Battle rages over bones of England’s Richard III
LONDON : King Richard III is at the center of a new fight over the location of his final resting place, just weeks after the remains of the last English king to die in battle were found underneath a council car park. Archaeologists ann ... More

Not even the best players in the world can hit every fairway on their drives. PGA tours statistics of 2012 show that top driving accuracy was 73.0 per cent made by Jerry Kelly, and the second best is Heath Slocum with 71.69 per cent. World number one Golfer Tiger Woods managed to hit 63.93 per cent of the fairways. ... More

Even if you swing the club perfectly on the backswing, if it goes passed the parallel line, you are never going to strike the ball consistently. Most amateurs in search of a few yards lurk and lurch to end up over-swinging the club just to lose more distance and accuracy.
When you over-swing, your downswing ... More

Pope Francis trinkets sell briskly near Vatican
VATICAN CITY: Less than 48 hours after his surprise election, Pope Francis’s smiling face adorns pendants and devotional souvenir cards packaged with rosaries at the trinket stands near St. Peter’s Square. Small plastic bags contain ... More

No flag for Irish pub in Florida
FLORIDA: The owners of an Irish pub in northeast Florida said they were shocked to receive a citation for flying the Irish flag but have removed it to comply with alocal ordinance banning commercial display of non-US flags. The four sisters who own Culhane&rs ... More

Putting is the most important part of golf. Everybody can hit shots but the real difference is down to putting. I watched Tiger Woods in the Cadillac World Golf Championship last week and his win was attributed to his putting form.
You watch golf at any level, the winner of a tournament is mostly the player ... More

Generally starting something is a lot easier than finishing it well. And this applies to every golf swing. The smooth finish of a golf swing is reflected in a proper follow through. If you end well-balanced and in the right position, chances are, you have made a reasonably good effort at hitting the ball.
No ... More

SAN FRANCISCO: An 82-foot Californian luxury sailboat owner was shocked on Monday to glimpse the vessel on a television newscast beached and bobbing in the surf 20 miles down the Pacific Coast from its Sausalito berth.
Two men and a woman found aboard the yacht and first thought by authorities to be in need ... More

You may hit a good shot with a fluke but to play good golf, every player needs to work hard on the game. Especially to play top level golf you need to work hard, be fit and also need to have sound basics to produce a reliable swing. The difference between good player and great player is that a good player will produce good shot once in a while, ... More

SYDNEY: The theft of a fully-grown emu from an Australian wildlife park this week has left only a pile of feathers at the scene of the crime, and questions about the motive for snatching an ungainly bird with practically no cash value.
Operating under cover of darkness, robbers are believed to have lifted th ... More

TOKYO: French-style seafood was always the big seller at Toshio Tanabe’s Tokyo restaurant, but the chef for many years had a secret passion — soil. Now his long interest in soil cuisine has finally culminated in a feast he has been offering to customers the last few weeks, starting with an amuse bouche ... More

To make a solid contact with the golf ball, it is
important for you to find the right distance between the end of your club and the body. If you stand too near to the ball, you may hit a ‘shank’ and if you stand too far, you are very likely to hit a very weak pull shot because your hand remains too far from your body, and bod ... More

I have had instances where I would be enjoying a beautiful day, on a lush green golf course, scoring well and enjoying the company, only to have it ruined by selfish players ahead of me or a fellow competitor who cannot seem to play at a reasonable pace.If you have been playing well and had to wait long between shots, you would easily lose your ... More

Ukraine reminds Santas about tax
KIEV: Cash-strapped Ukraine on Wednesday reminded entertainers making money by posing as Did Moroz — the local version of Santa Claus — and his helpers to pay income tax. The former Soviet republic’s government faces USD nine billion in foreign debt repay ... More

Most seasoned golfers prefer to chip rather than pitch. This means players are more comfortable playing a relatively low shot and run the ball up the pin, rather than hitting a higher lob shot which lands close to the pin and stops immediately.
The reason for this is that the former is a good percentage shot, and the latter is much harde ... More

SEOUL: South Korea’s ‘battle of the singles’ — a highly-anticipated mass dating event organised on Facebook — fizzled out Monday, with thousands of lovelorn men at the venue but few women in sight.
The event was triggered last month after two young men jokingly floated the idea on the social networking site a ... More

NEW YORK: Marijuana (cannabis) use may be linked to the development of psychotic symptoms in teens — but the reverse could also be true. Psychosis in adolescents may be linked to later pot use, according to a new Dutch study.
“We’ve focused mainly on temporal order; is it the chicken or the egg? As the study shows, it is ... More

