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;void(0)) GOLF (A-O) . . . Photograph: The 1st hole on the Bethpage Black Course. see: "ENTERTAINMENT, HOBBIES, & LEISURE ACTIVITIES" for related links see: "SPORTS" for related links [When asked what type of golfer he was:] It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course. --Henry Lewis (Hank) Aaron (b. 1934) Baseball player and member of Baseball Hall of Fame. Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing. --Dave Barry (b. 1947) American humorist. _Stay Fit and Healthy Until You're Dead_ [1985] Give me golf clubs, fresh air and a beautiful woman... and you can keep the golf clubs and fresh air. --attributed to Jack Benny [Benjamin Kubelsky] (18941974) American entertainer. - ... Under the 1882 rules, players were allowed to knock away an opponent's ball, but only from the "lip of the hole." Golfers often were "stymied" when an opponent's ball rolled up and stopped between their ball and the hole, and they had to pop their ball over or try a croquet-style bank shot to reach the hole. Stymies, used only in match play, were declared anachronistic in 1952, as the modern era's count-every-shot tournaments took precedence. The rules have never required a golfer to offer a gimme. A generous player might tell his opponent to pick up a 10-foot putt, or a stingy one could refuse to concede a two-incher. The late Sam Snead, a golfing legend with a record 82 PGA Tour victories in his career, used to say, "Keep close count of your nickels and dimes, stay away from whiskey, and never concede a putt." [...] Golf's most famous concession came at the 1969 Ryder Cup at the Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England. The event came down to the final hole between Jack Nicklaus of the heavily favored U.S. team and England's Tony Jacklin. Mr. Nicklaus finished the hole with a four. Mr. Jacklin had to make a nerve-racking two-foot putt or lose the match in front of thousands of his countrymen. Before Mr. Jacklin could putt, Mr. Nicklaus, who was competing in his first Ryder Cup, reached down and snatched up the Englishman's ball marker signifying a gimme. "I don't think you would have missed that putt ... but in these circumstances I would never give you the opportunity," he told Mr. Jacklin, according to Colin M. Jarman's book "The Ryder Cup." The match therefore ended in a tie, which meant the defending champion Americans retained the trophy. Mr. Nicklaus's sportsmanlike gesture nevertheless steamed the U.S. team captain, who happened to be the gimme-loathing Mr. Snead. "In Golf as in Life, A Lot of Players Won't Give an Inch" by Timothy J. Carroll _The Wall Street Journal_ [21 September 2006] - - The ticker-tape parade was to become New York's special accolade for a few carefully chosen national gods. Down the decades the biggest blizzards have been reserved for such returning heroes as General Eisenhower, General MacArthur, astronaut John Glenn, and, three years after Lindbergh, a sunny, firm-jawed, handsome lawyer from Atlanta, Georgia. A peculiar choice, but in him the 1920s was saluting an old ideal in the moment of its passing. He was Robert Tyre Jones, Jr., a weekend golfer but the best golfer of his time, some people think the best of all time. But had a grace and charm on and off the course that, curiously, made him the idol of two continents in a very brash time, and that to people who didn't know a putter from a shovel. His universal appeal was not as a golfer. What then? The word that comes to mind is an extinct word: a gentleman, a combination of goodness and grace, an unwavering courtesy, self-deprecation, and consideration for other people. This fetching combination, allied to his world supremacy in one sport, was what made him a hero in Scotland and England as much as in the Midwest and his native Georgia. Once, in a national championship, he drove his ball into the woods. He went after it alone, and, in standing to the ball, he barely touched it. He came out of the woods, signaled his fault, penalized himself one stroke and by one stroke lost the championship. When he was praised for this and similar acts of sportmanship, he was genuinely disgusted. "You might as well," he said, "praise a man for not robbing a bank." In his middle forties he was paralyzed by a rare disease, and a friend asked him for the medical outlook. "I will tell you privately," he said "it's not going to get better, it's going to get worse all the time, but don't fret. Remember, we 'play the ball where it lies,' and now let's not talk about this, ever again." And he never did. So what we're talking about is not the hero as golfer but something that America hungered for and found: the best performer in the world who was also the hero as human being, the gentle, chivalrous, wholly self-sufficient male. --Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (19082004) British-born American broadcater and journalist. _America_ [1973] A lion, you might guess, is not a normal item of wildlife on your course or