Is Golf Really All That Hard?

A lot of people try to play golf because they assume it is going to be really easy. All you have to do is hit a ball into a hole. How hard can that be? There is a lot more to keep in mind about golf than just hitting a ball in a hole. As much as I want to make a Tiger Woods joke at this point, I'll refrain from doing so. Let's just stick to the facts. I wanted to explore some of the many thought processes that actually go into playing golf to show you, the reader, what it takes to do well in this sport. Read on to see just how hard golf really is.

Gone with the Wind

Wind becomes a problem in most sports because it blows a ball off course. Playing tennis in the wind is incredibly difficult, and golf is no different. When the winds come, they blow your ball in directions that it is not supposed to go in. That can cause you to hit something completely off course, especially over a long distance. Seeing that wind is prevalent almost every day, you have to adjust your hitting and putting strategies to make up for whatever the wind is doing at some point in time.

'Erbody in Da Club Getting' Tipsy

Every golf club has a different purpose, and you have to know which club to use to do whatever you want to do. One club is meant to help your ball travel a long distance, and another is meant to help you hit a ball out of the sand. Then you have the putter, which is meant to be used for very short distances. You can get as complicated as you want with all of this, but the point is that you have to know what different clubs do and how to use them properly. This can make the sport of golf very confusing, very quickly.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

The way in which you hit the ball will also have an impact on how successfully it travels. If you hit with too much force, you could overshoot the hole. If you don't hit with enough force, you could end up using a lot of extra strokes just to make it to the hole. It takes years of practice to actually get good at golf, unless you happen to be really lucky. You have to learn the balance of strength, speed, and direction to get the ball to go exactly where you want it to go. This is more difficult than you may think.

This Land Is Your Land

The landscaping on a golf course will have a huge influence on the way your ball acts. You have to think about hills, valleys, sand pits, ponds, and other physical features that you may come across on the course. All of these features will determine where your ball goes and how close it gets to the hole. One small little pebble could completely transform your stroke for the worse. You can't correct any of this. You just have to learn to work around it.

Long story short, golf is not as easy as it looks. You may play a mean miniature golf, but it takes a seasoned pro to do well in the real deal. All you can do is practice at the sport and see if you are any good. If not, there are plenty of other sports around the world that you could look into. You just have to open your mind.

How to Play Tennis – The Basics

Tennis is a complex sport, and it is one that you may not be able to learn on a whim. Most people spend years trying to perfect their tennis swings before they can actually consider themselves good at the game. I am far from an expert in tennis, but I do at least have a grasp on the basics. Thus I thought it may be nice to provide you with a basic guide to the sport so you can practice it on your own. Here is a brief guide explaining how to play tennis so you could enjoy the fun this sport has to offer.

Rules

The basic rule of tennis is that you have to hit a ball that comes to you before it bounces a second time. The player hitting the ball must make sure that the ball makes it over the net without bouncing, and he or she must keep the ball in between the boundary lines. The inner set of lines is used for singles (one person playing one other person), and the outer lines are used for doubles (two people playing two other people). Serves must happen behind the back line, and they must land on the opposite side of the next. These balls must hit within the box diagonal from the server, and they cannot touch the net.

There are several different kinds of wins in tennis. There is a match win, a set win, and a game win. A game is made up of several set, and a set is made up of several matches. The number of sets and matches in a game will depend on the rules of the area at the time of play. One player serves the ball for an entire match before giving it to someone else to serve. Players must change sides after every other round of play so that no one player gets an unfair advantage. Serving also alternates from one corner to the next every round. You can see how this can get really complicated really quickly.

Scoring

Scoring in tennis is a little odd, especially if you aren't familiar with the game. Every round of play has four possible scores: 0 (love), 15, 30, and 40. Every time a person fails to hit a ball before the second bounce, the other person moves up in the score. If the score was 15:30, the score could then move to 30:30 or 15:40, depending on who hit the scoring ball. If a player fails to get the ball over the net, the points go to the other player.

If one person is at 40 point and the other person is not, the 40 point player can win the round by winning the next play. In other words, you have to score one more time beyond the 40 point to win a match. If there comes a time when you reach the score of 40:40, you go into deuce. That means that the winner of the match will have to get two scores in a row. The first person to score gets what is known as an "advantage." If he or she scores a second time, he or she wins the game. If the other person scores, everything goes back to normal. Then another set of two will be needed in order to win.

