Not long ago I was playing with a foursome and it was one of those weekend rounds that was  taking a little longer than it should, but it wasn’t real bad.  We could see some groups backed up in front of us, but couldn’t see the exact reason for the slow play.  But we just decided to relax and enjoy the golf for the day without letting it bug us.

All of a sudden this over eager beaver marshal rides up from behind us and starts chewing on us to speed up.  You’ve seen the type before, a little badge and a golf cart goes straight to their head.  Add in the fact that he was coming the wrong way on the golf course to start in on us when there were groups backed up in front of us and I thought I was going to have to pull one  of my partners off of the guy.

After we corrected him, he just sort of huffed and said something to the effect of  “Well just make sure you keep it moving” and roared off in a cloud of…..well not dust but maybe embarrassment and self importance.

This is typical of what I am seeing more and more of these days.  And I have no problem with the marshal going to the front group that is a little slow and ASKING them to pick up the pace a little.  But to harass and badger every foursome along the way is just ridiculous.

And the problem feeds one of my other pet peeves,  golfers hitting into the group in front of them when play is slow.  It is not only obnoxious and uncalled for, but dangerous.  I have a good friend who is blind in one eye after getting hit by a golf shot.

This happened to us recently and, in this case, like most of the time, they were hitting into a group of golfers who ARE NOT the group causing the problem.  It’s all I can do to not hit that golf ball that comes into our group out into the deep woods or out of bounds area to lose it.

Again, I believe that pace of play should be kept up, but with the rest of the world always going crazy, can’t we have a little peace on the golf course?

Here are the results of the poll:

63% answered yes, they would like to see the course set up be more difficult

37% said no, they like it just fine the way it currently works.

So golfers have answered and it appears that we’d like to see more challenging golf courses on the PGA and LPGA tour.  Thanks golf nuts for all of your responses.

But as much as I love golf and as much as I respect all of the pro golfers (men and women) on the professional tours, for me personally, a lot of tournament golf has become a little boring.  Except for the major tournaments where it just seems that the pros have to really work hard to score and to win.

So, for me, it just makes me feel a little closer to those pros.  It’s not just me and the rest of the amateur golfers who struggle with this game.  These guys and girls are so good that it takes some pretty extreme challenges to really let the game of golf do it’s thing to them like it does it to us sometimes.

I also find it interesting to see how the men and women of the PGA and LPGA react to these circumstances.  You get to see a side of them that we normally don’t see week in and week out.

Now this got me to thinking about an interesting question.  Should the professional tours make the golf courses for the regular tournaments a little more difficult?  In other words, when we are not watching The Masters, The US Open, The Open Championship, or the PGA, do we really enjoy watching pro golfers shoot -10, -14, or even -22?

I’ve never really asked myself this before, but in watching the US Open so far and thinking about it, I’ve decided that I am in favor of this.  I believe that, especially with Tiger at a major turning point in his career (more about this in a later post), that not only will this make golf more interesting, but the game of golf needs this.

You may agree or disagree, but I think that professional tournament golf (other than the majors) has become a little boring.  And as always, I am interested in your thoughts.  So, if you would, take a minute and complete this poll question below.  I’ll post the results in a few days.

This was the first time in 22 starts that Mickelson has missed a cut.  And if you play golf, you know that no one can play the game at their best all the time.  Everyone has spots where they struggle, even the guys and girls on the pro tours.   

But here is a question.  There was a ton written recently about Phil having the opportunity to gain the top spot with a victory at Colonial.  And he immediately misses the cut.  And let’s look at how he missed the cut at a tournament that he has won twice previously. 

It was his highest round at Colonial in six years.  He only hit 12 of 28 fairways and only 24 of 36 greens. And he was 17 shots behind the leader when he departed.  And it wasn’t just one part of his game, he seemed to struggle in all areas.

Now Phil has proven that he can take the pressure to win a Major golf tournament.  So he is used to the limelight and major golf tournament pressure.  But with all that has happened in the “Tiger era” and with Tiger now vulnerable, the media pressure and attention will be as it has never been before.

The questions and focus will be so intense on who may supplant Tiger that I believe it may be a type of pressure and attention that Phil, in fact no golfer, has not faced before.  And golf is most definitely a mental game.

So I don’t think that Mickelson is unable to win in the short term and possibly gain the #1 spot.  I question whether he has the deep mental toughness to grab the #1 spot and keep it.  Can he survive, and even thrive, under the glare of that spotlight?  He may prove me wrong.  But even as good a guy as he is and a great golfer, I’m not convinced he can do it.

