Big Break II Challenges

The Big Break II challenges are boring. Let’s hear some suggestions for new ones.

I finally got around to watching this week’s Big Break II. Thank {insert your own deity here} for PVRs. The first challenge (skills) was interesting, having each player hit four balls (two draws and two fades) around a huge obstacle to a green 180 yards away. The player with the lowest cumulative distance between their best draw and best fade was exempt from the next two challenges.

Then I thought they stepped it up a notch for the next challenge in which each player was represented by a small pane of glass mounted in a frame and the players took turns attempting to break other player’s panes thereby elminating that player from the challenge. It required a pretty low trajectory punch shot to hit the glass.

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Know When to Hit

Sometimes a nice, smooth swing won’t get you very far. Sometimes you need to just hit it.

You’re often taught to swing the club, not to hit the ball. However, there are sometimes occasions in which you do want to do something more than swing smoothly.

When playing out of the sand, many people envision sliding the club through the sand. