1 – Misleading, no?

Why do we say “inside the leather” to reference how close a ball sits to the hole? The majority of putting grips are high-performance rubber.

2 – Petulance on display

But let’s say you’re the captain of an international golf team and a player on your team lays down the putter to show it was “inside the leather” and he or she should have been conceded a putt. How would you handle it? Me, I’d hand he or she a child’s lunchbox – cookies, milk and pacifier inside –and tell ‘em to go home and grow up.

3 – Spread the joy even further

Great social media frenzy when Rory McIlroy eagled the 18th hole to force a playoff, then won on the third extra hole to capture the Irish Open. Owners of Twitter accounts had goo-goo eyes, it seems, gushing that national opens are the best. Did they act similarly earlier this year when Dylan Naidoo won the South African Open?

4 – Litter patrol is fulltime job

My answer is no! The question, of course, is: Have you ever seen a stray tee just lying on the ground of a tee box and walked by?

GOLF COUSE PHOTO -- Reader and longtime friend Phil Robinson took this photo of the weather stone at Port Royal in Bermuda. The green board explains that if the rock has snow on top, it's snowing, and if there is a shadow below, it's sunny. Primitive, yes, but effective (Photo by Phil Robinson)

5 – Tough lesson

When the instructor told me to not worry about the flaws in my swing, that “you need to own it,” I felt okay. That is, until I heard him mutter under his breath, “It’s not like anyone else would want it.”

6 – Awful on so many fronts

Tell the truth, the opening games of the NFL season has all the precision and feel of a fourth preseason game.

7 – Good on you if you understand this thinking

Back to golf, it’s a very curious world right now. Lucratively-paid college golfers (NIL money, remember) are allowed to play in “amateur” events. Why? Because the money they get isn’t derived from the scores they shoot. We are living in a world of semantics, my friends.

8 – Just one of my quirks

We’ll probably have to agree to disagree, but I’m with the folks at Augusta National on this – sounds better to call it the first nine and the second nine (as opposed to front nine and back nine).

9 – Not like it was a secret

Regarding this past weekend’s Walker Cup at Cypress Point, hundreds of social media folks posted thousands of photos and gushed like schoolkids about the course’s beauty and majestic imagery. All of which makes me ask: It’s been that way since the 1920s and you’re just finding out now?