Author: George Promenschenkel

GPS vs. Laser: What Makes Sense for You?

Which technology best delivers your distance?

Trap Five LogoIt’s an old question, even though the technology has been accessible to the golfing public for only a few years now. Which is better for finding yardages on a golf course: GPS or laser?

Each is a sophisticated technology. The Global Positioning System is an array of satelites that beam precise microwave signals that receivers on Earth can use to establish their location, speed, and direction, as well as the current time. These receivers include golf GPS devices that use those signals to calculate how far the device is from certain pre-programmed coordinates. Laser rangefinders use a beam of light reflected off a target to measure the distance from the device to the target. Pretty cool stuff!

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Cleveland HiBORE XLS Driver Review

Is Cleveland Golf’s latest HiBore incarnation the best of the series?

HiBore XLS DriverWhen the original HiBORE driver hit store shelves, I was among the first in line to pick one up. Frankly, it didn’t work out well. The driver was supposed to hit the ball high, straight, and long. My typical swing with the original HiBORE produced drives that flew wedge-shot high, very straight… and about as far as a 3-wood.

As it turns out, two out of three can be bad. That original HiBORE lasted two weeks in the bag. High and straight are good, but what fun is there in hitting a driver if you don’t get reasonable distance out of it?

I must not have been alone. Cleveland soon replaced the HiBORE with the HiBORE XL. Unlike most movies, in this case the sequel was far superior to the original. Now Cleveland has introduced the third rendition in the HiBORE trilogy. The HiBORE XLS is billed as the hottest, largest faced, and most forgiving yet. Great claims, but do they hold up?

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A Midway Progress Report on My Golf Goals for ’08

Ever had one of those years when the putts don’t fall, the irons hook, the woods slice? Me, too.

Trap Five LogoIn January, I put forth a set of goals for my golf game for 2008. At the time, the year was new and anything seemed possible.

It’s been a year of struggles for me… from a Myrtle Beach trip during which I broke 90 only once, to a weird rib injury caused by (most likely) a sneeze, to my annoying recent habit of stringing pars together on both sides of a quintuple bogey. But I think things are starting to turn in the right direction. The rest of the year will tell.

Let’s see how I’m doing so far…

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Making the Game Easier

Golf is a hard game, but there are ways to make it easier. Some are even legal.

Trap Five LogoThe other day, I had used 38 strokes to get into a greenside bunker on the ninth hole. I was feeling pretty good about my chances of picking up some points for the guy I was subbing for in the nine-hole league. Seven strokes later, I was thinking that there must be a better way to play golf… a kinder, gentler way… one that doesn’t make me want to snap my sand wedge over my bag.

My bladed sand wedge into the deep weeds had some fairly serious repercussions. My enjoyment of the game this year has been a bit strained. I can’t seem to keep the big numbers off the card. It seems like in every round, I’m parring about half the holes, making a birdie a two, scoring a reasonable amount of bogeys, and tossing in the odd, dreaded other.

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What Will We Do Until Tiger Gets Back?

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
We just can’t wait until your knee is right.

Trap Five LogoBy most accounts, it will be a minimum of seven months and as much as nine until Tiger Woods tees it up again on the PGA Tour. The suits in Ponte Vedra Beach (PGA Tour headquarters) and Orlando (Golf Channel) are on suicide watch. The networks are sweating their PGA Tour commitments, worrying about how many eyes will watch Tiger-less events.

Let’s face it: though we like tight tournaments and playoffs, we only really love them when the top guy is involved.

Don’t despair. Tiger will return. And until he does, it turns out there will still be golf to watch and play. Here are a few options to pass the time:

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Nine Holes with Yani Tseng

Should Lorena be looking over her shoulder?

ProfilesAs I write this amid the hype following the U.S. Open, I can’t help but think back to the previous major. No, not the Masters, but the McDonald’s LPGA Championship.

If you missed the Lorena-Annika showdown at the LPGA’s second major, you missed quite a bit. Lorena was riding a two-straight-majors win streak. Annika was making what may well be her final appearance in the McDonald’s. The two most recent world number ones were each in contention down the stretch on Sunday. Everything seemed to be shaping up according to script at the turn, but the show was ultimately stolen by a 19-year old rookie named Yani Tseng.

Like Sunday at the Masters, the final round at Bulle Rock Golf Course in Havre de Grace, Md., was a survival test. Birdies were a rare commodity. Bogey, double, and worse lurked in the deep rough.

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Reasons to Love an Open at Torrey Pines

It’s US Open time, and another public course gets its day.

Trap Five LogoAs I write this, it’s the evening before the first round of the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, and I’m pretty darn excited about this one. It should be a pretty good championship on a pretty good course… one that you and I can actually play by simply coughing up the daily rack rate or purchasing a package through one of the course-side hotels.

Torrey Pines is always a cool stop on the PGA Tour, bumpy January greens notwithstanding. Where else do you see people in hang gliders soaring along the cliffs lining a golf course? (But not during U.S. Open week; they’ve been temporarily banished to other aeries along the coast.) As a choice for a U.S. Open, Torrey Pines has its detractors, but my hunch is it’s going to play well on TV and provide an interesting Open.

Here’s five reasons I’ll be watching all the coverage I can.

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Sponsorship and Golf

Why doesn’t Pepto Bismol sponsor a PGA player?

Trap Five LogoCan you imagine Woody Austin, missing a putt, bashing himself over the head with his putter, and then taking a pull on bottle of Pepto that his caddy hands him. Then the announcer says, “Pepto Bismol, it soothes over the rough patches.”

Watching the players at this past weekend’s Memorial, it suddenly hit me how many players are sponsored by fairly surprising companies. When I think of golf sponsors, I tend to picture equipment manufacturers (TaylorMade, Titleist, and Ping, among others) and investment companies (because golfers all have money, right?). But there are plenty of others that don’t at first seem as well suited to golf.

We don’t see sponsors like Roy McAvoy’s in Tin Cup – “Look at me. I’m playing for… Rio Grande Short-Haul Trucking, Brink and Brown Sanitation, First State Bank of Salome, Wally’s Smokehouse… You think a guy like me bothers to think about the percentages?” – but I kind of wish we did. Still, there are some surprising sponsors out there.

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What Your Clubs Are Saying About You

Who’s this guy the starter paired you with? Is he a player? A pretender? Somewhere in between?

Trap Five LogoWhen you get paired with a stranger on the first tee, do you ever casually check out the contents of his golf bag to learn a little something about the guy? Sure, it’s superficial. And yes, there are always exceptions. But you can often learn something about people by what they choose to put in their golf bags.

There are danger signs that you should be aware of. Slow play and other irritations could foul up that round you’ve been waiting for.

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