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Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: DOGLEGS (38A: Some links holes ... with a hint to the circled letters) — golf theme with dog breeds spelled out in the shape of "doglegs" on a golf course (SETTER, POODLE, BEAGLE, COLLIE). Some other golf answers, including:
- LADIES' TEES (?!) (17A: What red markers may indicate on 59-Acrosses)
- GOLF COURSE (59A: 18 holes, often)
- ON A PAR (20A: Even (with))
- CARDED (55A: Scored, as on a 59-Across)
Timothy Egan (born November 8, 1954 in Seattle, Washington) is an American author and journalist. For The Worst Hard Time, a 2006 book about people who lived through The Great Depression's Dust Bowl, he won the National Book Award for Nonfiction[3][4] and the Washington State Book Award in history/biography. // In 2001, The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series to which Egan contributed, "How Race is Lived in America". He currently lives in Seattle and contributes opinion columns as the paper's Pacific Northwest correspondent. (wikipedia)
• • •
ONE LOOK is basically a giant partial (25D: It just took this before "I fell so hard in love with you," in a 1960s hit). Not great. Also, isn't the lyric "and I fell so hard, hard, HAAAAAARD ..." or is that just the Linda Ronstadt version? (or maybe she's just extending the syllable?)
STIPES and INGLE are words I would go to only in desperation, especially in an early-week puzzle. Weird to think you can get away with ON A PAR as a themer, when a. you don't even clue it via golf (the way you do w/ the symmetrical CARDED) and b. the idiom isn't very golf-y at all. Would you say ON A PAR in relation to golf? I know "PAR" is a golf term, obviously, but is ON A PAR? And I'm supposed to believe in plural POOHS? Again, in an early-week puzzle, I refuse to believe. SCOUNDREL is a nice word, and I like the clue on STEVENS (21A: Cat in a record store). Otherwise,
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Tough Tues. for me and I'm a golfer
ReplyDeleteWords I learned I did not know how to spell: LISSOME and RIYADH
WOEs that would have perhaps triggered a DNF if not for the theme: EGAN and I GOT as clued.
PC nit pick: They are no longer called the LADIES TEES, the current designation is forward tees. My course just replaced the red markers with black markers.
Peter Collins has some amusing comments about the fill at Xwordinfo.
Clever theme (for this golfer anyway) with a bit of crunch, liked it.
Dog legs are angled, not curved, both on actual dogs and on a golf course. Epic, total fail.
ReplyDeleteThat's not completely accurate. Dog-legs in golf are categorized from "severe" which are angled, to "slight" which are curved. Those would qualify as doglegs on the golf course if not on dogs...
DeleteDear Rex,
ReplyDeleteYou must believe in several Poohs if you have seen a toddler's bed! As a grandmother, I now see multiple Olafs!! (Oh wait, thats my own collection.) Anyway, I love to read your critique each day.
Rex, you must be kidding about the ladies tees. (I don't play golf either). Also, regarding Just One Look, I would argue you are being too picky, and that it is quite common in librettos and printed music to set out what the lyricist wrote, rather than the words which ended up being recorded by a particular artist. The test of proper cluing you apply, though doubtless a matter of taste, seems overly tough. Apply that to Blue Christmas and it would take a month to write out the clue!
ReplyDeleteI liked this playful puzzle with its four DOGLEG holes (the right number of LEGS for a DOG, too) mapped out on the GOLF COURSE. As a child, I did enough following my golf-playing parents around the links to know about LADIES' TEES, but CARDED was new to me. Getting the reveal halfway though was a help, as filling in the circles gave me a LEG up on seeing the crossing answers. SETTER seems to be doing double duty, with the volleyball connection in 1A.
ReplyDeleteLoved this one, love Golf. Can't play worth a damn, well I can putt but that's about it and you have to get to the blasted green first. I can make that game look like it's the most difficult thing in the world to do.
ReplyDeleteMade a really stupid mistake right at the beginning. Plopped in women's TEES when I know darn well that they're called LADIES TEES. SILO gave me the wake up call.
I'm sure we have had JA RULE before, but I don't have too much retention when it comes to rappers. Dr. Dre is about the only guy I have committed to the memory. I also didn't know CARDED as a golf term so that little corner was a minor sticking point.
When I have a cute, little puzzle like this I overlook sub PAR fill and just enjoy. Thank you Peter Collins.
Funny, I knew all the themers except CARDED. What. Is it like He drove from the ladies' tee but still carded a bogey. ? I like learning new terms that feel insiderish, terms I can throw around to make me seem well-versed. You should hear how many times I can work "naked bootleg" into a conversation during a basketballl game.
ReplyDeleteI wore out Linda's Greatest Hits album during college, but this is my go-to ONE LOOK nowadays.
DEER could've been cross-referenced with DEKE – around here, I swear, the deer stand on the side of the road waiting for me and then do a little deke to have me swerving and cussing.
I agree that triple-crossing 24 letters puts a strain on the grid, especially with 6 of those crossing themers. (!) I'll take some ETTEs and ESAIs when you throw in things like SCOUNDREL, PRIVIES, LISSOME, HALOGEN, and TODAY ONLY (I fall for this every time on infomercials as I scramble for my credit card. I'm not as panicked if they're just saying "limited time only").
