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DUFFER DAN'S GOLF PAGE "Drive for show, putt for dough, and three-putt for the rest of us." Howdy and welcome. I'm Dan, I'm 44, I adjust insurance claims for a living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and on the weekends I chase a little white ball around and complain about it. My wife says if I put half the effort into the yard that I put into my short game we'd have the best lawn on the street. She is probably right. This page is for guys like me: the 19 handicappers, the "I was hitting it great on the range" crowd, the ones who buy the magazine because the cover says ADD 20 YARDS. If you're a scratch golfer you can go ahead and laugh, but you were a duffer once too. [ My Handicap | THE HOLE-IN-ONE | Tips I've Tried | Courses I've Played | Slow Play Rant | Joke of the Month ]

What I watched this weekend: the Ryder Cup from Brookline. If you didn't see Sunday you missed something. I was on the couch from the first match to the last with the phone off the hook. Down 10-6 going into the singles and they came back and won it. My wife came in for the last hour and even she was yelling at the TV. I am not going to say anything else about it because everybody else on the internet already has, but WOW. Also still thinking about the Masters back in April. Olazabal winning with that back of his, after all the trouble he had with his feet a couple years ago. I watched every hole of the final round and it made me want to go out and play, which is usually how it goes, and then I shot 94.

My Handicap History I started keeping an official handicap at the beginning of 1996 when my brother-in-law shamed me into it. Here's the sad story. The index is the one posted at the club in the first week of the month listed. The "low" is the best 18-hole score I posted that year. When Index Low Round Excuse April 1996 24.6 96 First official handicap. Rented clubs half the year. October 1996 22.1 93 Bought my own set. Slice got worse, not better. April 1997 21.4 91 Took two lessons. Money well spent, mostly. October 1997 20.8 89 Broke 90! Framed the scorecard. Wife made me hang it in the garage. April 1998 20.3 90 Rainy spring. Also I got a new driver, which never helps. October 1998 19.7 87 THE YEAR OF THE ACE. See below. April 1999 19.4 88 Putting finally came around. Driving went away. September 1999 19.0 86 Best it's ever been. Goal for 2000: single digits. (Ha. Goal for 2000: 17.) So that's five strokes in three and a half years. At this rate I will be a scratch golfer sometime around 2012.

THE HOLE-IN-ONE July 4, 1998. Hole #7. Par 3, 148 yards. 7-iron. Every golfer gets to tell this story once on his home page, so here's mine. Fourth of July weekend, 1998. Hot as blazes, probably 92 degrees by nine in the morning. I was playing with my regular Saturday group: Phil, Big Ed and my brother-in-law Terry, the one who made me get a handicap. We were on a public course here in the Myrtle Beach area (one of the ones in my list below, but I'm not saying which one because I don't want them to raise the rates). Number 7 is a par 3 over a little pond, 148 from the white tees, with the pin that day cut front left. I had already put one in the water on 4 and I was in a mood. I pulled the 7-iron because that's the only club I actually trust, and I hit it thin. I mean THIN. It came off the club face low and hot and I said a word I won't put on a family web page. It carried the water by maybe a yard, landed short of the green, took one hop onto the front, and rolled. And rolled. And it was tracking right at the flag and Phil said "go in" the way you always say "go in" and never mean it, and it hit the stick and dropped. Here is the sad part. Nobody believed me. Not my playing partners, who were standing right there, because "it was a skull, Dan, you can't ace a skull." Not the guys in the clubhouse. Not my wife, who asked if I had been drinking (it was 9:40 in the morning). Not my dad, who has been playing since 1953 and has never had one and I think that has something to do with it. Terry signed the card as a witness and then said on the way home that he was "pretty sure" he saw it go in, which is not the same thing. I bought the beers. It cost me $62 including the two guys from the next group who came in behind us. The ball is in a little plastic case on my desk at work next to a picture of my kids. If anybody from the office is reading this, yes, that's what that is, and no, I'm not going to stop telling the story. P.S. The scanner is on the fritz so the scorecard picture isn't up yet. Trust me, it's a 1.

