www.lbknews.com Friday, December 23, 2011 Page 17

The other day an interesting occurrence took place while playing from the tee. I will not mention the player’s name so as to protect his identity and avoid embarrassment. Hence, I will call the player Vinnie.

Vinnie placed his ball on the tee and took a mighty swing. The result was not quite a whiff, but the ball did advance about six inches. Apparently the wind creat-ed by the swing did actually move the ball off the tee. Vinnie then picked up his ball, not realizing that was a breach of the rules and worthy of a penalty.

I advised Vinnie of his error, which he attempted to correct by replacing the ball on the tee, another rules infraction (Decision 18-2a/l). In reality, Vinnie was hit-ting four, one stroke for moving his ball, two strokes for hitting from a wrong place and of course the stroke for his having originally swung at the ball. Use of the tee on his fourth shot does require an explanation, which I chose not to go into at the time nor will I cause added

TeeTime

I’d like to see more narrow fairways so that everybody would play from the rough like me. The correct thought before hitting the ball is not to have any thought at all. Just go up and hit the bloody thing. Peter Jacobsen said, “The only difference between an amateur and a pro is that the pro calls a shot that goes to the left a fade and an amateur calls it a slice.”

Everybody actually has two swings: a beautiful prac-tice swing and a choked-up one with which they hit the ball. Remember, if you hit the ball off the tee about 150 yards, you most likely will be able to find it. If you hit it 250 yards, you could be in trouble. Also, bear in mind, air offers less resistant than dirt.

• • •Ground rules for a tournament:

Thou shalt not use profanity.Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s putter.Thou shalt not steal thy neighbor’s ball.Thou shalt not bear false witness in the final tally. I know I’ve been rambling while writing this column.

Forgive me; my mind has been wandering during the holidays.

embarrassment at this time. Vinnie is too good a friend. Strange things do occur on the course but friendships are too important, and thus the story had to end at that very moment. It is also that time of year when it is important to forgive and overlook.

Speaking of the holiday season, I think I’d just like to keep it simple and try to let some humor seep into golf, which, too often, is a humorless encounter.

As of this writing there are approximately 1,876 rea-sons why a person hits a rotten shot and more are being discovered every day. Yet, Lee Trevino has always main-tained that his swing has never changed, but now when he looks up the ball seems to go in a direction he never intended. Which brings to mind Bob Hope’s quotation about the difference between he and Babe Didrikson Zaharias — he said he hits like a woman and she hits like a man. There was a great deal of truth to that remark and Hope knew it. She was one heck of a player when equipment was nowhere near what it is today.

I was asked what I think is most important in the play on any given round. I think keeping the ball on the fairway would be my first requisite. Jack Nicklaus has said that keeping a ball on the fairway with a big club is a fluke. Trevino who I love to quote said, “If we hit it perfectly every day, everybody else would quit.” Frankly,

HAL LENOBELContributing Columnistgolf@lbknews.com

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some incentive and it would seem unacceptable to have in this dated infrastructure condition or worse 10 or 15 years from now on this world-class island.

Bob GaultLongboat Key

Seasonal population countsTo: Town CommissionThese sources might be useful in determining the

actual seasonal population of Longboat Key. This infor-mation could be used for measuring resident trends and future planning. In years past St. Denis stated that there was no accurate population figure.

1. For zip code tabulations of addresses actively receiv-ing mail (like in this workbook), GNOCDC relies on the USPS Delivery Statistics Product. The Delivery Statistics Product is made available to the public by the U.S. Postal Service for a small processing fee and includes zip code-level tabulations for vacant and possible residen-tial addresses. The Delivery Statistics Product does not include tabulations of No-Stat addresses. The U.S. Postal Service does not maintain an archive of its Delivery Statistics data‚ although some private resellers do.

2. For census block, census tract and neighborhood-level tabulations of addresses receiving mail, GNOCDC relies on the Valassis Residential and Business Database‚ which must be purchased from Valassis Direct Mail Inc. Valassis is one of only a few companies nationwide that qualifies to receive weekly data feeds from the U.S. Postal Services’ Address Management Services database. The Valassis Database is unique from other sources of U.S. Postal Service data because it provides address level data. Although the address level data cannot be released to the public‚ GNOCDC developed a robust in-house geocoding process in order to generate extremely accurate census-block and neighborhood level data. The Valassis Database includes active and vacant addresses‚ but does not include No-Stat addresses.

Gene JaleskiLongboat Key

Existing solution to poor cell reception?To: Town CommissionSince the 150-foot cell tower is currently so contro-

versial I thought I would pass along my email to Dave Bullock for what its worth.

Ed KrepelaOcean Beach, N.Y.

To: Town Manager David BullockFire Island is a 36-mile long barrier beach off the

south shore of Long Island, N.Y. Fire Island is no more than one-half mile in width and accessible by four-wheel drive vehicles by causeway’s at either end of the island; otherwise by private boat or ferry. It is mostly a summer community with each individual community separated from the other by federally owned “Greenbelts” thereby offering a considerable challenge to routing a Wi-Fi sig-

nal. It is not just my opinion but also the Wi-Fi industry

at large; cell tower structures were the first generation solution and not the most current technology. Fire Island Wireless accomplished its objective using FCC free fre-quency data links; the main data link beamed over from Long Island and then using “backhauls” (routers) to mini-base stations to each of the communities. This allows for “hot-spots” where anyone with a laptop computer Wi-Fi

weather at all. They are clearly a public safety hazard as well as an inconvenience and create an unsightly blight on our otherwise lovely island.

FPL should be motivated by a thorough cost/benefit analysis over time for their expensive maintenance/operating costs and the service and repair costs after storms vs. an underground system to the point of being open to partnering with the town and customers to bury the lines.

Our beautiful Gulf of Mexico Drive aesthetics are marred as well by the power poles running along the drive with lines crossing the road periodically. Also, large disfigured trees punctuate the beautiful drive due to the need to drastically cut them away from power lines.

Between the operating cost savings for FPL and bene-fit to town revenues from increased property values and resulting taxes that will surely accrue from underground utilities, there should be a creative a way to design a long term financing facility including FPL, the town and FPL customers as partners to help make it happen in our life time.

Please give this Longboat Key infrastructure improve-ment project a top priority along with our beach renour-ishment to bring our key from beautiful to spectacular! Thank you for your serious consideration and your service to out town.

Bob & Shannon GaultLongboat Key

To: Bob GaultI’m not sure where you got the information that the

commission has begun preliminary investigation of putting utilities underground. At a recent commission meeting there was a question of why FPL didn’t bury the power lines on Longboat Key. It was pointed out that the commission asked FPL for a cost to bury the line a few years ago. At that time, FPL estimated that it would cost them approximately $21 million to underground the major lines. It was further estimated that to bury the individual lines to the homes on the key would be an addition $50 to $60 million. While I believe it would make everyone happy to have the ugly lines buried, I’m not sure that everyone wants to pay the cost of doing it in these tough economic times.

It would probably be more likely to identify the problem areas of the key and address them first. The costs would still be high but maybe more affordable. My neighborhood hardly ever has a power outage. I can’t explain the reason that your neighborhood has a problem.

Mayor Jim BrownLongboat Key

To: Mayor Jim Brown I understood that there was more conversation than

that. Thanks. I still think it should be revisited with FPL. Of course it would be a long multi-year-phased process with FPL participating in the financing. They do have

Letters, from page 4

Letters, page 20