If you play this sport a bit and you find out you're really good at it, you may be able to land some athletic scholarships in honor of your talents. If you aren't the best player in the world, don't worry. There are plenty of people out there who just aren't cut out for tennis. Hopefully now you have a rough idea of how to play the sport so you can use it for your fitness and entertainment.

Animal Fighting as a Sport? WTF?

I have been watching a little too much of Animal Cops on Animal Planet lately, so forgive me if this article seems slightly off topic. I have noticed that animal fighting seems to be an increasingly popular sport in the US, and I'm not totally sure why. People fight roosters, dogs, and bulls against one another for sheer entertainment, and I have a genuine probably with it. This article is entirely devoted to my disdain for this supposed sport that is nothing more than animal cruelty at its finest. Read on if you are a little peeved about all of this yourself.

A Look at Animal Fighting

Animal fights usually involve animals that are naturally aggressive, like pit bulls, roosters, and bulls. People train these animals to hate other members of their own species, and then they put two aggressive animals in a ring and watch them fight one another. Viewers place bets on the animals just like they would on a fight between humans or anything else along those lines. The people running the right rake in extra money for each bet placed, and that's how they fuel the establishment.

The criminals in charge of animal fighting operations have to work under cover because dog and cock fighting are illegal in the US. They typically have locations in the middle of nowhere where most patrol officers don't venture. They keep their actions incredibly secretive, and they breed their own fighters to prevent others from getting suspicious. You can think of them as drug dealers of sorts, especially since most of them do in fact sell illegal drugs at their establishments. As a whole, they find ways to make money by putting innocent animals in fights against one another – just for fun.

The rinks for animal fights are usually made out of old carpets and particle board to provide a barrier between the aggressive animals and the humans watching them in the crowd. These animals usually do not have a problem with humans because they are trained to hate other animals. Pit bulls, for instance, are often great with people, but they can be trained to tear each other apart. Some breeders make their dogs so aggressive that they have to tie the females down in order for the males to be able to mate with them. The whole setup for animal fights is absolutely appalling, and it is not something I would ever wish on any animal. This is far from a sport if you ask me.

The Aftermath of Animal Fighting

A lot of animal fighting operations are discovered through the efforts of animal patrol officers and law enforcement officials, but there are still plenty of them that never get unveiled. Some cops will go under cover posing as people who want to join in on the betting for the fights because they have to have physical evidence of the fights occurring in order to incriminate the men and women involved. If they are never able to get that evidence, the fights – unfortunately – get to continue.

For the fighting setups that are discovered, most of the animals involved must be put to sleep after they are rescued from their owners. They are too aggressive to be put in the hands of strangers at that point, so they have to be euthanized to end their suffering and protect the safety of other animals along the way. This can all be prevented if we put a stop to animal fighting in the first place. Take a stand against this problem in your community, and let's see if we can get this "sport" to fade away in near future.

Scoring in Bowling – A Look at Why You Suck So Much

If you haven't been around bowling very much, you may have no idea how the scoring works for the game. Most people assume that the scores are just based on the number of pins that you knock down, but that is not the case. After all, there are ten frames in a game but a possible 300 points within those. With the pin theory, the max score would be 100. Let's take a look at how the scoring system works for bowling so you don't end up blaming the computer the next time you get a 67.

How the Frames Work in Bowling

In a traditional bowling game, there are ten frames with two turns per frame. That gives you two chances to hit ten pins on the lane before the next person goes. If you hit a strike on the first turn of a frame, you do not get a second turn to hit another one. The maximum amount of pins you can hit in one frame is ten.

How to Score Points in Bowling

At the base level of the game, you do in fact get points based on the amount of pins you hit. If you hit six points on the first turn of a frame and three the next, you will end up with a score of nine for that frame. If you hit one pin the first turn and five the second, you will get six points for that frame. The tricky part comes when you start getting into strikes and spares.