Tips I've Read in Magazines and Actually Tried Rated on the official Duffer Dan scale from one ball (waste of my time) to four balls (it actually worked). "Swing easy and let the club do the work." The club does not do any work. I have watched it. I swung easy for a month and hit it 20 yards shorter and just as crooked. Put a tee in the ground two inches in front of the ball and try to clip it on your follow-through. This actually helped my chipping. I stopped scooping. Three balls. Strengthen your grip to cure the slice. Cured the slice. Introduced the hook. Now I have both, depending on the day, so I guess I'm well-rounded. Look at the hole, not the ball, when you practice putting from three feet. I don't know why this works but I stopped missing three-footers. Four balls. Best tip I ever got and it was free. Hit down on the ball with your irons to make it go up. I understand this is physics. I have tried it for three years. The ball goes into the ground. Play the ball back in your stance for a punch shot under trees. Works great. I just wish I didn't need it four times a round. Take one more club than you think and swing smooth. This one I'll admit works. Every duffer comes up short because we all think we hit it like we did when we were 25. I never hit it like that when I was 25 either.

Public Courses I've Played (One Line Each) We've got a lot of golf around here, and I've got a lot of opinions. Prices are what I paid, walking, weekend morning, and they change every season so don't hold me to them. $ is under 30, $$ is 30 to 50, $$$ is over 50 and my wife found out. Cypress Hollow ($$) — Site of the Ace. Wide fairways, small greens, friendly starter. My home course in every way but the dues. Marsh Landing Links ($$$) — Beautiful and mean. Water on 14 holes. Bring a dozen balls and a sense of humor. Old Pine Plantation ($$) — Long par 4s through the pines. Greens were bumpy in August but the price is right in the off-season. Sandy Creek Muni ($) — What it looks like: a muni. Five hour rounds on Saturday. Great for $18 on a Tuesday afternoon if you can get away from work, which I can't. Heron Point ($$$) — Played it once for Terry's birthday. Best conditioned course I've ever set foot on and I shot 97 because I was too nervous to enjoy it. Whispering Oaks ($$) — Short, tight, fun. You can score here if you keep the driver in the bag, which I never do. Bay Ridge Executive ($) — Par 3 and short par 4 course. Great for practicing the 7-iron. Bring the kids. Tidewater Trace ($$) — Good course, lousy drainage. Played it two days after a storm and every bunker was a pond. Would go back in a dry month.

A Word About Slow Play Okay. Deep breath. Here it comes. I played a round in August that took FIVE HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES. Five twenty! You could drive to Charlotte in that time. The group in front of us was four guys who each had to read every putt from four sides, take three practice swings, and then stand in the fairway talking about it afterward. The group behind us was breathing down our necks and it wasn't our fault. There was nowhere to go. So here are Dan's Rules for Not Being That Group: 1. You are a 19 handicap. You do not need to read a putt from four sides. Read it from behind the ball, hit it, and go. 2. Ready golf. If you're ready and the other guy is still looking for his tee, hit. 3. One practice swing. Two if you're nervous. Three means you're stalling. 4. Take your bag or cart to the side of the green closest to the next tee BEFORE you putt. Don't walk back across the green to get it while four guys wait on the tee. 5. If you lose a ball, look for three minutes. Not five. Not ten. Not "it's a brand new Titleist." Three. Then drop one and take your medicine. 6. If there's an open hole in front of you and a group waiting behind you, LET THEM THROUGH. It won't kill you. It might kill them if you don't. 7. Write the scores down on the next tee, not on the green. 8. Nobody at the 19th hole cares whether you shot 88 or 91. Everybody cares that the round took five and a half hours. That's it. That's the whole rant. I feel better. Thank you.

Golf Joke of the Month September 1999 A guy comes home from the course looking like he's been through a war. His wife says, "How was your round?" "Terrible. Harry died on the 4th hole. Heart attack. Right there on the tee box." "Oh, that's awful! What did you do?" "What could I do? For the next 14 holes it was hit the ball, drag Harry. Hit the ball, drag Harry." (Big Ed told me that one. He's been telling it since 1985. It's still the best one.) Last month's: Why do golfers wear two pairs of pants? In case they get a hole in one. (My daughter told me that one and then asked why I wasn't laughing. Because I've HAD a hole in one, honey, and nobody believed me.)

Other Golf Pages on GeoCities.us Pinecrest Ladies' Nine-Hole League — my wife wants me to remind her friend Marge that they are welcome to put a link back here. The rest of the Augusta neighborhood — lots more golf nuts like me. Coming soon: Scorecards from every course above (when the scanner is fixed) and a page about my golf trip to Pinehurst with the boys in October.

You are visitor number since March 1998. (That's more people than believe my hole-in-one story.) [email protected] Send me your swing tips, your course reviews, your hole-in-one stories. I'll believe yours if you believe mine. Last updated: September 26, 1999 (right after the Ryder Cup ended, I couldn't sleep anyway) © 1998, 1999 Dan W. Play fast, keep your head down, and count every stroke.