Getting the ball out of the bunker is considered a tough shot for a weekend golfer. If the ball is buried in the sand, it may sometimes be impossible to get it out. I have seen weekend golfers go into the bunker and not come out despite
numerous attempts and just ruin the score for the hole. Most players try to play it like a normal bunk ... More

BEIJING: China has launched a crackdown on a cult it says is calling for a ‘decisive battle’ to slay the ‘Red Dragon’ Communist Party, and which has been spreading doomsday rumours, state media said on Friday. In recent weeks, hundreds
of members of the ‘Almighty God’ group have clashed with police, so ... More

CHICAGO: One 13-year-old boy who sent a ‘Dear Santa’ letter to the US Post Office this year asked only for covers for his bed, “so I can stay warm this winter.” Another letter from a 12-year-old wanted nothing for himself, just something for his single mother,
because she worked so hard.
Heartrending letter ... More

Most club level golfers are usually troubled with ‘slice’ rather than ‘hook’. Hooking the ball is equally troublesome and can become very frustrating on the golf course. Here are some important aspects to focus on to cure a hook.

Address position: If your ball is positioned on the back foot, chances of hook ... More

LOS ANGELES: Bacon, whiskey and stilettos — this is not your mother’s kitchen. This is ‘Epic Chef’, YouTube’s 20,000-
calorie cooking spectacle that made its debut on Friday. “The show is complete madness,” Producer Rob Czar told Reuters on a recent set visit in Los Angeles, where two scantily-cla ... More

SINGAPORE: Grieving pet owners in Singapore, known for lavishing care in life on their animals, can soon share their feelings about furred family members after they pad off to the great beyond — via obituaries in the city-state’s largest newspaper.
From Sunday, The Straits Times’ pets section will let pet owners publish ... More

When approaching the green, most seasoned golfers prefer to chip rather than pitch. This means they are more comfortable playing a relatively low shot and run the ball up the pin, rather than a higher lob shot that lands close to pin and stops immediately.
This is because the former is a good percentage shot, and the latter is much harder ... More

SUWON: Rodin’s Thinker is pondering even harder than usual as he sits astride a toilet at what has been dubbed the world’s first theme park dedicated to the humble restroom — a monument to one South Korean man’s vision. The park, located about an hour outside of Seoul in the city of Suwon — otherwise known as the ho ... More

CHICAGO: An abandoned car in Chicago worth an estimated USD 600 has been issued more than USD 100,000 in parking tickets over the past three years. Jennifer Fitzgerald, 31, is currently stuck with the bill but says the 1999 Chevy Monte Carlo actually belongs to an ex-boyfriend who registered the car in her name without her knowledge or consent.< ... More

LONDON: Three primary school age children in one English city reaped more than the usual harvest of sweets and chocolates on Halloween when they emptied their trick-or-treat goody bags and found several bags of cocaine. The man who had mistakenly handed out his cocaine stash to the children instead of candy was giv ... More

If you have been playing golf for a while, you would have received an advice from a fellow golfer or even your professional to keep your head still. But if you try to keep your head absolutely still and swing your club, you may not be able to make a proper turn and complete your swing.
I would rather advise ... More

LONDON: Limber ladies crammed into a tiny car, charity stunts and thousands of schoolchildren stacking cups are just some of the events that happened around the globe on Thursday to celebrate Guinness World Records day. The 28 women limbering up on the south bank of London’s River Thames gave morning commuter ... More

No matter how well you hit your shots, if you cannot drop your putts in, chances of you winning a golf tournament or coming out tops is next to impossible. Therefore, the importance of good putting at any level of golf is very important.
All straight putts are the same — if you stay calm, aim properly ... More

SALMON: An Idaho scientist shrugging off sceptical fellow scholars in his quest for evidence of Bigfoot has turned his sights skyward, with plans to float a blimp over the US mountain West in search of mythic, ape-
like creature. Idaho State
University has approved the unusual proposal of faculty mem ... More

WARSAW: A Polish firm that makes coffins has angered the Catholic church by trying to drum up business with a calendar depicting topless models posing next to its caskets. One image from the 2013 edition of the calendar has a blonde model, wearing only a skimpy thong and with a snake draped around her neck,
... More

When the fairways are tight and even, the best players in the world will prefer to choose a three of five woods off the tee. The very moment you are uncomfortable on the tee when you pull out your driver, put it back in the golf bag and go for fairway wood (three or five). Fairway woods are relatively
easie ... More