Scoring with Strikes

When you get a strike, that means that you hit all of the pins on the lane in the first turn of a frame. If you leave any of the pins on that first turn, the most you can get is a spare in the next turn. After you hit a strike, you don't just get 10 points. The strike takes on the value of the next two turns on top of its 10 point value. If you hit three strikes in a row, the first strike would be worth 30 points. If you hit a strike, then six pins, then three pins, the strike would be valued at 19. This applies to every strike, which is why there are two extra turns at the end of a game. If your last ball happens to be a strike, you will have two more turns to potentially make it worth 30 points.

Scoring with Spares

A spare occurs when you knock down all the pins in the second turn of a frame. If you hit six down the first turn and the remaining four down the second turn, you will get a spare. The spare is valued at 10 points plus the value of the next turn. If that next turn turns out to be a strike, the spare would be worth 20. If the next turn is a five, the spare would be worth 15. If your last turn in a game is a spare, you will have one extra turn to rack up some additional points for it.

Getting a Perfect Score

In order to get a perfect 300 in bowling, you have to bowl 12 strikes in a row. If you miss even a single pin, you could significantly impact the way your score turns out. Chances are you won't be bowling a 300 any time soon though, so you just have to do all you can to get several strikes in a row when you bowl. With a little practice, you can greatly improve your score without having to call your accountant to help you crunch the numbers.

Tennis: Easy to Watch, Hard to Play

After watching tennis with my husband for a few months, I was under the impression that it was one of the easiest sports to play in the world. How hard can it be to hit a small yellow ball with a huge racquet over a tiny little net? Upon trying to play tennis myself, I can tell you, without question, that this sport is far from easy. It takes a ton of concentration and timing to play tennis properly. Otherwise, you just end up smacking balls in the air like a lunatic. Here is a look at just some of the many steps that go into playing tennis correctly.

Getting the Racquet in Position

Before a ball comes flying at you, you have to have your racquet in position for a backhand or a forehand. In other words, you have to have it behind the left or right side of the body, depending on which side the ball is headed towards. This is one of the hardest things to learn because you want to focus on where the ball is, not prepare for what is to come. You almost have to pretend that you are in FBI training and you have to see what is happening before it does. If you don't get your arm back in time, you may lose all the power in your stroke before you hit a ball.

Aiming the Ball

The way you tilt and move your racquet will determine where the ball goes after you release it. You are basically scooping and releasing the ball in a fraction of a second, without actually making a scooping motion. If you hit in the wrong direction, you could send the ball out of bounds. If you hit with the racquet pointed up, you could lob the ball way in the air. If you have the racquet pointed too far down, you could cause the ball to fall short of the net. There are a million different points to remember about aiming, and you have to think about them all at once when you play. It can get pretty overwhelming in just a short period of time.

Planting Your Feet

When you hit a ball in tennis, you have to make sure your feet are firmly planted on the ground. That way you can properly transfer your weight and make sure all your power goes to the racquet. If you jump in the middle of your hit, the power will basically fly out of your feet. The ball may not even make it past your side of the court. The only problem with planting your feet is that it isn't exactly an instinctual process. You have to run to catch the ball and then immediately stop to hit it. Until you get used to that idea, chances are you will run right past a ball as it comes to you.

Taking Baby Steps

You can't stretch for a ball in tennis because that will cause your aim to be off. It may also cause you to hurt yourself because of poor positioning. Rather than reaching to hit a ball, you have to take little baby steps to get to it before it comes to you. This is incredibly hard to get used to. I'm 5'2" tall, so I have to stretch for just about everything. My baby steps seem to always turn out to be hurdle jumps when I play. That's probably why I suck though, so don't lead by my example. You may not get very far that way.

There are plenty of other things to remember every time you hit a tennis ball, so much so that you are liable to get overwhelmed for the first few weeks of play. Over time though, you will learn to love it because it is such a challenge. Give it a try and you'll soon realize just how deceiving looks can be.

Should Poker Be Considered a Sport?

Poker has become incredibly popular over the years as more people have started to see it as a profitable business. Poker is no longer a simple game that guys play on the weekends. For some people, it is a full blown sport and a source of income. The big debate nowadays is whether poker should actually be considered a sport, or if it should still be referred to as a game. This may not make a big difference in terms of how it's played, but it will change the way people see poker in the future. Let's take a look at the facts to determine if poker could be a legitimate sport.

