…on the 2012 professional golf season. This doesn’t have to be a long post since the real enjoyment is watching some of the best and worst shots of 2012 in this Golf Digest link.

It was a great year for golf watching – especially with Bubba Watson’s win at the Masters and the Ryder Cup topping the list – I mean, that last day was the most riveting golf I’ve ever watched. Back home all the leaves are down and pretty soon there will be snow on the ground. I used to look forward to the Hawaiian golf tournaments starting up the year in January with all the green and palm trees coming at you from the TV set. Now that I’m here in Arizona, we get green and palm trees every day of the year, so while I still enjoy the PGA Tour’s kickoff events, the sensation is just not the same.

It’ll be interesting to see what the European and PGA Tours do about the long putters that have become so ubiquitous on Tour. Some, like Tiger Woods, says they should be banned, that the putter should always be the smallest club in the bag. I happen to agree. Others, like Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott, say the putter should stay and that if the Tours want to really do something useful for the game, they’ll standardize the distance of the balls in use. Me? I’m guess the Tours keep the long putter but will prohibit them being stabilized against the chest, which is clearly an advantage; they can still be used if, for example, braced against the arm (not the shoulder). Ought to be interesting, we’ll soon see…