I admit it, I lost a bet to Andrew Magee after the fourth episode of Big Break Kaanapali (don't get your knickers in a twist; we were only betting peanuts). Earlier that week, after watching the 12 contestants' practice rounds before the taping of the first episode, I had picked Adrienne to win the whole thing. She had serious game, lots of experience and a tenacity that was nothing short of inspirational. So when she was the third player to be knocked out of the competition, no one was more shocked than I. And losing both Adrienne and Liz in what amounted to an early-season double whammy really rattled us all. These were two of our better players and nobody expected them to go home so early. That said, their opponents in the elimination challenge didn't deserve to get the boot either; Sam and Sophie are both very accomplished players as well.

So what should one make of an outcome such as this? That life isn't fair? That it's all about luck? Well, now that Cirbie was gone, there was really no stand-out bad player who should've taken the next loser walk. (And to those of you who think Susan was the next obvious victim, all I can say is "HA!" That girl may be inexperienced, but she could play the pants off most of you, especially in a short-game challenge.) So it's all a crap shoot from here, ladies and gents. And the hits will just keep on coming.

The thing that really got to me most that fateful day in Kaanapali, however, was just how hard both Liz and Adrienne took their defeats. It wasn't shown on TV, but they were inconsolable. They had obviously never imagined getting cut so early, and once reality sunk in, it hit them hard. But I hope they both know that they have very bright futures ahead of them, and that losing out on the Big Break won't mean much in the big scheme of things in their potentially long, successful careers. As long as they keep working at it and believing in themselves, I'm sure we'll see both their names in lights soon enough. Because, besides being good golfers, they're both very nice, hardworking, talented young women. And at least they can console themselves with the fact that an early departure kept them from getting involved with the drama and infighting that's about to ensue on this season of the Big Break...

Traveling with golf clubs, which has never been fun, could now burn a hole in your wallet. Starting today, in an effort to counter-balance the soaring cost of fuel, several airlines, including American, United, US Airways, Continental and Northwest, will charge $50 round-trip for checking a second piece of luggage on domestic flights (frequent flyers and first and business class passengers are exempt from these charges). This is bad news for most traveling golfers -- many airlines count a set of clubs as a checked bag. So throw in a suitcase with your golf bag and you'll have to pay the second-bag charge. Plus, some airlines now exact oversized luggage with an additional $100-200 round-trip fee (though most carriers exclude golf bags from that oversized fee, check your airlines' website to be sure). Also keep in mind that charges for overweight bags (heavier than 50 pounds) are on the rise. No longer will it cost only 25 bucks.

But here's the kicker: the fees are cumulative, which means an oversized, overweight second bag could cost you $300. Ouch!

So what are your options? For weekend getaways when you'll play one or two rounds, renting clubs could be your best bet. Most courses offer decent rental clubs for less money than these airline fees. Or if you're planning a trip to Florida, use Golf Clubs Away, a new online rental service that delivers clubs directly to your hotel ($35-45 a day for a bag of clubs, a sleeve of balls and tees).

Or, you can ship your clubs, which isn't as expensive as it sounds. Golf Digest travel editor Matt Ginella says that shipping a golf bag from Florida to California in five business days costs only $60. You can choose from large package delivery companies like UPS, FedEx or DHL, or specialized shipping companies like Sports Express, Luggage Forward or Golf Bag Shipping. And you'll feel like a queen when your set of clubs is patiently waiting for you when you check into your room.

But if you insist on keeping your clubs close, just remember these extra fees and pack wisely.

The LPGA annually hands out three scholarships to girls who play golf and plan to attend college in the fall. The deadline is May 15, so you’ve got to act quickly if you want to be considered. Here’s a breakdown of each one:

• The Dinah Shore Scholarship, created in 1994, awards $5,000 to a senior who played golf during high school, but who will not play competitively in college. Dinah Shore was a singer/actress for more than forty-five years and helped establish one of the most prestigious LPGA golf tournaments, the Kraft Nabisco Championship at Mission Hills CC in Rancho Mirage, California. She incessantly promoted the game and, after her death, became an honorary member of the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame.
• The Marilynn Smith Scholarship, established in 1999, gives $3,000 to a high school senior who played competitively in school or in her community, and who is planning to compete on a college golf team. Smith, one of the thirteen original founders of the LPGA, won 21 times on Tour, including two majors, and made history by becoming the first female television commentator at a men’s golf tournament in 1973.
• The Phyllis G. Meekins Scholarship, created in 2006, provides a need-based grant of $1,250 to a high school senior from a minority background (African-American, Pacific Island, Native American, Native Alaskan, or Hispanic) who played golf in high school and plans to play in college. Phyllis Meekins became a member of the LPGA in 1981 and was inducted into the National Afro-American Golfers Hall of Fame in 1984. Under the Phyllis G. Meekins (PGM) Clinic, established in 1973, thousands of students have developed such life skills as goal setting, discipline, leadership and determination.

