Man Roughed Up In Apparent "Golf Rage" Incident

[silverbear]

As long as I'm tellin' stories about golf rage and such, I think I'll share one of my favorites...

I was in my mid-20s, working as an assistant golf pro at this small resort (60 unit hotel, 6200 yard par 71 course)... it was a neat little course, the front 9 went back to the 1920s, and the immortal Bobby Jones had played the dedication round on it... the back 9 was built in the 60s, about 10 years before I went to work there... so the two 9s were really quite different, the front side had these hard, postage stamp greens, while the back side was more like what most of us are used to, and a little longer...

One of the members had 4 sons, all of whom took to the game, all of whom became quite good... the eldest son was called DL, I never knew what those initials stood for... the guy had a legendary temper, and we all knew his game would go in the toilet the second he hit his first bad shot...

This one summer evening, I had just closed up the pro shop, and me and DL and 2 of our buddies decided to squeeze in a few holes before we lost the last remaining light... on the last hole of the day, DL reached back for a little extra, trying to get in a position where he could reach the longish par 5 in 2 (it was about 560 yards, but he had length enough to get it done)... unfortunately, he hit it right of the world, out of bounds...

Whereupon he set the silver bird aloft (to those who don't play the game, that means he threw his driver down the fairway)... fully intending to get on his nerves, I said "now I know why I'm always send your clubs off to be reshafted, you don't know how to throw a club properly"...

DL looked like he wanted to get mad, but I'd piqued his curiosity... "well, how the h*ll do you throw it right??", he asked...

"You throw it with a sidearm motion, so that it revolves rather like a helicopter blade... that way it lands softly, like a butterfly in a bowl full of mashed potatos... here, lemme show you"...

At which point I grabbed one of HIS clubs (unnoticed by him), and sent it spinning out maybe 50 yards... so he grabbed another of his clubs, and sent it flying the way I'd showed him, laughing merrily... I grabbed another of his clubs, and did the same... this went on until he noticed I wasn't throwing MY clubs... at which point we started emptying my bag, and the other 2 guys got into the act... before you know it, there were like 40 clubs out there littering the fairway, and we're all hurting, we're laughing so hard...

We didn't find DL's 6 iron until the next morning... I'm tellin' ya, it takes a heck of a teaching pro to even teach you how to throw a club properly... it was as comical a fifteen minutes as I've ever experienced...

 

[trickblue]

As long as I'm tellin' stories about golf rage and such, I think I'll share one of my favorites...

I was in my mid-20s, working as an assistant golf pro at this small resort (60 unit hotel, 6200 yard par 71 course)... it was a neat little course, the front 9 went back to the 1920s, and the immortal Bobby Jones had played the dedication round on it... the back 9 was built in the 60s, about 10 years before I went to work there... so the two 9s were really quite different, the front side had these hard, postage stamp greens, while the back side was more like what most of us are used to, and a little longer...

One of the members had 4 sons, all of whom took to the game, all of whom became quite good... the eldest son was called DL, I never knew what those initials stood for... the guy had a legendary temper, and we all knew his game would go in the toilet the second he hit his first bad shot...

This one summer evening, I had just closed up the pro shop, and me and DL and 2 of our buddies decided to squeeze in a few holes before we lost the last remaining light... on the last hole of the day, DL reached back for a little extra, trying to get in a position where he could reach the longish par 5 in 2 (it was about 560 yards, but he had length enough to get it done)... unfortunately, he hit it right of the world, out of bounds...

Whereupon he set the silver bird aloft (to those who don't play the game, that means he threw his driver down the fairway)... fully intending to get on his nerves, I said "now I know why I'm always send your clubs off to be reshafted, you don't know how to throw a club properly"...

DL looked like he wanted to get mad, but I'd piqued his curiosity... "well, how the h*ll do you throw it right??", he asked...

"You throw it with a sidearm motion, so that it revolves rather like a helicopter blade... that way it lands softly, like a butterfly in a bowl full of mashed potatos... here, lemme show you"...

At which point I grabbed one of HIS clubs (unnoticed by him), and sent it spinning out maybe 50 yards... so he grabbed another of his clubs, and sent it flying the way I'd showed him, laughing merrily... I grabbed another of his clubs, and did the same... this went on until he noticed I wasn't throwing MY clubs... at which point we started emptying my bag, and the other 2 guys got into the act... before you know it, there were like 40 clubs out there littering the fairway, and we're all hurting, we're laughing so hard...

