'Spaw,

Good stories. You mentioned psych games. When I was just starting to golf I was playing with a friend of mine who is one of the funniest guys I know, but he is always "on". On one hole I had hit a pretty decent drive, I was about to play my second shot, got to the top of my backswing and was about to start dwon when he said "Good Luck". I hit so far behind the ball that I think I almost broke my wrists.

Playing with putters reminds me of another story. Once a year a group of us would make the ninety minute drive to Niagara Falls to play Whirlpool Golf Course, a beautiful old Stanley Thompson course. One year I was playing horribly, one of those days that nothing was going right. One of my buddies was playing as badly, and we were getting upset. We were on about the 14th hole and I figured that in order to try to turn things around going in we should have a bit of a match for the remaining holes. He agreed to this, and I said "here's the kicker, if we're tied on the eighteenth tee we trade clubs to play the hole. He agreed, sure enough we were tied, we switched. He's a lefty, I'm not. His practice swings with my clubs were very natural looking, mine looked someone wrestling a snake. After about three of his practice swings he set up to the ball and whiffed. I at least got it off the tee. It was more like lawn bowling than golf, but it did decide our bet. My ball finally found the bottom of the cup in 11, that won the hole. Never again.