Golf brings out the best in a good man and the worst in a bad man. Evel Knievel

Evel Knievel, daredevil and golfer, died today at 69. Knievel's My Shot in Golf Digest was one of the best. I especially liked his memories of meeting Arnold Palmer.

I was playing 21 at the Aladdin in Las Vegas, betting $10,000 a hand. Arnold Palmer and Winnie are standing right behind me, watching. And I'm losing. The dealer is pulling 20 every time, and although I'm pulling my share of 20s, too, I can't win a hand, and I'm losing a lot of money. And I'm getting really angry. The next hand he deals me a 20, and he's got a face card showing. I'm certain he has 20, and I just can't bear tying again. So I ask for a hit. The dealer freaks out, shuts the table down and screams for Ash Resnick, who runs the casino. Ash comes along and is told I want to hit 20. He looks at me for a long time and then says, "Give the kid a hit." The dealer gives me an ace, and when I turn around, Arnold's eyes are this big, and Winnie looks like she's going to be sick. "I know what pressure is," Arnold said, "but you're too much."

Arnold gave me a great lesson once. We were at Bay Hill, and I suggested that we play for some cash. He put his arm around me and said, "Evel, I've got a lot of money, and I don't need any of yours. On the other hand, I don't want you to have any of mine." That taught me something about gambling with friends: Keep it friendly.

Mike Jones of Rockville, Md., is officially the first person to comment on the Golf World Newsmakers issue. His note concerns No. 14, Steve Stricker, who did not make Golf World's cover this year.

It's hard to believe with the year Steve Stricker had in 2007 that he didn't make one of your covers (and Boo got two?). I've been following Steve's up and down career since I first saw his wife caddying for him when they used to call it the NEC Championship. It has been great to see his success the past two years. Here's to it continuing in 2008. Hopefully Steve can savor his winter back home knowing that his success was also a source of joy among his admiring fans.

That would be a Boo Hoo letter, Mike. Be thankful that Steve made the list. My guy, Justin Rose, England, European Order of Merit winner, 2007 Volvo Masters champion, who rose from obscurity to contender in each of this year's four majors and finished in the top dozen in each, third in scoring average on the PGA Tour, did not even list. I think they missed.

--Bob Carney

While we're on the subject of slow play, we retrieved a 1994 piece Dean Knuth did for us that's the best yet at explaining the problem and offering solutions...for recreational golf anyway. For starters, Knuth's research revealed that while 58 per cent of us rate our own play fast and only 5 per cent of us think we're slow, we believe 56 per cent of other players are slow and only 2 per cent fast. Hmmmm. Thomas Hamlett suggested here that tees be restricted by handicap. Knuth offered another solution:

The biggest problem in course management is overloading the course. This happens when tee-time intervals are less than 10 minutes apart. A course using six-minute intervals is guaranteed to get more goand guaranteed to create more angry golfers. Overloading causes backups on the first par 3 or a short par 5, where better golfers wait for the green to clear before they hit their second shots.

The biggest problem with overloading a course is the psychological aspect to slow play. If golfers get held up fairly early, they lose their expectation for fast play and will play deliberately. The difference is an hour or more in total time of play.

Worth a read.

--Bob Carney

Nice letter from Terry Smail on Bill Fields' Backspin story on Shirley Englehorn.

What a delight to open my Golf World and find the article about Shirley Englehorn! Shirley became one of my heroines when I met her at the Idaho high school state tournament in Boise in 1958. She was playing #1 man for her Caldwell high boy's team. Even better, on the second day of the tournament, she played in the foursome ahead of mine. Our group spent the round watching her out-drive and outplay her male competitors. On each driving hole we would try to hit our drives as far as hers. It was a once in a lifetime 'inside the ropes' experience for our foursome.

Later, I followed her stellar, accident-filled career (11 victories). The accidents—horse, car, and ankle—each took their toll, but couldn't completely hold her down. What a player. What a competitor.

Had the LPGA had a better marketing department back in those days, Shirley would have given them reason to create "These Girls Rock" 40 years earlier. Thanks for remembering a real superstar.

