You know that scene from the movie Tin Cup where the Kevin Costner character, Roy McAvoy, almost takes out half the field on the practice range at the U.S. Open when he has a bad case of the shanks.  Practice ranges across America will be equally dangerous places today as many of us try to teach ourselves how to hook a wedge shot 40 yards.  Unless you worked the second shift on Sunday without access to a TV, you know that Bubba Watson did just that to win The Masters on Sunday.  He hit an impossible shot from an impossible position on pine straw and in the woods, a high hook that landed at the front of the 10th green and did a jig to the right that would make St. Vitus proud.

        High school and a few college golf coaches are going to have their hands full today, trying to restrain their impressionable young players from treating their clubs like a rolling pin, stretching their

Even the most rank amateur among us could have done better than Mickelson on that par 3.

wrists to the breaking point in an attempt to hit it like Bubba.  Golf is that rare game in which, on any given hole, we can all play like the pros, even better with a little luck.  Who among us doesn’t think we could have bunted the ball down the fairway three times to the green on the 10th and made bogey, as the game but ill-fated Louis Oosthuizen did on the ultimate hole?  Oh, and how about that par 3 4th?  We all would have taken Mickelson to the cleaners on that one, right?  Golf is like no other sport in that we can dream about playing like the pros, at least for one hole.  Contemplate trying to hit a Justin Verlander rising fastball.

        For more than 99% of us who play golf, our dream round would include the ability to hit the ball straight on every shot.  Do that, and you will probably break 80 every time, even if your putting is a little iffy.  Yet it will likely be a matter of just a few weeks before we start seeing golf club ads -– and maybe some golf ball ads –- that promote easier ways to hook and slice the ball. That shot of Bubba’s will live on for years, not only in memory but also in the kind of game played by some junior golfers we haven’t heard of yet.

        Clemson University hosted a symposium on Monday aptly titled “Golf SOS: Symposium of Sustainability” which brought together a co-founder of a Lake Keowee, SC, golf community we have visited, a major golf community developer, the head of National Golf Foundation and a well-respected golf course designer.

        According to the Anderson (SC) Independent Mail, the death of golf course development might have been greatly exaggerated by NGF President Joe Beditz.

        "I would say from looking at this, that the development boom is over," Beditz told the audience, pointing to a graph of course development that resembled the profile of Mount Kilimanjaro, according to the article in the Independent Mail.

        Other highlights of the conference included Buddy Thompson’s view of The Cliffs Communities’ financial situation. Thompson is one of the founders of The Reserve at Lake Keowee, both a competitor and a former beneficiary of The Cliffs’ wild marketing spending before the fall. (Cliffs advertising had driven many people to the Lake Keowee area, and some of them stopped to tour The Reserve, thinking it was one of the Cliffs communities.)

        At the Symposium, Thompson said of the Cliffs situation, "I don't want to use the word Ponzi scam, but it's almost using one community to pay for the next," Thompson said. "When the music stops, everyone has to sit down, and there aren't enough chairs." The bet here is that Thompson, probably used the word “scheme,” not “scam” and was misinterpreted.  (Update:  When we visited with Thompson some months ago, he was sympathetic to The Cliffs' current plight and careful not to appear critical of the community or its founder, Jim Anthony.  Subsequent to the publishing of the Anderson Independent Mail news article about his comments, Thompson told us he indeed did not use the word "scam" and prefaced his remarks with compliments about The Cliffs and its founder.  We are sure he is rooting for their comeback; a healthy Cliffs drives traffic to the gates of The Reserve as well.)

        John Reed, who attempted to purchase The Cliffs Communities before it entered bankruptcy, also participated in the panel discussion at Clemson. According to the Anderson paper, Reed admitted that he had “developed too many courses over the years,” among them Belfair, Berkeley Hall and Colleton River just off Hilton Head Island. Talk about developer remorse; Reed said golf will no longer be the core of residential communities like those he developed.

        “Five hours on a course — nobody wants kids and grandkids around for that," Reed said, according to the newspaper. "You wouldn't want to be around them even if they want to be there."

        But the confab wasn’t entirely a downer, thanks to Bobby Weed, who earned the Golf Community Sustainability award at the Symposium. Weed, who has a number of excellent golf community courses credited to him, including the Wild Dunes Links Course in South Carolina, struck a practical and more optimistic note.

        "Good courses will survive," Weed said. "There's still profitability. That's my new definition of sustainability. We've got to put business back in this industry.”