SCOTTSDALE, AZ — As dozens of avid golfers enjoyed a beautiful day on courses throughout the area, one local player asked his companions to give him a moment to survey how much range he would need for his next shot before duffing the ball six inches.

Pete Lofton, who had uncharacteristically avoided the trees off the tee to start the fourth hole, wanted to utilize one of his many specialized tools to determine which of his custom clubs he would need to crush his next shot and reach the green, despite overwhelming odds that he would inadvertently dribble the ball only a few inches from its current location.

"Hang on, let me check the distance with my rangefinder," Lofton said to the other members of his foursome. "Gotta really dial myself in to make sure I don't give it too much and overshoot the green. Just too strong sometimes, ya know, fellas?"

Lofton's compatriots remained silent as they watched him use a $400 device to gauge the distance to the green while knowing it was far more likely that his ball would be duffed less than a foot away. "Yeah, we knew what was about to happen," Bill Harmon, one of Lofton's friends, said later. "We've learned to just let him do his thing, though. At least we've gotten to the point where we can keep ourselves from laughing."

At publishing time, the other three players waited patiently at the tee box of the next hole while Lofton took his next seven shots to reach the green and three-putt to finish the fourth hole.

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