We didn't find DL's 6 iron until the next morning... I'm tellin' ya, it takes a heck of a teaching pro to even teach you how to throw a club properly... it was as comical a fifteen minutes as I've ever experienced...

 

[silverbear]

Sounds like you hit a 3 about like me... although I can hit it a bit further when I connect right...

Actually, I don't hit the long irons much any more... a few years back, I picked up one of the original Adams Tight Lies 4 woods, and that is one of the easiest fairway woods to hit I've ever tried... I liked it so much that I went a step further, and bought one of their brassies (2 woods to the non-golfers)...

I can hit that sucker 250-260, and as straight as I hit my 7 iron... it has been an absolute godsend on tight driving holes... as a result, my 1 and 2 irons stay back in the closet most of the time, though I do still like to jack around with the 1 iron at the driving range from time to time...

I believe what Lee Trevino once said about the 1 iron-- golf fans may remember that Lee was once struck by lightning, and when he returned to the Tour he was asked during an interview if he'd learned anything from the experience... Lee said that he had, that while he was away he had studied extensively what you should do if you're caught on the course in a thunderstorm:

"You walk out to the middle of the fairway, away from any trees, lay down your golf bag, pull out your 1 iron and stick it straight up in the air, 'cause even God can't hit a 1 iron"...

 

[trickblue]

Actually, I don't hit the long irons much any more... a few years back, I picked up one of the original Adams Tight Lies 4 woods, and that is one of the easiest fairway woods to hit I've ever tried... I liked it so much that I went a step further, and bought one of their brassies (2 woods to the non-golfers)...

I can hit that sucker 250-260, and as straight as I hit my 7 iron... it has been an absolute godsend on tight driving holes... as a result, my 1 and 2 irons stay back in the closet most of the time, though I do still like to jack around with the 1 iron at the driving range from time to time...

I believe what Lee Trevino once said about the 1 iron-- golf fans may remember that Lee was once struck by lightning, and when he returned to the Tour he was asked during an interview if he'd learned anything from the experience... Lee said that he had, that while he was away he had studied extensively what you should do if you're caught on the course in a thunderstorm:

"You walk out to the middle of the fairway, away from any trees, lay down your golf bag, pull out your 1 iron and stick it straight up in the air, 'cause even God can't hit a 1 iron"...

Funny... I can never hit my woods consistently... but I can knock a long iron into oblivion... I play Hogan CFT's now... bent +2 strong for my height... but I still pull out the old GolfSmith Tour Cavity #2 for some tee shots... a VASTLY under-rated set of clubs...

 

[silverbear]

Hey, if you liked that one, here's one that'll probably DESTROY you... this time, I'm gonna be the butt of my own joke...

My current putter is one of the Odyssey modified mallets, kind of a cross between a Ping putter and a true mallet... I call it Snakekiller II, and this will be a story about how the original Snakekiller got its name:

I was working at Shenandoah Valley Golf Club back in the early 70s, when one of those rare hurricanes that visit the Valley came through... the club had a creek running alongside part of the White nine (SVGC had 27 holes, the Red nine, the White nine and the Blue nine), and of course the creek flooded out those few holes for a coupla days... we closed the course, not that anybody was looking to play...

Well, the day before we reopened the course it was still quite wet, and windy, and cloudy, and the employees were bored, so we conducted the First (and only) Shenandoah Valley Golf Club Employees Invitational Golf Tournament... we had 2 foursomes and a threesome... even the owner got into the act...

I was playing over my head that day, I dusted off my west Texas knockdown shot and I was knockin' some flagsticks down... I was also missing every freakin' putt I looked at, and I was getting pissed... got to the 12th hole, a tough little 210 yard par 3 on the best of days, straight up a hill with a big ol' tree on the left side that actually hung out over the green a little... if the pin was cut on the left side, you HAD to play a draw to get anywhere close to the hole... on this day, it was playing straight into a 30MPH wind, so it was playing like it was about 240... I wheeled out my 2 iron, moved the ball back in my stance to get that knockdown effect... it started out right of the right hand bunker, then it started to draw and of course the wind exaggerated the draw... wound up about 4 feet right of the hole, just a GREAT shot...

And I missed the putt... I didn't even lip it out, I didn't come CLOSE...

