Tigers, alligators, and bad ideas on the golf course Some people get really bad ideas when they’re on the golf course. Tapping an alligator on the nose with a putter (I actually saw someone do this), giving Tiger extra motivation before a match against him, and bringing a cell phone to the golf course usually don’t work out so well for anyone. I think that every time I have seen someone use a cell phone on a course, it has led to disaster for the player. Think about it. The conversations that take place on a golf course almost always involve ...

At the Accenture Match Play Championships, the numbers (as in world rankings) can be thrown out the window. In a stroke play event, we can usually count a lot of players out from the beginning: maybe the course doesn’t set up well for a player; maybe a guy hasn’t been putting well at all; and maybe he just isn’t good enough of to have a legitimate shot of winning a PGA Tour event. This weekend, things will be totally different. In order to win this event a player has to rely on luck a great deal more than he ...

Rory Sabbatini is leading the Nissan Open going into Sunday’s round; fortunately for us, we won’t even need Tiger in contention to see fireworks, because our current leader is more likely to explode than any other player on tour. Sabbatini, who was already famous for a short fuse, left no doubt about his temper or his character last year at the Booz Allen Classic when he played out of turn because Ben Crane was taking too long. The argument that Sabbatini did nothing wrong because Crane caused them to be timed is absolutely absurd; there are some things you ...

The last decade in baseball will unfortunately go down in history as the “steroid era", as some players made the long ball their top priority, not only in playing careers, but in their personal lives. Over the last decade in golf, we have seen the same hunger drive the industry and the players on tour. We even have Vijay Singh, golf’s version of Jose Canseco, blow the whistle on other players for out-driving him. Of course, Singh was wrong while Canseco’s accusations have proven to be true, but you get the idea. Today, during this period of golf’s evolution from a ...

Recently, the Golf Channel released the results of a survey that said women are 19 times more likely than men to cry on the golf course. Apparently Vijay Singh was not asked to participate. Vijay’s age must finally be catching up with him. Not only is he getting out-driven by Phil Mickelson, he is also becoming a grouchy old man. After Mickelson beat him by a total of four shots during the first two rounds of the FBR Open, Singh reportedly asked that Mickelson’s driver be tested. On Monday after the tournament,still grouchy from the weekend’s events, Singh went home and ...

This weekend while playing with my brother, we had an often-debated rule show its ugly face again. Over the past year, this question has arisen on two or three occasions and we have never taken the time to check the official rules. On three separate instances I(why is it always me?) have hit the ball into a lateral hazard on the left with my vicious yet reliable snap-hook. Because the ball has clearly entered the hazard each time, there has been no need for me to hit a provisional, and so we have proceeded through the high grass or forest ...

I enjoyed experimenting with different balls more than any of the aforementioned products, possibly because I decided that I would test each ball mentioned below over the course of a full round, as players need to hit all types of shots to figure which ball works the best for them. Titleist Pro VI, Callaway HX Tour 56 (I decided to group these balls together because I found them to be so similar) These balls explode off of the club when they are hit properly, and they have a great feel around the green. They also spin quite well, and check ...

On Monday after the Seahawks lost the Super Bowl, the team gathered at Qwest Field to thank the fans and to celebrate a truly great season. In the weeks leading up to the game, most people seemed to believe that the Seahawks didn’t stand a chance against the Steelers, but this team had every opportunity to win in Detroit on Sunday night. However, they managed to blow several chances with dropped passes, poor clock management, and horrendous special-teams play en route to a bad loss in their first ever Super Bowl appearance. When he was given the chance to speak during ...

This morning when I was watching Golf Central over a bowl of cereal, they showed a statistic claiming that men are 18 times more likely than women to break a golf club on the course, while women are 19 times more likely to cry. (This is the same study that found 30 percent of Americans would give up sex for a year in exchange for a round at Augusta National). These numbers (who knows how they came up with them) got me thinking- who would I rather play with, the person who cries or the person who slings a club? ...

The next stage of my ongoing equipment review for the high-handicap player brings me to irons, which have undergone considerable changes-even more drastic than the ball or driver-over the last 2 to 3 years. While cavity-back irons used to be the norm for the higher-handicap player, today we see combo sets (irons that transition from cavity-back long irons into blade-like short irons), CGB ("center of gravity back“) technology, and even (excuse me while I become ill) hybrid wedges. I was able to test a broad spectrum of irons, and I learned a great deal from the research. I hit the Nike ...