Golf scholarships are becoming increasingly difficult to grab (yes, even for women), so partial ones such as these can add up. Send in your entries now!

We finally had our first elimination on last night's installment of Big Break Kaanapali, and for those of you who've been complaining that it took three episodes for the ax to fall, all I can say is I hope it was worth the wait (and if you paid attention to the preview of next week's episode at the end of the show, you may have picked up on the fact that TWO players will be cut in episode four, so your thirst for blood should be fully satisfied after that). Speaking of waiting, if it wasn't blatantly evident on TV (it is, after all, only an hour-long show), the short-game elimination challenge that eventually felled our token rocker chick Cirbie Sheppard took fo-or-ev-er. I started out that day four months pregnant and ended it ready to give birth. It was remarkable; Andrew and I clocked Cirbie laboring over one of her last long putts and she took FOUR MINUTES AND 50 SECONDS to decide on her line and club selection. (And it was a hot, steamy day, as you may have noticed from the umbrellas that the rest of the contestants pulled out to shield themselves from the sun as they were watching this putting marathon.) After that, the producers asked Cirbie to speed it up or we'd lose daylight.

But I have to reiterate that the pressure of these eliminations is unlike anything the players have ever faced before, so it's perfectly understandable that some of them have a hard time sticking to their normal routines. There is no way to describe just how much tension is in the air; I know some viewers think that Andrew and I sound overly dramatic when we narrate what's happening, but every shot is truly nerve-wracking to watch in person. With countless cameras on you, and the knowledge that everyone you know -- plus millions of people you don't -- will see your every move and there are no do-overs, even the best of these players can crack.

That's not to suggest Cirbie was the best of the Kaanapali Twelve, or even close. She was, clearly, the worst, and as she admits in her exit interview (which will air tonight on Golf Central but is already up on the Golf Channel website), fully expected to be the first player to go home.  But to those who've been on Cirbie's case from the get-go and claim she didn't deserve to be there, I'd like to point out that this girl is no rookie. She is a professional golfer who plays on the Cactus Tour and who hit some beautiful golf shots in her audition. So don't count her out completely; we may hear from her again.

As for the 11 survivors of last night's episode, the real game is now on. We may have had a predictable first woman out, but from here on in, the surprises just keep on coming. Next week, I guarantee, will be a doozy.

While Annika was cooking up the course Sunday en route to a playoff victory over Paula Creamer in the Stanford International Pro-Am, she also had a chance to dish with celebrity chef Ming Tsai in Miami last week, as she detailed in her personal blog.

Annika's love of cooking is well known and according to Susan Reed, the two have known each other for years. Annika met Ming when she went to eat at his restaurant, Blue Ginger, in Boston while playing the 2006 U.S. Women's Open in Newport, Rhode Island. Tsai made her a special dinner and told her she was going to win the U.S. Open. She went on to beat Pat Hurst in a 18-hole playoff, and they've been friends ever since, with Tsai giving her cooking lessons and Annika returning the favor with golf lessons.

So it's no surprise she was thrilled at the opportunity to shoot a segment with Tsai at the Fairmont Turnberry Isle Resort and Club for his hit public television series, Simply Ming. The episode is scheduled to air in the fall.

Annika included the recipe for the dish they created, "East-West Gravlax with Lemon-Fennel Salad," on her Web site and gushed,  "The Executive Chef of the resort enjoyed the dish so much, that he put it on the menu for the week and named it the 'Annika Gravlax.' "

If you're hungry for more, check out the recipe section of Annika's Web site. I think I'll have to try the "Flatbread with Caramelized Onions and Blue Cheese" she's currently featuring online. Just like her career mark in playoffs (16-6), it's a recipe for success.

The second episode of Big Break Kaanapali brought more drama (and more rain), lots of it thanks to the producers' well-thought-out roommate/teammate pairings, which were revealed to the contestants the second morning of the competition. As usual, I am bound by my confidentiality agreement to reveal nothing about what's coming down the line this season, but let's just say these are not random pairings. Personalities will mesh and clash like never before based on these couplings.    