That was the last straw, I flung my putter (one of the early Ping Scottsdales, I later gave it to my Dad and ultimately had it placed in his casket with him) toward the cart path... when I picked it up as I walked over to the next tee, I cracked my partner's up by scraping the head of it along the cart path, screaming "suffer, b*tch!!!!"... it still had the scratches from that day on its sole when they closed my Dad's casket...

My par had still won the hole, so I had the honors on the 13th, a 350 yard par 4 that was playing with the wind... so I had what I call a "constructive temper tantrum", I let out a little shaft on that tee shot, and just NAILED it... I was feeling some better, but only a little, when we started down the fairway...

About 30 yards in front of the tee, we came across this snake... a water moccasin... I didn't even know you could find one of them up in our neck of the woods, I thought all we had was rattlers and copperheads when it came to poisonous snakes... but there he was...

Now, under normal circumstances there's nobody more terrified of snakes than I am, but in my semi-demented anger, I whipped out that old Ping putter and commenced to chasing that snake around, flailing away at it, until I caught it a good one in the head and killed it...

Man, you wouldn't BELIEVE how much better I felt... I'm walkin' down the fairway, dragging the putter through the grass to get the snake brains off of it, just about ready to break out whistling, LOL...

Turns out I'd knocked the tee shot on the front edge of the green, and the pin was cut up front, and don't you know I knocked in a 20 footer for eagle?? Never missed another putt the rest of the 9, until we got to number 18, a wicked long dogleg right of a par 5, again with the wind at our backs... it was gettin' REAL close to dark, and I cut off some of the dogleg, so that I had a 4 iron into a very large green...

I hit a pretty miserable 4 iron, on the green but all the way on the right hand side, while the pin was on the left side some 60 feet away, up over a mound, down into a little valley, then back up over another mound... just blocked that sucker out... I couldn't see the pin, had one of my buddies rattle it in the cup so I'd have some vague notion where it was... had to guess at how far right to start it... with the greens that sopping wet, the putt was really slow, so I just about took a full backswing with the Ping and rapped the dogsnot out of it... up over the first mound it went, down into the valley, up over the second mound...

Smack into the middle of the cup... I thought my friends were jerkin' me around, but nope, I'd holed it out for my second eagle of the day...

I'm sure you know that in golf terminology, a long, twisting putt is called a "snake", and making one of them is called "killing a snake"... my buddies merrily noted that I'd killed TWO snakes with that putter that day, and the legend of the Snakekiller was born...

 

[silverbear]

Funny... I can never hit my woods consistently... but I can knock a long iron into oblivion... I play Hogan CFT's now... bent +2 strong for my height... but I still pull out the old GolfSmith Tour Cavity #2 for some tee shots... a VASTLY under-rated set of clubs...

Always had a problem hooking my long irons... not every shot, but I never knew when the ol' snap hook would jump up and bite me... so I never had any real confidence swinging them, but of course if you're in rough--even light rough-- it's pretty hard to hit a fairway wood...

Not with my Tight Lies, it isn't... it still looks ugly to me, but if it was a woman, I'd start liking ugly women...

 

[trickblue]

Hey, if you liked that one, here's one that'll probably DESTROY you... this time, I'm gonna be the butt of my own joke...

My current putter is one of the Odyssey modified mallets, kind of a cross between a Ping putter and a true mallet... I call it Snakekiller II, and this will be a story about how the original Snakekiller got its name:

I was working at Shenandoah Valley Golf Club back in the early 70s, when one of those rare hurricanes that visit the Valley came through... the club had a creek running alongside part of the White nine (SVGC had 27 holes, the Red nine, the White nine and the Blue nine), and of course the creek flooded out those few holes for a coupla days... we closed the course, not that anybody was looking to play...

Well, the day before we reopened the course it was still quite wet, and windy, and cloudy, and the employees were bored, so we conducted the First (and only) Shenandoah Valley Golf Club Employees Invitational Golf Tournament... we had 2 foursomes and a threesome... even the owner got into the act...

I was playing over my head that day, I dusted off my west Texas knockdown shot and I was knockin' some flagsticks down... I was also missing every freakin' putt I looked at, and I was getting pissed... got to the 12th hole, a tough little 210 yard par 3 on the best of days, straight up a hill with a big ol' tree on the left side that actually hung out over the green a little... if the pin was cut on the left side, you HAD to play a draw to get anywhere close to the hole... on this day, it was playing straight into a 30MPH wind, so it was playing like it was about 240... I wheeled out my 2 iron, moved the ball back in my stance to get that knockdown effect... it started out right of the right hand bunker, then it started to draw and of course the wind exaggerated the draw... wound up about 4 feet right of the hole, just a GREAT shot...

