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

Simple routines govern our lives as we do few things in life without fail everyday. In golf too, a person who prepares
better will be more successful in the long run than those who care less about preparations. In golf, you will see some golfers, who love to prepare, take a couple of practice swings, take the yardage and wind effects, se ... More

NEW YORK: Some two dozen topless women protested in a New York City park on a hot, sweaty Sunday as part of what they called ‘National Go-Topless Day’ to draw attention to inequality in topless rights between men and women. There were topless men in the park, too, but nobody paid them much attention, a disparity, organisers said, tha ... More

TOKYO: In a restaurant down an alley in one of Tokyo’s best-known red light districts, four massive female
robots wink and wave as they lumber to the beat of traditional Japanese drums and a Lady Gaga dance tune.
It is show time at the ‘Robot Restaurant’, a new and high-tech take on the city’s decades-old c ... More

When they arrive at the first tee, every golfer comes with aspirations to play their best round of golf. They stay focused till they hit a real bad shot and then most can hardly re-focus, which
ruins their score card. One of the most important factors in this is that while most golfers use a pre-shot routine, many neglect to use a routin ... More

SAVONLINNA: A Finnish teenager won a mobile phone throwing contest by hurling his old Nokia phone 101.46 metres. The
annual contest is one of many offbeat events such as wife-carrying that are held in the summer when normally reserved Finns
like to celebrate the warmer weather with silliness and outdoor sport.
Ere Karjalai ... More

Stand on any driving range and you will
witness an oddly recurring event — golfers moving their legs right to left, front to back and in all directions in between as they swing, in a bid to generate more power. Trust me, I have seen this phenomenon in all levels of golfers, from seasoned hackers right up to single handicappers.
More

BERLIN: A kangaroo is on the lam in Germany after breaking out of a wildlife park, with a fox and a wild boar his
suspected accomplices. Michael Hoffmann, assistant head of the Hochwildschutzpark Hunsrueck west of Frankfurt, said Monday the male kangaroo was one of three that escaped overnight Saturday with the inadvertent help of the me ... More

FLORIDA: Nudist resorts have a reputation for attracting older adults, but one Florida park is
trying to change that. The South Florida Sun Sentinel reports
Sunsport Gardens will hold a weekend bash aimed at attracting nudists ages 18 to 30. The Florida Young Naturist’s Fourth Annual End of Summer Naked Bash is slated to be ... More

In the modern era of golf, many top players are seeking techniques from the gurus to enhance mental strength for the game. Ernie Els, who won the last British Open had visited mental coach to acquire mental skills before the start of the season in 2003, he spent some time with his ‘mind’ teacher and went on to shoot 30 under par and ... More

MINSK: Two Belarussians have been charged with involvement in a pro-democracy stunt in which a Swedish light aircraft dropped hundreds of teddy bears over Belarus last month, the KGB state security service said on Tuesday.
The stunt, mounted by a Swedish public relations company, led to Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko sacking h ... More

LONDON: London Olympic organisers are investigating how a bucket of condoms with a placard reading ‘Kangaroos condoms, for the gland downunder’ with the picture of a boxing kangaroo found its way into the athletes’ village without official consent.
Barcelona started the trend of supplying free condoms to athletes when th ... More

Hitting the ball a long way can be very advantageous, but if the ball does not find the fairway, it has no meaning. The most successful players are those who can drive them long and straight.
Alignment
Most players do not pick a target before they address the ball. You should go directly behind the ball and the target line and set ... More

LONDON: A crackdown by ‘logo police’ on brands being linked to the Olympics without official sponsorship rights is proving a challenge rather than hindrance for some companies who are relishing testing the limits.
London Games organisers have enforced strict rules to protect official trademarks and stop ambush marketing but ha ... More

BITHCE: A gang of thieves dressed as knights and armed with a sword and an axe robbed the organisers of a medieval festival in northeast France and made off with 20,000 euros, police said. The theft took place in the early hours of Monday as organisers were counting revenues from the festival in Bitche, near France’s border with Germany, a ... More

MADISON LAKE: Only an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny number of bikini-wearers turned out to strut their stuff in a southern Minnesota town. Organisers had hoped for hundreds of women to march in what was billed as the world’s largest bikini parade.
But the number of bikini-wearing women — and a couple of men in bikini tops — at ... More

Hitting the ball a long way is a combination of clubhead speed and a square clubface at impact. Sounds easy, but one may have to work a lot to perfect this move. The golf swing has a number of components and if one breaks down, they will immediately experience lack of power, accuracy or even both in some cases.
But incorporating a few rem ... More

