Conference 7.286::golf

A friend of mine has that too, and told me about a previous amazing fact:

A golfer won an 18 hole tournament on a real course (6000+ yards) by shooting
70 (-2).

So what?

Using only a 6-iron.

    March 11    

    "'Wild Bill' Mehlhorn claimed  that  he was the world's worst putter.
    One time when he was  only  10  feet from the hole, he took six putts
    before holing out.  Said Mehlhorn,  'I  never  hit  a  careless  one,
    except the sixth, and that was the one that went in.'"
    

    March 12

    "When  Kack  Fleck  defeated  Ben  Hogan  in  the  1955  U.S.    Open
    championship, Fleck was using a brand-new set of  Hogan irons.  Hogan
    was  so  anxious to have Fleck use the clubs  in  the  tourney  as  a
    promotion  that  he personally delivered the pitching and sand wedges
    to his competitor.  Later, Hogan was stunned when he was  beaten with
    by his own clubs."

    March 13/14
    
    "'It takes six years to make a golfer:  three to learn the game, then
    another  three  to  unlearn  all you have learned in the first three.
    You might  be a golfer when you arrive at that stage, but more likely
    you are just starting.'
    
                                                        - Walter Hagen"
                                                        

    March 15
    
    "There is so much desert scrub and rocky terrain  at  the  Westin  La
    Paloma Golf Club in Tucson, Ariz., that you'd better bring  plenty of
    golf balls with you.  It is recommended that you take along a minimum
    of  a  dozen  balls, plus one extra for each point of your  handicap.
    That  would be three dozen balls for a 24 handicap, four dozen for  a
    36 handicap."
    

    March 16  (This one is more on the humorous side and who else to make
    the comment but sharp-comment-Johnny)
    
    "In  1990,  Cypress  Point  on California's  Monterey  Peninsula  was
    dropped  from  the  three-course  rotation  of the  AT&T  Pro-Am  and
    replaced with the Poppy Hills Golf Club.   The Change prompted Johnny
    Miller to say: 'That's like replacing Bo Derek with Roseanne Barr'"
    

    March 17
    
    "In January 1986, a first edition of 'The Golf' (one of the first
    books ever published  on  the sport) was sold at auction for
    $28,000.  The book was printed in 1743."

    Thanks for entering the above notes.... I'm sure enjoying them.
    
    Gotta love that Johnny Miller... He tells it like it is..
    
    Keep it up,
    
    Jim
    

    March 18
    
    "Clifford Kellstrom was playing a Detroit course when his ball
    stuck a mallard in flight. The bird fell dead and Kellstrom made a
    birdie on the par-5 hole. Said Kellstrom: 'Imagine that. Two birds
    on  one hole.'"
    

    "The youngest boy and girl to ever score a hole in one both did it in
    1968.  Six-year-old  Tommy  Moore  aced  the  145-yard fourth hole at
    Woodbrier  Golf  Course in  Martinsburg,  W.Va. Six-year-old  Brittny
    Andreas recorded her hole in  one  on  the 85-yard second hole at the
    Jimmy Clay Golf Course in Austin, Texas."

    is there a minimum hole length for a hole-in-one
    to be recognized?  (not that i could get a hole-in-one
    on a 85-yd hole any easier than on an 185-yd. hole.)
    
    i'm not saying short ones are easy, just asking.
    
    black nicklaus
    

    
    March 24
    
    "At midnight,  September  25, 1928, four of the better golfers at St.
    Andrews played a two-hole match, the first and the 18th, by the light
    of fireworks, car headlights,  and  chinese  lanterns.  Of the nearly
    500 spectators who were at  hand,  six  fell  into the famous Swilken
    Burn, because they didn't see the  ditch  in  the  dark of the night.
    The match was declared halved."
    
    
    March 25
    
    "As late as 1974, the Old Course  at  St.    Andrews  was  played  in
    reverse order.  For example, golfers on the first tee hit to the 17th
    green.  Next, they went to the 18th tee and drove their balls to  the
    16th green, then they hit from the 17th tee to the 15th green, and so
    on.  Golfers played  in  reverse  order  every other year to give the
    fairways a rest.  By  playing  this way, the Old Course could recover
    from many of the scars of  the  previous  year, since the mayority of
    the divots would be in different areas on the course."
    