You may be swinging the club in the right plane, but if your club is going past the parallel line on top of the backswing, you will never be able to strike golf balls consistently. Most amateurs who play weekend golf lurk and lurch and end up overswinging the club in the quest to hit few extra yards.
Many of us have seen John Daly hit the ... More

LONDON: Fed up with calls from tele-marketers, Richard Herman issued an ultimatum: Call again and he would start charging 10 pounds per minute for his time. Herman’s warning went unheeded.
He continued to receive calls, despite being on the UK’s Telephone Preference Service (similar to the Do Not Call list). So he
sta ... More

VATICAN CITY: If anyone thinks the Vatican newspaper is still a staid broadsheet that publishes only religious news and harsh papal edicts, consider this: On Tuesday it ran not one but five articles about the new James Bond film. Skyfall gets a rave review in l’Osservatore Romano, which calls it one of the best of the 23 James Bond films m ... More

When the bell tolled too early
BEIJING: A man in central China has been sentenced to a year in jail for ringing a bell to end a national college entrance exam too early, forcing the students to hand in their papers nearly five minutes before the exam should have ended, state media said on Friday.
Xiao Yulong, 54, admitted having ru ... More

NEW York: A New York City police officer was charged on Thursday with conspiring to kidnap, torture, cook and eat women whose names he listed in his computer. In a criminal complaint unsealed in Manhattan federal court, Gilberto Valle III, 28, of Forest Hills, Queens, was charged with conspiring to cross state line ... More

Many golfers strive to hit a draw shot with the driver. The draw is the preferred shot off the tee, because it adds couple of yards on your drives, especially for amateurs who love it when the ball ends up further than their normal drives. Learning to hit a controlled draw off the tee also helps you have a better c ... More

The magic touch in the chip shot that makes your golf ball just take a hop and stop is probably the most fascinating shot in the game of golf. I remember putting in hours of practice trying to hit this shot as
a young golfer. A few basic
principles are common to
various ways in teaching how to make this kind of shot, and ... More

MILAN: McDonald’s has sued the city of Milan for 24 million euros in damages over being kicked out of a tourist-packed shopping arcade, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, after the US fast food chain had rented the space for 20 years.
A second Prada store will replace Mc-
Donald’s in the 19th-century marble-floored shop ... More

TALLAHASSEE: In an embarrassing mistake, Florida Governor Rick Scott gave out a phone sex hotline number
to Floridians seeking information on a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak, while providing an update at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
The governor’s office was alerted by a public radio station in Tampa, which was monitori ... More

Putting is arguably the most important part of the game at any level of golf, as it is the main factor to influence the score. Even when you look at the highest curve of golf, Tiger Woods is not playing as good as he used to. If you scrutinise his overall game, he has gotten
better in every other part of th ... More

FLORIDA: Authorities are investigating what caused a Florida man to collapse and die after consuming dozens of roaches and worms to win a roach-eating contest that featured a python as the grand prize.
Edward Archbold, 32, beat out several other contestants who competed for the exotic reptile at the Ben Siegel Reptile Store in Deerfield B ... More

TUNIS: A popular Tunisian children’s magazine is to be prosecuted for telling its young readers how to make a petrol bomb, officials said on Tuesday. The latest edition of Qaws Quzah, Arabic for ‘Rainbow’, featured a piece about the history of petrol bombs in its ‘Knowledge Corner’, including detailed instructions a ... More

I come across many good players who constantly strive to perfect their swing. Interestingly, most golf instructors agree that the perfect golf swing is a myth. Just look at the many professionals who perform so well with lousy swings. What, then, is the secret?
Having the basics right is most important. Prof ... More

BERLIN: A German insurance giant revealed employees put a trip to a swingers’ hotel in Jamaica on company expenses when it published the results of an internal audit on a public website. The reputation of Ergo, the primary insurance unit of Munich Re, the world’s biggest re-insurer, suffered a blow last ... More

SAN JOSE: San Jose, Costa Rica, unveiled plans on Thursday to install its first street signs, so residents will not have to cite local landmarks like fast-food chains or gas stations when giving directions. Municipal workers will install about 22,000 signs and plaques on street corners in the city, home to 1.4 mill ... More

NEW YORK: A pair of Canadian radio comedians said on Thursday it took them less than an hour to get UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the phone during international diplomacy’s busiest week — by pretending to be Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Ban was between meetings at the UN General ... More

A lot of time your score depends on the tee shot, and sometimes even if you make a good swing and hit a flush shot, you end up in trouble. Tee boxes or even the tee markers can confuse at times, which leads your shot to the jungle, water or even out of bounds.
Golf course architects do not necessarily try to trick you into hitting a bad s ... More