World’s worst
A golfer was having a terrible round – 20-over par for the front nine with scores of balls lost in water or rough. When his caddie then coughed as he steadied himself over a 12-inch putt on the 10th, he lost it.
“You’ve got to be the worst caddie in the world!” he yelled.
“I doubt it,” replied the caddie, dead-pan. “That would be too much of a coincidence.”
Read more at https://www.golf-monthly.co.uk/features/the-game/20-best-golf-jokes-90683#AtQDbPXeDYhV4Gjb.99
We found markers for each hole except #5 and with the help of Lisa’s Uncle Joe we were able to create one and now all 18 holes have markers. 
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OUND 2
STATUS OF PLAY: IN PROGRESS
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July 19-22, 2018
Kevin KisnerTony Finau
Zander LombardErik van RooyenRyan MooreBrandon StoneMark of respect
Two golfers are ready to play on the 11th tee as a funeral cortege passes by. The first player stops, doffs his cap, and bows his head as the cortege passes.
“That was a really nice thing to do,” the second golfer says. “It’s good to see there is still some respect in the world.”
“Well, it’s only right,” the first golfer replies. “I was married to her for 35 years.”
Read more at https://www.golf-monthly.co.uk/features/the-game/20-best-golf-jokes-90683#glFcUeUYQYWEdUqY.99
Want to get a round in before the weekend?
The weather is beautiful and Pine Valley is ready for you to come and play. Today and Friday morning enjoy our weekday special of $21 for 18 holes with a cart. Still openings for the afternoon. There are a couple of women’s leagues this afternoon between 4 and 5 pm but after that up till 6:45 you can get out and get in 9 holes.
Don’t forget our hot dog and kielbasa combo specials and we also have plenty of cold drinks on hand.
CARNOUSTIE, Scotland – Good morning, golf fans. Here’s a quick look at Thursday’s early developments in the first round of The Open Championship at Carnoustie:
KISNER ON FIRE: Kevin Kisner, making his fourth career start in the Open, was the tournament leader at noon local time. The two-time PGA TOUR winner kick-started his round with an eagle at the par-5 sixth, then made three consecutive birdies on his back nine to finish with a 5-under 66. In Kisner’s 13 major appearances, his lone top-10 finish is a T-7 at last year’s PGA Championship.
CANTLAY CONTENDING: Patrick Cantlay, making his Open Championship debut, was 3 under through 17. The 26-year-old Cantlay broke through with his first PGA TOUR win last year, winning in a playoff at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.
VEGAS ARRIVES: Jhonattan Vegas, battling visa issues and having difficulties with his travel schedule, did arrive in time to make his tee time. Vegas flew into Glasgow, then took a helicopter to Carnoustie in time to warm up on the range. He was 1 over through six holes.
NOT EXACTLY CAR-NASTY: Generally regarded as the toughest course in the Open rota, Carnoustie’s dry conditions and lack of wind allowed those with early tee times to get off to fast starts. South African Erik van Rooyen, who played collegiately at the University of Minnesota, was in the second group out and shot a 4-under 67. One of his playing partners, Matthew Southgate, also played well, shooting 69. Danny Willet was in the next group and shot 69.
“I think they’ve done a great job of tucking the flags in a few spots to make it as difficult as possible,” said Willett, the 2016 Masters champ. “I think they realized the golf course is pretty gettable for some of the guys out there.”
SPEAKING OF SOUTHGATE: The Englishman is a member of Carnoustie, and was asked after his round if this week has lived up to his expectations. “Yeah, it has,” he replied. “I think, when I first arrived, I was a little disappointed. I think I built it up too much in my mind from the age of 10. A couple of things that you saw play through in your imagination, where you sort of saw things happen, and it unsettles me when things don’t quite go that way.
“For one thing, I always have this sort of vision in my head the little old Scottish fellow would meet me at the front door and call you ‘Mr. Southgate’ and you would feel all excited and stuff. It wasn’t. It was a young American girl sort of flashy, ‘Let me show you around.’ And I thought, I don’t really need showing round. I’ve been a member since I was 16. It kind of threw me a little bit.
“Once I went in the clubhouse and met a couple of members, I settled down. And even more so when I got on the golf course, and the first round has lived up to everything.”
SPIETH STARTS STRONG: Defending champion Jordan Spieth birdied two of his first four holes and was 2 under through eight.
RAHM’S BIG DRIVE: Jon Rahm managed to drive the green at the par-4 third hole, which is playing at 352 yards in the first round. That set up his first birdie of the day. The Spaniard was 2 under through seven.