    
    A true fact from the Masters.
    
    In 1974 Art Wall (the '59 Champion) holed a 4 wood shot at the 5th hole
    for an eagle 2. This was the second of three 2s in succession as he had
    just birdied the Par 3 4th and went on to do the same at the Par 3 6th. 
    He also went on to birdie the 16th hole thus securing four 2s in a single
    round.
    
    Del.
    
    

    "In 1973, 83 golfers at Prince George Golf and Country Club in Prince
    George, British Columbia,  Canada,  set  the world record for playing
    the fastest 18 holes  with  one  ball.    The  golfers were stationed
    throughout the course and those  who were nearest the ball got to hit
    it.  The members smacked the  ball  around the 6,421-yard course in a
    blistering 12 minutes and 14.5 seconds."
    

Some catching  up  since I moved and took some time to get my account set
up and to catch up with work.

    March 29
    
    "In the 1950s, at the treacherous, wind-beaten, 110-yard seventh hole
    at Peeble Beach, Sam Snead faced strong gusts.   Afraid that the wind
    would carry his 9-iron shot into the ocean, Snead  teed  off with his
    putter and deliverately bounced his ball down the hill into the front
    bunker to avoid the traditional shot.  He parred the hole."
    
    
    March 31
    
    "One of the reasons why golf was for the rich in  the  early  days of
    the sport was the cost of the balls.  In the 1880s,  Allen  Robertson
    and Tom  Morris  made  3,000  feathery  golf balls stuffed with goose
    feathers.  The  balls  cost  a  gold sovereign-about $2.50 in today's
    money."
    
    April 1
    
    "In the basement of  Ahlgrim's  Funeral  Home  in  Chicago there us a
    nine-hole miniature golf course, whose holes include a guillotine and
    a skull.  There is a strict rule:  'No golfing during a wake.' That's
    because the noise comes right up through the building's air vents."
    

    April 3/4 (Very appropriate for this week - TD)
    
    "'I've never been to heaven, and thinkin' back on my life, I probably
    won't get a chance to go.  I  guess  the  Masters  is as close as I'm
    going to get.'
                                                          - Fuzzy Zoeller
                                                          

    
    April 8
    
    "Exploding his  shot from a deep bunker in the Karachi Golf Course in
    Pakistan in 1950, a British  businessman unearthed a human foot.  The
    appendage had been buried there by  a dog after being stolen from the
    incinerator at a nearby military hospital."
    
    April 9
    
    "Bobby Jones on the 'Grand Slam  of  Golf'  -  The  Amateur  and Open
    championships of both the United States and  Britain  in 1930 - using
    hickory  shafted clubs.  Although steel shafts had  been  allowed  in
    Britain  for a year, Jones had not yet convinced  himself  that  they
    were better than the old hickory ones."
    

    

    April 13
    
    "In 1928, a team of British gilfers, including the long-hitting Cyril
    J.H.  Tolley, toured South Africa.  At Bloemfontein, where it had not
    rained for two years,  Tolley's drive from the second tee hit a rock,
    bounced down the dry, hard  fairway  and rolled onto the third green.
    When his shot was measured, it  was  found  to  be  an astounding 486
    yards!"
    
    April 15
    
    "No one was declared the outhright winner of the 1949 Motor City Open
    in Detroit.  Cary Middlecoff and Lloyd Mangrum  tied for the lead and
    then halved eleven straight holes in a playoff, without either player
    being able to  break the tie.  Darkness brought the affair to an end,
    and both players were declared co-title holders."
    

    April 16 (Humor more than Amazing fact)
    
    "at Foxfire  Country  Club  in Pinehurst, N.C., a psychiatrist with a
    sense of humor  lives on the third hole of the course.  He has a sign
    in his front yard  which reads:  'Dr.  Theodore R.  Clark, M.D., Last
    Psychiatrist for 15 holes.'"
    
