Rejection Letter Rejection Letter

Should I start sending these?

Know Your PGA Tour Professional Nicknames

Here's a game for everyone. See if you can match the PGA Tour Professional with his nickname. Correct or partially-correct entries (submitted as comments) will receive a variety of praises from yours truly. Google is not allowed--honor system in effect.

Nicknames:
a. Lefty
b. The Black Night
c. The King
d. The Golden Bear
e. Tiger*
f. Lumpy
g. The Walrus
h. The Shark
i. Chi Chi

PGA Tour Professional:
1. Craig Stadler
2. Greg Norman
3. Tim Herron
4. Gary Player
5. Juan Rodriguez
6. Phil Mickelson
7. Jack Nicklaus
8. Eldrick Woods
9. Arnold Palmer

* Tiger is no longer a nickname, he legally changed his name. So for this entry, the game is "Know Your PGA Tour Professional Original Legal Names."

Zach Johnson Wins Masters

Zach Johnson was the man this weekend, shooting a 69 on Sunday to win the Masters by two strokes over Tiger Woods, Rory Sabbatini, and Ratief Goosen. The media like to refer to Zach as "The Unheralded Zach Johnson." Back in 2002, he was playing the Hooters Tour, and now he has a lifetime ticket to Augusta.

Zach gave much of the credit for his victory to Jesus. Here he is holding hands with playing competitor Vaughn Taylor as they walk up the 18th fairway.

Photo credits: AP Photo/David J. Phillip

Eagle

Thursday was a big golf day--my first ever eagle! I was playing at Evergreen golf course in Castleton, New York. The ninth hole is a short par four that was playing downwind. The scorecard says 311 yards, but I think realistically it was more like 270. I drove to the fringe and chipped in with a nine iron. Sweet.

As you can see, I went out in 39. Unfortunately, I shot 49 on the back (u-g-l-y). My first ever round in the seventies will have to wait until another post. I'm going to play an easy course this afternoon, maybe today's the day!

Backyard Visit

I Think It's Finally Spring II

Here's some cell-phone time-lapse photography from my office on Friday. Makes a fellow want to run out there and kick a field goal.

Rating Scale

Okay, I need help figuring out my rating scale for golf books. I had settled on the four-star system (★), but apparently the required font is not installed on everyone's computer and some people are getting a question mark. I'm assuming that everyone can see the one-half symbol, ½ (holler if you can't). Let me know which of these you like best. Suggestions for alternative scales will also be accepted!

Stars:   ★ ★ ★ ★

Dots:   ● ● ● ●

Asterisks:   ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

Golf scores:   albatross-eagle-birdie-par-bogey

Made-up scale:   inspirational-admirable-mediocre-dud

Academic scale:   A-B-C-D-F

I Think It's Finally Spring

Health Food

And the award for best oxymoronic snack food goes to...

Seriously, there is such a thing as Natural Cheetos. Pretty tasty. Picked fresh off the tree, no doubt.

Golf Library

After much deliberation I have finally released the first version of Dave's golf book ratings. (It's a permanent fixture over there in the right-hand column.) I went with the simple four-star rating system.

The four-star system has the advantage of being really simple, but also has the disadvantage of grouping all golf books into one category. Questions arise: How does one compare instructional books to biographies and novels? Do books get extra stars for being classics? I settled on this criterion: if a golf buddy wanted to borrow a book, how strongly would I recommend it?

Let me answer some additional questions:

• Did you really read all those books? Yes.
  


• Why? I'm tempted to make some comment about the winters in Upstate New York, but the truth is that I read golf gooks in the summer too. The honest answer is that I really do like golf that much.
  


• Is there really such a thing as a golf novel? Yes. See The Greatest Game Ever Played and Paper Tiger.
  


• Why didn't you list the authors? Not enough space. I debated this one for a while.
  


• Which instructional books should I read? Read Ben Hogan's Five Lessons, followed by The Plane Truth For Golfers. I'm planning a post on Ben Hogan, and I'll include some stuff about this book. It's a classic (the classic?). By the way, "Plane Truth" is a play on words for the swing plane in golf, I didn't misspell plain.
  


• Which non-instructional books should I read? Tough call! Golf Is Not A Game Of Perfect is about the mental side of the game, and it's a great book. It's not a technical book, so I'm not considering it an instructional book. The Greatest Game Ever Played does a nice job of recounting early-twentieth-century golf in America.