TIGER IN THE AFTERNOON: Tiger Woods, playing in his first Open since 2015, is among the notable names with late-afternoon tee times. Woods tees off at 3:21 p.m. (10:21 a.m. ET) with Hideki Matsuyama and Russell Knox, the Scottish native who currently lives in Florida. Others with afternoon tee times include current FedExCup leader Dustin Johnson, U.S. Open champ Brooks Koepka, Jason Day and Bubba Watson, who has won three times on TOUR this season.
EDITORS’ CHOICE: GEAR & GADGETSApril 3, 2018
Golf bags used to be so easy to understand—it was a cart or carry bag, and that was pretty much it. Today, there are a number of sub-categories designed to address the needs of pretty much any golfer. One thing our 13 Editors’ Choice bags (spread over six categories) have in common, however, is practicality for the segment of golfer they were intended for.
Callaway’s 2018 version of its Hyper-Lite Zero and Sun Mountain’s new 2.5+ shared the top spot in Lightweight/Ultra-lightweight, each weighing less than three pounds. Lightweight yet durable fabrics and a carbon-fiber stand system lighten the load on the Callaway bag. The 2.5+ borrows from its 2Five predecessor and adds updates such as shoulder straps with high-density, contoured foam; a full-size, zippered ball pocket; a beverage pouch; and higher-grade fabric.
Our top choices in Carry bags are updated versions of Ping’s Hoofer and Ogio’s Cirrus. Each is similar in weight or lighter than Sun Mountain’s 4.5LS Supercharged, but the extra weight in the Sun Mountain bag is understandable because it’s outfitted to charge up to two electronic devices such as a phone, the first carry bag to have this feature.
For those preferring to ride, Sun Mountain’s updated C-130 Supercharged cart bag has the same phone-charging feature. Hybrid bags, as the name suggests, have attributes appealing to more than one audience. Callaway’s Fusion 14 weighs just 5.7 pounds—an accomplishment in a bag with 14-way dividers and 12 well-positioned pockets, including a magnetic valuables pocket. The Datrek bag has the company’s Top-Lok Technology, a patented bag-to-cart attachment system designed to securely lock the bag onto most pushcarts.
Of course, some golfers want a throwback bag—a small, single-strap bag without a stand that’s perfect when hoofing it for a few holes while not taking up too much room in the trunk of the car, which is why Jones’ Golf Utility Rover bag caught our eye.
One of golfers’ pet peeves are bags that soak in moisture, so we added a sub-category, Waterproof. Keeping the wetness away best was this foursome of bags: Callaway’s Hyper Dry cart bag, Ping’s Hoofer Monsoon carry bag, Sun Mountain’s H2NO Lite carry bag and Titleist’s 4UP StaDry bag. Like we said, not so easy to understand anymore.
Those of us who have learned the proper way to hold a golf club know it’s a key fundamental to playing the game well. Yet over time, we tend to make adjustments or simply forget grip basics. That’s why constant reminding is helpful. Taking lessons is one way to get that reinforcement. But a much less-expensive and longer-lasting option is using Golf Pride’s new Tour Velvet with ALIGN Technology grip.
It’s the latest version of one of the world’s most-popular grips and features a raised red ridge along its underside that helps golfers establish consistent hand placement on the club. “It gets your hands on the grip consistently every time before you start to swing,” says Bruce Miller, Retail Product Manager for Golf Pride. “Regardless of how you hold the grip or how technically sound your grip is, if you do it the same way every time, you will likely lower your scores. This helps you get the clubface square to the ball at impact every time. It marries the grip to the clubface so that you know where the clubface is at all times during the swing. Once you lock in your hand position, you just swing the club.”
This isn’t a training grip. In fact, it’s USGA-approved for use in competition. That’s a good thing for PGA Tour pros, as many have already switched to it – one of three Tour pros use a reminder grip. Tour pros previously complained that the ridges available on reminder grips weren’t pronounced enough. So they perpetually tweaked their hand position, just like many amateurs. But with ALIGN Technology, Golf Pride accentuated the ridge so that you can easily feel when your hand position is right and have the comfort to swing away. No more tinkering.
“The red raised ridge assists you in getting your hands in the proper position on the golf club,” says Michael Breed, one of the world’s top-rated PGA instructors. “The ridge is going to find a natural spot in your hands while you hold the club, getting you a consistent feeling so that you will hold it the same way every time. Ultimately you will get a feel of the clubface, which leads to consistency in your shots. And that will allow you to play with more confidence and shoot lower scores.”
ALIGN Technology first made its way onto the golf scene last year, on Golf Pride’s MCC and MCC Plus4 models. Now it’s available on the Tour Velvet, rounding out the Tour’s most widely played models. Reformulated material in the latest Tour Velvet is 8 percent softer than before. So it feels soft but is firm enough to provide responsiveness – you can tell what happens at impact. It’s also more durable than ever. Plus it has a nice-feeling texture that provides excellent traction. “We call it hand nesting,” says Miller. “The skin of your hands literally nests down into the traction pattern, for zero slippage. That’s why roughly half of all tour pros play the Tour Velvet.” And now with ALIGN Technology, it is the new gold standard in golf.
