I just spent a four day weekend skiing with my cousin. There is nothing like flying down the mountain and carving some great turns, feeling like you are defying gravity. I dare say after having so much fun, that I might enjoy skiing more than golf. At least for the moment. We had a great time despite the conditions being foggy, low visibility, and mostly crappy snow.
One of my favorite places: Alta Ski Area
I’ve been skiing since I was a little kid, many decades ago. My preference is powder (photo above), and I’ll often hike or go off into some crazy places just to get a few seconds of that feeling of floating on the snow.
Top 10 Ways Skiing Is Better Than Golf
- No 3-putts
- No slices/hooks
- No silly rules
- No unfixed ball marks
- No slow play
- No unreplaced divots
- No tee times
- No waiting behind the slow group in front of you
- No feeling like a fool because the gear you just bought is now obsolete
- No sandbaggers, or as I prefer to call them, cheaters
See you on the course soon, but now that it is winter in northern Utah, I’ll see you on the slopes.
Related Links
Shortly after posting this article, HOG friend John Duval of IntoTheGrain.com posted a retort blog. Check out 10 Reasons Golf is Better than Skiing.
TaylorMade Supreme Hybrid Golf Bag
I received an email from TaylorMade’s PR regarding this week’s Phoenix Open event, the craziest event on the PGA Tour. Yes, even Tiger Woods is in action this week. They were hoping I’d mention that the caddies of TaylorMade players this week were ditching those gigantic “tour” bags and going to be using the 2015 Supreme Hybrid Golf Bag. Well, looks like I just mentioned it.
That email reminded me that I had a review to post, my own experiences with this golf bag. I’ve had it in play for a couple of months, and been satisfied with the bag. Let’s take a closer look.
Features
The 14-way top allows the golfer to arrange his/her clubs to their liking. I’ve flip-flopped between having the longer clubs in the bottom section or in the top section. If I use a push cart I prefer the bottom. When I’m slinging it or using a golf cart (ahem, “buggy” for those of you in the U.K.), I prefer to have the longer shafted clubs in the top section. Putting in and taking out the clubs is easy, which is a big deal.
The carry side… click to zoom
The bag’s 10 pockets provide plenty of storage space for everything from golf balls to rain gear to a protective pocket for cell phones or electronic devices. I’m able to stuff a whole rain suit, extra sweater, gloves, beanie, and lots of other items in there. “Beanie?” you ask? It is winter here.
A key part of a carry bag is the strap and the balance of the bag. The 4-part strap allows me to perfectly balance the bag on my shoulders and makes carrying the bag as enjoyable as it could be for a person with a sketchy back.
Speaking of carrying, this bag weighs only 5.3 pounds. That’s super light for the size and space provided for the clubs and within the pockets. With enough golf balls loaded in my bag to insure I don’t run out, my bag weighs about 258 pounds.
On The Course
Whether hoofing, push-carting, or buggying, this bag has performed perfectly and done its job without any hassle or worry. The legs are solid and I especially like the big handle at the top. The handle makes picking up and slinging the bag easy. The handle also is great for putting in and taking out of the car.
I’ve used this bag in some extreme conditions already. It handled the slow quite well in the 2014 Christmas Classic (sorry about the towel TM).
All-Weather Golf Bag! – click to zoom
Conclusion
Rain, snow, or sunshine the TaylorMade Supreme Hybrid Golf Bag has been a solid performer for me. I especially like the versatility of being able to carry, push, or ride with it.
Hats off to the editor of Bunkers Paradise. After the HOG article yesterday showing several instances of plagiarism, and a backlash by other golf writers on Twitter, an apology for stealing other golf sites’ content has been issued. It is a step in the right direction for them and as hard as it must have been to admit, they did the right thing.
The offending writer has been let go and the copied content has been removed. The first excuse I predicted yesterday was the “I didn’t know the writer was stealing content” one. That’s in this quote below:
Today it was brought to my attention that another industry writer we hired for our news section was also plagiarizing work. I was under the impression and agreement that he would be producing original content, and as soon as I found out, the writer was let go. Whether they did not know the rules or not it is ultimately my responsibility that they do and I apologize for that.
Still, Ken Lee owned up to it as owner/editor and a tip of the hat goes to him for doing that.
