Golf Stories

Telling golf stories from my life into the abyss.

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

I started playing golf in earnest when I was 14. My first love was lacrosse but my HS team was a joke and so was the coach. I couldn’t bring myself to play for him.

The golf coach, on the other hand, was great - wonderful human, exceptional teacher and talented golfer. I had the advantage of having an older brother who was an excellent athlete so I guess he figured if my brother was coordinated, I must have some sort of athleticism. For whatever reason, he saw something in me and took me under his wing. What followed shaped my life.

After having this account for some time now and not posting anything, I’ve decided to tell stories from my golf life in my teens through mid-twenties that I think may be interesting. I hope if any find you, they make your day a little better.

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

Admittedly, I may be misinformed. The benefits he gets are what he told me. I haven’t verified them and I don’t know the system. Im parroting what he said. What I also know is that before he left the military he bragged about knowing a guy who could would coach him to maximize his disability level.

Anecdotally, I live in a military town and have a lot of friends that are former Navy. They talk about playing the disability system very casually, like why wouldn’t you fabricate or embellish to get max benefits. They seem to think they deserve disability just because they served.

None of those guys, my Navy friends nor the kid, hide the fact that they’re playing the system.

The other side of the coin is that I worked with a get that was in the Army and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He went through some serious shit. He deserved whatever benefits he’s getting.

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

Here’s the backstory: I’m in the financial planning business. I do some work for the kid’s parents. They asked me to help him out as a favor to them when he was considering leaving the Marines. In the conversation with him he said that he knows a guy that knows all the tricks to get disability when they leave the military and he’s sure he can get partial disability when he leaves. Fast forward a few years and his parents ask me to help him again, as he’s left the military and started a business. While gathering the information for the financial planning he lets me know he’s getting $50k disability and that he and his family have Tricare for life so he doesn’t need to worry about health insurance even though he’s self employed.

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

@BotRhetoricist @feelsdesperate Interesting. I don’t know the specifics obviously but I know for sure he’s getting those benefits

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

@BryanTweed16 How to interact with successful people. I started caddying in Fairfield Co when I was 14. The membership were a bunch of Wall St and NYC real estate types. Big $ generally. By the time I was 16 I wasn’t intimidated to go up to anyone and start a conversation.

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

@BryanTweed16 Maidstone. Spent my college summers working there. All I did was work, golf, party and sleep. So many great memories from those summers

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

@joe3jax @BryanTweed16 Dang, that sucks! I really enjoyed Wee Burn when I used to play it in HS. Would have been a good course record to have

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

@Top100Rick I've been blessed to play all through the Met Section, Florida, Scotland and Ireland. Shinnecock is unquestionably the best course I've ever played. Just spectacular.

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

@padraig_h These videos are so good. Thank you for taking the time to record them!

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

@Top100Rick This is what I’ve been saying about the rollback. They need to make the ball spin much more than they currently do. That will make the rough more penal (unpredictable spin). I would like to see what a high spin ball does at the speeds tour pros are generating these day.

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

@ianmSC Apparently he had a big falling out with Suzy Wiles. Guessing that’s part of it

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

@BaldyNFL Long time until lobster season

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

@tweeth_mitchell @acaseofthegolf1 *one of won

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

Reminds me of the story of Paul Goydos making the tour and hitting balls next to a random tour player he didn’t recognize. The rando was striping every shot and Goydos thought he was screwed. He later figured out it was Payne Stewart - he didn’t recognize him without his +4s on - and he was relieved because he already knew he couldn’t hit it like Payne.

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

@Top100Rick Every time I see something about the Crows Nest I laugh that Jeff Thomas tried to sneak a hooker up there

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

Safety as well as school quality and rankings have a direct correlation to the wealth of the town/district. I conceded from the outset that if your primary goal is to live amongst the wealthy, the NY metro and Boston area are where you would want to be. They have the money and they’re great at keeping the poors away. But, it isn’t state wide. On the safety front, when I was a kid, Bridgeport had the highest murder rate per capita in the country! My elementary school had crack vials on the playground daily. But, I’m sure the residents of New Canaan didn’t have to deal with that. On the school front, I did a cursory search for high school ratings comparing high schools in FL to high schools in CT and matched them by median income and they were virtually identical. But, in FL, if you’re in a crappy school district, you can take the money and go to the school of your choice. CT isn’t giving some kid from Stamford the money that would have gone to West Hill and letting him use it to go to Brunswick.