mine. But in Nairobi once, a tawny monster strolled out of the woods, sniffed at my ball and padded off again, while my partner, a British native of the place, tweaked his mustache and drawled: "You're away, I think." At about the third hole I pushed my drive into the woods, and when I started after it, the host screamed at me to cease and desist. "Snakes, man, snakes!" he hissed; "leave it to the forecaddies," They plunged into shoulder- high underbrush, and I meekly muttered, "How about them?" "Them?" the man said, "Good God, they're marvelous. Splendid chaps; lost only two this year." That round, I recall, was something of a nightmare, what with my pushed drives and the caddies (the ones who survived) chattering away in Swahili. The whole place was so exotic that I began to wonder if any of the normal rules of golf applied. One time, we came on a sign which read, "GUR." I gave it the full Swahili treatment. "What," I said, "does GHOOOR mean?" He gave a slight start, as if some hippo were pounding in from the shade. Then he saw the sign. "That," he said firmly, "means Ground Under Repair." And he sighed and started to hum a Sousa march. After all, you must expect anything in golf. A stranger comes through; he's keen for a game; he seems affable enough, and on the eighth fairway he turns out to be an idiot. It's the rub of the green, isn't it? --Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (19082004) British-born American broadcater and journalist. In _The Golf Book_ ed. Michael Bartlett [1980]. Alistair Cooke came upon the game at middle age, shot 168 in his first round, and immediately became addicted. He calls golf, 'an open exhibition of overweening ambition, courage deflated by stupidity, skill soured by a whiff of arrogance. ... humiliations are the essence of the game. --In _The Golf Book_ ed. Michael Bartlett [1980]. - The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing. --attributed to Phyllis Diller (b. 1917) American comedian. ^ Dwight D. Eisenhower (18901969) American general and statesman, 34th President of the United States [19531961]. Eisenhower loved to play golf, and did so as often as his schedule permitted. On the course he was known for one eccentricity: in trying to identify his ball, he would use his club to roll the ball over until the trademark was visible, instead of bending over to look more closely at the ball. Once, at the Burning Tree Golf Club, when he rolled a settled ball over, it lodged against a rock. Eisenhower's caddie, seeing the President upset, said, 'Mr. President, I'm afraid you've overidentified your ball.' & Some months after the end of his term as President, Eisenhower was asked if leaving the White House had affected his golf game. 'Yes,' he replied, 'a lot more people beat me now.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ - ... One story, though, stood out from all the others, even though it involved a player who had absolutely no chance to make it to the Open. The player was Jeff Julian, a forty-year-old who had spent most of his pro career a step away from the bright lights of the PGA Tour. Twice, Julian had made it through Q-School and had gotten on tour, in 1996 and 2001. During that second stint, he began to feel tired, began to get the shakes on the golf course, something that had never happened to him before. He underwent a battery of tests and, in the fall, was given the worst possible news. He had ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. ALS is, to put it bluntly, a death sentence. Most people don't live two years after being diagnosed. Julian understood all that. He also knew that he wanted to do what he loved doing most for as long as he possibly could: play golf. He told PGA tour officials in the fall that he was concerned about playing in Pro-Ams because he was starting to slur his words and he didn't want people to get the wrong idea about why. But he kept playing. He lost his playing privileges at the end of the year but was given a number of sponsor exemptions early in 2002. He hadn't made a cut but hadn't played poorly, either. A lot of times his problem was that he tired badly near the end of rounds. He just didn't have the stamina to walk eighteen holes a lot of days, especially if it was hot. He had played in a local in St. Louis and had finished tied for second, shooting 70. There was absolutely no way he was going to be able to walk thirty-six holes in a sectional, especially in June when the weather was probably going to be hot. There were suggestions that he should ask the USGA for a cart. Given the Casey Martin decision a year earlier in which the Supreme Court had ruled that a disabled golfer had the right to play in a golf cart, Julian probably would have been given a cart if he had asked. But he didn't ask. He was a believer that walking is a part of competing in golf, regardless of any court ruling. He would show up at the sectionals and walk as far as he could and play as long as he could. He made it through eighteen holes of his sectional on a blindingly