Topic: iseekgolf Golf Days / BRICKS v STICKS

Bricks v Sticks II yesterday, and well done to those who became famous for ill deeds last time coming through under the crunch this time.

Fantastic to see the field expanded to two teams of 12. And even MORE fantastic to see the MIGHTY STICKS take it out!

Topic: The Lounge / Booze Bargains

actually the spanish term for Mourvèdre = monastrell.

here he explains why he called it Muvedre

http://www.liffordwineagenc…

The source there is wrong, as it deals with synonyms not used in either France or Spain for either variety. Only it seems in the New World. They are quite separate. As ampelographers have shown us for many years when showing the two vines separately, and as was mentioned last time Greg did a masterclass for our fine wine guys up there which you may have attended. I have hand harvested both.

If you need clarification, either ask David next time he calls into your store. Or better still, ring Scott who imports it himself and has worked there.

In the interim, grab a copy of Wines, Grapes and Vines, the definitive book on varietals off the shelf there and look up the two varieties yourself.

Topic: The Lounge / Booze Bargains

A1 Muvedre 2006 $22/$24

from spain and the Mourvèdre varietal.

Is there any reason why you’ve told everyone here that this wine is made from “Mourvedre”?

Topic: ISG Feedback / Great idea

More to the point, will it be possible soon to be able to login on the forums page and be sent back to the forums page?

Surely the software can add me as a “hit” stat for the home page without forcing me to physically be sent there every time?

Topic: iseekgolf Golf Days / ballarat

wanna game R U Ross

No, he would be rtitheridge :)

Topic: Golf Talk / I found Sven

Neville Clarke his name is.

Topic: Golf Talk / US Open good for golf?

Probably a fair call Tithers.

So you’re saying a 9 marker who plays weekly on a par 72 that is 6400m and comes in on a medal day at ccr 75 would more accurately be about a 16-18 on a tour course?

Obviously hard to say exactly, and I won’t say anything good is impossible.

Just that when you see a fully setup tour course that is one of the tougher ones, you see putts inside ten feet where you spend ages figuring out how you can leave it close enough to two putt. You see bunker shots that during member play a few weeks ago, they’d be trying to get up and down and now with the firming, water deprivation, rolling and double cutting, you figure out if you can keep it on the green. And you see 180m carries off the tee to the start of the fairway that is around 18-20m wide. And you know the slightest of heely strikes with the driver means you are hoping to hack it onto the fairway by your third shot. It isn’t always desirable strategic golf, but it is of a dimension that you and I at a normally difficult members’ course don’t see. Because the normal members’ course that is already tough, uses more conventional and commonly encountered means and devices to be that tough. And devices that whilst they make things difficult, allow you an out that might only cost you a shot or two. One bad strike by a good golfer on a US Open hole can so easily be the beginning of a 10 or 12. There just is so little margin for getting back in play and saving double or triple nearly every time like there is on a 75 CCR club course.

Topic: iseekgolf Golf Days / ballarat

Any ISGers from or near sunny ballarat

From.

What ya need to ask? :)

Topic: Golf Talk / I found Sven

He’s not a very interesting person there either.

Is good ol’ Clarkey fibbing to them too?

Topic: Golf Talk / US Open good for golf?

Brett,

That is because when set up for regular weekly play, Huntingdale does not play difficultly at all. Between regular play and the pro am day at the Aussie Masters, Huntingdale plays about 2-3 shots harder for low markers and 5-7 shots harder for teen markers. Then between pro am day and the weekend, it plays about a further 3-5 shots harder for higher single figure players and over 10 shots even more difficult than pro am day for a teen marker.

So if you shoot 80-85 there at a corporate day or Saturday comp, I’d be expecting closer to 95-100 for exactly the same quality golf on a dry Masters Sunday. Most club golfers I know couldn’t possibly have less than 45 putts on those greens on a sunny Masters weekend.