Beauty and quality of life are purely subjective. Sure the towns you mentioned are nice from mid-June to mid-October but they are some version of mud, slush and snowbanks that have been thawing and refreezing, leaving a beautiful layer of sand encapsulated by ice, for most of the other 8 months a year. All the houses have a mud room for a reason. I’ll post a pic off my back deck tomorrow. It looks like that all year.

Quality of life is actually where I think we have the greatest advantage. My oldest wants to go surf after school? No problem. We’ll jump on the bikes and be there in 5 minutes. Play catch in the front yard? Sure, all year round. Fish? Golf? Our airport is clean with plenty of flights to all the major hubs. Flight a 2? I’ll leave the house at 12:30, park in a lot just off site for $7 a day, breeze through security and be at my gate 20 minutes before boarding. I don’t have to worry about getting stuck on the Van Wyck and leaving 3.5 hours before my flight just in case. And besides that, your vacation is just normal day for us. I always say to my wife that our kids have no idea how good they have it compared to where I grew up.

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

It sounds like you’re saying that the high taxes and government expenditures are the cost of doing business if you want to live in a New England town. If you’re happy paying those rates for government services that others receive for much less, that’s your prerogative but those quaint, classic New England towns you mention have been that way for hundreds of years. CT government spending didn’t make them into what they are.

From my research public education in CT is only superior in the wealthy towns.

Per US News and World Report:

Guilford - 90
My Local HS - 85.5
Foran - 85.1
Southington - 79
Law - 77.1

For reference, the median income in my town is less than the three towns in CT that you mentioned and we spend less per student.

Just as important, as a FL resident my kids are eligible for the Florida Empowerment scholarship, which can be used to pay for the school of our choice.

Roads are better down here but I acknowledge that the freeze/thaw climate up there poses a different challenge than we face.

State parks are plentiful and accessible. There are three state parks with beach access with 10 miles of my house as well as many more throughout the state.

We have the best disaster relief response in the country by a mile. Hurricanes, fires, floods we’re tops in the country.

That’s what I get for the money my state spends on me. Do you feel you get double? I’m now assuming you’re in CT or MA, which both spend about 2X what FL spends per capita.

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

I’m happy to continue the conversation so long as it’s in good faith (which it has seemed to be) and doesn’t become circular (where I felt it was headed).

A few quick points:

1 What do you mean when you say elite? Elite what? Top 10% by what metric?

2 FL is significantly more diverse (and larger) geographically than CT. Let me specify coastal FL, which is still much larger and diverse than CT. As I’m sure you’ve ascertained, I know CT very well while all I know about MA is that Peabody is pronounced pee-ba-dee, which is why I’ve only talked about CT.

3 The question was what do you get for the additional money the state spends per capita?

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

I’m very familiar with Guilford and Milford and somewhat so with Southington. Those are lovely, classic NE towns but would not be considered elite or tourist towns in GA or FL, two of the states that are highlighted in the OP for having significantly lower government spend per capita. No hate towards Arkansas and Indiana, but they weren’t the bar.

Very coincidental that you chose Milford. I have another anecdote to share. My older brother, formerly a die hard public school advocate and not Catholic, lives in a neighboring town and was so displeased with with the education my niece was receiving at the local high school that he pulled my her after her freshman year and sent her to Laurelton Hall in Milford. Subsequently, he sent his younger daughter there from the start of HS. He gets the pleasure of paying state income tax, higher property taxes AND higher private school tuition.

Look, I’m genuinely glad that you’re happy up there. There are a lot of people in the NE so I assume there are a lot of others that are, too. After having lived up there, I much prefer it down here in my part of FL and have the added benefit of having a much lower state and local tax burden. I feel zero negative effects of the lower per capita spend by the state.

I feel like this conversation has run its course. I’m not moving back up to the NE and you aren’t moving down to FL. I prefer it here and you prefer it there. So, I’m wishing you the best and signing off.

[Golf Stories @HasianCT]

@AstralPreobraz1 @conncarroll @razibkhan I think you’re largely missing my point. If you’re wealthy and live in a wealthy town, the NE is great. If you’re middle class and don’t live in a wealthy town, it’s not so great. The “My town pays for the beach so others shouldn’t be able to use it” attitude sums it up perfectly