Pretty sure I posted this recently, but it totally relates today: LADIES' TEE
Hey, Peter, golf isn't m'thang, but I really liked the circled dogs and the conceit here.
Hey, keep your shirts on. I know "naked bootleg" is a football term. I even ran one once during a powderpuff game. Good times.
What a strange puzzle. GOLF and DOG LEGS. Do they belong together? I like GOLF, I'm not sure I've paid much attention to DOGLEGS - well, maybe our two pups because they're doxie short and hairy...
ReplyDeleteHmmm, "the" MAN is symbol of power? No gold tee for him.
TODAY ONLY we get PRIVIES and SCOUNDREL brought to you by STEVENS TESSA LOU AMOS NASSER LANG ERIN MAO ISAK ESAI and ELIE. Betty Boop is in hiding.
Ironically, I think the only crossword name missed was Aoki Isao. As a pro golfer, he would have actually fit the theme nicely.
ReplyDelete@rex -- I'm guessing ONAPAR is not a themer, as the phrase is not golf related, as you mention. CARDED, LADIESTEES, and GOLFCOURSE obviously are, and are the dogleg theme supporters. As to your saying that this is too "Inside Golf" -- man, anyone can say any answer that they don't know is too inside a particular topic (like I'd be tempted to do for JARULE and ALROKER). The question is how common the knowledge is, and my opinion is that golf terms pass that bar.
ReplyDeleteSecond punny day in a row after yesterdays peelings. I like puns when they're funny; not so much when they're corny, as they were yesterday and today. Nonetheless, I like the physical grid itself, where every area has multiple areas of access, rather than having to work in stranded islands. I like the grit, this puzzle being on the harder end of Tuesday. I smiled warmly at the answer LISSOME. I see a SETS up and that RITE is right. The theme helped my solve in the NW, where SETTER opened up some answers.
I never made the connection between the theme answers being in the golf dogleg shape because I was assuming they were actual dog leg shapes, and I kept trying to picture a dog (maybe from above?) with its legs in this shape, and it wasn't working. Realizing it was a golf dogleg shape was a headslap moment.
Despite a surfeit of crosswordese, I enjoyed playing through this one, which I think is a fairway to describe my experience.
"Ladies tees." Out. Passee.
ReplyDelete"Forward tees." In. Current.
"Ladies tees." Out. Passee.
ReplyDelete"Forward tees." In. Current.
Just saw in the constructor's notes that ESAI, ESME, and ELIE are the names of Peter Collins' children!
ReplyDeleteNot old enough yet to take up golf, but I know the sport because my father was an avid golfer. Many entries were unfamiliar, but got through it in a decent time.
ReplyDeleteJoPa used to called a naked bootleg a Sally Rand.
ReplyDeleteI recognized CARDED once I had the CAR__ so I guess I had heard or read it someplace -- I think maybe it's one of those words sports writers use as their version of Fowler's 'elegant variation:' substituting synonyms so as not to use the same word over again. Fowler didn't approve of a lot that you find in the press. (The idea, of course, is that in golf you keep score on a little card.)
ReplyDeleteI haven't actually played golf in 55 years or so. As young teens, we somehow got hold of a set of clubs, and found that on slow days we could play holes 3 through 7 of our local 9-hole course without being seen from the club house, and therefor free. I don't believe I ever shot PAR on a single hole, ever.
I think you have to take ON A PAR as a themer if you take CARDED, since they are symmetrical -- and this puzzle has powerful symmetry, so as @Loren says, it's worth a little lame fill. And after many years of non-legal marriage, we said our legal I DOS Saturday, so I had to like that.
@jberg, Congratulations and best wishes to the bride! May you have many happy years ahead.
DeleteI'm with @Jae. A golfer of sorts but just couldn't see LADIESTEES without many crosses. Never thought of ONAPAR as golf related. Thought the dog legged dog breeds was a clever theme. Sometimes, I guess, you just need some cruddy fill to make it all work. Definitely crunchier than your average Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteGood morning, Mr. Crankypants. 1) It's Tuesday. 2) Just because you don't golf, don't dis the puzzle. I can't stand rap, but I don't bitch about having to get rappers's names from crosses. Everyone has stuff they don't know. The problem, dear Rex, is not with the puzzle; it's with you.
ReplyDeleteAgain, established constructor, only reason puz got in. That's all I'm gonna say.
ReplyDeleteUSEdUP
RooMonster
DarrinV
I am in total agreement with @GILL I about the weird connection between golf, doglegs, and actual dogs. After yesterday's tortured pun themer (and now this one), I'm ready to confess to just about anything just to stop the torture. Today and yesterday's puzzles have that same awkward feeling you get when a standup comedian is bombing on stage. S/He thinks the jokes are funny, but no one else does. Someone might have vetted the "jokes" before hand is all I'm sayin'. Dogs. Golf. Yep, sounds legit.
ReplyDeleteAs for LADIESTEES, I remember as a youngster graduating from the red tee boxes to the white ones. I also remember that on those really special courses you play when you go on vacation there were blue tee boxes saved for the "pros." In an ironic kind of way, early week NYT puzzles are the red tee boxes, Wed-Thur and Sunday are the white tee boxes, and Fri and Sat are the blue ones. Huh...someone should do a puzzle connecting golf and NYT xword puzzles...
JARULE...I had JAyzeE to start. I thought I was doing so well too.
