Golf Random Irritations

I'm in need of (another) carry bag, I know what I want, its this big max: Gorgeous and can't now be unseen...
(I reckon I have about as much chance of getting one round these parts as there is of Mel & Phil conceding a point to each other)

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As i feared no chance of finding this but it could've been worse, I ended up with this
 

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Our second cut. Absolutely unbelievable. Even around the fairway bunkers it’s deep and thick. One of our pros rebutted a member’s complaint yesterday that fairway bunkers were no longer a hazard because balls were being lost before reaching the traps by saying “That’s how courses are set up on the PGA Tour.” Well, quite.

Personally I’m not too bothered as I can largely keep my ball in play. But in a 4-ball we’re looking for at least one drive every hole, one second shot, and so on. The pace of play as a consequence is now horrific.

It has the potential to be a long and frustrating summer.
 
Our rough has now been cut down from 12 to about 3 inches.
The cut grass wasn't collected though, so there's a blanket of straw over all the rough and I've haemorrhaged even more balls today than last weekend.
 
Our rough has now been cut down from 12 to about 3 inches.
The cut grass wasn't collected though, so there's a blanket of straw over all the rough and I've haemorrhaged even more balls today than last weekend.

In the past our club has brought in a baler to collect the cut grass. Cutting and leaving it, as you describe, will not solve the current problem.

One of our roll up this morning was so incensed that he went straight in and resigned his membership the moment he walked off the course. He’s a mid-teen handicap and misses his fair share of fairways. I really felt his pain this morning - he looks forward to his weekly knock with mates and, this morning, he just found it too much. He told me he lost eight balls, and got utterly fed up with constantly trudging into the long stuff, if not to search for his, then to look for someone else’s.

It’s a real shame because the course is in the best nick I have seen it for at least 10-15 years. Really well manicured, true greens, great definition. It’s an absolute picture, tee to green. But they’ve lost the rough. There is no coming back from it now until the autumn.

The only real saving grace is that any societies visiting this year will never return!
 
Our second cut. Absolutely unbelievable. Even around the fairway bunkers it’s deep and thick. One of our pros rebutted a member’s complaint yesterday that fairway bunkers were no longer a hazard because balls were being lost before reaching the traps by saying “That’s how courses are set up on the PGA Tour.” Well, quite.

Personally I’m not too bothered as I can largely keep my ball in play. But in a 4-ball we’re looking for at least one drive every hole, one second shot, and so on. The pace of play as a consequence is now horrific.

It has the potential to be a long and frustrating summer.
Welcome to early Spring! Unless the club spends money on more GKs and machinery, with consequent increase to subs, there's only so much of the course that can be tended to in the hours they have available and growth rate is approaching its peak. Would you rather the greens or fairways were mown less often, bunkers were lefl in the previous day's state or fees increased even more? Making the first cut of rough a full mower width, as opposed to the normal yard or less, at this time of year helps - at least according to a golf playing HGK I used to know.
 
Welcome to early Spring! Unless the club spends money on more GKs and machinery, with consequent increase to subs, there's only so much of the course that can be tended to in the hours they have available and growth rate is approaching its peak. Would you rather the greens or fairways were mown less often, bunkers were lefl in the previous day's state or fees increased even more? Making the first cut of rough a full mower width, as opposed to the normal yard or less, at this time of year helps - at least according to a golf playing HGK I used to know.
It’s more difficult to make the first cut a yard or less rather than the mower width.
 
Welcome to early Spring! Unless the club spends money on more GKs and machinery, with consequent increase to subs, there's only so much of the course that can be tended to in the hours they have available and growth rate is approaching its peak. Would you rather the greens or fairways were mown less often, bunkers were lefl in the previous day's state or fees increased even more? Making the first cut of rough a full mower width, as opposed to the normal yard or less, at this time of year helps - at least according to a golf playing HGK I used to know.

As I said, I’m personally quite happy with it. But I’m very much in the minority. My concern is when it turns 3 1/2 hour rounds into 5 hours plus. That’s not good.
 
A young ex pro rugby player has joined our usual Sunday two ball quite a few times. He's fairly new to the game but when he strikes the ball well it goes miles - driver 300 yds at least but sadly rarely straight. The trouble is that he insists on getting out the big stick every time which leads to a lot of searching and a lot of lost balls.This has added nearly an hour to our usual time. I've tried to gently encourage him to go for an iron off the tee - I've seen him reach a par 5 in two 4 irons. It's getting to the stage where the advice will need to become a bit more blunt or he gets added to the "no. not him" list.
 
A young ex pro rugby player has joined our usual Sunday two ball quite a few times. He's fairly new to the game but when he strikes the ball well it goes miles - driver 300 yds at least but sadly rarely straight. The trouble is that he insists on getting out the big stick every time which leads to a lot of searching and a lot of lost balls.This has added nearly an hour to our usual time. I've tried to gently encourage him to go for an iron off the tee - I've seen him reach a par 5 in two 4 irons. It's getting to the stage where the advice will need to become a bit more blunt or he gets added to the "no. not him" list.
Tell him from now on he's looking for his own ball and everyone else will continue play, he'll soon get the idea, or run out of balls.
 
Caddying yesterday for a big Group of Americans, all older people, I doubt any were under 70. They had their club pro/ coach with them who was a bit of a know all. One of the boys overheard him telling them all they should only tip £10 to the caddys, which is a strange one as I doubt I've had less than at least £50 from Americans this year as they have a tipping culture. He'd also told them all their was zero chance of rain yesterday so every one of them took out their waterproofs.... que 30 mins into the round heavy rain for a good 40 minutes where everyone got soaked to the skin.🤣🤣
 
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I was just wondering where he is that it was raining. Weather has been fantastic here.

We had a charity competition for the RNLI teams of 3, poxy day to play rain for first 9 holes and 35mph winds never would normally play with a day like that.

Poor bugger in my group only scored on 3 of the first 9, we were hitting drivers into par 3s even a short 165yards hole and didn’t reach the green.

Out of the field of 60 odd only 3 had scores of over 30 with 34 being the best the average would have been around 22 points.

That’s not golf and to cap it all 2 of my group were still putting out even if they couldn’t score😡 funniest part of the day was one of my group old boy about 75 missed a short putt went to tap it in then hit his shoe and dropped in the hole and said that’s a 8 😱
 
Played an away match today at a parkland course. I didn’t play very well and lost. The greens were like concrete. Full gap wedge from 100 yards, ball lands on front of green and ends up in the 💩 20 yards through the green. On another hole I managed to hit a 200 yard 6 iron as the fairways were also baked out.
 
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