hot day in St. Louis before he was forced to quit. Prior to the sectional, David Fay had thought for a fleeting moment about offering him an exemption into the Open but had quickly put it aside. The precedent would be a bad one, and, he suspected, it would call attention to Julian in a way that would have made him uncomfortable. In all, though, it wouldn't have been a bad thing to do. The USGA has the flexibility to increase the size of the field by up to three golfers if it wants to it had done so in 1994 when Arnold Palmer, Ben Crenshaw, and Seve Ballesteros had all been given exemptions so giving Julian a spot would not have taken anyone else's spot away. And, unlike most players, Julian almost certainly would not get another crack at the Open in a year. Julian didn't make it to Bethpage. But his performance in the local and in the sectional were absolute proof that a player doesn't have to win the Open to be a hero. In this case, he didn't even have to make it to the first tee. --John Feinstein (b. 1956) American sportswriter. _Open: Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black_ [2003] (Jeff Julian died in 2004.) [Jack] Nicklaus and [Isao] Aoki ended up playing together [at the 1980 U.S. Open] all four days because they were first and second at the end of play on both Friday and Saturday. And, as it turned out, on Sunday. Hannigan remembers Nicklaus making his birdie putt on 18 on Sunday to clinch both the Open and the Open scoring record. Aoki still had a six-foot birdie putt that appeared meaningless he would be second whether he made it or not. But Nicklaus frantically waved his arms at the crowd to be quiet because he knew that Golf Magazine had offered a $50,000 bonus to everyone who broke the existing scoring record of 275. Aoki made the putt and earned the bonus. "One of Nicklaus's greatest moments, and I think the only ones who understood why were me and [Golf editor] George Peper," Hannigan said. --John Feinstein (b. 1956) American sportswriter. _Open: Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black_ [2003] Everyone was in agreement that the cell phones had to be banned [at the 2002 U.S. Open]. Warnings had been sent out with all tickets telling people not to bring cell phones. Still, they brought them. There were reports coming back from Jones Beach [where spectators took buses to Bethpage] that people who were discovered with cell phones during pat-downs were just tossing them into bushes rather than going back to their cars and then lining up again. At the end of the day, some people were spotted getting off buses, walking to the bushes where they and many others had tossed cell phones. They would pick up the first phone they found and dial their own cell-phone number, then follow the ringing until they found their own. --John Feinstein (b. 1956) American sportswriter. _Open: Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black_ [2003] In 1968 at the Masters, Robert DiVicenzo finished tied for the lead with Bob Goalby. But his playing partner, Tommy Aaron, had accidentally given him a four on the 17th hole when he actually made a birdie three. DiVicenzo failed to notice the mistake, signed his card, and that became his official score, giving Goalby a one-shot victory. --John Feinstein (b. 1956) American sportswriter. _Open: Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black_ [2003] - If there is any larceny in a man, golf will bring it out. --Paul Gallico (18971976) American sportswriter and novelist. In "New York Times" [6 March 1977]. [The] handful of sand, the accidental kick, the judicious weeding of neighboring foliage when the player's ball is not on the fairway, is the very essence of caddyship, following the ancient golf principle that the lower the employer's score, the higher the tip. --attributed to J.M. Hartley Golf is a game in which you yell "fore," shoot six, and write down five. --Paul Harvey (19182009) American radio broadcaster. Quoted in Jack Mingo _Wannabe Guide to Golf_ [1997]. Men who would face torture without a word become blasphemous at the short fourteenth. It is clear that the game of golf may well be included in that category of intolerable provocations which may legally excuse or mitigate behaviour not otherwise excusable. --Sir A.P. (Alan Patrick) Herbert (18901971) English writer and humorist. "Misleading Cases" [1935] I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it. --attributed to Rogers Hornsby (18961963) American major-league baseball player; 7-time National League batting champion 1920-1925 & 1928. [On being told that it was 105 degrees in the shade:] I'm glad we don't have to play in the shade. --Bobby Jones [Robert Tyre Jones Jr.] (19021971) American golfer, winner of the 1930 "Grand Slam." Golf is an exercise in Scottish pointlessness for people who are no longer able to throw telephone poles at each other. --attributed to Florence King (b. 1936) American journalist, essayist, and novelist. One sunny afternoon in 1984, the kids were at camp, and Brian [her husband] said to me, "Let's go play golf." And I said, "But you don't play golf." He said, "But I think I should play." I asked why and he said, "Because I'm Scottish." --Cheryl Ladd In "Travel & Leisure Golf" [August 2005]. If you think it's hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball. --Jack Lemmon (19252001) American screen and stage actor. In "Sports Illustrated" [9 December 1985], as quoted in Robert Andrews _The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations_ [1993]. If I had my way a man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any public office in the United States, and the families of the breed would be shipped off to the white slave corrals of the Argentine. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. Quoted in Robert Trent Jones (ed.) _Great Golf Stories_ [1982]. Golf is so popular simply because it is the best game in the world at which to be bad. --A. A. (Alan Alexander) Milne (18821956) English writer for children. _Not That it Matters_ [1920] At last, the answer to a duffer's problems. Buy your own golf course. When asked what par was for the course he had just bought, singer Willie Nelson said, "Anything I want it to be. This hole right here, for example, is a par-47," said Nelson, "and yesterday I birdied the sucker." --In Dick Crouser _Golf's Funniest Anecdotes_ [2001]. Anytime you get the urge to golf, instead take eighteen minutes and beat your head against a good solid wall. This is guaranteed to duplicate to a tee the physical and emotional beating you would have suffered playing a round of golf. If eighteen minutes aren't enough, go for twenty-seven or thirty-six ... whatever feels right. --Mark Oman Motivational speaker. Quoted in Colin Jarman _The Hole Is More Than the Sum of the Putts_ [1999].  ;void(0)) GOLF - PART 2 (P-S) . . Photograph: The 4th hole on the Bethpage Black Course. - I have a tip that can take five strokes off anyone's golf game: it's called an eraser. --Arnold Palmer (b. 1929) American professional golfer; the first to win the Masters Tournament four times. Quoted in "Scholastic Coach" [1978]. It was the third round of the Los Angeles Open, and Arnold Palmer needed only a par on 18 to give him a 69 and the lead. But he hit his second shot out-of-bounds. Then he hit another OB. And another. He finally limped in with a horrendous 12. "How in the world could you make a 12?" a reporter asked Arnie. "I missed a 20-footer for my 11," said Palmer. --In Dick Crouser _Golf's Funniest Anecdotes_ [2001]. - Real golfers, no matter what the provocation, never strike a caddie with the driver. The sand wedge is far more effective. --Huxtable Pippey Quoted in Colin Jarman _The Hole Is More Than the Sum of the Putts_ [1999]. - [records in golf:] In a competition at Craigentinny, Edinburgh, 13th May, 1939, a player, when looking for his ball in the rough, found seven others. This incident of golfing treasure-trove is all the more remarkable as it happened in Scotland. ... ... Hit by Ball - Distance of Rebound ... The world's record, which still stands, happened on September 28, 1913, at the 7th hole of the Premier Mine Golf Course in South Africa. A 150-yard drive by Edward W. Sladward hit a native caddy on the forehead just above the right eye and the ball ... bounded back on a direct line seventy-five yards. --George Plimpton (19272003) American journalist, writer, and actor. _The Bogey Man: A Month on the PGA Tour_ [1968] - I asked my instructor how I could cut ten strokes off my golf score. He told me to quit on hole 17. --attributed to Arlen Powers In prehistoric times cavemen had a custom of beating the ground with clubs and uttering spine-chilling cries. Anthropologists call this a form of primitive self-expression. When modern men go through the same ritual they call it *golf*. --Herbert V. Prochnow (18971998) American banking executive and author. Attributed, in Colin Jarman _The Hole Is More Than the Sum of the Putts_ [1999]. - The Greatest Show on Earth By Rick Reilly "Sports Illustrated" [29 August 2000] [. . . ] Then along comes Tiger Woods, and a job becomes a privilege. I would pogo from Bangor to Birmingham to see Woods play. I would wear spike heels, a see-through muumuu and RuPaul's curlers if it were the only way through the gate. I ought to buy my dad a box of cigars for having me the year that he did. We're lucky. All of us. We're alive when the single most dominating athlete in 70 years is at his jaw-dropping best. Bathe in it. Wallow in it. Savor it. Take notes. Get video. Save newspapers. Your grandkids will want details. Michael Jordan? This guy is better. Jordan had teammates. Woods is out there by himself. Jordan beat guys one-on-one, one-on-two. Woods won last week's unforgettable PGA Championship at Valhalla one-on-149. What's more, Woods never got cheap calls from refs. [. . . ] Woods is the most amazing performer I've ever seen, and I've seen Ali, Gretzky, Jordan, Montana and Nicklaus. What Woods is doing is so hard it's like climbing Everest in flip-flops. Performing heart transplants