And I missed the putt... I didn't even lip it out, I didn't come CLOSE...

That was the last straw, I flung my putter (one of the early Ping Scottsdales, I later gave it to my Dad and ultimately had it placed in his casket with him) toward the cart path... when I picked it up as I walked over to the next tee, I cracked my partner's up by scraping the head of it along the cart path, screaming "suffer, b*tch!!!!"... it still had the scratches from that day on its sole when they closed my Dad's casket...

My par had still won the hole, so I had the honors on the 13th, a 350 yard par 4 that was playing with the wind... so I had what I call a "constructive temper tantrum", I let out a little shaft on that tee shot, and just NAILED it... I was feeling some better, but only a little, when we started down the fairway...

About 30 yards in front of the tee, we came across this snake... a water moccasin... I didn't even know you could find one of them up in our neck of the woods, I thought all we had was rattlers and copperheads when it came to poisonous snakes... but there he was...

Now, under normal circumstances there's nobody more terrified of snakes than I am, but in my semi-demented anger, I whipped out that old Ping putter and commenced to chasing that snake around, flailing away at it, until I caught it a good one in the head and killed it...

Man, you wouldn't BELIEVE how much better I felt... I'm walkin' down the fairway, dragging the putter through the grass to get the snake brains off of it, just about ready to break out whistling, LOL...

Turns out I'd knocked the tee shot on the front edge of the green, and the pin was cut up front, and don't you know I knocked in a 20 footer for eagle?? Never missed another putt the rest of the 9, until we got to number 18, a wicked long dogleg right of a par 5, again with the wind at our backs... it was gettin' REAL close to dark, and I cut off some of the dogleg, so that I had a 4 iron into a very large green...

I hit a pretty miserable 4 iron, on the green but all the way on the right hand side, while the pin was on the left side some 60 feet away, up over a mound, down into a little valley, then back up over another mound... just blocked that sucker out... I couldn't see the pin, had one of my buddies rattle it in the cup so I'd have some vague notion where it was... had to guess at how far right to start it... with the greens that sopping wet, the putt was really slow, so I just about took a full backswing with the Ping and rapped the dogsnot out of it... up over the first mound it went, down into the valley, up over the second mound...

Smack into the middle of the cup... I thought my friends were jerkin' me around, but nope, I'd holed it out for my second eagle of the day...

I'm sure you know that in golf terminology, a long, twisting putt is called a "snake", and making one of them is called "killing a snake"... my buddies merrily noted that I'd killed TWO snakes with that putter that day, and the legend of the Snakekiller was born...

GREAT story... but let me ruin your round...

Imagine if you had been putting lights-out on the front nine...

 

[trickblue]

Always had a problem hooking my long irons... not every shot, but I never knew when the ol' snap hook would jump up and bite me... so I never had any real confidence swinging them, but of course if you're in rough--even light rough-- it's pretty hard to hit a fairway wood...

Not with my Tight Lies, it isn't... it still looks ugly to me, but if it was a woman, I'd start liking ugly women...

Here's one for ya...

We used to fly out and video-tape MILO (Meeting Industry Ladies Open)... now this was a PRIME gig as it was women that headed up Associations...

Well... we were doing it in San Diego one year and playing Aviara (an unbelievable beautiful course)...

So we get to one hole and a snake slithers up to check it out... the ladies get horrified and I take one of their woods and beat it to death...

Now... this is a good thing I am thinking... but no... the woman I pulled the wood from sat on the board of PETA and I was reported to my CEO for killing an innocent animal...

Now... this was not a good thing...but once I explained it to our CEO, I was exonerated...

 

[silverbear]

GREAT story... but let me ruin your round...

Imagine if you had been putting lights-out on the front nine...

To rip off a good line from the movie Tin Cup, my name and "putting lights out" don't often collide in the same sentence...

I watch tour pros knockin' in 15 footers like they're easy, and I think back to when I was playing every day, and might make 2-3 15 footers in a WEEK, and I get pissed off all over again...

And as long as I'm in a golf story-telling mood, here's one more for you:

My Dad got into the golf biz toward the end of his Army career... he was stationed over in Heidelberg, Germany, and hadn't yet secured housing for us, so we were waiting back here in suburban DC waiting to join him... he went out the Army-owned Heidelberg Golf and Gun Club (which was actually located in Schwetzingen, about 15 minutes outside of Heidelberg) for a round of golf... he got paired up with a General and his aide, and shot a 68 or some such number-- the first time he'd ever seen the course...

