***Official Bushwood Country Club Lounge***

[smittysbar]

Okay, here is a place for the Golfers to talk about tournaments, clubs, swing help or thoughts.

Today is the Players Championship, which I think ought to be the 5th Major. Largest pot in the PGA. The daunting 17th, which seems to bring excitement every year. At least we will get to see Sergio blow up yet again.

I am ready to see some water balls!

[O.city]

Glad you bumped this thread, forgot to post.

Played TPC Southwind last weekend in Memphis. First round from the tourney tees (6800), played pretty well, shot even.

Second 18, backed up and played the Tour tees? **** thats a hard golf course. I played my ass off and barely broke 80. Par 70, 7320. It's a great golf course.

Also, if in Memphis, play Mirimichi. It's a great track.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Yeah, Tom Watson, sympathetic figure:

Such leaks and the details were not at all surprising after the mess that was Sunday (and if Phil and the players wanted somebody to blame for their poor performance, this would have been the way to go about it originally).

But none of this changes the fact that Phil came off as the bigger asshole of the two by throwing his legend captain completely under the bus publicly after a loss. It's akin to somebody like LeBron blaming Spoelstra and his system after losing to the Spurs.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

Such leaks and the details were not at all surprising after the mess that was Sunday (and if Phil and the players wanted somebody to blame for their poor performance, this would have been the way to go about it originally).

But none of this changes the fact that Phil came off as the bigger asshole of the two by throwing his legend captain completely under the bus publicly after a loss. It's akin to somebody like LeBron blaming Spoelstra and his system after losing to the Spurs.

After Spolestra benched LeBron to start the 4th quarter of a ten point game, then blamed the players for the failures, took none of the responsibility himself, and chastised a gift worth as much as a new car? Yeah, I think I'd be fine with LeBron backing over him a few times after that.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

After Spolestra benched LeBron to start the 4th quarter of a ten point game, then blamed the players for the failures, took none of the responsibility himself, and chastised a gift worth as much as a new car? Yeah, I think I'd be fine with LeBron backing over him a few times after that.

You can personally be fine with it all you want, but LeBron would still be skewered by the media and looked at as a gutless puke for scapegoating a coach publicly after a bad loss in such a scenario. He'd know never to do such a thing. Although the optics wouldn't even look as bad as they do with Mickelson/Watson because Spoelstra doesn't hold Watson's hallowed place in his respective sport.

There are times where you have to hold your tongue publicly if you give a shit about how you're perceived. Sunday was clearly one of those times. Apparently Phil is old enough now, though, that he just doesn't give a ****.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

You can personally be fine with it all you want, but LeBron would still be skewered by the media and looked at as a gutless puke for scapegoating a coach publicly after a bad loss in such a scenario. Although the optics wouldn't even look as bad as they do with Mickelson/Watson because Spoelstra doesn't hold Watson's hallowed place in his respective sport.

There are times where you have to hold your tongue publicly if you give a shit about how you're perceived. Sunday was clearly one of those times. Apparently Phil is old enough now, though, that he just doesn't give a ****.

No one respects Tom Watson as a Ryder Cup captain because he's acted like a complete jackass. It's the same reason why no one really respects Gary Player.

If you'd like, I can easily provide you a link to one of the most popular golf forums online and a 500+ reply thread that discusses this. Take the temperature of the room yourself after Watson's antics came into the fore and tell me how unprofessional Phil really was.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

No one respects Tom Watson as a Ryder Cup captain because he's acted like a complete jackass. It's the same reason why no one really respects Gary Player.

Nobody complained one bit about Tom Watson until a bunch of outclassed US golfers got beat in embarrassing fashion by Europe. If you can't see that the optics of this look terrible (regardless of whether Watson is a massive prick with no management skills at all), I don't know what to tell you.

If you'd like, I can easily provide you a link to one of the most popular golf forums online and a 500+ reply thread that discusses this. Take the temperature of the room yourself after Watson's antics came into the fore and tell me how unprofessional Phil really was.

There would be about as much point to that as looking at a CNN Internet poll on the outcome of the US general election.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

Nobody complained one bit about Tom Watson until a bunch of outclassed US golfers got beat in embarrassing fashion by Europe. If you can't see that the optics of this look terrible (regardless of whether Watson is a massive prick with no management skills at all), I don't know what to tell you.