    April 19
    
    "In 1987, William J.   Kirn struck his 7-iron toward the water at the
    par-3 third hole at the Kiahuna  Golf  Club in Koloa, Hawaii.  Kirn's
    ball bounced off a rock in the middle of the water, shot 25 feet into
    the air, drifted to the left, and landed  on  the  gree  -  where  it
    rolled another 20 feet right into the hole!"
    
    April 20
    
    "Bobby  Jones  was  only  14 years old when he won the Georgia  State
    Amateur Championship.    He qualified that year too, to play the U.S.
    Amateur Championship at Merion, and went to the third round before he
    lost in match play."
    
    April 21
    
    "In the early 1970's,  a pair of brass club heads were recovered from
    a Dutch ship that had  sunk  in 1653 off the coast od Scotland.  They
    were sold for $14,000 each at a golf memorabilia auction in 1989."
    

    April 22
    
    "The National  Association  of  Short  Adults  says that playing golf
    makes you shorter.  There is scientific proof that players shrink .01
    inches  during  an 18-hole  round,  because  the  player's  spine  is
    constantly compressed when he is  upright for several hours straight.
    That  means  that  after  7,200  rounds,  a  six-foot  golfer  wwould
    completely disappear!"
    
    April 26
    
    "The longest golf hole on the PGA  Tour is the 644-yard first-hole, a
    par-5, at Castle Pines Golf Course in Castle  Rock, Colo.  Describing
    how to play the hole, pro Payne Stewart once  said,  'The  hole is so
    long  you  have  to  take  into  consideration  the curvature of  the
    earth.'"
    

    (Some catching-up)
    
    April 27
    
    "Michael Jordan, star basketball  player  of  the  Chicago Bulls, was
    named 'Golf Nut of the  Year'  in  1989  by  the  Golf Nut Society of
    America.  Michael was a no-show for the  presentation of his 1988 NBA
    Most Valuable Player award - because he was at Pinehurst playing golf
    instead."
    
    April 29
    
    "The  first  USGA  National  Amateur Championship was held at Newport
    Golf Club in Newport, R.I., in 1895.  There were only 32 contestants,
    among them Richard  Peters,  whose specialty was to employ a billiard
    cue  on  the  greens!   (The  rules  were  not  well  defined  then.)
    Unfortunately,  he lost his match by 5  and  4  to  the  Rev.    W.S.
    Rainsford of St.  Andrews.  Holy Golf Balls!"

    (Tough to find time to enter notes these days)
    
    April 30    
    "When Alex Smith won the U.S.  Open in 1906, he used an extraordinary
    ball called the pneumatic.  The ball had a rubber and silk shell into
    which air was pumped at  high  pressure.    Unfortunately,  the  ball
    sometimes exploded when it was hit,  and  had to be replaced.  It was
    eventually outlawed"
    
    May 3
    "The  world record for the fewest throws of a  golf  ball  around  an
    18-hole gold course was set by Joe Flynn of Needham,  Mass., in 1975.
    He needed 82 throws to complete the 6,228 yard Port Royal Golf Course
    in Bermuda."

    (Anybody understands this one???? What do they mean by "throws"?
    
    May 6   
    "The Pillar Mountain Golf Classic played  at Kodiak, Alaska, has only
    one hole, but that one is a doozy - a 1,754-yard par 70.  The fairway
    is down a snowmobile trail lined with alders  and  spruces.  The hole
    is  a five-gallon bucket buried in the snow.   In  1991,  34  players
    entered the tournament, which was won by Dwight Mahoney, who scored a
    9 - an amazing 61 under par."
    
    May 7
    "Sam Snead was being beaten badly by Bobby Locke in 1946  on  a  golf
    course  in  South  Africa.   Snead's putting was so atrocious that he
    asked a  monkey  that  was  clinging to the flagstick to putt for hi.
    The monkey declined."
    
