in Texas and was designed/built by Tillinghast in 1916. Byron Nelson won there. Mike Souchak shot -27 in 1955 and that record for low 72 was not beaten on tour until 2001. We played in a scramble hosted by Valero Corporation for their guests at the Alamo Bowl game that night. 2 foursomes per hole. Shotgun start at 8a.m. It was 27 degrees and winds were 15-20. Windchill was in the low teens. It seemed tee shots wouldn’t fly over 200 that day as the balls would not compress. We played the last 3 holes while snow was coming down.. We finished but about 2/3 of the field did not. Our group tied for 1st at -2. I don’t remember any other scramble I played that had a winning score of at least -14. At about 3 p.m. the temps got to the mid 30s. I think we warmed up about January 5th or 6th.

Date 08/03/2023 Course Name Denton Country Club Gross Score 79 Course Handicap 10 Gross Strokes over/under par 8 Net Score to Par -2 Net Score 69 Net Birdies or better 10 Longest Drive 307 Strange brew today. It was a feast or famine day. 4 natural birdies and 5 natural double bogeys. Best driving day in a long time. First time I have 3 putted in a couple of months, as 2 of the 5 doubles came as a result of 3 putt greens. In both cases I had 20 footers for par and ran it 10 feet past and missed the comeback putts.

I am with @funkyjudge, no scrambles except charity. Winning is too important for some out there, NOT to cheat. I don’t get it. I played in a 4 man scramble event about 15 years back which had a cash payout of $2000/1500/1000 for 1st, 2nd, 3rd. It cost $1000/ team to play. The rest went to a school system athletic fund for uniforms and equipment. There were over 30 teams so we had a long day. I was the high handicap in our group and was in the low 4s at the time. Our group’s total handicap was 10. We shot a legit 59 on a tough par 72 Pete Dye layout playing almost 7000. No junk like mulligans, strings, throws etc, no handicaps, just pure golf. The course was crowded enough that we had a 5.5 hour round and could watch the groups in front and behind. Neither shot anywhere close to our 59. We birdied 13 holes missing on the par 3s and one long par 4 as I recall. We didn’t make any of our eagle opportunities. We were out of the money. Had we eagled the par 5s, we would have had 55 and would have felt pretty good about it. 52 was the low round we saw when we posted our score and knew that was certainly possible since we could have gone that low had we birdied everything and made an eagle or 2. We watched the groups in front and back of us miss par putts on a couple holes. The group in front of us turned in a score in mid 60s. The guys behind us turned in 49. That meant 5 eagles and 13 birdies. We knew that was bogus as we saw them bogey at least 2 holes. They might have had 64. One of my playing partners nearly got in a fist fight with theguy in the “49” team that turned in the card when he called BS on their score. The “49” team was the last to turn in their card. I think they got in, waited to see what was posted and then filled their card and turned it in. This experience motivated me to reduce my scramble tournaments from around 6 a year to 2 that I know are legit charities. I don’t play any that payout cash anymore.

I was with MCI in the 80s and 90s when we sponsored the Heritage at Hilton Head, now the RBC Heritage, the week after the Masters. I was lucky enough to have customers there as guests and had passes to the clubhouse. Watching is a choice as @Golf2Much says,you can follow groups or pick a spot. If you pick a spot, it’s always nice to have a view of a few holes at once if that’s possible. Sea Pines is tight enough that you can switch it up easily. Some courses are spread out and that makes following a group a challenge. I always preferred to pick a group unless the customers wanted to stay in one place. I have been to the Players, Byron Nelson, Colonial, Senior Open ( Dearborn TPC in Michigan, PGA at Oakland Hills in the 70s, and once to Muirfield in Ohio. I’ve also seen the LPGA twice. The crowds are at the PGA events so it’s easier to get up close at the LPGA and as @Golf2Much says, relate to the game a little easier. However the crowd feeds off the players at the PGA and the excitement level is much higher. My club held Tour Qualifying Round 1 back in the 90s. It was a five round qualifying event. We could walk the fairways with them back then.

Date 07/26/2023 Course Name Denton Country Club Gross Score 74 Course Handicap 10 Gross Strokes over/under par 3 Net Score to Par -7 Net Score 64 Net Birdies or better 9 Longest Drive 298 This is a combo of 2 nine hole rounds. 74. Played the front Sunday and the back today. 2 natural birdies and 2 doubles on the front on Sunday for 37. Today was the back 9. Bogeyed par 4 # 10 and par 3 #16 birdied par 5 #11 and parred the other 6 for 37 on the back. 13 putts on the back today. Hopefully I can play well tomorrow.

I rotate between pairs. I love Puma shoes, Footjoy and Jordan. The only ones with spikes are the Footjoys. I swap out the spikes on those every other year. The Pumas, Jordan’s are spineless.

I believe you can tape one week of LIVE FROM and replay it every week and not miss anything but the name of the contenders, name of the course and the name of the tournament. I am far from a fan of Brandel Chamblee although I agree with him on LIV and on Jay Moynihan. The investment that Comcast has in Golf Channel is welcome. I watch every round of every tournament either on DVR or live but for me, LIVE FROM is to me is a broken record. I much prefer Golf Today where I can listen to George Savarikas say what’s on his mind. Yesterday for example, he ripped the PGA for not including the Barbasol and Barracuda in FedEx point counts.

One thing missing in this discussion is putting. Hogan was not the putter that Jack or Tiger or Nelson was. Hogan won by being the best ball striker in his era. Period. He won by hitting the ball better than anyone else. 63 wins total and 6 of his 9 majors AFTER his near fatal accidents in 1949. He was tenacious and his swing is technically one of the best ever. Another reason his swing is so revered is that it is one of the few that was filmed repeatedly during that time. He also had only his wife Valerie. They had no children. She encouraged him to develop his work ethic. He worked on it constantly and did not have the distractions that todays pros do. Search YouTube and you can find Byron’s, Sam’s Demaret’s, Moe Norman’s, Bobby Jones’ and a few others but not in the same volume as Hogan’s. I caddied for Mike Souchak when he was head pro at Oakland Hills in the 60s and was one of the long ball guys from that era and held the 72 hole low record for years. He played in the 50s with Hogan. He was in awe of Hogan and his swing.

I am glad you are okay. It’s a scary thing to dehydrate. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Keep your neck, head and wrists cool with cold towels or one of those hydration towels. 2 years ago on September 30, I was playing with a buddy. I walked the front, it was about 90 degrees. I had walked at least 75 rounds by that time that year and many in much higher temps. But that day I could barely make it up our 9th fairway which is a uphill all the way par 5 plays about 560. I wear an Apple Watch while playing only to monitor my heart rate. My resting heart rate is 58. When I walk, I might get to 100 BPM uphill on a hot day. Once on flat ground, I’m back to 85 or so while walking. That day on the 9th green, my BPM was over 160 and I ended up driving home and headed for the ER. The only time my heart slowed was when they put an IV in my arm. I went through heart tests for the next 3 months. They found nothing thankfully. I drink a bottle of water every third hole when walking in the heat. I drink one before I play and by the time I’m finished, I drink about 125 ounces of water when I walk and it’s over 90. Haven’t had an issue since.

Good morning all. We have a weather reprieve today and tomorrow with highs in mid 90s. 10 degrees cooler than it’s been for a while. I play agin tomorrow early. Looking forward to it. Have a great one all.

Happy Friday everyone. Enjoy the start of an Open weekend.