There would be about as much point to that as looking at a CNN Internet poll on the outcome of the US general election.

No one complained about Tom Watson until he started calling his own golfers out of shape, bashing the Europeans for not being good, throwing his own players under the bus, and bashing the ****ing gift they gave him while taking no responsibility for his own failure.

Christ, it's like you are set on "argue" without an ability to actually discern new information as it is presented.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

No one complained about Tom Watson until he started calling his own golfers out of shape, bashing the Europeans for not being good, throwing his own players under the bus, and bashing the ****ing gift they gave him while taking no responsibility for his own failure.

Are you not capable of understanding the immense difference between keeping things in-house and taking them public in this case (or really, in any team environment)?

Christ, it's like you are set on "argue" without an ability to actually discern new information as it is presented.

I'm not the one with the bias here. And again, this "new information" really doesn't change anything about the optics of that media conference. In fact, I think everyone thought Watson was a shitty captain well before Phil threw him under the bus.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

Are you not capable of understanding the immense difference between keeping things in-house and taking them public in this case (or really, in any team environment)?


I'm not the one with the bias here. And again, this "new information" really doesn't change anything about the optics of that media conference. In fact, I think everyone thought Watson was a shitty captain well before Phil threw him under the bus.

1) You are not Jay Carney. Stop saying "Optics". It's a pointless political buzzword that means nothing, and every time you say it you come off like a pretentious, obscurantist dumbass.

2) Why does Watson deserve to have such disrespectful and ruinous behavior kept in-house? What did he do as captain of that team to earn that right? He belittled his players, their contributions, and the opposing side.

3) Watson being a shitty captain is discrete from him being a shitty human being worthy of being thrown under the bus. Phil's comments and the subsequent revelations show why Phil's comments were deserved. The responses by his teammates, and several members of the pro tour afterwards, show why he was correct.

This wasn't normal "you guys have to play better" bullshit. He was being a one who sucks the penis and deserved to be taken to task for being a one who sucks the penis. That's why people have soured on him, and it has nothing to do with bias; it has everything to do with being able to actually process information rather than resorting to trite, moronic cliches, which is what composes your entire argument.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Notice how people weren't going after Hal Sutton for his stupidity as RC Captain? He had 1/10 the career Watson did. You know what the difference was? He was incompetent, but he wasn't disrepectful to his players or the opposition, nor did he spend an entire evening belittling their performance.

All the flak Tom Watson took was earned.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

1) You are not Jay Carney. Stop saying "Optics". It's a pointless political buzzword that means nothing, and every time you say it you come off like a pretentious, obscurantist dumbass.

Nonsense. Perception (is that a less offensive, pretentious word to you than "optics?" ) is everything in PR.

2) Why does Watson deserve to have such disrespectful and ruinous behavior kept in-house? What did he do as captain of that team to earn that right? He belittled his players, their contributions, and the opposing side.

I have said nothing about what Watson deserves or doesn't deserve. Watson could be the shittiest person in golf and that still wouldn't make Mickelson throwing him under the bus in public look good on him.

3) Watson being a shitty captain is discrete from him being a shitty human being worthy of being thrown under the bus. Phil's comments and the subsequent revelations show why Phil's comments were deserved. The responses by his teammates, and several members of the pro tour afterwards, show why he was correct.

I have said nothing about whether Phil was correct or not (although I don't think a different captain would have kept the lesser talented US from getting their asses kicked anyway, though). That was never the point.

This wasn't normal "you guys have to play better" bullshit. He was being a one who sucks the penis and deserved to be taken to task for being a one who sucks the penis. That's why people have soured on him, and it has nothing to do with bias; it has everything to do with being able to actually process information rather than resorting to trite, moronic cliches, which is what composes your entire argument.

Your perspective, of course, is completely biased in that you are a massive Phil Mickelson fan. As such, I've never been surprised whenever you've painted his actions in a good light. But there is a reason Mickelson got ripped after that press conference and it had everything to do with needlessly taking that internal strife public. It made him look disrespectful and it made the US team look like a collective joke.

[Jerm]

http://m.espn.go.com/golf/story?storyId=11636089

Yeesh......