in oven mitts. The four major championships have been played 344 times, and Woods now holds or shares the scoring record in all four of them? That's sick. Woods's adjusted scoring average this year is 67.86, which would be a record by about a mile if it holds up for the rest of the season. Before Woods put up his 68.43 last year, only Greg Norman (68.81) in 1994 and Nick Price (68.98) in '97 had broken 69. Since the PGA Tour came up with the adjusted scoring average in 1988, the largest margin of victory other than Woods's .74 last year was Norman's .58 of a stroke. This year Woods figures to lead by 1.53 strokes. That's, what, 163% better than the Shark's margin? [. . . ] What do you have to shoot to win here? Stuart Appleby was asked last Thursday. "Tiger Woods," he said. Go see this kid while you're breathing. Three straight majors? Not done in 47 years. Four of the last five majors? Not done, ever. Now he's leaning on the doorbell of something nobody thought would ever be done: the Grand Slam. Oh, yes, it is. If Woods wins the Masters next April, that is the Grand Slam. It's not the continuous Slam or the asterisk Slam, just the Grand Slam. He says so. I say so. Hell, sportswriters invented it; sportswriters make the rules. And don't give me Bobby Jones. Beating three guys named Nigel and two sheep at the British Amateur doesn't even compute. Last Thursday at Valhalla, Woods and Jack Nicklaus were walking down the first fairway, their ears ringing from the roars. "Man, it's loud," Nicklaus said to Woods. "Thank God, I'm done playing. Now you get to deal with this the rest of your career." As well he should. - - The best wood in most amateurs' bags is the pencil. --Juan "Chi-Chi" Rodrνguez (b. 1935) Puerto Rican professional golfer. Quoted in Jim Apfelbaum _The Gigantic Book of Golf Quotations_, p. 437 [2007]. Chi Chi Rodriguez is best known for his humerous antics on the golf course, and he often combines fun with a bit of hustling. Once, while playing a not-so-friendly nassau at a course in Puerto Rico, he closed out his opponent on the 17th hole and then offered him an attractive press on 18. "I'll give you two strokes and one throw for all the marbles," said Rodriguez. They agreed, and both reached the par-4 green in two, with Rodrigues away. "I think I'll take my throw now," said Rodriguez. And with that he picked up his opponent's ball and tossed it far out into the ocean. "With your drop you're now lying four," said Rodriguez. "*And* you're away." --In Dick Crouser _Golf's Funniest Anecdotes_ [2001]. - The Income Tax has made more Liars out of the American people than Golf has. --Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (18791935) American humorist and actor. "Helping the Girls with Their Income Taxes" _The Illiterate Digest_ [1924] [Of the Winged Foot Golf Club, Mamaroneck, New York:] The greens are harder than a whore's heart. --Sam Snead (19122002) American professional golfer; winner of 82 PGA tour events including 7 "majors." - [Going into the final round of the BMW Championship down seven strokes to Tiger Woods, Brandt Snedeker was asked how he might win the tournament:] I've got to do something spectacular, and he's got to maybe have a heart attack out there for me to have a chance. [13 September 2009] Lefty Stackhouse, who played the pro tour in the 1930s and early 1940s, would treat various parts of his body as if they were independent beings and apportion them responsibility for his errors. One day Lefty hit a bad hook and immediately concluded that the trouble had been caused by his right hand turning over on the shot. 'Take that!' he shouted, as he slapped the hand violently against a tree trunk. Stackhouse is the man who once attempted to strangle his putter and once after missing a short putt battered the club against the radiator of his car. Ky Laffoon (another golf pro) was known to have plunged his putter into a lake and screamed, 'Drown you son of a bitch, drown!' --Art Spander and Mark Mulvoy "The Golf Imperative," in _The Golf Book_ ed. Michael Bartlett [1980]. The first tee is a magical place on the opening morning of the new season. Dew on the fairway ahead glistens in the sun's first rays. The manicured green in the distance beckons. The air is crisp, and as golfers wait to hit their first shots, hope trumps reality ever so briefly. --James P. Sterba, in the "Wall Street Journal" [19 April 2004]. ;void(0)) GOLF - PART 3 (T-END) . . Photograph: The 18th hole on the Bethpage Black Course. Old Took's great-grand-uncle Bullroarer was so huge (for a hobbit) he could ride a horse. He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king Golfimbel's head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment. --J.R.R. [John Ronald Reuel] Tolkien (18921973) South African-born English author. _The Hobbit_ [1937] If you are out on the golf course during a lightning storm, protect yourself by holding a one-iron high in the air ... even God can't hit a one-iron. --attributed to Lee Trevino (b. 1939) American professional golfer who won 6 "majors." Golf is a good walk spoiled. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. Attributed in Reader's Digest [September 1948]. Interviewer: "When was the last tournament that you won? ... I know it's been a while. I don't mean to bring up a sore subject." Watson: "That's all right. I'm not very good." --Bubba Watson (b. 1978) American professional golfer. Interview during the 2007 U.S. Open in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. - The least thing upset him on the links. He missed short putts because of the uproar of the butterflies in the adjoining meadows. --P.G. [Pelham Grenville] Wodehouse (18811975) English humorist; American citizen from 1955. _The Clicking of Cuthbert_ [1922] Golf ... is the infallible test. The man who can go into a patch of rough alone, with the knowledge that only God is watching him, and play his ball where it lies, is the man who will serve you faithfully and well. --P.G. [Pelham Grenville] Wodehouse (18811975) English humorist; American citizen from 1955. _The Clicking of Cuthbert_ [1922] What does he think he's doing?" asked the King, as the bearded one slowly raised the hoe above his right shoulder, slightly bending the left knee as he did so. "It is some species of savage religious ceremony, your Majesty. According to the Admiral, the dunes by the seashore where he landed were covered with a multitude of men behaving just as this man is behaving. They had sticks in their hands and they struck with these at small round objects. And every now and then " "Fo-o-ore!" called a gruff voice from below. "And every now and then," went on the Vizier, "they would utter the strange melancholy cry which you have just heard. It is a species of chant." --P.G. [Pelham Grenville] Wodehouse (18811975) English humorist; American citizen from 1955. "The Coming of Gowf," from _The Most of P. G.Wodehouse_ [1960]. - The other day I broke 70. That's a lot of clubs. --attributed to Henny Youngman (19061998) English-born American stand-up comedian. - When a horseplaying golfer named Gray Balled a girl in the rough one fine day, He found her, though willing, Just barely fulfilling ... "I would rate her," said Gray, "a par lay." --anon. Tennis elbow was painful to Fred, So they screwed off the top of his head; Then to deaden the pain they removed half his brain. Now he's taken up golfing instead. --anon. If I hit it right, it's a slice. If I hit it left, it's a hook. If I hit it straight, it's a miracle. --anon. Headline: Elephant Kills Tourist While Playing Golf -- A man is playing a round of golf with his wife. He tees off on a long dog-leg par 5, and slices the ball into the woods. When they find the ball, a large barn sits between the ball and the green. He says to his wife, "Go to the barn and open the front and back doors, and I'll hit the ball through the barn onto the green." His wife opens the doors, and his shot hits her in the temple, killing her instantly. Several weeks later, the man is playing the same course with three friends. On the par five, he slices the ball into the woods. Again, the barn sits between his ball and the green. One of his companions says, "I'll open the doors of the barn, and you can hit the ball through the barn and onto the green." The man says, "No, last time I tried that shot I took a double-bogey." - A golfer teed up his ball on the first tee, took a mighty swing and hit his ball into a clump of trees. He found his ball and saw an opening between two trees he thought he could hit through. Taking out his 3-wood, he took another mighty swing; the ball hit a tree, bounced back, hit him in the forehead and killed him. As he approached the gates of Heaven, St. Peter saw him coming and asked, "Are you a good golfer", to which the man replied: "Got here in two, didn't I?" - Golfer "Think I'm going to drown myself in the lake." Caddy "Think you can keep your head down that long?" Golfer "I'd move heaven and earth to break 100 on this course." Caddy "Try heaven, you've already moved most of the earth." Golfer "Do you think my game is improving?". Caddy "Yes sir, you miss the ball much closer now." Golfer "Do you think I can get there with a 5 iron?" Caddy "Eventually." Golfer "You've got to be the worst caddy in the world." Caddy "I don't think so sir. That would be too much of a coincidence." Golfer "How do you like my game?" Caddy "Very good sir, but personally, I prefer golf." -- A young man who was also an avid golfer, found himself with a few hours to spare one afternoon. He figured if he hurried and played very fast, he could get in 9 holes before he had to head home. Just as he was about to tee off an old gentleman shuffled onto the tee and asked if he could accompany the young man as he was golfing alone. Not being able to say no, he let the old gent join him. To his surprise the old man played fairly quickly. He didn't hit the ball far, but plodded along consistently and didn't waste much time. Finally, they reached the 9th fairway and the young man found himself with a tough