Scottt / Michswiss,

Having spent a number of years involved in the set up and tournament preparation for host courses on the tour, I can tell you without a word of a lie that I need not to see you play to know that it just isn’t likely. Tournament courses aren’t set up within the regular framework of a course’s normal CCR ratings, and so handicaps used for normal play by us amateurs mean very little under these unusually rare conditions.

A lot of the PGA Tour events won with scores of 15-20 under are with lift, clean and place rules (they try not to show the process on TV, but a third of tour events are played like this due to the unreliable year round weather over there). If pros can put the ball on a juicy lie every time they hit the fairway and still have half the field often finish around par or over, then that is tough (and these guys are 5-10 shots per round better than your average club pro).

Add 3-4 shots to anyone’s handicap, plus another shot for every three of their mark (eg for a 15 marker, add the 3-4 plus another 5). That is conservative, and you’ll do well to stay within that framework.

There are so many tour events now such as Bay Hill, Wachovia, Players etc where scores of around 4-5 under are leading after round one, and few or no players reach -10 by the end of the week and the cut is even or greater. Just as often as a score of near -20 wins it. That is brutally difficult for a regular club 5-10 marker, who would play their 80th shot for the day by somewhere between the 14th & 17th tees.

I may not have seen you play. But I’ve seen more single figure and near-top amateur golfers play a tough tour event setup than you may ever see in your lifetime.

Topic: The Lounge / To help or not to?

Statistically, there are more idiots in the city. There are idiots in the country, but the chances are you know them.

Yeah, but 99.5 out of 100 city incidents won’t involve you or anyone close and you’ll be exposed to it on TV like everyone else who lives elsewhere. Every small town one hits almost everyone there hard. The percentage of incidents in the country versus city per head of population are enormously disparate and make a regional massacre death about 15 times more likely. Even if you know the idiot, the bullets still kill!

Topic: Golf Talk / US Open good for golf?

At the end of the day, the US Open is more of a test of a player’s mental strength than anything else. Some would argue tha’ts a good thing…I’m not so sure.

I think you’ve summed it up well, and I like it that way. Again, it is for one bleeding week in a 40 week season. So what’s wrong with this variation as a welcome diversion from the perfectly good type of setup you may prefer?

As for Pebble 2000, they worked with what they had, which is a course well suited for that exact purpose with those margins. Not every course can replicate that exactly, and each has to look to its own angle to find its best setup. I felt Oakmont’s setup this week best exhibited Oakmont’s historic strengths and original founder’s intent. All while being brutally fair. That so many other great courses could still hold true to their original values well after half a century of existence would be a very good thing. Pity they can’t which is the leading cause of great courses to fall from grace or get tampered with endlessly.

Topic: The Lounge / To help or not to?

If something like this was to happen anywhere near either of us, our bags are packed.

Going on the way the population is dispersed, you are just as big a chance of being shot in a massacre or this type of event out in a rural area. So many of these things seem to happen in small communities. At least in a big town, you are less a chance of being involved or directly affected.

Brett, helping someone is a must if it doesn’t endanger you. If it would like today, then your job is to make it home tonight.

Topic: Golf Talk / US Open good for golf?

The greens are not unduly penal IF the player hits it from the right place to the right place.

agree with most of what you say except this bit, on some holes it appears the ‘right place’ to hit from is now covered by rough.

Perhaps the first cut could be a touch bigger? I’m all for punishing wayward driving, but if someone misses a fairway by a foot or gets a bad kick off the edge – – I don’t believe they should be in the same rough as the bloke who pumps it 20 m off target.

Moe,

I agree the rough as always is heavy handed. But I don’t believe there is one single hole where a player is forced out of position on the greens from the short stuff. The US Open is about not necessarily giving the player the same width and angle selection as the members regularly see, but still provides opportunities on every hole for a player to think and execute in a manner which avoids the bad leaves and puts them in solid position on the greens. Not my idea on a course I’d design, but then for one track in the nation to be chosen to play like this for one event per year is for myself an enjoyable diversion.

I’ve never disliked watching this tournament or tired of it, and can appreciate the strategic difference of the approach to most other weeks. And I’ve watched every one since Baltusrol in 1980.