I'm a golfer and thought this was fair. CARDED is used most often when announcers are referring to what pro golfers shot on a particular day (e.g. Jordan Spieth carded a 4-under round of 68 today) but its certainly not such a popular thing to say. I never hear "on a par" in relation to golf, and for that matter, rarely hear "on a par" at all (I think "on par" is much more common). Ladies tees is fair game 100%, and while it may not be PC anymore, the red tees are the ladies tees if you ask most golfers (despite also being used by seniors/juniors/others).
ReplyDeleteI'm really surprised nobody pointed out the awesome 9th row of RIYADH OSLO and OIL, with oil being clued as an export from Saudi Arabia and Norway! I thought that was cool.
I spent a few years playing golf so I liked the theme. Add in my favorite companions and I loved the theme. I saw BEAGLE and started to grin. Great Tuesday!
ReplyDelete"Golf ball retriever" is a long collapsible metal pole with a cup on the end for water retrieval and would have been an apt answer.
I actually had a Tuesday dnf because I have never heard of a hockey DEKE, so "dede" sounded okay. That gave me LEAd as a pipeline problem. I wasn't thinking oil, but rather this old house of mine. Lead is worse than LEAK any day.
Hi Rex, First time EVER I have posted on here but it is overdue to thank you for your daily blog. I REALLY appreciate your commentary and witticisms. Oh yes, and your answers when I am STUCK. Also enjoy the comments posted by followers - makes for fun reading. Although I must confess that once in a while when I finish a Friday or Saturday puzzle (which is less often than not) - and then see you have rated it "EASY", my spirits sink (just a little!).
ReplyDeleteAnyway - thanks and have a great day!
So when the subject is Shakespeare-related, something that Rex would sail through and I would suck at, it's a good theme, but if it's golf, which I know something about, but apparently not in Rex's wheelhouse, the theme is too far out there?
ReplyDeleteHard for a Tuesday and gimmicky, so why not simply run it on a Thursday? It played like a Thursday.
ReplyDelete@Loren Muse Smith - CARDED normally refers to your score for the day, rather than on one hole. "I carded a 128 today" (note: that would be a good day for me).
I have to believe the 'medium' rating for today has an implied '...for someone who does a lot of crosswords'. Potential Naticks abound: EGAN crossing IGOT (and maybe throw in STIPES - not sure how well known that word is), INGLE/NASSER, RIYADH/POOHS, ISAK/ALROKER, JARULE/ELIE/ESAI (anyone not knowing ELIE could be in real trouble in that SE), CCNY/CARDED.
Don't know golf, and this was near impossible for me. Had to google on a Tuesday. Honestly, though, even had I gotten all the theme answers, I may still have had to google. I can't even recall what it was that stuck me, but I remember thinking this was a messy one. Yuck.
ReplyDeleteTough puzzle for me and I use to play golf...even won a trophy once. Love Cat Stevens but have never heard of Jarule or Riyadh.
ReplyDeletePicking up on the golf theme, and relating it to the Linda Ronstadt reference:
ReplyDeleteWhen I hit my tee shot past my playing partner's well-hit drive, I tell him that "You've been Linda Ronstadt-ed!"
As in. ----
Blue Bayou!
Heh, heh ... Get it? .... Heh, heh.
PPP Analysis
ReplyDeletePop Culture, Products, and Proper Nouns as a % of answers. If PPP gets to 33% the possibility of the puzzle being unfair to some subset of solvers is high.
The puzzle should feel a little crunchy since PPP is 31 answers out of 78, 40%. This includes answers that did not need to be clued as PPP (I give those clues an asterisk in my listing).
U HAUL
What I GOT*
Cat STEVENS
LOU Reed/Rawls
LIBYA
Tori AMOS Lee
Gamal Abdel NASSER
ALL My Children*
RIYADH
OSLO
JUNE
ISAK Dinesan
Indian OCEAN*
ELIE Wiesel
Timothy EGAN
USSR
TESSA
EL PASO
Fritz LANG
ONE LOOK*
MALI
POOHS
ERIN go bragh
ESME
AL ROKER
SUNOCO
JA RULE
MAO
CCNY
ESAI Morales
So i didnt know many of the golf terms, but dog breeds sure helped me along. liked the theme though. Weird combo of really hard and super easy fill.
ReplyDeleteStipes, ingle, Lang, and JA Rule were all new to me. Getting tired of rap. But we're all different generations here. How about Rory Block, Jill Sobule, Ingrid Michaelson, Jack Johnson...Amos Lee opened for him last summer at The Mann Center in Philly. Ooh, I like The Mann better than The Man.
For the record at weddings people usually say I Will.
Too kind today Rex. What a mess. I bailed out after a couple of minutes.
ReplyDeleteGlimmerglass is right! Rex needs to be more analytical and not just trash a puzzle because the theme answers are not in his store of knowledge. A bit arrogant to label a puzzle as medium simply because he is not a golfer. It was definitely easy - even for a Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that a Jeopardy competitor last night, Doug Behrend, described himself as a cruciverbalist who has had some success in having his puzzles published. Does anyone recall if he has made it to the NYT?