No Physical Activity

Poker is not a physical game. Players do not have to be in shape to be involved with it, and they do not have to exude much effort at all to play it. In this case, poker may be better compared to a game like chess than it would be to a sport like football. If you think that a person needs to run around in order for something to be considered a sport, you might as well rule this one out.

Extreme Mental Strategy

Most people think that poker is a game of luck, but it is much more a game of skill than anything. While a player may have no control over the cards he or she gets, that person does have control over how he or she plays those cards. Milking the most money possible out of a pot takes a great level of skill. That is why the top players reach the final tables of a tournament every time they play.

They're not lucky. They're talented. They have to analyze other players like a forensic psychology major in order to make their next move. It is that talent that may help define poker as a sport.

World Series Tournaments

It is no coincidence that the World Series of Poker has the same name as a major tournament in baseball. It involves a series of rigorous games that all lead to prizes, titles, and fame, just like what you would expect out of a sport. The WSoP is the Super Bowl of poker, and it is something that should be taken into consideration when assessing poker should be considered a sport.

With this in mind though, you need to realize that anyone can play in the World Series of Poker. As long as you have the $10,000 it takes to enter a tournament, you can play. In a sport, you have to be recruited for a team and play accordingly. You can't just get into a Wimbledon tennis tournament because you have money. You have to practice and qualify for the tournament. There is no recruiting in poker, and there are no teams. All you have is a bunch of individuals with enough money to play in different tournaments. That is not like a sport in the slightest.

The Verdict

I play poker on a regular basis, so I know how hard it can be if you try to use it to make money. From a difficulty perspective, I do think it is somewhat like a sport. Nevertheless, I can't deny the lacking qualities it has to truly define it as a sport. I think it could be considered a career more than anything, at least for people who are talented at it. For those that aren't, it's just another way to gamble away some money. Only you can determine where you fall in those categories.

Getting Your Girlfriend to Love Sports

Men have an inherent ability to love sports, but for women, that has to come from a little nudge in the right direction. I'm not a huge fan of sports myself, but my husband has at least gotten me to appreciate them over the years. If you have a girlfriend that thinks you can shoot a basketball into a field goal, you may want to open her mind to sports a little more. This process doesn't have to be difficult if you understand a woman's mind as you go through it. Seeing that I have a woman's mind, I'd be happy to help you out. Here are some tips to help you turn your arm candy into one of the guys when she needs to be.

Show Her Women in Sports

Women often have a hard time understanding sports because they only see men playing them. Then they just get bored watching a bunch and guys run around with some kind of ball in their hands. When they can see that there are women out there who actually play sports, they may get a little more excited about learning about them. You could show your girlfriend some female tennis matches or perhaps a clip of a female softball league. Just give her the idea that women can be involved with sports too.

Tell Her She's Sexy

Women love to feel sexy, so you may be able to use that to your advantage. In essence, you need to butter her up so she takes a bigger interest in sports. Tell her that you think it's really hot when she talks to you about sports and see if she doesn't start to ask you questions about them. That's how my husband got me into liking cars. I couldn't tell a Mustang from a Corvette three years ago, and now I can tell a ZR1 from a Z06. You just have to use the right language to get her to feel special when she talks about sports. She'll be learning about them in no time.

Avoid Looking Like a Psycho

Some men get way too enthusiastic about watching sports. This can be a big turn off for women. If you know you scream a lot when watching football, try to do that only when you're out with the guys. That puts the "macho" vibe on sports as a whole, and it could make your girlfriend unenthused about learning any kind of sports information. If you stay calm and avoid looking like a total lunatic, you may be able to convince her that sports are great to learn about.

Make a Couple's Night out of It

You could ask another couple to come over to watch a game with you. That way you have some masculine energy to pay off of, and she has some estrogen in the room as well. If the woman in the other couple happens to like sports, you may be able to convince your girlfriend just by showing her an example of what you want. Otherwise you will just have the benefit of having other people there to talk to and enjoy the moment.

It may take some time to get your girl in the sportsy mood, but give her a chance. Most women are willing to learn about stuff like that, as long as you let them come to terms with the idea on their own. If you take a moment to let your girl fall in love with sports like you have, you could have the perfect football wife in no time. There may be more to your legal assistant lover than you give her credit for.