--Bob Carney

(Photo: Trevor Brown)

Following our post yesterday on the subject of slow play, I present a couple of interesting letters touching on the subject. The first responds to Stina Sternberg's Ask Stina column in December.

A two-handicap woman complained about being forced to play the forward tees (we're getting to the slow play part) and Stina advised to grin and bear it:

I agree it would be nice if rangers could give you the benefit of the doubt, or at least watch you swing before telling you to move up, but you also have to keep in mind that they're just trying to do their job....Sadly there are plenty of golfers who insist on playing from yardages that are too long for their skill level. Seeing you at the whites might give the ranger pause the way seeing a man play from the tips does....

Stina Sternberg's response (Dec. 07) to the lady with the handicap of 2 was way off and perpetuates the male chauvinism and sexism of golf. She told her that she shouldn't be upset when the course marshal told her she had to play from the Red tees instead of the White tees that she preferred.

Unless I missed something in the USGA Rule Book, the tee placement is based on ability (handicap), not gender.

I believe we could reduce the amount of playing time if more marshals would make golfers play the tees that their handicap equates too. I have played several courses that require you to have a 10 or less handicap to play the back tees. Other courses have handicap recommendations (both men and women) for the tees.

I am a 20 handicap person who plays with one arm and scoliosis of the spine; I hit 70% of my fairways, but only hit the driver 150-170. I have played 28 years, always off the forward tees; I can't count the number of times I have played with guys who played the back tees only to dribble it past the forward tee. My belief is that if I can outdrive you from the forward tee⿿.you are playing the wrong tees.

Several years ago Golf Digest tried to get more people walking with the belief that it would reduce playing time. I challenge Golf Digest to start a campaign to get courses to enforce a certain handicap for each of the tees. I think this would go a great way to reducing playing time.

Interesting idea, Thomas. We'll discuss it. The complication is that on our "country clubs for a day" courses, many of which are very difficult from any set of tees, it's difficult for a ranger to tell a player who's paid more than $100 where he or she will tee off, even if they would have more fun.

While we're on slow play, I retrieved this letter we received on the Sabbatini piece in November from Mark Walker, in Thailand.

Your November article of Rory's lost cool over the slow play of Ben Crane was for me refreshing. Yes it was rude, but isn't slow play the ultimate rudeness or at least equally so? I for one, was secretly then openly pleased with Rory's walk off. After all this is a sport that suffers with endemic slow play. Evidenced by the statement a few years ago by Bernhardt Langer at the British Open, that 5hours and 8 minutes was not enough time for a twosome to play a round of golf! Ugh. Three cheers for Rory!

"The ultimate rudeness" says it perfectly, Mark.

A friend of mine, our international editor John Barton, suggests this simple rule change to speed play. Its brilliance is in its simplicity.

Every swing counts as a stroke. That is, whether you make a swing with the intention to strike the ball or simply in "practice", it counts as one. Play a round that way. It will be refreshingly swift.

--Bob Carney

On this blog yesterday, talking about the rules and proper teeing procedure, I made a crack about how it would get you disqualified to tee off on a bottle cap, but play a round in six hours and you were fine. That's fine, not fined. Slow play, in my opinion, being the bain of our golfing existences.

For more on that subject see George Peper's excellent essay on the Links Magazine site and lots of interesting discussion on GeoffShackelford.com. Having played recently with George I know he lives by his words. There is no stand-around time, good shot or bad.

Peper's point is that the USGA has a system, used at the US Amateur this year where it resulted in 12 single-stroke penalties, to control the dawdling. He urges the Tour to take up the cause. (Our fingers are crossed and we have no hope whatsoever of this happening.

Slow play used to be a Golf Digest "crusade." Somewhere along the way we threw in the towel or at least waved it in surrender. You write to us frequently in exasperation about it. Your spouses howl about how golf consumes an entire day. And nothing changes.

My own view, shared by few (okay, no one) here is that we're all obsessed with score and handicap. Even when we play match play we don't play match play ("I'll just putt out here for handicap purposes....") and we never, ever play foursomes, a great and fast game, because "I want to play my own ball." Ugh.