    May 10
    "In 1956, George  Wiehl,  a golfer in St.  Joseph, Mo., stepped up to
    the tee and whacked  a  long  drive  down the fairway.  He watched it
    with satisfaction until it came  to  a  sudden  halt.  A wood pecker,
    flying the other way, had implaed the ball on its beak!"
    
    May 13
    "In 1920, Ernest Jones, a Britisher  who  lost  a leg in World War I,
    once played the Clayton Golf Course in England without his artificial
    limb.  Jones, who became a professional golfer,  shot a par round, 72
    strokes, playing balanced on one leg."
    
    May 14
    "The second double eagle in Masters history was scored  by  a  golfer
    who never even had the joy of watching the ball  go into the cup.  On
    the first day of 1967 tournament, Australian Bruce Devlin was on  the
    530  yard,  par-5  eight  hole,  when  he  walloped a 290-yard drive.
    Unable to see the green from his position on the fairway, Devlin used
    a 4-wood for  his  second  shot.  The ball hit in front of the green,
    took a big bounce, rolled toward the cup, hesitated on the front lip,
    and then dropped in as  the  crowd went wild.  Although Devlin didn't
    see the ball fall, his father  did.    Thirty-two years earlier, Gene
    Sarazen scored the Master's first double eagle on the 15th hole."
    
    May 20
    "In  1974,  Nigel  Denham was playing in the British Amateur  Streoke
    Play  competition  at  Moortown, Leeds, England, when he hit his ball
    past the 18th green and into the clubhouse.  There was a  local  rule
    that  the  clubhouse was 'in bounds.' Playing the ball off the carpet
    in the  clubhouse, he chipped the ball out through an open window and
    scored a bogey 5."
    
    May 21
    "John Ball, the  great  amateur  of  Hoylake  Golf Course in England,
    faced incredible adversity but refused to give up in the 1890 British
    Open.  He landed in  the  notorious,  huge,  deep Half Moon Bunker at
    Prestwick Golf Course in Scotland.  He neede 11 shots just to get out
    of  the  pit.  Amazingly, despite the  disastrous  hole,  Ball  still
    managed to win the tournament."

    (Was the B.  Open match play then?   Then  a  11+  score  in one hole
    wouldn't affect the score in others.)
    
    May 24
    "After  Harry  Vardon  won  his  third British Open in 1899,  he  was
    invited to give an exhibition at his old club, Royal Jersey.   He was
    to be paid 100 pounds, but when he got there he was told there was no
    money.  Said Vardon, 'Then I'll sit in the clubhouse until there is.'
    Somehow, they found the money, and the match began."
    
    (wow, I catched up!)
    
    Tavo

    re: .18
    
�    May 3
�    "The  world record for the fewest throws of a  golf  ball  around  an
�    18-hole gold course was set by Joe Flynn of Needham,  Mass., in 1975.
�    He needed 82 throws to complete the 6,228 yard Port Royal Golf Course
�    in Bermuda."
�
�    (Anybody understands this one???? What do they mean by "throws"?
    
    Exactly what it says.  No golf clubs are used, just your arm.  You can
    use an underhand "stroke" for chipping and roll the ball for "putting".
    
    
    Maury...

Newsgroups: rec.sport.golf
From: [email protected] (Charles Pfeil)
Subject: Long Drives
Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 12:57:54 GMT
Lines: 52
 
The June issue of Golf Digest has an interesting article by Peter Dobereiner
(what a name!) about long drives. Here are some interesting extracts from it:
 
From 1964 to 1986 Tommie Campbell held the Guinness Book of Records title
with a drive of 392 yards.
 
Today the record is held by Jack Hamm with 406.  Guinness will only accept
officially measured drives such as those in long driving contests.
 
Big Cat Williams best in long drive competition is 353 yards.
 
Liam Higgins is supposed to be the biggest European hitter (Irish) who once
hit a 632 yard drive on an aerodrome runway in 1984.
 
George Bayer had a 426 yard drive in the 1955 Tucson Open.
 
Craig Wood hit a 430 yard drive on the 5th hole at St Andrews in the 1933
British Open.
 