This particular course was the main golf course at the Marriott Bay Point in Panama City, Florida.  We were on a family vacation in the area and some buddies and I decided to hit the links.  I didn’t know anything about that particular course, but it was at a Marriott resort so I figured we couldn’t go too wrong.

Once we checked in at the pro shop and I looked at the card, I thought “Oh no, we may have gotten more than we bargained for”.  Reading about the course’s status, I was thinking that we were going to have to just “man up” and play this course, tough handicap or not.

So out we go and it started early and stayed the same…..ridiculous!  I don’t mind a difficult course.  I don’t mind a course that is longer than most.  I don’t even mind one that is long and difficult, but this course looked like it was  designed by a deranged three year old.

It appeared that they designed the course purely to get that high handicap.  But they did it in the most ridiculous ways.   Let me share a few examples.

One of the early holes had these deep grass bunkers right in the middle of the fairway AND right in the landing area for your tee shots.  And the way that they were laid it, it was only pure chance whether your tee shot missed them or not.  And these were all deep enough that on your second shot, you only had a chance to move the ball about 50 yards up the fairway.

I’m not going to continue to rant about the other crazy things that they had done, I won’t bore you with all of that.  But let me just say this.  That golf course was ridiculous and I vowed never to go back there again.

Now I am not familiar with many of the courses on the list in the espn.com article above. But I just hope that they are nothing like what I experienced that day in Panama City.  Difficult golf is part of the game, that is why they have the handicap system.  But to put things in the middle of a beautiful golf course that really belong at the local putt putt is just wrong.

Happy New Year and I hope all of your golf is great this year!

So they land in Augusta, Ga and head to the home of The Masters, Augusta National.    A round of 18 holes on the famed track that looks so great on TV in April.  Dinner at the Augusta National Golf Club, then they get to stay in one of the cottages on the property.  If it ended right there and they returned home the next morning,  it would be awesome! But it wasn’t over yet.

The next day they play the main course again in the morning and then play the Par 3 course before heading home in the Nicklaus jet.  And the topper is that Jack, as the member at Augusta National, picks up the tab for the trip.  Does it get any better than that?

Wow, a golf trip of a lifetime.  Not much more I can say.

First, the lack of the physical contact and wear and tear lets you compete longer in the game of golf.  Hence, an advantage.  But without the physical contact or the speed and movement of other sports, there is no way to release the adrenaline that comes with professional sports.  And this can be a disadvantage for golfers.  I’ve heard discussions of how caddies have saved pro golfes by having them play one less club  because they knew that the adrenaline would have them pumped up.

So does golf actually have more pressure than other professional sports you might ask?  Well I don’t really think that pro golfers would tell you that there is more pressure in golf than in other professional sports.  But from my own personal experience, I think that pressure affects them in other ways.

First there is that physical aspect we talked about earlier.  I know that I’ve had rounds of golf where I was just really struggling and I wanted to just lash out, hit something, release some steam etc.  But there is no way to do that in the sport itself.   So golfers have to manage that pressure and/or adrenaline in different ways.

Second, there is pressure in all professional sports for the individual to perform.  And in some cases there is all the focus on an individual for a moment, like a free throw in basketball or a field goal attempt in football.  But in golf, if you miss that putt with the whole world watching, there isn’t someone to “pick up the pace” or to help you get back in the game like in other sports.  You have to “pick it up” all by yourself.  So again, not necessarily worse pressure, just applied in different ways.

So my response to the question in the title of this post is this:  The pressure is there just as in other sports, not worse or more of it, just a little different in how it affects us, the golfers.  Good golfing out there.

Now what does this mean for our writing and our content?   Well first it won’t mean a major shift one way or the other.  We were already writing a reasonable amount about the rules of golf.  But this just means a slight increase in how much.  It also means that our focus on golf tips is the right one.  So we will continue with that being our biggest focus in our content.

Let me add that I am glad to see an increased interest in the rules.  I’ve always felt that a lot of golfers didn’t take the time to learn the rules of golf.  And so often I see golfers apply the rules the wrong way just because that’s the way they’ve always seen it done.  And while it probably doesn’t matter in just a friendly Saturday round of golf between friends,  there always comes a time when you will have a question come up where it does matter.