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Notice how people weren't going after Hal Sutton for his stupidity as RC Captain? He had 1/10 the career Watson did. You know what the difference was? He was incompetent, but he wasn't disrepectful to his players or the opposition, nor did he spend an entire evening belittling their performance.

All the flak Tom Watson took was earned.

Sutton also didn't bench Mickelson for an entire day of play.

[KC_Connection]

And just in case you think I'm coming up with the Mickelson criticism out of thin air, here's another example. Whether you think Faldo, Monty, and Chamblee are right about any of their claims or not (especially about Phil somehow being a "corruptive" influence or "goofing off"), Phil did indeed catch shit for taking all this public in the way he did.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/0...0RT0XE20140928

(Reuters) - Phil Mickelson's scathing criticism of United States Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson sparked a firestorm of reaction on Sunday with former European skippers Colin Montgomerie and Nick Faldo saying the American was out of line.

Former PGA Tour player Brandel Chamblee, who now works as a golf analyst for Golf Channel, went even further, describing Mickelson as a golfer who had "corrupted the experience of the Ryder Cup".

Shortly after the U.S. had slipped to yet another Ryder Cup defeat by Europe on Sunday, Mickelson told a news conference his captain had not engaged with the players and should have stuck with the system that worked so successfully in 2008.

Both Montgomerie and Faldo responded by saying that Mickelson, a former world number two, should have kept his thoughts to himself.

"Should we go into this one hour after we've been defeated? The answer is a flat no," Montgomerie, who captained Europe to Ryder Cup victory at Celtic Manor in 2010, said on Golf Channel.

"You support your captain under all circumstances. In public, you respect and honour your captain.

"The PGA of America selected Tom Watson as the best choice to try to win the Ryder Cup back. Unfortunately, the team didn't perform for Tom."

Faldo, a losing Ryder Cup captain at Valhalla in 2008 when his American counterpart, Paul Azinger, achieved success with his "pod" system of four groups of three players who practised and played together, agreed.

"That should have been a private conversation," said Faldo. "Phil certainly doesn't respect Tom Watson. He threw his captain right under the bus."

Montgomerie implied that the importance of the captain at a Ryder Cup was overrated.

"The Europeans happened to play better (at Gleneagles), it's as simple as that," said Montgomerie.

"I think Tom Watson did the best with (what) he had. It doesn't matter who captains a team really. It's up to the players to bring back those points."

FRUSTRATED FIGURE

Mickelson, who has now lost eight of his 10 Ryder Cups, was a frustrated figure during the U.S. team's news conference at Gleneagles while he praised the successful strategy adopted by Azinger in 2008.

"Paul Azinger got everybody invested in the process," said Mickelson. "We use that same process in the President's Cup and we do really well.

"Unfortunately, we have strayed from that for the last three Ryder Cups and we need to consider maybe getting back to that formula that helped us play our best."

Chamblee immediately piled the criticism upon Mickelson.

"That was as close to a one-man mutiny as I ever seen," Chamblee said on Golf Channel. "I think that's a moment that Phil would like to have back.

"If you are looking for a reason why the United States continues to lose, you just saw it, you saw it in one man -- Phil Mickelson.

"Phil Mickelson, along with the best players of that era, have so corrupted the experience of the Ryder Cup for their fellow competitors by not having records anywhere near what they should, given their rank in the game and what they've achieved."

Mickelson, a five-time major champion, now has a win-loss-half record of 16-19-6 from his 10 Ryder Cups.

"Players of an era who are the best go to the Ryder Cup and show off, not goof off," said Chamblee. "Phil Mickelson in 2004 changed clubs at the Ryder Cup, the week of, and the day before he went to practise at another golf course.

"This is yet another example of (Americans) not coming together as team."

Montgomerie wondered why Mickelson had been the only player on the 12-man U.S. team who did not travel on the chartered jet to Scotland last week.

"I have a big problem with that," Montgomerie said. "The team should fly as a 12. We have to start out as we want to finish, as a team.

[RockChalk]

I'm looking for some help/advice on rangefinders...

My dad would like one for his birthday. He's in his 60's and would like something relatively easy to use. I know that Bushnell and Leupold make pretty good ones. Any suggestions?