Category: Trap Five

As 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.

Continue reading “Reasons to Love an Open at Torrey Pines”

When 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.

Continue reading “What Your Clubs Are Saying About You”

It’s dream season here in Ohio. By that I mean the only golf we’re getting to play right now is in our dreams. But it’s also close enough to spring (just over a month away) that we can start thinking about playing. One of these days, the snow is going to melt and the mercury’s going to rise into the 40s, 50s, and (dare we hope?) 60s.

Unlike many years when it’s possible to play at least a few times during the winter, it just hasn’t worked out this year (my wife and I even left the clubs at home on a weekend trip to Florida last month… What were we thinking?). Most of the warmer, dry days this winter have fallen during the work week. On the one or two weekend days that have been playable, I’ve been tied up with other commitments. So, needless to say, now is the winter of my discontent.

Continue reading “The Dream Season”

Golf is often called the most frustrating of sports. There are layers after layers of complexity to learn. Each time we think we’ve got it down, something new rears its head.

When we begin to play, most of us struggle to hit the ball at all, let alone hit it where we want to. After awhile we learn to advance the ball to the green without too much trouble along the way. Sure we still hit tee shots into the woods and approach shots into the water, but eventually we reach the green. But then there are all those individual skills to acquire around the green that help us shave strokes off our usual round. We have to learn to stop the ball on the green, to get it out of a bunker, to chip it close from a tight lie, to pitch it reasonably close from the lettuce, to hit it high and have it land soft, to hit it low so it runs, to get the speed of a putt right&ellip; Suffice it to say, golf ain’t easy.

For those of us in colder climes, winter might well be the most frustrating time of year. But when it comes to playing the game, we’ve probably all had rounds where our game has so deserted us that we’re ready to quit on the spot, to wrap every club around the nearest tree and throw the bag in pond.

That’s our topic today: those golf shots that afflict us and sometimes make us to contemplate taking up another sport, any other sport. The best way to cure these maladies is to see a PGA professional. But barring that, I offer some totally unauthoritative swing band-aids that I’ve used from time to time. Use them at your own risk.

Continue reading “The Five Most Frustrating Shots in Golf”