So thank you again all you golf nuts.  For your feedback, your support, and your love of the game.  Good golfing and look for some more rules content going forward.

So I wanted to ask you golfers out there to see what you want to hear about and to see if you want more of one thing versus what I have been writing on.

So I am going to offer this poll for you, our readers and visitors to let us know what you want to hear about.  Please vote and I will post the results in about a week to let everyone see.

Then, depending on YOUR answers, we will adjust our content if you tell us that we need to.  Thanks to all of you golfers out there for supporting us.

I’m looking forward to seeing your votes golf nuts!

One of the things that I love about golf is that it is one of the great humblers in life.  One of the two guys that we were paired with ended up being one of those guys that I don’t enjoy playing with.  He was loud, obnoxious, and believed that he was just a step away from the pro tour with his golf game.  The truth of the matter was that he was about a 10 handicap and a pretty good golfer, but you wouldn’t have believed it to listen to him.

As we played the first several holes, this guy is complaining about why he wasn’t parring every hole.  The pin placements were stupid, he had forgotten his “special” wedge and so his short game was off, the greens were in rough shape so his putting was off and on and on and on.  As we came to a gorgeous and relatively easy par 5 (it was the #14 handicap hole), my partner asked if we wanted to play the hole for who buys drinks from the cart girl who was sitting up by the green waiting for us.  And by the way my partner is a 15 handicapper.

So the loud guy jumps all over this figuring this is a sure thing.  His partner was a pretty decent golfer, about an 11 or 12 handicap.  Well being that it was a par 5, the obnoxious golfer pulls out his driver, tees off first and proceeds to hook his ball into some swampland.  And it went downhill for him from there.  After his tee shot, my partner and I hit 3 woods and both proceeded to par the hole.  So you know who bought the drinks and the loud guy suddenly got a little quiet heading to the next hole.

A few holes later I saw a Dad and his two young sons on an adjacent fairway just absolutely having a blast.  And it wasn’t about them playing good golf, they were all over that fairway.  But the kids were laughing and so was the Dad.  Just great quality time together on the golf course. I love it.

After the turn, I experienced another thing that I really love about the game.  My game started leaving and I was really struggling for several holes.  And my buddy turned to me and said something that any golfer has heard many times.   “Well Dave, a bad day on the golf course beats a good day at the office every time!”.   And he was so right.  It was a gorgeous day and a great course we were playing and after he said that I didn’t let my play affect having a good time at all for the rest of the round.

And one last thing before I go.  After we finished the round and the loud, obnoxious guy stomped off to his car, his buddy came walking back.  “Sorry about Joe”, he said.  “He can be hard to put up with, but I just wanted to let you guys know how much we enjoyed playing with you today”.  Just reinforcing the point to me that for every obnoxious Joe that we run into on the golf course, there are many more nice, decent golfers out there and I always enjoy getting to know them during a round of golf.

Have fun out there all you golf nuts!

I personally love the ProV1 balls from Titleist.  But at $45 a dozen, even on the Internet, that just seems crazy to me.  And even if spending the $45 doesn’t put the dent in your pocket like it does for many of the rest of us, just bear in mind $4 a golf ball every time one goes in the water hazard!   And boy if you buy them at a resort while you are on vacation, whew, just forget it.

So what about used golf balls, (or previously owned if you don’t like the word used)?  Well I’ve found that you can get some great deals on the Internet for high quality golf balls.  Here’s an example.  Recently I priced the Pro V1 online at a popular store for $45.99 a dozen.  Top grade used ProV1′s at one of the leading used golf ball online retailers went for $17.95 per dozen.  And if you were willing to bear with a few imperfections, you could pick up a mixed grade bag of 100 for $65.  That’s less than $9 a dozen!

What’s the bottom line?  Well for me, I personally think that golf balls are terribly overpriced. And playing with a great ball like the Pro V1 (or what ever your ball of choice is) for anywhere from 40% to less than 20% of the normal price just makes sense to me.

I’d be interested in your thoughts and experiences golfers!

Now again, I wouldn’t recommend trying to recreate any of these golf swings. These folks are pros. But you can have fun with this and possibly learn something.
Here is a link to a site where you pick a professional golfer and watch their full swing in slow motion:

SwingPlex
As I consistently remind all of us golf nuts, slow and smooth tempo is the key. And I think that these videos reinforce that.
Have fun and good golfing.