As someone who was there for the golf but never in the confessional room or the one-on-one interviews conducted with the contestants every night, I must admit it's fascinating to watch the show and hear what the girls had to say when it was just them and the camera. Many of them are a lot more outspoken -- for good and bad -- than I ever knew while we were filming. (And, sure, Dana calls herself "the Cougar Mama" a little too often.)

Reading some of the message boards this morning, I understand that there were viewers who were disappointed that no one ended up getting sent home in the elimination challenge at the end of last night's episode. While I understand the urge for bloodletting, I can tell you that this elimination was one of the best and most nerve-wracking I've ever seen (and as I've confessed before, I'm a long-time BB watcher). It was brilliant: the two players, Courtney and Tina, had their destiny in their own hands. They could both be saved or both go home, depending on whether or not they could play the two holes on par or better.  And since they were two of our better players, I'm happy they both managed to avoid extinction that early. For any of you who are worried that the same thing will happen over and over, I can assure you that the ax will start dropping swiftly and shortly. And guess what? The weather gets better, too!

Speaking of the weather, I just have to address one more thing I read in some viewer blogs this morning: apparently there are those who doubt the wind-gust numbers put up on the screen during periods of the show. Let me tell you, it was at times windier than anything I've ever experienced on a golf course (if anything, the number I saw last night, 35 mph, seemed way low), but the producers scrambled to put us in places where we wouldn't look like we were about to take off like Mary Poppins under our umbrellas. It's edited television, people. If you were to look at the many hours of film we shot with nine cameras every day, you'd see us spend most of our time those first few days huddling under roofs on random people's verandas adjacent to the course to avoid the buckets of rain that fell every half hour. You'd see us hold on to trees and carts to not fly away. And you'd be damn impressed by how most of that was concealed in the show. Sure, it may have seemed strange that some of the players couldn't put a ball inside a grid in the fairway 200 yards away with a driver, but considering the insane head winds and soggy grass, it was a miracle that anybody reached it at all. An even bigger miracle was the fact that it was the tiny rookie, Susan, who eventually ended up succeeding. A sign of things to come, perhaps? (Oops, did I just say that?)

Lorena Ochoa has done it again, winning her fourth straight LPGA title at the Ginn Open in Reunion, Fla., on Sunday, her fifth triumph in six starts since she blew out of the 2008 gates to take the HSBC Champions in Singapore by 11 strokes. It's moments such as these that make me feel like a complete idiot. You see, after Ochoa earned that first win of the year in early March, Golf For Women editor-in-chief Susan Reed asked me what I'd think about running a chart in our May/June issue (on newsstands now) comparing Ochoa's dominance to that of Tiger Woods, and I said "no way." I argued that while Ochoa had definitely dominated the LPGA Tour in the past year, and had started the new season in impressive form, her accomplishments were nowhere near Woods' (I think I said it would be like comparing Ellen Page to Meryl Streep) and there was no way she'd be able to keep those kinds of margins to her fellow-competitors for very long.

Now I really wish I'd been asked that question a month and a half later. Because what Ochoa has accomplished in the last few weeks in nothing short of supernatural, and she shows no signs of stopping (to add insult to injury, she doesn't just squeak by; she continues to trounce the competition in full-on romps week in and week out). Since Woods is on the bench recovering from knee surgery, and failed to pull off the record-setting streaks he seemed poised for before that, Ochoa is THE story in golf -- and, some might argue, in sports -- right now. If she wins again next week at the SemGroup Championship in Tulsa (she's skipping the Stanford International in Aventura, Fla., this week, I'm sure to the relief of her LPGA Tour colleagues), she'll tie the record for most LPGA Tour wins in a row (currently shared by Nancy Lopez and Annika Sorenstam) at five, and she'll be almost halfway to Mickey Wright's legendary record of 13 LPGA Tour wins in one season (and she'd have two thirds of her season left; more than ample time to keep racking up the trophies). Also, while Tiger Woods' 2008 Grand Slam dreams were killed at the Masters, Ochoa's are alive and kicking since she easily took home the title at the 2008 Kraft Nabisco Championship. All these possibilities, which seemed like far-flung hyperbole two months ago, are now very real.

As always, when a young player starts to perform history-making feats such as those Ochoa has accomplished in the last year, people start to compare her to her predecessors. The debates are getting heated: Is Ochoa better than Sorenstam was during her heyday? Better than Wright, Lopez and Kathy Whitworth? And, of course, the most popular topic of all, is she the female Tiger Woods? Post a comment below and let me know what you think. I, for one, am certainly I'm rethinking my original position. 