ReplyDeleteHi, @LMS -- you did post that "Ladies Tee" video before, or at least I had seen it before. Still funny, and maybe the only reason I knew the term. So, thanks! Otherwise, what everyone else has already said. Oh, except: if you look at a dog's bones, they are angular, but once you add tendons and stretch skin over them, they are more curvy from hip to knee to ankle (what is that heel-bone equivalent called In a dog?), and then sharply angle down.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was an okay puzzle. The collection of real dog breeds plus golf terms seemed odd to me, like two themes. For the Price of One! Today Only!
You betcha there are Ladies Tees, Rex, and I thank the Golfing Gods for every one of them! Although my first love and greatest passion is tennis, I have occasionally played golf (if it can truly be called that), and Ladies Tees not only enable you to avoid enormous gobs of distance, but also sometimes enable you to skirt all sorts of fiendish hazards comprised of water...or sand...or trees. Of course, if you golf like me, you can always manage to find these hazards anyway -- often on an adjacent golf hole, as you DOGLEG viciously to the right (it's called a slice) on a hole where there ISN'T any DOGLEG at all.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the golf theme of the puzzle, but I could have done without all the tiny little circles that produced the after-the-fact, rather tepid DOGLEG theme. I ignored them all, as I aimed my puzzle tee shots straight and true and right over them. (Much easier to accomplish in a puzzle than on a golf course!)
STIPES is a Tuesday word?
ReplyDelete12:08 Anonymous apparently doesn't recognize what an angle is. Epic, total fail.
ReplyDeleteTough Tuesday! Harder than Medium for most except "Mr. Cranky Pants!"
ReplyDelete@Lewis (7:05 a.m.) -- REALLY???? Obviously Peter Collins has a terrific and very wicked sense of humor. But, oh, those poor, poor kids! This CAN'T possibly be true, can it?
ReplyDeleteI've never played golf, but I found the puzzle easy and fun.
ReplyDeleteWhen I looked at the clue for 44A, I immediately envisioned that exquisite, sun-dried Arabian lutefisk.
Yuck. Mostly awful. And the cluing was pretty bad.
ReplyDeleteINGLE? INGLE??! Oh right- I learned from xwords way back when the meaning of the INGLE part of INGLEnook Wineries.
ReplyDeleteRex - your LADIESTEES rant is hilarious. I' with you about this being too insidery...I just don't give a hoot about golf - unless it's the kind that has the little windmills and waterfalls and gnome houses.
But that doesn't make it a bad puzzle. I found it cute.
And, I found it challenging-for-a-Tuesday - the dog breeds actually helped me get words like INGLE and STIPES.
(I had ScaPES - figuring garlic ScaPES are stalks.)
I use DOGLEG all the time when describing that type of intersection.
@Carola - four legs - cool!
@lms - lol!
Thanks, Mr. Collins. I don't care what the others say - a four-legged doggie puzzle is fine in my book, even with all the subpar fill.
Despite spending every summer playing round after round of miniature GOLF at the Jersey Shore's OCEANside COURSEs, and Bowcraft Playland on Rte. 22 in Mountainside, where we ADDed and CARDED the scores, I have never taken up the 'real' sport. YET, this puzzle was A ONE, sussable, but pleasantly crunchy 'for a Tuesday', w/ two new words for me: STIPES, INGLE. Loved the clues for TESSA and STEVENS (great album that, side A and SIDE B).
ReplyDeleteMy girlfriend's husband is an avid golfer, playing through in any kind of weather. They belong to the country club about a mile from my home, which is advantageous for me because every week or so, I am invited to have lunch at its 'members only' restaurant. Note to Rex: find someone who plays golf at a club w/ a great chef; skip the golf and enjoy the TASTy meal and the scenery!
Like @Hartley, I'm a FAN of any puzzle theme related to DOGs. Thanks, PAC and WS, for this fun go-round. Two paws up from me.
I am often amused by pithy comments from the various Anonymouses (sp?). They dive in with what they must think are a hole-in-one, slam dunk, gottcha critiques penned behind their mask of unaccountability. And then they are wrong. Example:
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous12:08 AM: “Dog legs are angled, not curved, both on actual dogs and on a golf course. Epic, total fail.”
In this case I have no idea what this means. I don’t see anything to do with dog legs being curved in the grid (the circled letters clearly form 45 degree angles) or in the clues. As well, golf course dog-legs are angled but the sides of the fairways forming the angle are quite curvaceous. In that vein and in particular, the hind legs on actual dogs are more angular looking than those on any dog legs I’ve ever seen on golf courses.
So we have an “Epic, total fail?” Wow.
I don’t play golf but I am familiar with the game having watched enough of it on TV over the years. As such, this “played” fairly easy, except for a couple of spots, like the NW and a few PPPs elsewhere. I disagree that this was “too inside.” The theme answers are common golf terms. You want “too inside?” Try these terms, each being a “thing”: up and down, draw, hybrid, bunker, read, trap, fringe, line, fade, bump/pitch/chip and run, drop, tap in, ground, scramble, and lay up -- commonly said/heard multiple times during any golf game or broadcast thereof. However, those aren’t the most “inside” terms by far. Consider: supination, Road Hole, pronation, pace, Nassau, hosel, grain, floater, dead hands, cleek, borrow, and fried egg.
Regarding golf on TV, I am always impressed by the work of the cameramen. Among other things, I don’t know how they can follow that little white ball against a sky that is often almost as white from tee to landing. Their “color” shots of the surrounding flora / fauna are usually nothing short of stunning. I have no doubt the ones who do this are among the best cameramen TV has to offer.