I’ve had conversations and feedback from a number of our readers and customers so we have been doing research on how to take our site to the next level. Here are some of the updates that YOU, the golf nuts out there, have been telling us you would like to see:
–More golf rules questions and answers
–A better way to discuss what is on your mind about golf
–Video versions of tips and our golf book
–Notices when new content has been uploaded
We have been working on all of this and more the last several weeks. So you will be seeing regular content again and more communication about the game we all love coming on a regular basis.
Thank you for your support the last few years and you’ll be seeing lots of new things from The Golf Nut in 2009!
David Stargel
The Golf Nut

So here is what I have received a number of questions about recently that I thought would be good to poll all you golf nuts out there about. How many strokes do you typically cut off your game per year? And how do you go about it?
Do you just play more golf? Play more than the year before? Are there any particular golf tips or golf drills that you always start the new golf season with?
We have many golf tips and suggestions here on the site. But many of you may have helpful suggestions that our visitors and readers would love to learn about.
So please follow this link to our golf survey. There is no obligation and we will not send you annoying spam emails as follow up. We Promise!
The Golf Nut.

There are, in fact, many things that I love about golf. But one of the big ones is the fact that I can play the game and play it for a lifetime. And it really doesn’t matter how good or bad I am at it.
The handicap system helps to equalize the game so that golfers of all abilities can play together. But to me it’s more than that. Look at it like this. I will never run a 4.4 40 yard dash. I will never jam my elbow down the rim on the basketball court. I will never crush the baseball 500 feet.
But in golf, every now and then I hit that really sweet golf shot that goes exactly like it’s supposed to. I don’t even feel the golf ball make contact with the face of the club. The ball flies straight and true with just the hint of a draw. And it lands perfectly in the short grass right in the middle of the fairway.
Many times, that one shot is enough to keep us golfers coming back for more for many months to come. And that’s what I love about golf. It’s that all of us, no matter what our current handicap, have the hope that we can get better and hit more and more of those perfect golf shots this year. Otherwise why would we keep playing this crazy game that makes us say “I love this game, I hate this game” almost in the same breath?
I don’t know about the rest of you golf nuts, but this time of year I am already thinking with eternal optimism about the strokes that I am going to cut off my game this year. And I can’t wait for warm weather and the golf season to begin! To all of you that are crazy about this game like I am, best of luck in 2008!

The overall winner with 36% of the total vote was Titleist. The individual ball named the most out of the Titleist family was the Pro V1 with 60% of the Titleist vote.
We had a total of 140 responses, so thank you golfers for your input. Just to let you know some of the additional results, TayorMade and Nike were tied for second with 15% each of the votes. The remaining votes were pretty much scattered out among Precept, Callaway, Top Flite, and Maxfli and then some miscellaneous votes for a variety of other golf balls.
One interesting note was that regardless of the golf ball that they were voting for, our golfers listed two items as the most important to their preference: feel and distance. Distance had a slight edge on feel, but many golfers mentioned those two together as their criteria.
Thank you again golfers and be looking for another short term question which will be asking all of you to name the question for our next full blown survey.
Good luck golf nuts!

First I have a great video for you to show you that even professional athletes struggle with their golf game.
You can watch it here: golf video. And here is Tiger imitating that golf swing. So don’t feel too bad about your golf swing!
Now one other piece of encouraging info. Remember that over 90% of golfers in the world shoot above 90. So most of us are not scoring that low. If you are shooting near or below 90, you are already in exceptional company!
So it’s the off season and you want to not only avoid ever looking like that but you want to improve your golf swing some before next spring.
Here are my key recommendations for amateur golfers to focus on during the off season. Now as I said, if you are down south and it’s your Spring leading into Summer, there is no reason this won’t help your golf swing right now. Here are my 4 off season recommendations.
1. Lose a few pounds. I have found with my weight and in talking to golfers, that losing 10-15 pounds really helps your flexibility and your swing. And it’s basically good for your overall health. The best way for most of us? Try walking every day. Get up a little earlier and build walking into your daily schedule.
2. Start stretching. Flexibility is key and gets tougher as we get older. A short 10 minute stretching routine will help tremendously in your golf game and you’ll feel better too.
3. Swing a practice club or weighted club to slow down your tempo. The best weighted club for this that I personally use is the Momentus. Now tomorrow I am going to tell you about a very simple device that will really help you with your tempo, so be sure to come back and check out that article.
4. When you practice in the off season (or anytime really), cut your practice time down and focus on your short game. As you have heard many times, that is where the strokes are and it is very true. Hitting tons of balls with your driver or 5 iron is not going to help most of us amateur golfers that much at our age.
So focus on these 4 points and if you want a few more key golf tips, just go to our golfers tips page.
That’s all for today, golf nuts!

