'The only thing you should force in a golf swing is the club back in the bag."- Byron Nelson

The thrill of golf is not a function of how far you hit the ball but how well"- Tom Doak

'Golf is a lot like life. When you make a decision, stick with it."- Byron Nelson

"Hazards should not be built solely with the idea of penalizing bad play, but with the object of encouraging thoughtful golf and rewarding the player who possesses the ability to play a variety of strokes with each club"- Wm Langford

"We're not trying to embarrass the best players in the world: we're trying to identify them."- Sandy Tatum @ 1974 US Open

 Future US Open sites:

2021- Torrey Pines South

2022- The Country Club

2023- L.A. CC North

2024- Pinehurst #2

2025- Oakmont

2026- Shinnecock

2027- Pebble Beach

"It is better to walk alone, than with a crowd going in the wrong direction."- Herman Siu

"Sucess depends less on strength of body than upon strength of mind and character"- Arnold Palmer

We don't stop playing the game because we get old; we get old because we stop playing the game.

"The way I have been putting today, I must have been reading the greens in Spanish and putting them in English."- Chi Chi

"It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop."-Confucius

This is a great piece of advice for most people but NOT for golfers. If you are not keeping up with the group in front of you and the golfers behind you are on your tail, pick up the pace and play ready golf or let them play through. Keeping the flag in is one of the best rule changes I have seen, in my life, for speeding up play. No need to ever touch the flagstick again.

"Forget your opponents. Always play against par."-Sam Snead

Bagger Vance quotes

- Golf is a game that can't be won, only played

-The rhythm of the game is just like the rhythm of life.

-Don't think about it, feel it...your hands are wiser than your head will ever be.

-Inside each and everyone of us is our one, true authentic swing.

-I hear you lost your swing. I guess we got to find it.

"Three bad shots and one good one still make par."- Walter Hagen

You don't play golf to relax, you relax to play golf.

Roy McAvoy: I tend to think of the Golf Swing as a poem.

Roy McAvoy: The critical opening phrase of this poem will always be the grip, which the hands unite to form a single unit by the simple overlap of the little finger. Lowly and slowly the club head is led back, pulled into position not by the hands, but by the body, which turns away from the target, shifting weight to the right side without shifting balance. Tempo is everything, perfection unobtainable, as the body coils down at the top of the swing. There's a slight hesitation. A little nod to the gods.
Dr. Molly Griswold: A, a nod to the gods?
Roy McAvoy: Yeah, to the gods. That he is fallible. That perfection is unobtainable. And now the weight begins shifting back to the left, pulled by the powers inside the earth. It's alive, this swing! A living sculpture and down through contact, always down, striking the ball crisply, with character. A tuning fork goes off in your heart and your balls. Such a pure feeling is the well-struck golf shot. Now the follow through to finish. Always on line. The reverse C of the Golden Bear! The steelworkers' power and brawn of Carl Sandburg's Arnold Palmer!

Excerpt from Tin Cup, starring Kevin Costner as Roy McAvoy.

Guide to Executive Golf at The Villages

Currently, there are 42 executive style courses totaling 386 holes in The Villages, Fl. All courses have multiple sets of tees and from the back are challenging for most golfers. Conditioning is not consistent so I have only ranked these courses on two factors: How many holes are somewhat interesting/challenging of the 9 and what is the overall difficulty of the course on a scale of 1-4. After adding these factors I have come up with the four tiers below. * Course has two par 4's.*
Tier 1 (10-12pts)-12
Roosevelt 8/4*, Truman 8/4, Pelican 8/4*, Amberwood 7/4, Gray Fox 6/4, Southern Star 7/3, Mira Mesa 7/3*, Yankee Clipper 7/3*, Bonita Pass 7/3, Briarwood 7/3, Volusia 7/3, Okeechobee 6/4.
Tier 2 (9.5-8pts)-14
Longleaf 6/3.5, Bacall 6/3.5*, Bogart 6/3, Walnut Grove 6/3, Silver Lake 6/3*, Red Fox 5.5/3, Sweetgum 6/2, Lowlands 5/3*, Churchill Greens 5/3*, Loblolly 5/3, Heron 5/3, Palmetto 5/3*, Oakleigh 5/3, Turtle Mound 6/2, El Diablo 5/3.
Tier 3 (7.5-6.5pts)-8
Belmont 4/3.5, Hill Top 5/2, Hawkes Bay 5/2, Sandhill 5/2, Tarpon Boil 4/3, Redfish Run 4/3, Escambia 4/3, Mangrove 3/3.5.
Tier 4 (6-3pts)-8
De La Vista 3/2*, Pimlico 3/2*, Chula Vista 3/2, El Santiago 4/1, Sarasota, 3/1, Saddlebrook 2/2, Marshview Pitch and Putt 2/1.

"If that ball was wrapped around with bacon, Lassie wouldn't find it."- David Feherty

Grip it strong...Hit it Long! Grip it weak and watch it Leak!

"I didn't come here to lay up"

Many golfers have made this statement and it is one of my all time favorite golf quotes. In the 1986 Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Fuzzy was facing a howling wind and stepped to the tee on the 223 yd par-3 16th at Cypress Point. Most of his competitors were playing safe with an iron, but he pulled out his driver and went for it and eventually won the event by 5 shots. He told the gallery, "If I lay up I feel like I cheated myself."

I'm into my eighth decade of hitting that little white ball (I now play a yellow ball because it helps me track it better). With the recent Chinese Virus scare, the above quote even takes on a more important meaning for me. At my age, tomorrow is no longer a given. I love the short par-4's and you can bet I will never be laying up on one again, regardless of the risk. If there are sucker pins, they are in my dead aim. If I'm in jail and there is a glimmer of hope of getting out, I will make Phil look like a rookie. You will never see me leave a putt short. Golf for me is not about playing it safe and making pars, it is all about the excitement of going for it and occasionally pulling off that great shot. I can't ever remember a shot I layed up on, but I have a lot of great memories of the ones I went for and pulled off!!

As Molly told Roy in Tin Cup, when he was down to his last ball: Go for it, Roy! Just knock it on!



Happy Birthday Alex!!

"The strategy of the golf course is the soul of the game."- George Thomas

"Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them."- George Orwell

Slideshow 404 Error message update.

It was brought to my attention today, by longtime reader Tim Kerrigan, that an error message was appearing on all my golf photo's dated before mid 2016. Hopefully, with my limited tech knowledge I have corrected the problem and they will be visible for your viewing. I was able to see them on my end and have no idea how long the problem existed. Thank you again Tim for the time you spent discovering this problem. Sorry for any inconveniences this may have caused.

"A good golfer has the determination to win and the patience to wait for the breaks."-Gary Player

" I am not young enough to know everything."- Oscar Wilde

"A bad attitude is worse than a bad swing."- Payne Stewart