"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

"you can almost play it from cradle to grave and all by yourself-- a cure, I find, for anything that ails you."- John Derr

"When a defining moment comes along you define the moment or it defines you."- Tin Cup

"Just beat my record for most consecutive days without dying."- Bill Murray

"The man who can putt is a match for anyone."-Willie Park, Jr

"Remember Danny: Two wrongs don't make a right but three rights make a left."- Ty Webb, Caddy Shack

My Top 50 Courses played in the World

I am often asked what are the top courses I have played in the world?? With the help of Top100golfcourse.com, Golf , Golf Digest, and Planet Golf, I have come up with the following list. To qualify, the courses must have been ranked in the most recent World Top 100 in ONE of these publications and have received a Black++ ratings from me. Unfortunately, Golfweek doesn't have a worldwide ranking as courses are only placed in regions. You may notice that I do have "favorite" courses that may be ranked higher than the consensus opinion and a few that I think are way overrated. As I travel the golf world watch for future changes and expansion of my list.
TOP 25                                                          
Royal County Down                                   
Trump Turnberry-Alisa                               
Royal Dornoch
St Andrews-Old
Royal Portrush
Kingston Heath
Pacific Dunes
Pebble Beach
Ballybunion
Crystal Downs
Pinehurst #2
Prairie Dunes
Tara Iti
Lahinch
Barnbougle Dunes
Cape Kidnappers
Trump International Links
Kingsbarns
West Links at North Berwick
Camargo
Oakland Hills-South
Ballyneal
Kiawah Island-Ocean
Castle Stewart
26-50
Carnoustie
Whistling Straits
Casa de Campo-Teeth of the Dog
Sawgrass
Cruden Bay
Portmarnock
Barnbougle-Lost Farms
Old Macdonald
Olympic Club
Royal Aberdeen
Bandon Dunes
Prestwick
Royal Troon
The Golf Club
European Club
Waterville
Kauri Cliffs
Peachtree
Pasatiempo
Wade Hampton
Victoria National
Spyglass
Honors Course
Bandon Trails
Paraparaumu Beach
Gozzer Ranch

SLOW PLAY RUINS YOUR DAY!!

   It is true that they are not, as a rule, the least to blame for the delay; so much we grudgingly admit, but it does not make their little ways are less irritating. They waggle for hours; they stroll rather than walk; they dive into their monstrous bags in search of the right club and then it is the wrong number, but they are not sorry that we have been troubled; their putting is a kind of funeral ping-pong. We could forgive them all these tricks, from which we ourselves are conspicuously free, if it were not for the absurd punctilio with which they observe the rules. They will insist on waiting for the people in front of them when it must be palpable even to their intellects that their best shot they ever hit in their lives would be fifty yards short-- The People in Front, "Playing the Like," 1934

Closing in on 50 States Played

The first of my three main personal golf pursuits is coming close to fruition- playing in all 50 states. I am just putting the finishing touches on a trip out west, in mid-September, that will take me to my 48th (SD) and 49th (Nebraska) states. I have some really impressive courses lined up but was unable to get on at Sand Hills due to the lack of caddies. Unaccompanied guests can't play without one there, so I am out of luck. The highlight will be meeting back up at Ballyneal with an old friend who I met at Royal Portrush in 2011. Any guesses what might be the last state left on my list? Hoping to finish off this quest on my next birthday.

West Bend CC- West Bend
Prairie Greens GC- Sioux Falls
The Prairie Club, Dunes and Horse Course (10)- Valentine
Dismal River, Red and White Courses- Mullen
Ballyneal and Mulligan Course (12)- Holyoke
Field of Dreams movie site- Dyersville