I am sorry that we didn’t have any golf tips or golf rules interpretations while I was out. But I am back and going full speed now. So keep sending in your golf questions and I’ll hopefully get caught up by the first of next week.
Thanks,
The Golf Nut

I never used to tee the ball up on a tee shot with an iron. Then a golfing buddy of mine who was a very good golfer asked me why I didn’t. I answered by asking him why he did. His reply made all the sense in the world. He said “Don’t you want the absolute best lie you can get for every golf shot? The tee allows you to do that on the tee box.” I’ve been teeing up my iron shots off the tee box ever since.
Then I tried these “step down” tees and I really liked them. They are basically golf tees that come in heights where the golf ball sits anywhere from 3/8 of an inch off the ground up to 1 7/8 inches off the ground. They are designed to give you an easy and consistent ball height with a particular golf club every time.
It may not sound like much at first. But after I used them a couple of times and then tried playing without them, I found that I made much more solid contact with the golf ball when I was using the step downs. They are really a neat little bit of simple innovation that is low technology but very, very useful.
Get you a bag or two and try them out. My bet is that you will keep some in your golf bag at all times after that. By the way, they aren’t sold everywhere, but I found them at Golf Tees Etc. You can find them elsewhere, but this site seemed to have the best selection and very reasonable prices. These are not expensive but they do cost more than standard golf tees. In my opinion they are very much worth the few extra cents per tee.
Good golfing

Here it is golf nuts, just enjoy!

Good Golfing!

And for all of you faithful, our latest edition will be out tomorrow. That’s right tomorrow, April 4, just in time for the Masters golf tournament.
And that will be the focus of the newsletter this month. My personal favorite, The Masters at Augusta National.
Enjoy,
The Golf Nut

First, I have to question how much amateur golfers really need technology that can tell them how far they are from the pin to the exact foot. I mean how many of us can hit a golf shot 177 yards instead of 172 yards? Most of us golf nuts (amateurs) just aren’t that good. So this technology is maybe a neat gadget, but not very practical in my nutty opinion.
Second, my buddy said that the system was throwing commercials in periodically during each hole. I don’t know about you, but I go to the golf course to have fun and relax, not be sold to. And I haven’t noticed the resorts lowering their green fees when they have these systems with commercials. So they are bothering our round of golf and making exra money off us? I hate the idea.
Last, I’ve always been frustrated when the rangers come around and keep reminding me that I am 4 minutes behind on my round. And these GPS systems are like a ranger riding in the golf cart with you and reminding you for the entire round.
As you might have guessed, I am not crazy about these things. And I don’t really understand why anyone would want them or need them. Amateurs can’t really benefit from them and pro golfers don’t need them. Why are we having to suffer with them is my question.

But we’re back and just in time for the US Ryder Cup team to not only get beat byt the European golfers, but to really get wiped out. Only a diplomatic concession on a 25 foot putt kept this from possibly being the worst beating our golfers have ever experienced.
Congratulations and dues given the European team. And a special note to Darren Clarke who played in spite of having just lost his wife to cancer recently.
I’m not going to dive into all the discussion (right now anyway) about why the US golfers can’t beat the European golfers in team competition. But you will hear from me on this one pretty soon.
The main thing is that it’s good to be back and I have to play a few rounds of golf before I get the site back to current.
Thanks for your patience.

Yes, interesting golf question indeed. I’ve been playing golf for more than a few years and I didn’t know the answer to that golf tradition question. So off I went to the Internet to research.
I looked and looked and looked and have yet to find the answer to this golf question. So I am appealing to all of you golf nuts out there. The Golf Nut is stumped on this one. If you know the answer, please let us know.
To the golfer who answers the question and provides the web site or source where the answer was verified, I will recognize them on this web site. I will at the same time recognize the golfer who stumped The Golf Nut with this question. This will not be a regular thing, so take me up on this opportunity for golf fame and fortune!
Please email your answers to thegolfnut@the-golf-nut.com and include your answer as well as written permission to print your name on our site.
So put your golf clubs aside for a minute and start surfing or reading and help us out here!