I liked this way more than @Rex. Also I can’t and don’t complain about answers I just do not know other than to say they can make solving more difficult or sometimes impossible without cheating. But that’s always on me. As to not “caring” about certain answers, I am normally NOT very much pro-hip-hop and “I just don't care” about the JA RULEs of that world, whom I have never heard of, “Like, ever.” (cf. @Glimmerglass 7:36 et al – well said.)
Cheers
You left out "sit". As in "sit like a police dog!"
DeleteAgain. So tired of sanitized mass murderers. This time (again) MAO. "World leader with a distinctive jacket" Better is "distinctive record of genocide" And if you can't properly place him in history try this. "Hillary's clothes designer"
ReplyDelete@nancy -- here's what Peter wrote:
ReplyDelete* I like that I was able to fit the names of my three children – ELIE, ESME and ESAI — in the grid. (By the way, the baby’s on its way – ELKE if it’s a girl, ESAU if it’s a boy?)
I don't care about this puzzle. But I'm a church organist who had 9 people to dinner on Easter, I just got to the Sunday Puz last night. And I have a question: Fifth to the last word in the Lord's Prayer GLORY? How in the world do you count that? If you're Protestant the answer should be Power or And. If you count For Ever as two words, the. If you're Catholic it's But or Deliver. Please explain.
ReplyDeleteGlory. For ever and ever. Amen
DeleteTough Tuesday, especially for one who knows little about golf, but I managed to enjoy most of it anyway. The dogs in the circles definitely helped with the solve. They deserve a treat.
ReplyDeleteWay, way to hard for a Tuesday. I normally time myself on Tuesdays, but just ONE LOOK showed it was a waste of time to even try. If I had noticed the dog breeds, "setter" would have made me sure that STIPES was correct, so the circled letters could have helped in the solve.
ReplyDeleteTo me, CARDED is what happens to the younger folks in a bar. Never heard of the golf usage. Did recognize LADIES TEES though.
Even though I golf more than one ought to, I still struggled a bit with this one because of Jarule, panpipe and ingle (which I have not seen in too many years to remember). But, let me address the subject of golf to the heathen non-believers, including OFL. Golf is, as Ben Hogan said, 100% mental and 100% physical. With either part not at that 100%, your game will suffer. And that is the reason for the obsessive hold the game has on its players. Yes, it is fun to play once you learn but, it has the ability to elate you or break your heart within minutes of each other. And, just for a life lesson every time you play, the better you are able to keep your emotions under control, the better chance you have to play as well as you can. Thus, someone like John Daly, who has/had a boatload of talent at golf, has never been able to control his emotions (or addictions) and thus has had a mercurial career and life with many wives etc. So, while you are out getting fresh air and mild aerobic activity (don't play cart golf!), your brain is constantly engaged in making decisions all the while trying to evaluate your ability, the situation and your goals. There are not many things in life that engage all parts of yourself in one activity while improving both your mental and physical fitness. You might even have an easier time solving crosswords!
ReplyDeleteWell I was fine with it. Disappointed only that @Rex did not birth a cow for us at the use of the term LADIES TEES which have not been called such for a couple of decades now. Turns out he knows little about golf, and hence calved instead because the puzzle was out of his ken.
ReplyDeleteYup, the LADIESTEES are now the forward tees. And most courses have gone to the expense of putting in a set of tees between the white tees and the forward tees called Senior Tees so old farts like me don't have to admit to playing the forward tees.
@Rex - I know the name JARULE, therefore he is a perfectly acceptable Tuesday rapper/hip hop entry. If I have heard the name said artist is significant, believe me.
@Kitshef - Anyone honest enough to confess to a 128 must be an enjoyable golf partner, just a tad slow.
Hey, it must be children's week here at the NYT crossword! Yesterday and today the themes could have come right out of Highlights magazine!
ReplyDeleteNo trouble getting the golf words.
ReplyDeleteBut I get turned off when I see circled letters. I start in and am filling right along, forget about them when they are not integral to getting the word., and then with too many answers in, I don't see any pattern to the circles as I might have had I started with the idea the circles were integral to the theme or the answers.
I don't like the 'discover later' type of hidden surprise. It seems gratuitous of the constructor, on a par with "stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum, and said 'what a good boy am I' ".
Golf clap for @doorslam (06:08)'s comment.
ReplyDelete@Andrew Heinegg (11:32 a.m.) -- My brother is, like you, a passionate (and quite decent) golfer and loves it for many of the same reasons that you do. As for me, I will tell you about a conversation I had on the tennis court many years ago:
ReplyDeleteIt was a horribly windy day, with the wind swirling about from every conceivable direction. A day on which I never would have chosen to play, except that, when I originally left my house, it wasn't nearly as bad. I was playing as badly as I always did in such conditions, and I was bitching and moaning on every changeover, and sometimes even in between points. On one of the changeovers, the friend I was playing against gently chastised me: "Try to enjoy the conditions, awful as they are, Nancy," he said. "Think of it as a challenge."
"It's NOT a challenge," I retorted. "It's adversity. And I HATE adversity! If I liked adversity, I would have become a golfer!" And there you have my feelings about golf in a nutshell. It's a ridiculously difficult game and the golf course always wins.