CARNOUSTIE, Scotland – A record heat wave has tee shots at Carnoustie running faster than a caffeinated Usain Bolt.
Players are hitting as little as 7-iron off the tee, and even long-irons are crossing the 300-yard barrier. The toughest course in The Open’s rota is providing a different type of test this week.
“Car-nasty” became notorious in 1999, when lush rough and narrow fairways made the course near-impossible. The course was damp again in 2007. Even with easier conditions, 7 under par was Padraig Harrington’s winning score.
Now players will face a firm and fast Carnoustie on fairways that have been yellowed by a record heat wave in the United Kingdom.
Last month was the second-hottest June on record in the United Kingdom. Motherwell, Scotland, recently hit 91.8 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in Scotland.
“I don’t remember the last time we went six weeks without rain,” a British farmer recently told the New York Times. “Only a proper week of full-on British rain can save the situation now.”
That’s not in the forecast this week. Carnoustie has received half its usual rain over the past three months. There have been occasional sprinkles this week, but not enough to alter the conditions. The forecast for the remainder of the week calls for minimal precipitation.
That means the 7,402-yard course, the longest in The Open rota, will play significantly shorter. And the rough that tormented players in 1999 now offers little penalty because it is so dry and brittle. With well-watered greens and breezes that may not blow harder than 20 mph, there is some talk about an unprecedented week of scoring at Carnoustie. No one has finished double-digits under par in seven Opens here.
“When the wind is blowing, it is the toughest golf course in Britain,” said World Golf Hall of Fame member Sir Michael Bonallack. “And when it’s not blowing, it’s probably still the toughest.”
Some are comparing this week to 2006, when Tiger Woods won at Royal Liverpool. He hit driver just once on a course so parched that balls kicked up dust when they hit the turf. He shot 18 under par to beat Chris DiMarco by two shots.
This week, Woods put a new, lower-lofted 2-iron in his bag to send his tee shots scooting down the fairway. There’s one problem, though.
“I haven’t been able to use it that many times … because I’m hitting my other irons so far,” he said. That includes a 333-yard 3-iron on the 18th hole.
That hole used to play as a par-5. Now players who hit driver are left with little more than a pitch shot. Dustin Johnson drove it into the burn fronting the green. The 12-yard-wide hazard crosses the fairway 450 yards from the tee.
Along with the bothersome Barry Burn, which plays an outsized role for such a narrow hazard, it will be imperative for players to avoid Carnoustie’s penal pot bunkers.
“I haven’t seen one yet that … I could actually hit it on the green out of,” Dustin Johnson said.
Carnoustie’s bunkers, among the toughest in the British Isles, are comparable to miniature water hazards because both hand out a one-shot penalty. Some of the vertical faces are 6 feet tall. The bunkers are so small that players are often left with awkward stances, and the ball is so close to the face that it’s impossible to do much more than pitch out.
Johnny Miller lost the 1975 Open here when he needed two shots to get out of a fairway bunker on the 18th hole. He made bogey to fall one short of the playoff won by Tom Watson.
There are, however, a few opportunities for long hitters to blow their tee shots over the traps because the rough is of little concern. On other holes, it is better to lay back short of the bunkers.
“There’s 5,000 different ways … to play these holes out here,” Reed said. The safe play often leaves a more difficult approach shot, though.
“There’s no perfect strategy that eliminates risk,” said Harrington. “It’s very difficult to play short of the bunkers all the time. The beauty of the course is that there are a lot of different ways of playing it, but eventually you’re going to have to grow up and hit the shots.”
Players will certainly have plenty of decisions to make. Carnoustie has just three par-3s, leaving players with 15 tee shots on par-3s and par-4s. They may be hitting wood off the tee of the 248-yard 16th, as well. Jack Nicklaus hit driver into that hole in the 1968 Open.
Choosing a club isn’t the only challenge. Trajectory will have an outsized effect on the distance shots travel.
During Tuesday’s practice round, Reed hit two tee shots with 6-iron on the 16th, which was playing downwind. The “chipped” shot, the one he hit with 70 percent of his strength, rolled 40 yards past the shot he hit with a full swing.
“Trajectory means a lot,” Woods said. He didn’t foresee a lot of opportunities to hit driver because it is so difficult to control a ball that rolls on Carnoustie’s sloping fairways for 60 or more yards. But U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka said he could hit up to 9 drivers.
“Sometimes we can just take all the bunkers out (of play) by hitting driver,” he said. “There’s no reason not to take advantage of that, especially with the rough being not so thick.”