This quote is a key in the apology:
Moving forward I can guarantee that this will never happen again.
I hope so Ken. As I told you on Google plus, duplicate content does not help your site. It hurts it, especially when the original content is from a much larger and more reputable site in Google’s eyes.
The key is quality original content.
Last year, can’t remember exactly when, I started getting some phone calls from an unfamiliar long distance number. I was not aware of the first batch or two of calls, as my phone was in silent mode. In searching my call history, the caller was calling over and over, but never leaving a voicemail. I thought (dreamed) that Blair O’Neal or maybe Sandra Gal was finally stalking me. Unfortunately that wasn’t it. Then I started getting emails from someone I wasn’t familiar with, calling me names and saying “you are a coward” and such. These two people were the same. It was the editor or owner of Bunkers Paradise, pissed at me. It turns out he thought I was running the spoof Twitter account @golfblogGRR, which was calling him out on all his grammatical errors. As much as I would have loved to take credit for such a brilliant idea, I could not. But the BP dude didn’t, and probably still doesn’t believe said spoof account is not me.
Let’s get one thing straight. I’m no coward. I have NO problem calling out anyone and having the balls to put my own name on it. I’ve done it countless times over the DECADE I’ve been doing this. Quite frankly, I’d never even SEEN this guy’s website. I don’t visit many other golf sites. I’m too busy doing my own stuff to bother with them really.
Things have been somewhat quiet and I haven’t been stalked by the guy lately so that’s cool.
Today I was reading some Tweets and found one by a writer I greatly respect, Ryan Ballengee. Ryan pointed out a case of obvious plagiarism showing a link to the original article and the stolen one. The original was a European Tour website article, and the copy was on Bunkers Paradise. See image below.
Just change a few words here and there… nobody will notice. Click to expand.
Ryan said he’d talked to BP regarding copying other content, and they’d removed four articles at that time. It seems they didn’t change their ways.
Ryan’s post today sparked a very engaged discussion on Twitter. For the heck of it I picked a few other BP articles punched chunks of them into Google. In just 2-3 minutes I found several duplicate articles copied from the European Tour website, as well as other sites that cover golf. Sometimes BP changes a word or two in a paragraph here and there to disguise the copying. A couple of more examples:
Copy on left, original on right….
Original on left, copy on right… In this one they seemed to think they only needed to disguise text in the first paragraph…. shameless.
As a writer/blogger who has had content stolen many times, I feel the need to expose this for what it is. Plagiarism is such a fancy sounding word. I prefer the word STEALING. Sure we all make spelling and grammatical errors. Some writers are better than others. But stealing others’ content is shameless and inexcusable. It is not a mistake.
Oh I can already hear the excuses and reasons. I’ve heard them before from many other content hijackers: “I didn’t know so-and-so was writing these articles.” “My wife wrote them.” “We had a plugin that auto-blogged” them.
Golf is an honorable game. Stealing golf content is not in the spirit of the game and is grounds for disqualification. BP should issue a public apology and either close their doors or make some wholesale changes. They’ll probably do neither.
Title Credit
I wish I could claim it, but “Plagiarism Paradise” was coined by the mystery spoof Twitter user @golfbloggrr.
I’ve been a long time Arturo Fuente fan. Until this past week I had yet to try the Gran Reserva Hemingway Short Story. This is a fantastic cigar for golf because of its size. Easy to pack. Easy to manage. Doesn’t last too long. Oh, and the flavor is the best part. It is very tasty medium cigar, not too strong but does pack a lot of taste in a small package.
I enjoyed my first golf round of 2015 with this cigar. I was 1-over par for holes which the cigar was in play, and 8-over par on non-cigar holes. You do the math. Proof that this cigar cuts strokes off your golf score!
I also enjoyed one with the lovely bride and a good friend who was in from out of town. All of the testers give this one high grades.
- Length: 4.00
- Ring: 48
- Shape: Perfecto
- Origin: Dominican Republic
- Strength: Medium
- Wrapper: Cameroon
- Binder: Dominican Republic
- Filler: Dominican Republic
I wasn’t able to find this specific cigar on their site but these did come from my friends at
Cigars City. I’m sure stock changes all the time, or perhaps I was being a bonehead and not looking in the right place.
Pricing on these cigars can be under $5.00 each.
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