shot. There was a large pine tree right in front of his ball and directly between his ball and the green. After several minutes of debating how to hit the shot the old man finally said, "You know, when I was your age I'd hit the ball right over that tree." With that challenge placed before him, the youngster swung hard, hit the ball up, right smack into the top of the tree trunk and it thudded back on the ground not a foot from where it had originally lay. The old man offered one more comment, "Of course, when I was your age that pine tree was only 3 feet tall." -- Dave had tried to be particularly careful about his language as he played golf with his preacher. But on the twelfth hole, when he twice failed to hit out of a sand trap, he lost his resolve and let fly with a string of expletives. The preacher felt obliged to respond. "I have observed," said he in a calm voice, "that the best golfers do not use foul language." "I guess not," said Dave, "what the hell do they have to cuss about?" -- After his recent hole in one, Frank and his buddies were hanging out and planning a 3-day golf outing. Unfortunately, he had to tell them that he couldn't go this time because his wife wouldn't allow it. After a lot of teasing and name calling, Frank headed home totally frustrated. The following week when Frank's buddies arrived at the golf resort to play golf, they were shocked to see Frank sitting in the lobby, drinking a beer, holding his putter! "How did you talk your missus into letting you go, Frank?" "I didn't have to," Frank replied. "Last I night I slumped down in my chair with a beer to drown my sorrows. Then, the wife snuck up behind me and covered my eyes and said, 'Surprise.' When I peeled her hands back, she was standing there in beautiful see through negligee and she said, 'Carry me into the bedroom and tie me to the bed, and you can do whatever you want.....' " -- THE NEW RULES OF GOLF These rules of golf are for good players whose scores would reflect their true ability, if only they got an even break once in awhile. They were adapted from those proposed by the Union Printers Golf Club in Baltimore, and have some appealing provisions: 1. A ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed on the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled in the rough. Such veering right or left frequently results from friction between the face of the club and the cover of the ball, and the player should not be penalized for the erratic behavior of the ball resulting from such uncontrollable mechanical phenomena. 2. A ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific game. The player should estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there, preferably from atop a nice firm tuft of grass. 3. There shall be no such thing as a lost ball. The missing ball is on or near the course somewhere and eventually will be found and pocketed by someone else. It thus becomes a stolen ball, and the player should not compound the felony by charging himself with a penalty stroke. 4. In or near a bunker or sand trap, a ball rolling back toward the player may be hit again on the roll without counting an extra stroke or strokes. In any case, no more than two strokes are to be counted in playing from a bunker, since it is reasonable to assume that if the player had time to concentrate on his shot, instead of hurrying it so as not to delay his playing partners, he would be out in two. 5. If a putt passed over the hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped. The law of gravity holds that any object attempting to maintain a position in the atmosphere without something to support it must drop. The law of gravity supersedes the law of golf. (Same thing goes for a ball that stops on the brink of the hole and hangs there, defying gravity. You cannot defy the law). (Same thing goes for a ball that rims the cup. A ball should not go sideways. This violates the laws of physics). 6. A putt that stops close enough to the hole to inspire such comments as, "You could blow it in"... may be blown in. This rule does not apply if the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants to make a travesty of the game. -- Two Mexican detectives were investigating the murder of Juan Gonzalez. 'How was he killed?' asked one detective. 'With a golf gun,' the other detective replied. 'A golf gun! What is a golf gun?' 'I don't know. But it sure made a "Hole In Juan.'' --- [Trivia] The first outdoor miniature golf courses in the United States were built on rooftops in New York City in 1926. end page | GAMBLING - GARDENS | GARFIELD - GENERATION GAP | GENEROSITY - GENTLEMEN | GEOGRAPHY - GERSHWIN | GHOSTS - GLASSES | GLOBALIZATION - GOALS | GOD | GOLF | GOOD DEEDS - GOODBYES | GOODNESS - GOVERNMENT | GRACE - GRASS | GRATITUDE | GRAVEYARDS - GREED | GREETINGS - GROWING | GROWING OLDER - PAGE 1 (A-L) | GROWING OLDER - PAGE 2 (M-Z) | GROWING UP - GULLIBLE | GUN CONTROL & GUNS | | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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