It's not a stretch to call Lorena Ochoa the most dominant player in golf. All of golf. The girl wipes out the field by playing a game nobody else even knows; she's won four of her last five tournaments by a combined 34 shots, and she does it with a smile on her face. In her last 50 tournaments, she's hoisted the trophy on Sunday approximately 40 percent of the time, and with her victory in last week's Corona Championship she  has earned enough points (27) to be eligible for the Hall of Fame, though she can't be formally inducted until her 10th season on Tour, in 2012.

Here's some more food for thought:

• Ochoa leads the 2008 money list by nearly a half-million dollars (she's earned $1,050,550 this year, over Annika Sorenstam's $604,172).
• She leads the LPGA in greens in regulation (80 percent).
• Her average score (68) is more than a stroke less than second-ranked Sorenstam (69.33).
• She leads the Rolex player of the year points (153) by more than 200% over second-ranked Sorenstam (75).

All eyes will be on Ochoa as she tees it up at today's Ginn Open at 12:54 EDT. Below, I've shared some of her comments at Wednesday's press conference:

You've had a lot of close calls at Ginn events. Do you feel like they owe you a win?
Yeah, they owe me a couple (laughter). What happened last year was a learning experience, but it was tough losing here with a double bogey on 18 and then in a playoff in Charleston.  So here I am, I'm going to give myself a good chance, and hopefully I can get that beautiful trophy on Sunday.

You keep reaching all of these wonderful goals: No. 1 player in the world, winning majors, getting into the Hall of Fame. Are you setting new goals on a weekly basis? What’s your goal now that you've attained the Hall of Fame?
My goals are the same. I want to do a lot of good things this year and get a lot of trophies. The beginning of the season has been fantastic, but I have many tournaments left. I would love to just keep winning and breaking records. My goals, like I always say, are for the things that I have control of, like getting my practice, a couple hours of short game and getting my routine on the greens, making sure I improve my stroke. I've been trying to hit different shots when I go out during my practice rounds, hitting from different lies to keep good balance. So all those things will help me improve every week, and will hopefully help me win more tournaments.

If you can stay hot in June, during the two majors in a three week span, is it crazy for us to think you'll hold all four majors at the same time? You seem to have figured it out.
Well, for sure I'm thinking of that. That's something that, as a player, would be great to achieve. So of course my eyes are on that. But I don't want to put any pressure on myself, just play week by week, and whenever June comes I'm going to be ready. One tournament at a time.  First I've got to give myself a good chance at the McDonald's and then we'll go from there. But that's too far ahead.  Right now I'm here and this is a big tournament, and we'll see what happens in June and July.

Eighteen titles in 24 months, that's a heck of a number. How does it feel to have someone like Annika Sorenstam stating that she's chasing you?
(Laughing) I like the way it feels being in the No. 1 position. I don't mind that a lot of players are trying to catch me. I'd like to stay in the No. 1 position for a long time, and I'm going to do everything it takes to stay in that position. I'm just trying to enjoy my moment. I've been working hard.  This has been something that took me a long time to achieve. It's not something that happened in a couple days or in a couple months. So I'm going to continue motivating myself, practicing hard, and hopefully I stay at the top for a long time.

What's the key to remaining focused when expectations are raised?
I don't change anything that is working. There's no need to do anything different. Just be the same girl. I just go out there and enjoy it when I play. I think I've found the way to practice, the way to travel, the way to rest, and all of that is just because of experience year by year. I'm going to just keep doing the same, no need to change.

One of the things that Brittany Lincicome mentioned in her interview before you was not only how good a golfer you are, but how good a person you are, that you would give the shirt off your back.  What do you attribute not only your success but your humility?
Thank you. Number one is my family. They are the ones that made me this way, the way I grew up, my education, the values. When I first got here, and ever since, I felt welcome and that's the way I treat others -- with a lot of respect. I'm trying to be friends with all of them, and that's what I get back. This is a great environment. I'm enjoying myself, and I feel like this is a big family. We spend so much time here traveling week by week, and this is just who I am. I'm not going to change; I think that would be wrong. That's my number one goal, to be the same inside or outside of golf, and this is who I am. 