I really wonder what would happen if the players got zero assistance from the spotters/officials/gallery and the TV showing and telling them where their ball was, after hitting a wayward shot ?

I believe this is a form of outside assistance.

I’m sure that the rounds would take alot longer to play, 5 hours + at the US open. The amount of lost balls and provisional balls played would be dramatically increased, to the detriment of the tournament. Some players would be given penalties for slow play. . 1. Risk/reward, if I hit driver 300 and get a lie then maybe I can make a birdie, because loosing the ball is not a real worry.( infact they put a small red flag next to the ball, so that the player can find it quickly.) 2. Lossing the ball and having to go back to the tee or having to play a provisional ball and add the extra stroke when you can’t find it is not a good way to play golf. Infact it’s counter productive to a good score.

So, would the pro’s take a different approach if they couldn’t bomb it ? I think in the past the rough has been a reaction to get the best and most consistent winner to the finishing post at the US open. The hardest test of golf that the yanks can muster, once a year. The harshness of the rough is now about controlling the distance that is overshadowing the game, rather than the player with the best skills and the most nerve over the four rounds of championship golf, IMO. Jon…

Jon,

This US Open has done more than many recent ones to encourage use of the driver, and the leaderboard has a number of big hitters using driver on it. If this setup is controlling the distance, why were the tournament’s two longest hitters playing in the final pairing earlier today?

I don’t believe this year’s setup has taken driver out of the bag for the longer players. Tiger used it more often around here than he did at either Hoylake or Medinah last year.

Topic: Golf Talk / US Open good for golf?

The greens are not unduly penal IF the player hits it from the right place to the right place.

agree with most of what you say except this bit, on some holes it appears the ‘right place’ to hit from is now covered by rough.

Perhaps the first cut could be a touch bigger? I’m all for punishing wayward driving, but if someone misses a fairway by a foot or gets a bad kick off the edge – – I don’t believe they should be in the same rough as the bloke who pumps it 20 m off target.

Moe,

I agree the rough as always is heavy handed. But I don’t believe there is one single hole where a player is forced out of position on the greens from the short stuff. The US Open is about not necessarily giving the player the same width and angle selection as the members regularly see, but still provides opportunities on every hole for a player to think and execute in a manner which avoids the bad leaves and puts them in solid position on the greens. Not my idea on a course I’d design, but then for one track in the nation to be chosen to play like this for one event per year is for myself an enjoyable diversion.

I’ve never disliked watching this tournament or tired of it, and can appreciate the strategic difference of the approach to most other weeks. And I’ve watched every one since Baltusrol in 1980.

Topic: Golf Talk / US Open good for golf?

Golf should be played to suit the conditions. If the rough is penal, play shots that don’t go in it.

Superb blinding logic, and something I’ve been trying to tell people for years who cry over the odd heavily penal deep bunker!

Topic: The Lounge / Best coffee in Melbourne

adlo,

Above I mentioned Xocolatl. PLEASE heed my words. It is significantly better than Koko Black. You will only enter a Koko Black if you happen to walk past one. Like how you might play Burswood Park on a visit to Perth if your mate was playing there on the day and had a spot free in his group. But if making your own decisions, you wouldn’t choose it over a same priced game at Karrinyup or Joondalup. If you MUST go to Koko Black, go to the city store or the Camberwell one, where the better staff and higher standards are.

Xocolatl has superior courveture without the Koko Black mass production feel, and equal or slightly better exquisite hot chocolates. Since this is in the same street as Maling Room, you will make it to Maling Room now perhaps. But not on a weekend, where the coffee is poor and the staff are unqualified casuals who haven’t mastered pretending they don’t hate their job. The regular weekday crew are better. On a Sunday morning, any cafe in Mandurah will beat Maling Room. On a Monday morning, it is excellent.

Topic: Golf Talk / US Open good for golf?

it does throw up some odd ball winners at time

..whereas most other US tournaments throw up odd ball winners two out of every three years. The track record of this event for quality winners is exemplary by comparison.

Topic: The Lounge / Best coffee in Melbourne

When we go to Melbourne we can’t go without a visit to Brunetti on Faraday St in Carlton (just off Lygon St).

