WTF, continued

A whole calendar month had passed, so I finally broke the spell and slogged on over to Silver Lake. Mentally I'm still on a moratorium, but a month sure is a long time to abstain from anything. Plus it's an unseasonably cold day, so maybe there won't be hordes of golfers on the course this time.

The Legitimategolf Reality Tour, volume 1

Mr. F was understandably hesitant to have his actual identity associated with this blog, but there's his hat sitting in the rough.

Over the weekend I had a visitor. One of our brave readers from south of the Mason-Dixon came up to the city for a bit of adventure, personal edification, some light tourism, and to experience first-hand a slice of ghetto golf life.

Due to circumstances we ended up playing Dyker Beach twice in three days. Not the best itinerary, but perhaps good for my Southern friend in that this would at least offer him a deeper, rawer, more immersive experience. This is after all the ground-zero of ghetto golf in the Americas, in my opinion.

Dark Thoughts VIII: Full Swing

We've been so lucky with the weather lately. Praise the golf gods. I used to joke around about the winter being my peak season. Well by now I don't think it qualifies as a joke anymore. No, it's reality. The numbers bear it out--I'm playing more lately than at any time last year, and as of the last few rounds actually seeing some positive trend in my scores. Train keeps on rolling; why the hell not.

Brooklyn Open: Practice Round, more previews, tee times etc.

Played my very first official tournament practice round for the Brooklyn Open. "Official" because as a registered participant, I got a discount on the green fee. Other than that it was a usual day on the course--the other three guys I was grouped with had no idea about any upcoming tournament.

Creeps of the Week

The first two Legitimate Golf Creep of the Week awards recognized some high-profile douchebaggery. But this week, we train the spotlight on the ordinary folks, the unsung jerks who make golf so miserable at the local level, in our own day-to-day lives.

As part of the LGNYCGT ("Legitimate Golf New York City Golf Tour"), I found myself in the Bronx the other day. A full-write up of the excursion is coming soon but for now I wanted to quickly vent about some of the foul people I had the misfortune of crossing paths with. Originally I thought of just posting this away on some safe, obscure little corner of the internet.

But screw that--I have been working hard to build up this bully pulpit and dammit, why shouldn't I use it to lash out at the people who make me (and all other reasonable people) mad?

Random Thursday Post: Creep of the Week, Bethpage Black and more

In the last post I talked about negativity, and how it sells. Well I want to sell too, so here goes. We all know that the world of golf is lousy with lousy personas. From time to time, why not put the spotlight on some of them? Maybe there's a lesson to be learned for all of us.

"Hey kids--I have a Twitter."

Ted Bishop is the current president of the PGA of America. (Respect.) I had never heard of him until this week, when he laid this gem via Twitter.

Shame on you if you tried clicking that 'Follow' button. It doesn't work anyways.

Clearly he's alluding to the slow play issues that have popped up on high-profile stages recently--this year we've had the slogfest of Tiger's final round at Torrey, and then there was the Chinese wonderkid at the Masters, then there was the USGA getting all up in our business with their cutie-patootie campaigns.

And in this one little twitter post he manages to 1) take credit for Jim Furyk and Jason Dufner's pace of play b) declare the PGA of A's ownership of the very concept of pace of play and 3) implicitly call out the PGA Tour, Augusta National and whoever else had a slow play issue, practically gloating about them not keeping their players in check. It's not just what he's saying--it's how he says it. The emphatic caps, that noxious hashtag. Ya, ok Ted. Take it easy.