The next day, he was taken out of his Quartermaster gig, and was made the golf pro there... I swear I'm not kidding... anyway, there was the young German civilian who worked at the course name of Dieter Conrad, about 19 years old, or 3 years older than me... he became like an adopted member of the family, and was in essence the big brother I never had... when we rotated back to the States, we sponsored him for an immigration visa, and he lived with us for a while...

Dieter was a good-looking rascal, not real big, but he had a pretty fair golf game his own self... he ultimately wound up the assistant pro at Chantilly National Golf Club, out near Dulles Airport (I saw my first Concorde while playing there)...

On my Monday off, I often drove over to Chantilly and helped Dieter relieve some of his members of some of their excess money... Dieter was quite long back then, and I was trying to be long, so even though we were always partners, there was this competition between us...

On the day in question, I had borrowed my Dad's George Izett persimmon driver, which had one of the first Aldila graphite shafts in it... it was also 2 inches longer than standard... those early graphites were very torque-y, which meant if you hit the ball slightly off-center it would go WAAAY offline... but if you caught it dead in the screws, the ball just jumped off the clubface...

Through the course of the round, I was actually keeping up with Dieter off the tee, even outdriving him some of the time... and I was woofin' about what a "man" I'd become... Dieter was amused, because other than hitting some pretty nice tee shots I wasn't playing worth a hammered crap... he had to be gettin' tired from carryin' me around that course...

We eventually came to the 18th tee, and our opponents pressed the bet because Dieter had just birdied the par 5 17th... the 18th hole was another par 4 in the 350 range, with a lake all down the left side, but the right side was pretty open, not much trouble you could get into... the hole was level out to about 50 yards short of the green, at which point the ground sloped up sharply...

Dieter hit a really nice tee shot, to near the base of the hill, turned to me and said:

"All day long you've been bragging about what a man you've become; if you can hit it out with that one, I'll admit you've reached manhood"...

Of course I couldn't pass on THAT challenge, so I widened out my stance a little, drew the club away a little more slowly, made JUST a little bigger turn, and when I started down, I gave it everything I had... Dieter said I grunted like Jimmy Connors hitting a backhand, and that when I made impact, both my feet were 2 inches off the ground...

And I just creamed that sucker... that ball was still climbing when it pissed on Dieter's ball, LOL... I actually FLEW THE GREEN... never hit a longer tee shot, before or since...

And as we're riding up the fairway, I merrily turned to Dieter and said "so how 'bout it, bud, am I man now??" Dieter gave me the strangest look, and said "no, you're a (expletive deleted) GO-RILLA"...

The problem is, I was screwed when I drove the green, I was standing on a pretty steep bank, trying to chip back down to a green that sloped away from me sharply, and was very, very fast... it was inevitable that I was gonna chip the ball back across the green, there was literally no way to stop it...

As I'm standing over the ball, the head pro (guy by the name of Dick Canney) was standing on the veranda, having some fun at my expense... "see what happens when you blade your approach shot across the green, Larry??", he asked...

It was a sweet, sweet moment when I turned back to him and said "ain't but one problem with that question, Dick; this ain't my SECOND shot, this is my TEE shot"...

His eyes got wide as saucers, and he started to tell me I was full of it... then he saw Dieter nodding his head in affirmation... he just shook his head and walked away... I swear, John Daly would have been envious of that tee shot...

And of course, I chipped it across the green, the ball rolled about 20-25 yards down the hill... but I did manage to chip it close enough coming back to make par, and Dieter made an easy birdie, so we won the press bet as well...

I just love a story with a happy ending... almost as much as I love members with more money than talent...

 

[jackrussell]

As I got older I got out of my confrontational stage, found it more satisfying to leave someone bewildered. After a group continually hit into us, I would totally ignore it, and nonchalantly walk around the fairway, and step on their ball and bury it, then look back and watch as they search for their ball.

Another guy I know wasn't so easy, though he would give the guys a chance. Starting 2 holes behind a group that had no one in front of them at all, we finally caught them after about 5 holes. We waited a few holes to see if they'd let us play through, but it was obvious that wasn;t going to happen. So we hit up just behind them, pulled up and my friend politely asked to play through. Incredibly, we were denied, as they felt they were playing fast enough. Then the coolest threat I've ever seen not in a movie, my friend, using the same cool demeanor he had used in his play through request, said "Well I asked you nice once. So I'm asking you again, and if you don't let us, what do you say I pull your pants down and spank you right here in front of your friends?"