ReplyDeleteCute enough theme for a Tuesday, I guess. I enjoyed the dogleg turns in symmetrical positions, and the LADIES' TEES.
As I was filling in LANG the Fritz LANG movie "Scarlet Street" (1945) was playing on TCM. Great film noir.
The PAN PIPE can produce much wonderful music besides "El condor pasa." So can the harmonica.
ESAI-ELIE ESME, signing off.
I'm not a golfer so a couple of new terms for me. Apparently some golfers are new to them as well. LADIE had to sit there by itself for awhile. Other slow downs were not knowing how to arrange the last three letters of RIYADH and conflating winsome with lissome because of lithsome. Yes I actually wrote in LINSOME. All the ese and the other easy elements made all the little roadblocks blocks simple to correct.
ReplyDeleteUSSR is a country? Maybe the Th ird Reich was too.
I hope Mr. Collins is joking about the kids names. I can't wait till my wife comes home to tell her how we could have named our kids just to see the look in her eye.
This didn't seem like a Tuesday to me. EGAN, STIPES, INGLE, DEKE, ERIN (with a tough cluing), CARDED...
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many dnf's there were at the bottom right corner, with ESAI, ELIE, and DEKE. I can see INGLE/NASSER being a natick for some people too although I guess Nasser isn't especially obscure.
It can't be an accident that ELIE is one of the answers. It's the name of a wonderful links golf course, not too far away from St. Andrew's, in Scotland. An OCEAN GOLFCOURSE where I CARDED a decent score way back when.
ReplyDeleteI knew the GOLF terms and smiled when I saw the DOG LEGS in the circles so this was a success for me. I have never played a round of GOLF even though I grew up across the street from the nine hole municipal course in my small hometown. We played on the fairway after dark and wore holes in the turf for bases when we had a pick-up ball game going, but no golf for me.
ReplyDeleteThis was rather hard for a Tuesday but no POOH POOHS from me. Thanks, PAC.
Ladies tees are more properly known as the forward tees. I am a long-term low handicap golfer who is very much in favor of more people playing forward tees then do. Being a golfer did not really help with this puzzle. I thought it was generally okay though.
ReplyDeleteDoggies! Rough!
ReplyDeleteTop picks for names of Collins dude's kids:
* AONE. Middle name Stekksauss. [har. Autocorrect is loosin its day-um mind]
* POOH1 and POOH2 (collectively, the POOHS).
* PSST. Also, homophone of what the kid named POOH2 will grow up to be.
* IGOT. Middle name Rithum.
* DEKE. Actually, wasn't there an astronaut with a name like that?
* VODKA (Collins). Sorry. Couldn't resist.
* SOOTY. Futuristic-soundin. ("Beam me up the chimney, ___!")
* PEWIT. For emergencies, only -- like, if there is no other way left to successfully fill out the birth certificate form, due to crossin dogleg entries.
Doggies! What a bent idea!
Re: CARDED. M&A played golf a lot, once. Then he finally realized what he was doin. Now he just goes for walks, swingin a tree branch and lookin for loose change. Anyhoo, back to CARDED: My group used to say stuff like: "I shot an eight. CARDED a bogie." So … ok -- a familiar enough golfin term.
May-urd. Missed the noon cutoff. One too many c-rolls. Afternoon readers luck out, again.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
practice for The Masters:
**gruntz**
@opera queen welcome!!! stick around...maybe you'll sing an aria or two!!
ReplyDeleteI'm with Tita on the windmills, waterfalls and gnomes. In the summer, Governor's Island in NYC will feature an exceptionally whimsical mini golf corse designed by artists. Despite my lack of golf knowledge, didn't find the clues to be that difficult. I was relieved that the golfer with the two names each of which, have an a, i, and o, and a consonantdidn't show up to the party. He's an almost LFC, but I can never get the order of the letters right or remember the k and the s.
ReplyDeleteAs for AL, I am embarrassed to say that during the three hours I spent on the mat with his son "ROKE" during my black belt test last June, I didn't recognize him. He and his wife were such enthusiastic supportive parents so it's not as if I didn't notice them as they cheered their son on. I was always a fail at celebrity spotting when I'd hang out with the nursery school mom's at the Starbucks near my son's nursery school and next to one of the major network studios in NYC.
@nca president, so are red, white and blue tees are to golfing, what green circles, blue squares, and black diamonds are to skiining?
@jberg - Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteHello ESME, ESAI, ELIE and ISAK! Welcome back to OSLO!! In the context of a blithely complex theme, am happy to consider you guys as a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheekery.
ReplyDeleteAnon 12:08, in canine DOGLEGS, the BAREBONES are angled, and the muscles add curves, much as in humans. I'm talking about the hind two of the four legs. Can't speak for what doglegs do on a GOLFCOURSE; I'd rather assumed dogs (for aesthetic reasons) are not allowed.
By no means an expert, since the only thing I enjoy about golf are PG Wodehouse's short stories, but CARDED didn't sound at all golfish to me. Last I came across the term was when my nephew came back here to interview ONE-Ls who'd applied for an internship with his NYC law firm. We met in the lobby of a local hotel for a drink, and when we ordered, they CARDED him. He, being then in his early 30s, was embarrassed by being thought to look under 21. For my part, I was embarrassed by being made to feel some kind of a child-molesting cougar.