---
 
All of these pale in comparison to Carl Cooper.  I found a newspaper article
about his humungus drive at the Texas Open.  Here it is:
 
"San Antonio (AP) - Eat your heart out, John Daly.  Those who think the 
PGA champion is the longest hitter in golf, think again.
 
Make room - lots of room - for Carl Cooper, a 31-year-old struggling touring
pro from Houston.  Cooper got off a freak drive that hit a paved cart path
and eventually came to rest somewhere between 750 and 800-plus yards from
the tee Friday in the second round of the Texas Open.
 
It was one of the longest drives in pro golf history.  Cooper had a 4-iron
and an 8-iron coming back to the 456-yard. par-4 third hole at the Oak Hills
Country Club course.
 
`Darnedst thing you ever saw,' said his father, Dean Cooper.  `If there
hadn't been a chain link fence out there, it'd still be going.'
 
The PGA Tour keeps no records of long drives"
 
---
 
Well, I suppose I will just be content with my occasional 270 yard drive
knowing it is the score that counts.
 
-- 
               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                            Charles Pfeil 
                     [email protected]
               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 

    A batch of "facts"
    
    May 18
    
    "Like so  many  other  pro  golfers,  Jimmy  Demmaret often found the
    conditions at famed  Pebble  Beach so awful that it was impossible to
    shoot par.  'To  give you an idea of the terrain at Pebble Beach,' he
    once said, 'just imagine yourself  trying  to  execute a brassie shot
    from  a  lie  on a cornice  of  the  Empire  State  Building  with  a
    40-mile-an-hour gale wrapping a bundle of fog around your head.'"
    
    May 26
    
    "Did you know that Gary Player can sing?    In 1970, Gary recorded an
    album  entitled"Gary  Player  Sings."  On the disk are renditions  of
    'Deep in the Heart of Texas' and 'When the Saints Go Marching In.'"
    
    May 28
    
    "How did the term 'bogey' become part of golf lingo?    In  the early
    1900s, a British golfer played a hole in one over par.   Referring to
    the 'Colonel Bogey March,' which was popular at that time, the golfer
    told his  playing partner, 'Even Colonel Bogey could have done better
    than that!' From that time on, a score over par was called a bogey."
    
    May 31
    
    "The Curtis Cup,  the  Women's International Cup trophy, is named for
    two sisters - Harriet  Curtis  and  Margaret Curtis.  Harriet was the
    U.S.G.A.  women's champion in  1906  and  MArgaret in 1907, 1991, and
    1912.  The magnificent silver trophy  is  engraved:    'To  stimulate
    friendly  rivalry among the women golfers of  many  lands.'  However,
    only  women golfers from the U.S., Great Britain,  and  Ireland  have
    ever contested the trophy."
    
    June 2
    
    "On  his  way  to  a  convincing  victory in the 1955  Masters,  Cary
    Middlecoff sank what  was  one  of  the longest putts ever in Masters
    history.  Cary was five under par when he came to the par-5, 480 yard
    13-hole.  His second shot,  a  3-wood,  carried over Rae's Creek, but
    the ball rolled 85 feet beyond  the  cup.    Despite the green's many
    ondulations, Middlecoff sank the putt for an eagle 3.  He finished at
    279, nine under par, seven strokes ahead of Ben Hogan at 286."
    
    June 5/6
    
    "'Golf is the only game where the worst  player  gets the best of it.
    He gets more out of it with regard to  both  exercise  and enjoyment.
    The good player worries over the slightest mistake, whereas the  poor
    player makes too many mistakes to worry over them.'
    
                            - David Lloyd George, British prime minister"
                            

    June 8
    
    "Father William  Buckley,  an  Irish  priest who was home on vacation
    from South Africa,  played  at  Ballybunion  in  Ireland in 1971 with
    Father Ted Molyneux, and  aced  the  eight hole.  Father Buckley came
    back again two years later  and  played  with  Father  Molyneux - and
    scored another ace at the eight hole!"
    
    June 9
    
    "In  the 1991 Masters tournament, the  players  scored  a  remarcable
    total of 29 eagles.  Tom Watson  had three, and six other players had
    two a piece.  The prize for an eagle is a beautiful pair of Waterford
    crystal goblets, woth $350."
    

    June 10
    
    "Jack Burke,  Jr.,  was eight strokes behind the leader, Ken Venturi,
    at the start  of  the  final round of the 1956 Masters.  He was still
    five strokes behind as  he  began  the  last  nine.   But Burke won -
    helped by Venturi's monumental blow-up of 41 on the last nine."
    
    June 11

    "After much difficulty, Roberth Klintworth  was able to arrange for a
    golf lesson from Jimmy Demaret when  the  latter was teaching at Plum
    Hollow  Golf  Club in Detroit.  Jimmy  slung  Bob's  clubs  over  his
    shoulder as they walked to the lesson tee  100  yards  away.    Jimmy
    asked Bob, 'Now, what's your trouble?' Kintworth answered, 'Oh,  I've
    been shanking.' Jimmy stopped, threw the clubs down on the  tee,  and
    said, 'The assistant pro takes care of all those cases.'"
    

    
    
       In 1986, Gordon Brand, a European Tour professional EAGLED ALL 4
      par 5 holes in the same round during the Jersey Open (Euro Tour
      Event). He finished with a score of 62, to equal the course record.
    
       This has never occurred in any other professional event thus he
      can claim this as a world record.
    
         Danny.

    June 12/13
    (This one fits well with the topic about playing with a customer, not
    that the customer is the foe.)
    
    "'Eighteen holes of match play in golf will teach you more about your
    foe than 19 years of dealing with him across a desk'"
                                            -Grantland Rice, sportswriter

    June 16
    "In the 1930's Walter Hagen played with a golf set which consisted of
    20 irons and four woods.  The irons were  in  half-steps from 1 to 9,
    that is 1, 1 1/2, 2, 2 1/2, and so  on.    Of course, this was before
    the  14-club  limit  was  established by the USGA.  Walter's bag  and
    equipment weighed about 40 pounds."
    

    June 18
    "Hugh McIlhenney,  a  writer  for  'The  London Observer', wrote this
    about the swing  of  Jack Nicklaus:  'Left hand on grip, club head to
    ball.  Right hand  to club, feet into position.  Cheking alignment of
    blade.  Scrutiny of spot  in  front of ball on target line.  Hypnotic
    stare at ball.  Slow tilt  of  head  to  right.    Backswing, hint of
    pause.   Then all hell breaks loose,  the  earth  shakes,  and  women
    swoon.  Men spectators mutter, 'Jeez.' The ball  departs like a shell
    to distant places."
    
    June 19/20
    "'Golf is an ideal diversion but a ruinous desease.'"
                                         -B.C. Forbes, magazine publisher
                                         
    June 21
    "One Sunday morning in the mid-1930s at Rockford, Essex,  England,  a
    player said he dreamed that he had scored an ace  at  the  10th hole.
    Heavy  bets  were  laid against him actually doing so.  A  number  of
    members  went out to see him play the hole.  To their  amazement,  he
    scored  an  ace.    The old tenth at Rockford is still known as  'The
    Dream Hole.'"
    

    1) When a driver hits a golf ball, the total head/ball contact time is
    approximately 500 microseconds (.000500 sec.). For an 80 stroke round,
    this results in a total ball contact time of only .04 seconds.  So the
    next time you spend 4 hours on the golf course, remember - only .04
    seconds of this time really counts!
    
    2) Clubhead loads during impact can be in excess of 3000 lbs.! This is
    more than the weight of an average automobile!
    
    
    Taken from Golfsmith Technical Report  May/June 1993
    Mike

    June 22
    'At Nasu Country  CLub,  a  prestigeous  golf club 100 miles north of
    Tokyo, Japan, the par-4, 400 yard first hole runs downhill.  There is
    a small 20-foot-wide stream that  crosses  the  fairway from right to
    left about 75 yards in front  of  the tee.  But golfers don't have to
    worry.  The brook is carefully covered with a fine-mesh metal screen,
    so no golf ball can go into the  water.  If a tee shot is topped, the
    ball rolls right over the water to safety.'
    