We were on our way.

 

[silverbear]

Here's one for ya...

We used to fly out and video-tape MILO (Meeting Industry Ladies Open)... now this was a PRIME gig as it was women that headed up Associations...

Well... we were doing it in San Diego one year and playing Aviara (an unbelievable beautiful course)...

So we get to one hole and a snake slithers up to check it out... the ladies get horrified and I take one of their woods and beat it to death...

Now... this is a good thing I am thinking... but no... the woman I pulled the wood from sat on the board of PETA and I was reported to my CEO for killing an innocent animal...

Now... this was not a good thing...but once I explained it to our CEO, I was exonerated...

What kind of snake was it?? If it had rattles on the end, you were morally required to kill the SOB...

 

[SweCowboy]

I've actually managed to injure myself playing golf. I had hit a drive inte the deep rough and was lying in a uphill ly. I just wanted the ball out of the rough so i hit it as hard as I could with an 8 iron or so and manage to dislocate a bone in the palm of my left hand. The odd thing is that I played football for about 4 years and never got injured but I've managed to injure myself playing golf and bowling. :

 

[StanleySpadowski]

If you'd done that to me, it would ensure that you'd NEVER get to play through... not only is it profoundly ignorant, you put people's lives at risk...

I get frustrated with slow play too, but I will never, ever make an approach shot to a green if there's even a possibility that my best shot will get me home in two...

Perhaps if you'd ever been hit by a golf ball, you'd understand just how wrong you are... I have banned people from ever playing my course again, with the full support of the owner of the course, for doing what you advocate...

With a blue flag, there's no danger in rolling a 3 or 5 wood up on the green. I'll only do after trailing a foursome for six or seven holes and they have holes open in front of them. I'd never take a chance with anything that could carry into a group.


And I have been hit several times. My worst one ever happened last summer at one of the clubs I belong to. I was playing a big money match and was way up on the 18th tee, the guy presses. A guy skulled one out of a greenside bunker on 10. The ball carried the green by 30 yards, somehow made it through a stand of trees protecting the tee and found the small of my back right as I was almost finished with my downswing. I dribbled it about 10 yards into the lake, doubled to his bogey.

 

[silverbear]

With a blue flag, there's no danger in rolling a 3 or 5 wood up on the green. I'll only do after trailing a foursome for six or seven holes and they have holes open in front of them. I'd never take a chance with anything that could carry into a group.

I'm glad you straighted that out, man... I just deal with the situation a bit differently than you do, I drive up to them and ask them if they won't allow us to play through... 90 percent of the time, that works, by then they're usually aware that we're playing faster than they are...

And if they're jerks, I let the starter, the marshall (if they have one) or the pro shop know about it at the earliest possible opportunity... BTW, if it was my group that was holding you up, you would have been invited to play through without asking; I have in the past coupla years had the intense pleasure or introducing my 20-something nephew, my late brother's oldest kid, to the game, and we seem to spend some time each round lookin' for lost balls, so I've gotten used to letting foursomes play through... LOL...

And I have been hit several times. My worst one ever happened last summer at one of the clubs I belong to. I was playing a big money match and was way up on the 18th tee, the guy presses. A guy skulled one out of a greenside bunker on 10. The ball carried the green by 30 yards, somehow made it through a stand of trees protecting the tee and found the small of my back right as I was almost finished with my downswing. I dribbled it about 10 yards into the lake, doubled to his bogey.

Sounds like Mulligan time to me...

 

[silverbear]

I've actually managed to injure myself playing golf. I had hit a drive inte the deep rough and was lying in a uphill ly. I just wanted the ball out of the rough so i hit it as hard as I could with an 8 iron or so and manage to dislocate a bone in the palm of my left hand. The odd thing is that I played football for about 4 years and never got injured but I've managed to injure myself playing golf and bowling. :

This is gonna sound like "I can top that" time, and guys like that are really obnoxious, but as it happens I DO have a similar story... I went away to college, back to the family's old home of El Paso (UTEP)... about 2 months into my first semester, the folks decided it would be cool to pay me a visit, look up some old friends, and my Dad brought his sticks... one fine day, we headed over to the finest club in the area, El Paso del Norte Country Club...