NEW DELHI: Oreo marked her birthday this year with a pool party in a posh New Delhi neighbourhood. Nothing
unusual — except that the two-year-old is a dog. The Dalmatian celebrated with a cake of flour, cheese and chicken tikkas, garnished with a rib-shaped biscuit on top and spent the day splashing in a swimming pool and chasing h ... More

LONDON: Just. Stop. Raining. That was the unusual plea published in an editor-ial in The Times of London on Saturday, a measure of Britons’ growing frustration with months of miserable weather.
“Let us make our position clear: We are against this weather,” the venerable newspaper wrote in an unsigned opinion piece. &ldqu ... More

SALT LAKE CITY: A 59-year-old Utah man who wrote his own obituary before he died used the opportunity to come clean. Friends and family of Val Patterson learned last Sunday that the man they thought held a doctorate from the University of Utah received the degree thanks to a paperwork mistake and that he never even graduated.
Patterson di ... More

Revolution in technology means that today we have a large variety of golf balls to suit every level of play. Did you know that the golf ball today actually flies 50 or more yards further than those made some decades ago? In fact, the first golf balls were made from wood! A documented reference goes back to a John Daly playing with a wooden ball ... More

NEW YORK: A flight attendant on a weather-delayed plane yelled at passengers and challenged them to leave the plane if they dared before he was removed and the flight was cancelled. The incident, involving American Eagle flight attendant Jose Serrano, was caught on video.
But ABC News reported the airline, whose parent company is AMR Corp ... More

The ‘yips’ became a much-used term among golfers when Bernard Langer, Germany’s top golfer at one time, went through a prolonged phase of suffering from them. Commentators worldwide used the term to describe his slump in rankings.  Not familiar with the term? It is used to describe a strange phenomenon of losing total conf ... More

When you start playing golf, you dream of getting the ball to fly. Once that is done and a little consistency maintained, you will find
yourself on the golf course more and more. From there on, your focus becomes a never-ending journey of trying to score lower and lower.
I have been watching quite a few rounds of golf with weekend ... More

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is cracking down on portly policemen after only a quarter of the 19,000 officers in the Punjab province passed a fitness test.
The plump police, responsible for safeguarding the most populous province, were warned in letters to trim their waistlines to the regulation 38 inches by the end of the month. Those who fail ma ... More

HOLLYWOOD: Uggie, the canine star of the Oscar-winning film ‘The Artist’, added his paw print alongside other Hollywood greats in a ceremony marking his official retirement.
The Jack Russell Terrier added his mark to the famous forecourt at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, where other stars of the silver screen such as Marily ... More

ATLIXCO: Sex sells — at least that is what the ruling party candidate is hoping as she seeks to rescue her fading chances in Mexico’s upcoming presidential election. Sitting well behind the frontrunner, Josefina Vazquez Mota of the National Action
Party (PAN) has appealed to women voters to use their wiles to ensure their hus ... More

You feel confident when you are playing well, but the real challenge is to remain confident while you are not. It is almost impossible for a golfer to stay focused and swing in a good tempo when he is not confident. Here are some guidelines that can help you stay confident during your game a little more consistently.
Confidence can be lea ... More

BLACKBURN: Two ice-cream slingers got into a heated argument in Blackburn, England. The results: A broken window, a dented van, and a seriously surreal video.
An onlooker captured the squabble on video from an upstairs apartment window. Here is the scoop: Zeheer Ramzan works for Mr Yummy. Mohammed Mulla sells Mr Whippy products. Apparentl ... More

BERLIN: Could a runaway celebrity cow replace late Paul, the ‘oracle’ octopus, as the next animal with the ability to foretell the fortunes of Germany’s national soccer team?
Yvonne shot to fame in Germany last year after she escaped from a farm where she was due to be slaughtered and roamed free around Bavaria for three ... More

Acceleration is the increasing speed at which the club head moves through the ball and is important not only for hitting shots of long distance, but also for short putts. In fact, if you find that you are missing too many short putts, the cause may be failure to accelerate
the putter head. Here is a drill that will help.
On the pr ... More

SAO PAULO: A pair of women’s underwear that fell out of a Brazilian legislator’s briefcase on the floor of Congress two weeks ago has been incinerated after no one stepped forward to claim them, O Globo newspaper reported on Thursday.
A group of five legislators was rushing into the Chamber of Deputies to vote on a cyber crime ... More

SAO PAULO: There is no denying it — this is a clear case of yellow journalism. Billboard Brasil has created a new musically interactive urinal that strums guitar chords while someone goes to the bathroom. The Guitar Pee is designed to look like an actual electric guitar and plays a unique set of notes with each use.
In fact, it even ... More

Golf is known as a gentleman’s game. It is perhaps the only sport played on such an expanse of open space that competitors often never get to see one another during the game, despite playing the same field under similar conditions. It is also essentially a self-regulating game: golfers should understand the basic rules.
One must und ... More

