Local Headlines, Golf Greens & the Gang Violence Debate

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote? Because you were the TV remote? Remember when music sounded like this?
Remember when social media was truly social? Hey John, how's it going today? Well, this show is all about you. This is Fifty Plus with Doug Pike. Helpful information on your finances, good health, and what to do for fun.
Fifty Plus, brought to you by the UT Health Houston Institute on Aging. Informed decisions for a healthier, happier life. And by New Promise Neuropathy. Lose the pain and numbness. Get your life back. newpromiseneuropathy.com. And now, Fifty Plus with Doug Pike.

**Doug Pike** (0:52)
All right, here we go, teeing up another episode of Fifty Plus. Thank you all for joining us this morning.
I don't even need to read a forecast. Everybody knows what the weather's gonna be like for the next few days, the same as it was the last few days. Buckle up, stay hydrated, put your sunscreen on, get outside, have a little fun. And then as soon as you have to, run back into the air conditioning somewhere. I did exactly that yesterday afternoon. I got off work, came out toward the house, and wanted to go visit with my friend, Matt Scadden over at Quail Valley. He's the director of golf over there, and he's a good friend. And as close as he is to where I live, I haven't had a chance to go over and visit with him in quite some time. So I texted him and said, hey man, what are you doing? And as it turned out, he was in a Men's Golf Association meeting and probably wasn't gonna get out of there for about 30, 40 minutes. So instead of just blowing it off, I went over there and practiced my putting. And for all of you who know, if you've listened to my outdoor show on the weekends over on KBME, I'll be on it at seven o'clock tomorrow morning, I've had a really hard time getting through a Yip episode where my putting has just, it totally failed me about, I don't know, two months ago, somewhere in there, maybe three. I had a thought stuck in my head and I couldn't get it out. And every time I would try to putt, my left forearm would tense up, and I'm left-handed too, and just yank that putter face in every direction. When I told Tommy O'Brien about that out at Blackhawk, he said, look, you're a good athlete, just putt right-handed for a while. Do you have a right-handed putter? And I did. So I went ahead and started doing that. I've been doing it in the rounds I've played ever since that happened. But I've always wanted to go back to left-handed. And so my son bought me a beautiful, beautiful tailor-made putter, by the way, for Father's Day. And I promised him that I would be back to left-handed putting before he leaves for college, which is in like nine days now or something. So anyway, I'm outside on the putting green, outside of the clubhouse over at Quail Valley, and I'm alternating back and forth between putters, trying to get my courage back up, trying to figure out how I can fix that stroke. And this older gentleman, he's one of the starters over there at Quail Valley, comes walking out and very politely says, hey, would you mind if I told you a little something about what's wrong with your putting? And I told him, I think I know what's wrong with my putting and I'm working on it. That's why I'm out here, but I'll listen to anything. And by this time, I would have listened to anything too, because I'm out there sweating bullets. It's 100 degrees or whatever it was. And I'm waiting for Matt to get out of the meeting. And here's this guy I have never seen before wanting to teach me how to putt. And I've been making progress. I was back to about, I'd say, 50, 60% confidence in left-handed again. And so I felt like I was on the right path, but at this point, I got nothing to lose, right? So when he starts talking, I realize he knows what he's talking about. And during conversation and whatnot, I learned that he'd been a scratch player for a long time and just had some health issues that made it harder for him to play. And I'm not gonna try to explain everything he told me or how he told it to me, but the bottom line is I walked off, well, actually Matt came out and just started kind of watching and talking to all three of us started talking a little bit together.