The streak that you're on has been compared to the streak that Tiger is on. Do you like comparisons like that? Would you compare yourself to him in that way?
I think it's just something fun. This year he had a better start than me. He won those first three tournaments and I was a little behind, so I was just joking and thinking, "we need to catch up.  We need to win two more tournaments." I think it's fun. Of course Tiger is someone that I admire a lot and I have a lot of respect and I always look for him. I always try to see him play on Sunday to see what is he doing. It's an honor to be compared to him and it's a great motivation for me to try to beat him.

What kind of relationship do you have with Tiger? Has he ever sent you a text message or do you guys talk at all?
Zero, no. I saw him for the first time in many years last year at Augusta, and very briefly just said hi to him. He congratulated me for a great year, and that's it. But we play different tournaments and have different schedules, and I still live in Mexico. Hopefully in the future we'll have a little more time to see each other or maybe practice together or become friends.

Do you think that you will win a Grand Slam before Tiger?
Well, you need to let me know when is he going to win! I guess right now I'm a little bit ahead because I won the last two. So I like that idea; I'm ready for that.

You're the No. 1 player in the world. Away from the course do people recognize you the way they might recognize Annika or someone else on the Tour, or are you able to stay pretty under the radar?
In the States, it's a little bit easier and I can relax and out for dinner and have a quiet time. But in Mexico it's impossible; it's been really tough, but that's okay. That's the way it is. It's part of being a professional. If you want to win tournaments that comes together. It's tough because I don't have my time that I used to, especially when I'm in Mexico. But I'm trying to learn and deal with that in a good way, be happy with what is happening.

You're leading the driving distance on the Tour, and at the Kraft demolished everyone off the tee. What are you doing in the gym and on the range that's getting you so much more distance?
In the off season I worked out a lot and I lifted more weights. I changed my ball, and I am improving my golf swing. I have better position at the top of my backswing, and that helps me have better angles and to create more speed when I hit the ball so I have maybe five, seven yards of increase in distance with my driver. I like to see that. It really helps to make the golf courses a little bit shorter and give myself more birdie opportunities, so I'm going to continue that. 

You grew up competing in a lot of different sports, but nowadays kids begin focusing exclusively on golf early on. What do you think of this trend?  Do you feel that your early participation in a variety of activities has benefited your golf game more so than if you just focused on golf as a child?
Yes, very much. When you are a child you don't know for sure what you want to become in your life. It's important that you try many different sports to see which one you enjoy the most. I swam, I played tennis, I did horseback riding, I did many different activities. But when I was 13 or 14 I chose golf to be the only sport that I would practice and improve and get better. If kids are asking their parents to take them to the golf course and the only thing they want to do is to play golf, that's good.  But hopefully parents don't force their kids. Hopefully it comes naturally that they like the game and they love to go to the golf course. That's a better way for them to have more opportunities at the end. I think all the different sports help to level off your abilities, to find your strengths, to make you a healthier and happier person. So don't worry if your kids play different sports because that's the best way to go.

Why don't you use a glove when you play?
I don't like the way it feels. I'm more like a feel player, especially around the greens, and I never liked the way that it feels with a glove.  I don't have any problems with calluses and my hand don’t sweat, so having no glove is more comfortable to me.

Everybody knows how great the last two years have been, but do you remember back to three or four years ago when you were really having a hard time breaking into the winner's circle?
Yes, I remember. But it was fun, too. It was just a learning process, and I knew it would take me a few years to feel comfortable to win, and I knew it would take me five plus years to get to the No. 1 position. All those moments and tough times and bad tournaments is what made me who I am today. I remember those times with a lot of joy, with a smile on my face.

Does qualifying for the Hall of Fame make you feel as though retirement in the next four or five years might be an option?
When I started playing golf I said that I wanted to play around 10 or 12 years and dedicate 100 percent, making golf my priority. And I think around that time I'm going to be getting to the Hall of Fame. So it will be a dream come true to finish all I want to finish at that time, and then after that just go home and go to Mexico, hopefully have a family and spend time at the foundation.  That's what I want to do at the end. But right now I'm just trying to focus on the next couple tournaments in this 2008 season and just try to play one year at a time.

Like Annika, you would ever consider playing in a PGA TOUR tournament?
No. My goal is to dominate on the LPGA. I've had a few offers to play, especially in Mexico, in the PGA TOUR event in Mayakoba. But right now I have no intentions to do that. I think it's completely different. I think there are other things that I could do to improve my game or to have an experience, maybe an exhibition, but not to play on the PGA.