Back then, I had this flat, almost Lee Trevino-esque swing, coupled with a pretty strong grip... this obviously resulted in me being able to hit nothing but a low hook, and I had to work really hard at controlling that hook... at the same time, it resulted in me being very, very, very long when I did control the hook, especially down there where the ground was always hard, and that hook would run a long way... and hitting the ball low was to my advantage in those west Texas winds...

Well, at one point my Dad and I came to this par 5, dogleg right... I took a shot at cutting the corner, came off the shot just a little, and wound up in the rough... down there, the rough consisted of hardpan, and I was sitting on a clean spot... so I went with the 2 iron, and that's when I learned a painful lesson about the botany of the desert...

The reason plants are so widely scattered, so sparse, in the desert is because plants indigenous to the area have root systems that don't go down real deep, but rather scatter out widely just below the surface... this is because not much water gets down deep, so they have to keep their roots just below the surface to gather what little moisture does periodically become available...

So I was maybe 6-10 feet away from some clump of scrub, I'm not a botanist and don't know what kind of plant it was... what I DO know is that a fairly large root from that plant was lying directly under my ball, maybe three quarters of an inch below the surface... I took a mighty whack at that thing (I swung the club quite hard back in those days, compared to the leisurely pace of my swing these days), and the sole of my 2 iron hooked that root, while I kept on trying to swing through... I couldn't let go of the club, my grip was too firm...

And pain exploded in my left shoulder... I had what the orthopedists called a subluxation of the shoulder (a dislocation that popped back into place almost immediately on its own)... and the sucker pinched a nerve when it popped back in... it hurt so bad, I couldn't even cry out in pain; I just made this kind of hissing sound, dropped to my knees and cradled the wounded shoulder, while my Dad looked on like I'd lost my mind about 30 yards away out in the fairway...

Needless to say, that was the end of the round... the weird thing is, that accident turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to my game; I was forced to find a more traditional swing path, which meant I had to start taking a more "correct" grip... this led to me being able to fly the ball MUCH higher with all my clubs, and to me being able to hit the full range of shots, including the fade... I learned over time to become a better, more controlled player... the downside was that I lost 10-15 yards off my tee shots, and was probably one club shorter with my irons... oh, I was still long enough after the injury, and even into my 30s I was good for a drive of over 300 yards or two or three most every round... I generally averaged right around 290 with the big stick... I was also a force to be reckoned with in local long drive contests, where I didn't have to worry about jackin' one out of bounds, and could turn loose the dogs...

These days, age has taken its toll, and even with the benefit of the new technology available (Gawd, how I wish I'd had my Titleist 975J back then, I would have averaged over 300 yards easy), my normal tee shot is about 275-280, a good lick might get me 290... I probably don't hit more than a half dozen honest 300 yard tee shots in the course of any season any more... that's not counting the cart path shots, LOL... I'm just not capable of taking quite as big a turn as I did back then, and my back isn't quite as flexible as it was 20 years ago...

But once again, there's a tradeoff; I'm somewhat more accurate off the tee, and with my middle irons... I was always pretty straight with the short irons, and still am...

Now, if I could only learn to putt... I don't 3-putt many, but I don't make many outside of 6 feet (and I don't make the number of short putts that I should)...

And now that I've managed to be the obnoxious jerk who plays "I can top that", how in God's name did you injure yourself BOWLING?? I've spent many hours on the lanes, and the worst thing that ever happened to me was a little tendinitis in my elbow, which forced me to wear one of the Cho-Pat straps...

 

[SweCowboy]

This is gonna sound like "I can top that" time, and guys like that are really obnoxious, but as it happens I DO have a similar story... I went away to college, back to the family's old home of El Paso (UTEP)... about 2 months into my first semester, the folks decided it would be cool to pay me a visit, look up some old friends, and my Dad brought his sticks... one fine day, we headed over to the finest club in the area, El Paso del Norte Country Club...

Back then, I had this flat, almost Lee Trevino-esque swing, coupled with a pretty strong grip... this obviously resulted in me being able to hit nothing but a low hook, and I had to work really hard at controlling that hook... at the same time, it resulted in me being very, very, very long when I did control the hook, especially down there where the ground was always hard, and that hook would run a long way... and hitting the ball low was to my advantage in those west Texas winds...