So thanks, George, for re-taking up the cause. A few slow-play penalties on Tour would do a world of good. Then we can attack the widespread use of bottle-cap tees.

Our fingers are crossed.

--Bob Carney

In a previous post, we confessed to one misplay in the rules story in December: "Is it allowed?" Let this be our second.

Situation No. 4 in the story read:

"Your opponent uses a bottle cap as a tee."

We said, "Yes", this was allowed. Not so. Pebblepete in a comment on this blog was one of the readers who protested our answer. Warren Simmons in Scottsdale was another. Warren, a Golf Digest course rating panelist,  longtime USGA committeeman and former Chair of the Colorado Golf Association, rightly points out that the definition of "tee", on which the rule rests, came in 2004. The change outlawed, among other things, the use of a pencil as a tee, which Chi Chi Rodriguez had made famous. Warren cites the definition:

"A tee is a device designed to raise a ball off the ground" from the Definition your incorrect answer references).  So far as I know, a bottle cap is not designed to do that (it is designed to keep liquid in a bottle).  When the definition of a "tee" was added to the Rules book in 2004, teeing up a ball on a pencil was no longer permitted, for the same reason.  Use of a bottle cap went out that same year.

Rule 11-1, after saying one may hit a tee shot off of the teeing ground, "a tee placed in or on the surface of the teeing ground, or sand or other natural substance placed on the surface of the teeing ground," goes on to say:

In teeing, if a player uses a non-conforming tee or any other object to raise the ball off the ground, he is disqualified.

Several others of you wrote in about this situation, but only Warren referenced the 2004 change. In short, it was the  designed to raise a ball off the ground clause in the definition and the any other object clause in the rule that proved us wrong. A call to the USGA rules department confirmed Warren's ruling.

I talked to a couple people who know the rules very well who were confused by this one, too. They remember Chi Chi's use of the pencil, but don't remember the 2004 change.

Thanks, Warren, and all of you who pointed this out.

One--well, me--can question the penalty, however. This merits disqualification but it's okay to play in six hours ?

Warren also questioned our answer to situation No. 8, wherein we "allowed" the use of a hat to mark the position of a lifted ball.  But he cut us a bit of slack.

I haven't checked with the USGA, but that's really stretching the Note to Rule 20-1, which suggests that "the position of a ball to be lifted should be marked by placing a ball marker, a small coin or other similar object immediately behind the ball."   A hat is hardly "a small coin or other similar object."  Decision 20-1/16 discourages, but allows use of a tee, loose impediment or toe of a club.  Using a hat, jacket or golf bag would be pushing the envelope a bit far in my opinion.  On the other hand, if there is some distinctive feature of the hat that clearly identifies the spot from which the ball is lifted (a button on the edge, the seam in the back, etc.), then I suppose the hat may be used to mark its position.

--Bob Carney

Some of you are giving thanks for our cover story on actor Jack Nicholson. Some of you are decidly not. Here's a sampling of a load of mail we're received on the "other" Jack.

"What a great interview!" says Bill Wilkins of New Egypt, NJ.

The problem was reading it and not listening to the voices of his characters answering the questions.  I would hear one character answer and then I would go back and re-read as another, "What a rush".   That story , turned into movie, would be one of the greatest golf movies ever made.

  And from Dave Kurrent of Pinole, CA:

When asked about my (erratic) golf game, especially as a single joining a group on the tee, I would reply "sometimes I play like Jack Nicklaus and sometimes like Jack Nicholson" and receive a chuckle.

But now Golf Digest has burst my bubble by highlighting Jack Nicholson as one of the best golfers in Hollywood.
 
Now I'll have to come up with a new line.

But others took exception to "Jack's Rules":

All you have to do is look at his short list of rules he plays by to quickly figure out that he is merely a person who plays golf and not a golfer.  That's why he has a short list of golfing buddies.  Who wants to play golf with somebody who bets but welches on them every time he loses?  Anybody who can think logically will come to the conclusion that he never shot a 64.

That was Pete Balerud of Columbus, NE. He has an ally in Ed Lawrence of Bozeman, MT:

Gents,

If I wanted celebrity interviews I'd read Vanity Fair.

