Mr. E

Apologies if someone has touched on this already, 87 pages is a lot to cover. If it's a ROLL-BACK...then they already HAVE all the R&D for a ball that flies shorter. So we can expect to pay less for a dozen balls, right? That's pretty generous of them! I'm in favor! However, if 7-14 yards is no big deal, why bother at all?

You're a 14, you're going to make bogies. Figure out whatever strategy you need, based on the girl you brought to the dance that day, to not make a double. If you simply do that, you'll be in on every hole and make him have to beat you. Remember, he's a 6. He will also make bogies.

Golf is a great arena to explore and expand. I struggle and fail, and I work and succeed at it. I play each round as if it were my last…but am I truly? What if we knew in advance that this is our last round? How would we choose to play? We'd look at each other differently, wouldn't we? What kind of companion would you be? What do you suppose we’d learn from or about each other? What would we pay attention to? What would matter? Would we play with joy? Would we try to fix that slice, or simply, dance with the girl we brung? Would we notice the feel of the grass under foot, or appreciate THE sound of a compressed shot? By the way, I so miss the sound of spikes crossing a cart path. Would we finally tell Glen to stop stepping in our line, or just grin and let it be? Would we laugh when our buddy chunks one? 'Cause you know we're next! Would we follow the rules to the letter, or pick that up? What if it was a tournament round? Would you focus intensely and compete fiercely? Could we finally play a round, that round, without fear or doubt? Could we trust ourselves once and for all, with everything we’ve got? Would we honor our lives and all we’ve stood for, humbly? God I love this game, the people who play it and all that it provides.

The other night I was the last one on a practice range. It reminded me of an article that appeared in one of the major golf magazines a couple decades ago. It listed The 52 Things Every Real Golfer Should Do. I remember a couple obvious ones like Play Pebble, play The Old Course, (neither on my list) be in the first group to play in the morning and one that was on my list, 4 putt in a stroke play tournament. (I'm better now, thanks.) Don't seem to be able to find that article. But no matter, what if we made our own list? What would you add?

Pro V snob checking in! Here, try the Kirkland. Pass. Try the Soft X! Also pass. But Rahmbo… Bad reasoning, he plays a Cally driver. What’s wrong with a Cally driver? It’s like the Seth Meyers bit, “There’s something wrong with your door handle. It’s attached to a Hyundai.” I’d feel better, if I threw a ball out of bounds, then hit my third shot with a Titleist 3 wood. Equipment needs to make sense. Titleist makes square faced drivers and fairways. Driving irons have a hybrid body with a FLAT face. The problem with Mizuno HMB’s and Titleist T-150’s is that I can only play one set. Taylor makes Hi-Toe wedges. The freakin’ grooves go all the way onto the toe! And for goodness sakes, of all the clubs, putters can now have lie angle balance, or torque balance, or be face balanced at impact. I love the feel of a plastic faced Odyssey, the looks and prestige of a Cameron, and the popularity of Spiders can’t be denied. But none of them made sense once I saw toe up technology. Yes, my hair is on fire about this! Then there’s PXG. I wouldn’t spend your money on ebay to donate one of their clubs. They chose a side in the PGA/LIV thing. And it’s not that they chose wrong, it’s that they chose drama. If I want drama, I’ll tell my wife I bought the T-150’s!

To pinpoint one thing, expectation management I learned from Scott Fawcett's DECADE, which allows us to apply the analytics of strokes gained from Mark Broadie's Every Shot Counts. Golf is hard! Relax.

Pointing to Frank A., Brady E. turned to me and said, "There goes the only man in the field that could go out by himself and come back with a square number." Dumbfounded, I asked, "What's a square number?" "He knows the rules better than anybody and he's as honest as a man can be." I thought, man I want someone to say something like that, about me behind my back! That was 25 years ago, and I haven't thrown a club since.