The first thing that struck me when I was watching the premiere episode of Golf Channel's Big Break: Ka'anapali last night was that I'd forgotten the rotten weather we were faced with during the first few days of shooting. The island of Maui usually gets about seven inches of rain per year, but the first week we were there for filming last December, we got 10 inches in five days. It was a miracle that anything got done at all, and it gave me a newfound respect for what the producers and crew of a television series such as this have to grapple with. I have done several smaller shows for Golf Channel and USA Network in the past, but until arriving at Ka'anapali, I had never been exposed to a big-budget production such as Big Break, and I very quickly realized this was going to be a whole different ball game. I was hugely impressed. The 60 crew members -- from prop stylists and jib operators to production assistants and executive producers -- that put together this show are nothing short of a well-oiled machine, and massive flooding, camera malfunctions and cast cat fights don't faze them one bit. There's a job to be done and they get it done, no matter what.

My co-host (and four-time PGA Tour winner) Andrew Magee and I got along great from the get-go and we knew as soon as we met the contestants that we were going to be in for a wild ride. I've been a loyal BB watcher for years and have gotten to know many of the past seasons' contestants as I've traveled with them on Golf With Style: Global Challenge, but this crop of players was unlike any I'd seen before. It was as if the producers had plucked the 12 most Alpha females they could find out of the thousands who applied to get onto the show. (And as the season progresses, you'll learn that even the players who may have seemed meek and sweet in the first episode have some real claws.) On top of that, all of them (okay, all but one) were really good players with impressive golf resumes. I'm a betting girl, so Andrew and I immediately started debating who we thought would end up winning, end up in the top five, etc. Let's just say I was proven wrong time and again as the shooting progressed. I had to buy Andrew lunch more times than I care to remember.

It was evident that all the players were extremely nervous for the golf challenges in the first episode, and the rain and 30 mph winds certainly didn't help. It's hard to describe the pressure these girls find themselves under in a situation like this, with nine cameras fixed on their every move and no do-overs -- every last one of them said it was more nerve-wracking than playing in a big tour event with lots of money on the line. It's not like real golf where you can find a rhythm; it's sit-and-wait-for-two-hours-then-get-up-and-hit-one-shot-for-all-the-marbles-with-
hundreds-of-thousands-of-people-watching kind of golf. And no player in the world has much experience at that, no matter how good she is. (As Andrew said over and over again, it's "sudden death every time they swing.") So naturally, there were some real stink bombs launched at those greens in the first challenges, and some of the players we thought were going to perform well couldn't buy a good shot while others did a lot better than we'd anticipated.

After watching the first episode, you might conclude that the obvious front-runners are Lori, Kim, Adrienne and Courtney, and the bottom of the barrel are Cirbie, Susan and Dana. Well, I'm not at liberty to reveal what happens, but let's just say you'd be pulling out your wallet to pay for Magee's lunch as often as I did...

Speaking of Andrew, one of my fondest memories from shooting Big Break in Hawaii was getting to know his father, a Pearl Harbor vet and retired oil executive who was along for the ride and, at 85, walked the course with us every day and shared hair-raising stories from his globetrotting life with the crew at every meal. Sadly, Mr. Magee passed away last month. He will be greatly missed; the world is a less fascinating place without him.

Few websites surprise me these days, but this one stopped me in my tracks: www.blackopsgolfer.com. It's obnoxious. The site offers private one-on-one instruction ($350) or an e-book manual ($49) that guarantee to teach golfers how to dominate on the course "by instilling fear, doubt, physical pain and utter emotional distress in your opponents - without them having a clue what you're doing."

This has to be a joke, right? Nobody could really be selling a product like this, right? Wrong. I quadruple-checked the material offered, and it turns out you can really buy it. Black Ops Golfer will actually teach you how to undermine your opponents by getting into their heads and making them insecure.

I'd like to think that nobody would actually buy this material, but I've personally experienced such despicable behavior on the course. As a junior and collegiate golfer, several competitors blatantly went out of their way to psych me out. After hitting their tee shots before I hit mine, they'd say things like, "Thank goodness I didn't go into that bunker on the left. That's a dead zone." Or as I'd approach my ball they'd say, "Isn't this the spot where you totally chunked it yesterday?"

Of course, I'm talking about a select few players; the majority of golfers I've played with are more than dignified. But to think that even a fraction of golfers would go out of their way to learn how to demoralize their competitors is flat-out surprising. And wrong.

Am I truly the only golfer left who believes in the integrity of the game? I hope not.