Was pleased to have all those undergrad Botany COURSEs pay off for STYPES, which left me with some non-cosmetic LADY ESTEES. Then went blithely on to a certain RIYYAD, with no idea Y so much trouble. After Jean Auel recently led to a discussion of CRO-Magnon O's, it was interesting to find 18 of them in the COURSE of solving, though admittedly 18 would require a whole lotta of LISSOME. Anyway, 18 holes gives lots of opportunity to lose some balls, even if you gruesome.
Liked several of the long fills, such as HALOGEN, PANPIPE, SCOUNDREL and INGLEnook Wines. If I'm privy to something, and you're privy to something, does that make the twooofus PRIVIES? In LOU of better, we have us another spot for that LEAK.
Fun Tuesday, PAC-MAN. Honi soit qui MALI pense.
Great puzzle. No dnf even if I just wrote in a couple of word and hoped for the best. Great to see a golf theme just ahead of the masters in a week from Thursday. I sense some sour grapes from Rex because he doesn't golf. Waiting for the wind to die down so I can go play a quick nine at the griff.
ReplyDelete@Chuck McGregor - I prefer anonymice.
ReplyDelete@Paul Johnson - Too funny. Check out the photo here. Try to read the article, too, but I suspect some won't believe a word of it.
I am curious how you feel about including Andrew Jackson or Abraham Lincoln or Harry Truman in puzzles. Or maybe they're okay because we agree with their results? Losing 2% of the population is understandable and justified when we agree with the political aims of the "perpetrator,"* right? Killing a quarter million Japanese in a single act to force an early surrender and save American Servicemen's lives is tragic but defensible. Forced relocation of tribes? Well, we needed the land for our slaves.... I must admit it is hard for me to get too worked up over MAO, or Ché, or Fidel in a puzzle because of that whole "judge not" thing I was raised with.
@Andrew Heinegg - 100% physical‽ I'm sorry, but anything that can accurately be described as "the best way to ruin a pleasant walk," that can be played with minimal drop in achievement while drinking a six-pack, that is essentially solitaire, cannot be described as 100% physical. Usain Bolt, Ronda Rousey, Serena Williams, Miguel Cabrera. Those people are engaged in sports that are more physical than golf. Golf, at best, tests fine motor control and repetition. Maybe endurance as we get older. Nobody has ever said. "I need a good workout. I think I'll go play 18."
*I don't really think of Lincoln as the "perpetrator" of the Civil War - it's just a little hyperbole to make a point.
Took me forever to track down a wrong letter. Had LEAD for LEAK (Pipeline problem), which seemed a little irreverent but plausible. DEKE was a meaningless string of letters to me until today.
ReplyDelete@jberg, Mazel Tov!!
ReplyDelete@David Epstein, nice pickup on RIYADH-OSLO-OIL
@Hartley,face-off onLEAK vs LEAd. Lead is bad,butyou know what needs to be done. With a LEAK, you can tear out all kinds of structural guts while you're trying to isolate the source. Or so I've heard.
Maybe kd instead of Fritz?
@Proud Mamma, it isn't so much if they say DO/will, as it it is whether they don't/won't.
@Gregory Schmidt, Gregory STIPES, pretty funny!
But Arabian lutefisk takes the cake, no lye!
Now for my chance to get technical right back @Chuck McG: Some of your cited jargon isn't solely golfish. You wear down the heels of your shoes on the outer side on account of ankle supination, on the inner side if you're pronated. Your forearm also supinates (palm up) and pronates (palm down). If you can't make up your mind, you're mezzo-mezzo
@Lewis, think everyone missed your 'fairway'?
For the most enjoyable take on golf, let me recommend PG Wodehouse. The perfect subject for Brit Humour.
I agree with Rex. The theme was way to esoteric for a Tuesday. The only golf I've ever played was miniature golf. I didn't know any of the golf answer and couldn't complete the fill until I realized the circled letters was dog breeds. I did not like this puzzle at all.
ReplyDeleteLove the concept @12:08 of 'actual dogs'. As opposed to virtual dogs, CGI dogs, or my imaginary dog, Phydeaux.
ReplyDeleteAlways have to laugh when someone says 'Mister Crabbypants'.
Good times.
@M&A - "I played a lot of golf once"...? Sounds like a lot of golfers I know, only they play a lot of golf every round.
ReplyDeleteThe correct quote is from Lee Trevino, probably stolen from Yogi B. "Golf is 50% physical and 90% mental". About right, golf is fine exercise if you walk because that's how it's played. The other is called CARTBALL. smile
ReplyDeleteAONE IDOS
ReplyDeleteMAN, IGOT SOOTY, YET ONELOOK says it ALL,
either LISSOME or FAT booty, it’s the ashes UHAUL.
--- ISAK LANG
If it's Tuesday, this must be the USSR. Or maybe MALI or LIBYA. STIPES? INGLE? On a TUESDAY?? RIYADH (sp.)? And a natick right up there in the NW? I'm supposed to know who Timothy EGAN is? Or Sublime? Never heard of 'em. The G was a 100% guess.
ReplyDeleteAnd we haven't even arrived at the @#$% rapper yet. I do have to smile though, reading OFL's comments. So he's just now getting tired of them? What took him so long?