    June 23
    'In 1892, Edward "Ted" Blackwell, a renowned long hitter,  drove from
    the 18th tee of the Old Course at St.   Andrews  to  the steps of the
    Royal and Ancient clubhouse, a distance of 366 yards.  His  drive was
    accomplished under summer conditions with a helping wind.'
    
    June 24
    'When  Byron  Nelson won the Masters in 1937 at Augusta National Golf
    Course,  he  set  a  new  course  record  of 66 in the opening round.
    Amamzingly, he  drove the seventh green 340 yards away.  At that time
    the green was  lower than it is today, and the entrance, or "tongue,"
    was wider. The hole now plays at 365 yards, 25 yards longer.'
    
    June 25
    'When Don Moe came  back  from being seven down with 13 holes to play
    in the 1930 Walker Cup  match, his opponent, Bill Stout, said:  "That
    was not golf; that was a visitation from the Lord."'

(I didn't know they play 20  hole-rounds  :-)  or  was/is  the Walker Cup
accumulative?)

    June 28
    'Jimmy Demaret withdrew after two  bad  rounds in the 1940 U.S.  Open
    at Canterbury in Cleveland.  When he was  criticized,  Demaret  said:
    "I make my living out of golf, but is  still  a  game to me.  When it
    becomes work and not fun, I'll go into something else.    There is no
    use  in  trying  to kid yourself in this game.  When  you  lose  your
    swing, you might just as well quit walking around in the sun  and get
    in the shade."'

    (Catching up!)
    
    July 1st
    'Harry Cooper,  a  great golfer who came close but never won the U.S.
    Open, was very  supersticious.    He  felt  that green was an unlucky
    color for him.   One  day,  his wife appeared on the course wearing a
    green dress.  He waved her off the course and wouldn't let her return
    until she had changed her dress.  Once, while Cooper was playing with
    Horton Smith in the Inverness Invitational, Horton missed a  putt  he
    should have made.  Cooper, said, "No wonder you missed.    You have a
    ball marked in green."'
    
    July 5
    'Eighty-nine-years-old Gebe Sarazen  and  79-year-old  Sam Snead were
    the ceremonial starters at the 1991 Masters.  Gene said later that it
    would be his last apearance.  "Sam was very nice to tee my ball up on
    every  hole,  but  when  someone  has   to  do  that,  it  tells  you
    something."'
    
    July 9
    'Jack Nicklaus was asked why he hits  his  shots so high.  He replied:
    "Through  years  of  experience, I have found that  air  offers  less
    resistance than dirt."'
    
    July 12
    'The odds against scoring a hole in one are  about 45,000 to one.  Ed
    Nabham of Pleasant Valley Country Club scored two aces in  one  round
    in 1989 - one on a 187-yard hole and the other  on  a  140-yard hole.
    The odds against that happening are 1,250,000,000 to one.'
    
    July 17/18
    '"I  play  in  the low 80s.  If it's any hotter than  that,  I  won't
    play."'
                                              -Joe Louis, boxing champion
    
    July 19
    'When  Sam  Parks, Jr.  won the U.S.  Open championship at Oakmont in
    1935, he  went against convention and carried two putters in his bag.
    Instead of adding  an  extra  wood  or  iron to his legal limit of 14
    clubs like the other  pros  did, Parks kept a Spalding Cash-In and an
    Otey  Crisman mallet-head putter.   He  used  the  Cash-In  for  long
    putting and the other for holing out.'
    

    July 20
    'If you are Japanese, have a  tattoo,  and  part  of your left little
    finger is missing, you need not apply  for  membership  in a Japanese
    golf club.  It seems that the tattoo  and missing part of a digit are
    the identifying characterisitics of a Japanese ganster - someone  not
    welcome on the course.'
    
    July 21
    'Golf  Digest  (in  italics)  ran  an  article  in  which 25  touring
    professionals each selected the  fellow  pro  he  felt  had  the best
    swing.  Sam Snead garnered the most votes.  Arnold Palmer, the winner
    of more PGA tour events than any other player in history except Snead
    and Hogan, received only one vote - from Lee Trevino.'
    