ATHENS: Athens has gained a new tourist attraction alongside its ancient Acropolis, as visitors flock to view the nearby upmarket home of a disgraced former minister that has become a symbol of corruption. “After the Acropolis museum, this has unfortunately become the second main attraction here — the home of a corrupt minister,&rdqu ... More

You often choose to play a chip shot when your ball rests approximately 10 yards off the green with no obstacle (water body, bunker or long grass) in front of you. Short grass between your ball and the green gives you the option of chipping or even putting this shot; choose whichever is more comfortable. There are many ways to chip. With good te ... More

A draw is a shot that starts out to the right and then gently curves back to the left. For many, shots start out right and then go even more right. Most amateurs dream of having a draw ball flight and work for months and months to find the right swing that can produce the shots. Most golfers hit a fade (left to right curve) because it is easier ... More

SALMON: When Mica Craig reached down to brush what he thought was a stick off some mulch in the garden section of a Washington state Walmart, it turned around and sank its fangs into his hand. The encounter with a rattlesnake sent Craig, 47, to the hospital, where he said he remained in excruciating pain and may lose feeling in two fingers. Walm ... More

KIEV: A Ukrainian women’s rights activist stripped to the waist and seized the Euro-2012 soccer trophy while it was on public display in Kiev on Saturday in a protest against the forthcoming month-long championship.
The young woman, 23-year-old Yulia Kovpachik, is a member of the Kiev-based Femen women’s rights group, which be ... More

Any golfer can produce a good round, but to play consistently is the hardest part of the game. Whether you try to shoot an under par score or try to break 90, the goal is the same — to play your best golf that day. To play consistently, you need consistent planning. The best players have a specific system for practice, preparation, and men ... More

Most amateur golfers walk up to the ball, take address and whack it. Most do not seem to understand the importance of pre-shot routine. Neither do they take any practice swings nor pay attention to other fundamentals. Watch a tour professional, he practices five to eight hours a day and still practices swing — loosening muscles, judging th ... More

You hit the ball and it pitches the green and rolls off despite putting for a birdie and almost guaranteed par. You start to wonder how you can best save par for the hole.
Hitting a ball higher in the
air can be very beneficial. When you are close to the green, you will want your short irons and wedges to get great loft to have t ... More

Everybody wants to hit the ball far and straight. Here is a drill that can add few extra yards on your shots if you patiently try it for few weeks. This drill is designed to get you in a great back swing position for consistent ball striking.
1. Set up for the drill by putting your right hand on your hip (left hand for left-handers). S ... More

Very often we have talked about how to hit the ball long but this week let us talk about how to hit it straight. Long drives are no use if you cannot hit them straight. The most successful players are those who can drive them long and straight. So let us focus this week on straight drives.
Aim: Firstly you need to focus on your alignment; ... More

Keep in mind that when someone slices the ball, their body is moving faster than their arms and club. A person who hooks the ball too much is doing the opposite. Their hands, arms and club are moving faster than their body. Since most people slice the ball, it is easy to see that it is almost impossible to swing your arms too fast.
More

Golfers rejoice as we are heading into the midst of the peak golfing season. Surya Nepal Masters (SNM), the country’s largest golf event is scheduled between March 13 to 17, 2012; the venue is once again the stunning Gleneagles designed Gokarna Golf Course. A major attraction this year is that the event is in the order of merit for the Pro ... More

Every golfer wants to hit far. They switch to latest high technology. Even the manufacturers and marketers of the golf club companies promote their club with a slogan, ‘few extra yards guaranteed’
Do not be surprised if even the best players in the game practice, work out at the gym and do regular physiotherapy to add a few ya ... More

The difference between good and great players is that the good players produce good shots out of good lies and great players can produce equally good shots even from bad lies. To handle bad lies you need to make slight adjustments on the stance, posture, and sometimes even on the swing. Most amateurs try to hit the same yardage even from bad lie ... More

To play good golf, you need to work hard. To play top level golf you need to work hard, be fit and also need to have sound fundamentals to produce a reliable swing. The difference between a good player and a great player is that a good player will produce a good shot once in a while, whereas the best player will produce good shots more often. More

Stand on any practice range and you will witness an oddly recurring event: golfers lurching their body right to left or front to back in a bid to generate more power. Especially if you have just began learning the game or have been out of practice, you are likely to move your body so much in order to create greater swing power to cover more ... More

Hitting the golf ball perfectly through the sweet spot gives you a magical feeling. No jerks and vibrations, just that buttery smooth feeling as the ball soars effortlessly towards the target. Golfers may hit as many bad shots on a round but one or two shots off the sweet spot draws these golfers back on to the course. The reality of the game is ... More