Well, at one point my Dad and I came to this par 5, dogleg right... I took a shot at cutting the corner, came off the shot just a little, and wound up in the rough... down there, the rough consisted of hardpan, and I was sitting on a clean spot... so I went with the 2 iron, and that's when I learned a painful lesson about the botany of the desert...

The reason plants are so widely scattered, so sparse, in the desert is because plants indigenous to the area have root systems that don't go down real deep, but rather scatter out widely just below the surface... this is because not much water gets down deep, so they have to keep their roots just below the surface to gather what little moisture does periodically become available...

So I was maybe 6-10 feet away from some clump of scrub, I'm not a botanist and don't know what kind of plant it was... what I DO know is that a fairly large root from that plant was lying directly under my ball, maybe three quarters of an inch below the surface... I took a mighty whack at that thing (I swung the club quite hard back in those days, compared to the leisurely pace of my swing these days), and the sole of my 2 iron hooked that root, while I kept on trying to swing through... I couldn't let go of the club, my grip was too firm...

And pain exploded in my left shoulder... I had what the orthopedists called a subluxation of the shoulder (a dislocation that popped back into place almost immediately on its own)... and the sucker pinched a nerve when it popped back in... it hurt so bad, I couldn't even cry out in pain; I just made this kind of hissing sound, dropped to my knees and cradled the wounded shoulder, while my Dad looked on like I'd lost my mind about 30 yards away out in the fairway...

Needless to say, that was the end of the round... the weird thing is, that accident turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to my game; I was forced to find a more traditional swing path, which meant I had to start taking a more "correct" grip... this led to me being able to fly the ball MUCH higher with all my clubs, and to me being able to hit the full range of shots, including the fade... I learned over time to become a better, more controlled player... the downside was that I lost 10-15 yards off my tee shots, and was probably one club shorter with my irons... oh, I was still long enough after the injury, and even into my 30s I was good for a drive of over 300 yards or two or three most every round... I generally averaged right around 290 with the big stick... I was also a force to be reckoned with in local long drive contests, where I didn't have to worry about jackin' one out of bounds, and could turn loose the dogs...

These days, age has taken its toll, and even with the benefit of the new technology available (Gawd, how I wish I'd had my Titleist 975J back then, I would have averaged over 300 yards easy), my normal tee shot is about 275-280, a good lick might get me 290... I probably don't hit more than a half dozen honest 300 yard tee shots in the course of any season any more... that's not counting the cart path shots, LOL... I'm just not capable of taking quite as big a turn as I did back then, and my back isn't quite as flexible as it was 20 years ago...

But once again, there's a tradeoff; I'm somewhat more accurate off the tee, and with my middle irons... I was always pretty straight with the short irons, and still am...

Now, if I could only learn to putt... I don't 3-putt many, but I don't make many outside of 6 feet (and I don't make the number of short putts that I should)...

And now that I've managed to be the obnoxious jerk who plays "I can top that", how in God's name did you injure yourself BOWLING?? I've spent many hours on the lanes, and the worst thing that ever happened to me was a little tendinitis in my elbow, which forced me to wear one of the Cho-Pat straps...

Good story. I played for I guess about 3 hours strait. Something some ligament in my left knee didn't agree with. I could'nt walk for two days afterwards.

I haven't actually played golf in about 5 years but I'm thinking about starting to play again next year. I really don't know why but I more or less allways hit a very high ball with a slight hook in it. I've never been able to hit low balls which makes playing in strong wind a real pain in the ***.

 

[silverbear]

Good story. I played for I guess about 3 hours strait. Something some ligament in my left knee didn't agree with. I could'nt walk for two days afterwards.

I haven't actually played golf in about 5 years but I'm thinking about starting to play again next year. I really don't know why but I more or less allways hit a very high ball with a slight hook in it. I've never been able to hit low balls which makes playing in strong wind a real pain in the ***.

1) Move the ball back in your stance... some folks find it helps to arch their wrists slightly at address... this cuts down on your wrist action, a knockdown shot is more of an "arms" swing...

2) Set up with a little more weight on your left side at address... try to stay on your left side as you take your backswing... you won't want to use a lot of leg action... again, we're looking for that "arms" swing...

3) Take one more club, and make a 3/4 swing, a "punch" shot... really think about hitting down on the ball...

One thing about a knockdown shot, it puts a LOT of spin on a ball when it's done right... for me, the problem is if I work with the knockdown shot too much, I'm soon fighting a hook when I make a normal pass at the ball...