    (My note:  Golf Digest runs that survey periodically, so I don't know
    when  the  above  one  took  place, but it  must  have  been  in  the
    50's/60's.    If  I remember correctly Tom Purtzer won  in  the  last
    survey.)
    
    July 22
    'Ralph Guldahl was the "Golden Boy" of golf in the mid-1930s.  He won
    back-to-back  U.S.   Open championships in 1937 and 1938, as well  as
    the Masters  in  1939.    Then, inexplicably, his swing deserted him.
    Guldahl played so  poorly he left the pro tour and sold cars and real
    estate.  The former  champion  never  again  recovered  his masterful
    form.'
    
    (My note:  Does Curtis  Strange  come  to  mind?    The  Globe has an
    article on him today, and he feels he is coming back. Hope so.)

    July 23
    'In his  illustreous  career,  there  was  at least one shot that Ben
    Hogan knew he  couldn't  make.  It happened at the 1951 U.S.  Open in
    Oakland Hills Country Club  in  Birmingham, Mich.  His second shot at
    the uphill eighth hole went  over  the  green  and  up a steep slope.
    Hogan pitched the ball down and  watched  it  run  25 feet beyond the
    cup.    He  lamented  to  playing  partner  Jimmy  Demaret,  "It  was
    impossible." Demaret  then  turned  to  the  gallery  and  announced,
    "Ladies and gentlemen,  when  Ben Hogan says a shot is impossible, it
    is impossible!" Despite the  bogey 5 on the hole, Hogan still managed
    to win the tournament.'
    

    July 26
    'When Lee Trevi�o defeated Jack  Nicklaus  in  a  playoff on the U.S.
    Open of 1971 at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore,  Penn.,  he realized the
    course played both easy and hard, depending on how the  golfer drove.
    Trevi�o described the course as "having 18 birdie holes and 18  bogey
    holes.'
    
    July 28
    'Theres  is  a  golf driving range in Tokyo that's five stories tall.
    Each  story  has  a  set  of open decks from which practicing golfers
    launch their  shots out into a screened area.  It costs more to drive
    from the top stories than it does from the lower ones.'
    
    (My note:  I did  go  to a 3 stories high range in Tokyo.  everything
    was automated.  The "rolling fairway" was  all  turf and had slots in
    the lower part so balls will roll into  the  slot and into a conveyor
    belt which brought back the balls to the dispensing  machine.  To get
    the balls you place a basket, insert the ticket given  when  checking
    in  and  press a button to fill the basket and get  a  punch  in  the
    ticket.    Place  then  the  balls in a another basket at the driving
    cage, press  another button with the head of the club and down came a
    ball to the tee.)

    July 29
    'Bobby Locke, who won the British Open in 1949, 1950, 1952, and 1957,
    revealed  this  secret:    "In  not  one  of  my  four  British  Open
    championships did I have a driver in my bag"'
    
    July 30
    'Bobby Jones had more  than  one  putter  called  "Calamity Jane." In
    1923, Joe Markle found a broken-shafted, rusted putter in a cementery
    behind the green of the Nassau Country Club.  He repaired it and gave
    it to Jones, who had been putting  badly.    Jones  used  the club to
    defeat Bobby Cruishank in the 1923 U.S.  Open.  Then Jones had a copy
    of the putter made and used it from 1924  through 1930.  The original
    club is in the Augusta National trophy case.'
    
    July 31/August 1
    '"What greater calamity can befall a golfer than a short putt missed?
    What  greater  averter  of  calamity  could there be than a long putt
    holed?"
                                             -Browning's History of Golf'
    

    (Wow, I guess I shouldn't complain if  being  busy means some kind of
    job security, but I haven't got a chance to enter anything here since
    August.
    

    December 18/19
    
    "Golf is like a love affair.  If you  don't  take  it  too seriously,
    it's no fun.  If you take it too seriously, it breaks your heart."
    
                                                - Irv Springman, humorist