Conversely, the interview w/Boo was entertaining.

Of course, you get the last word so I expect my comment will be followed by
a list of those who disagree.

Nonetheless, thanks for publishing your email address.

Ed, at your request, you'll only be followed by someone who feels exactly as you do, perhaps more so. Here's Harold Schmidt of Plymouth, IN:

You wasted 11 pages on Jack Nicholson, I won't be renewing my subscription.

That hurts, Harold. Please reconsider. Jack Nickaus will be back soon.

--Bob Carney

Got a letter from a Ted Raymond of El Mirage, AZ, about our Hollywood's Top 100 in the December issue. He sounded like an insider.

Your list of "Hollywood's Top-100" is lacking a bit of credibility. You have hackers with handicaps up to 36-plus included on the list. Yet don't even mention one actor who I would back against many on the list - even though I haven't teed it up with him for 30 years!

M. Emmet Walsh was one of the best grinders I've ever played with. During my short LA sojourn, he introduced me to the Hollywood Hackers, a group of actors that teed it up on Monday at various venues, mostly in the valley.

Emmet and Claude Akins were probably the two toughest sticks in the group. And, unless age and infirmity has grabbed him, I would venture to say that Emmet is probably still a single-digit handicapper.

Hmmm. Ted Raymond. Probably not the T.R. (Ted Raymond) Knight of Grey’s Anatomy—wrong generation—but could it be the Ted Raymond who played Spencer in The Truman Show? I asked⿿.

Yep...the same Ted Raymond who, after Bob Denver told me to "go west, you'll get a lot of work," left Chicago and ended up doing mostly plays at Harlequin Dinner Theatre, a couple of commercials, a 2-part "All in the Family" -- and playing golf with the Hollywood Hackers! Retreated to Chicago, then "retired" to Florida panhandle and took up golf and column writing again (after a 30 year lapse!)...did that (now a Life Member of GWAA) for 26 years - and landed the the Spencer role on The Truman Show before I "retired" again out here to Arizona.

Even starting up the acting bit again...did Doc in "West Side Story" and now at Phoenix Theatre in "The Quiltmaker's Gift," playing - what else - the Old Man!

That golf group back in the day had a bunch of the second tier guys in it...Akins, John Agar, Emmet, Kevin Hagen...bunch of others. Emmet and Claude were the toughest, if memory serves.
Since moving out here, I screwed up my handicap over the summer with good rounds on the home course (Pueblo El Mirage) getting out hand on the ball because of sparse grass...down to a 5.1 index and will get my ass kicked all over the place this winter!

Well, Ted, I hope not. At 5.1 you'd be in the top five of our list! But thanks for the heads-up on Emmet Walsh, a great character actor who seems to show up in all the films we like, which we'll check out. A quick search on ghin.com didn't find him, but we'll keep looking.

--Bob Carney

(Photo: Fractured Angel Films)

We got a lot of mail about our rules story, "Is this allowed?" in the December issue -- because it's wrong.

Situation No. 5 reads:

Your playing partner hits his ball into a water hazard. Rather than play it, he takes a penalty drop, and his ball rolls into a bunker. He then hits the shot.

Permissible? We said "yes"; the answer is "no". Charles Nuxoll of Sun City Center, FL, was one of several readers who caught the mistake.

If a player takes a penalty drop from a water hazard  and the ball rolls into a bunker the ball must be re-dropped.  Rule  20-2.c.(i). The referenced decision 26-1/2, applies only to Rule 26-1b, dropping a ball on a line between the flag stick and the spot on which the ball last crossed the margin of the hazard. In the question the ball rolled INTO the hazard. In the answer the ball was dropped IN the hazard. Different situations, different answers.

Rule 20-2 reads:

A dropped ball must be re-dropped without penalty if it:

(i) rolls into and comes to rest in a hazard

No matter that it's a different hazard than the one from which the player is taking relief, it's still not allowed.

Thanks also to Phil Bridges of Starkville, MS; Jack Morehead of Jacksonville, FL; and Bryan Lewis of South Haven, MI, among others, for pointing out that we, uh, dropped the ball on this one.

--Bob Carney