Feel free to go here for the awesome cakes. And for consistently decent coffee, not great. Not worth venturing here for the coffee alone, though it is a very dependable safe haven in Carlton’s hit and miss precinct if you find yourself in the area.

DON’T miss St. Ali.

Topic: Golf Talk / Go Badds!!

The Lord has a bunch of these guys in his camp, so he still has to beat them too.

More players see the PGA Tour chaplain each week than see the free masseuse!

Topic: Golf Talk / US Open good for golf?

The greens are holding and are playing very fair. Which in my eyes makes this an almost perfect green complex setup for a major championship. Name ONCE that a player not in a poor position has had something horribly untoward happen to him on the greens.

nattahl, the apron cut you refer to is allowing all players the ground game, and Oakmont has quite a few holes where players can use this option instead of facing a push up green complex with a narrow entrance. If anything, the maintenance of the aprons and their speed is IMPROVING the playability. Kind of like when Kingston Heath here is well set up for tournament golf. The ground options from just short of the green or for shots from afar landing short offer more opportunities than in most recent US Opens by a mile.

I think the rough is as always a tad excessive. But as is always said this time of year when some bright spark thinks it is terrible to watch, it is only for one week. I think for the odd occasion throughout the year, this kind of test of attrition makes an exciting difference. Last week, 13 under won. The week before, 17 under (including the top three players shooting -22 between them on Sunday), the week before three players tied on 14 under, the week before a playoff at 15 under. Next week, we return to an event where 14 under won last year. Is a one week diversion like this so painful for some of you? You are going to see lots of attacking birdies in five days time, so just put up with a traditional US Open for one more day. This Championship has a 100 year track record of throwing up a better quality winners list than most events, so they are getting something right and don’t need to listen to some of you here to continue that.

Topic: The Lounge / Best coffee in Melbourne

With Carlton on one side and Southgate on the other, there is a bath of decent coffee in all directions from the CBD.

Maling Room is SO HIGHLY dependent on who’s working. Wrong day/staff member = trip out to Canterbury for nothing. If you do go there, drop in a few doors down to Xocolatl, the best courveture and genuine hot chocolate house in Melbourne as well.

Best coffee is very close to the city. St Ali in South Melbourne cannot easily be beaten. They are in every barrista’s top 5 in the city, and no other place can boast such a unanimous vote. Their average coffee is Maling Room’s best cup of the day.

Also in High St Kew is Kafez. Great depth and fussy coffee culture.

7 grams is good, though my vote in their kind of style is Batch on Balaclava Rd East St Kilda.

At all these places, you’ll be served your coffee by someone who is dilligent but too down to earth to come across as fastidious. Even though they are. Enjoy!

Topic: Golf Talk / Oakmonster?

I heard that they are not watering the greens tonight

I don’t think these greens will be pushed hard through the weekend like Shinnecock.

Topic: Golf Talk / Suggestion - Sticky for weekly tournament

PJ,

This was done on these forums for the tournaments each week, and nobody posted. Each week, any one of 2-3 events may be in focus, so it is hard to pick which ones might get the most airing.

For a major week, there’s always someone starting a thread, so it is self fulfilling on a demand basis.

Topic: iseekgolf Golf Days / Golf Day

QUOTE: Toolish @ May 3 2007, 06:32 PM

2.5 hours from Geelong…hmmm, may be a chance..

Dude i made the effort to play in Torquay so get up here!

That goes for the rest of you Melbourne people too.

Yes, you made the effort to come to Torquay.

And I accommodated your effort by starting the game in the morning. I clearly recall you were able to depart with plenty of daylight remaining.

Honestly guys, a golf day in Shepp HAS to have last group off the tee by around 9.30am. 10am at the latest. That is the only way of getting Melbourne patrons home before dinner time if they require the option. You’ll NEVER get a few groups together that involve lots of city slickers if you force them to miss dinner by being three hours from home when night falls.

And even if some can afford to do so, they might be car pooling with someone who can’t.