Despite being a lifelong golfing FAN (and terrible player), I did not like this puzzle at all. As OFL said, every cliche name in the book has been trotted out except ERLE. Plus PSST and ETTE. That's what we call the rough (or, if it's the Masters, where that word is forbidden to say, the "second cut"). As for DOGLEGS, I think some of us are making too fine a point of curve vs. angle; either way they're crooked. And whether they're called "forward" or LADIESTEES, the red markers are used exclusively by female golfers. Next come the gold tees for seniors, the whites for normal play, and finally the blues, or "tips," for tournament play.
For Damsel of the Day, I vote for ERIN Reagan as played by Bridget Moynahan. She can prosecute me any day. A great idea has just occurred to me. My new grading system, replacing the tired old letter system, will be golf-related. This one? A bogey.
AFAR ONAPAR ROLE
ReplyDeleteTODAYONLY at the GOLFCOURSE, at LAST, I CARDED some threes,
ALL the DOGLEGS were the source, I hit RITE from the LADIESTEES.
--- TESSA STEVENS
Again we see that OFL lives in this little closet that he has built for himself. In GOLF you keep score on a CARD. Last time out I CARDED a 43 on 9 holes, including 4 PARs. Anyone who has been around the game for an appreciable amount of time still calls them the LADIESTEES, and yes, they are closer to the pin because the LADIES don’t hit it as far, in general. The stats will agree. In the past few years as the baby boomers have been aging, and also not hitting it as far, many courses have started calling them the forward tees so as not to rob the geezers of their masculinity. My course uses markers on the “forward tees” that are half red (LADIESTEES) and half gold (presumably for “seniors”). I have only seen LADIES using the forward TEES. As for me, I’ve been to a pro LADIES golf tourney and wish I could hit it as far as some of them do, but that’s why they are pros. They don’t use the LADIESTEES, BTW.
ReplyDeletePals and I always enhanced the phrase to ERIN go bragh-less.
Have to go with musical yeah baby Tori AMOS. She shows up frequently.
Bought a CD by AMOS Lee a few years back, pretty good stuff, kinda spiritual even, if you look deep enough for it.
Thought this puz was really easy. No write-overs and IGOT a theme dealing with GOLF.
@puzzle hoarder - Yes,the USSR WAS a country (until 1991), not comparable to the Third Reich which was at best (worst) an idea, or perhaps a concept or plan. Next thing you'll say is that China is not a country?
ReplyDeleteLotta golf stories going around here. I used to consider myself a decent golfer until wreckage of the rotator cuffs in both shoulders changed all that. I do remember one friend who always asked at the end of a round, "what'd you card?" Only guy I knew who said that. Now, if someone asks me that, for example last weekend, I just hit them with my 5-iron.
ReplyDelete@Z and @Chuck McGregor and @the redanman, I walked and carried my clubs all the time for 45 years. I believe that is great exercise, and if the course has significant contours, there is an aerobic benefit. Now, with my shoulder problems and an osteoarthritic ankle, I have to cart, but I hate it.
When I filled in DOGLEGS, I saw SETTER and BEAGLE in the circles, and that was helpful in getting the other two dog breeds as well as their crosses. I know there is no point in adding to the criticisms of @Rex, but it would be nice if he could just let up a little. What's the point of the blog? It should be renamed "Rex Parker Pans the NYT Crossword". At least that would be truthful.
Oh yeah, of course they are now called the forward tees, but some traditions die hard. I'm close to going for those forward tees, btw.
Puzzle constructors expect us to be familiar with:
ReplyDeleteLatin/Greek/Urdu (and French, German, Sp0anish)
Daytime Soaps
Nighttime cable TV
Rappers
Opera roles
The Greek gods of Sinus Congestion and Dysentery
Nursery Rhymes and Harry Potter and Frozen
The Acad. NOMINATED supporting actress from 1948
Hey - name that dictator!
Third basemen, quarterbacks, guards,
Yogi Berra's sayings/Yogi Bear's sayings/Mr. Ed's sayings
The Lone Ranger's nephew's horse's name
Pluto's mother
Pluto's moons
I don't play golf (or any of those aforementioned sports). However, I know that golfers carry around little cards upon which they, always truthfully, post their scores. So even tho I don't know Jarule (or is it Ja Rule?) I'm not complaining, 'cause a LITTLE BIT of sussing with my teensy eensy bit of golf knowledge made it doable.
For a Wed. or Thurs. I agree it was a bit crunchy for a Tues.
But I had a complete and clean solve, so I was surprised it didn't get an "easiest puzzle ever" rating, which would be par for this course. And I did use the theme to help my solve.
Now, on to read the rest of the comments.
Diana, Patient Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
PS - I did sign up for the June 12 tourney in St. Paul! I shall be spectating. (Rather than make a spectacle of myself by competing.)
Forgot to mention that LANG could have been local blues musician Jonny. Got his start as a teen, known as "Kid" Jonny LANG. "Lie to Me" is a fantastic album (CD) and song. Worth whatever you need to pay for it, probably a bargain now, but still gets played at rondo's house.
ReplyDeleteYou guys forgot the puzzle in the circled letters, which I just figured out in today's puzzle (I think my local paper posts these later). I spent an hour coming up with it. "LADIES TEE GOT PRO BELL LOL." As in Peggy Kirk Bell, laughing at the fact there was such a thing as ladies' tees. :)
ReplyDelete