Last week I was invited by Saturn (corporate motto: "Not just for soccer moms. No, really."), to test drive some of their newer models and spend some time at the Orvis Sandanona Shooting Grounds in Millbrook, NY. A couple of days of blasting stuff into oblivion sounded good after the week I was having.

Sandanona is the oldest permitted shooting club in the country (the main lodge was built when Thomas Jefferson was president), and is located in the Hudson River Valley, about an hour north of New York City. But the quiet and serenity of the grounds (except for the occasional shotgun blast), makes it feel like it's a million miles from anywhere civilized.

They specialize in teaching us stressed-out city guys how to shoot sporting clays (clay discs that are launched from different angles and locations to simulate birds in flight), and how to fly fish. Both pretty good alternatives to your usual pressure-relieving activity, drinking until everyone is your best friend and you can't remember where you live.

After our shooting instructor, Pete, a former military shooting instructor, gave us some basic training and tips - along with all the safety instructions we needed to know to keep us from blowing a hole in anything but the intended targets - he positioned ...There's more

Laying up on a par five and hitting the green in three may be good strategy in a golf tourney, but seriously, it's for pussies. If you're not going to pull out a big woods and at least try to slam it onto the green in two, you might as well hit from the reds on the next tee.

So I don't know if you saw, but this past weekend at The Players Championship, Top-Flite had a team of people positioned at the two par-5 fairways wearing black masks and NeverLayUp.com t-shirts. Their sole purpose was to pressure the pros into going for the green. If the guy chose to stick to his strategy and lay up, they'd show their disapproval by turning their back on him, revealing the words "C'mon... Man Up!"

Did any of the pros actually succumb to the peer pressure of a group of masked chuckleheads in black shirts? According to a Top-Flite rep, on the 16th hole the group asked Ben Curtis' caddy if he was going to go for it. The caddy responded by pulling out a wedge. The masked men responded by turning their backs. The caddie put the wedge back in the bag and took out a wood. And apparently later in the day, on the same hole, Todd Hamilton, 2004 British Open Champion, was asked if he would go for the green, he said with a smile, “Well, I have to now, right?”

Neither broke the top 40, but at least they still have their manhood.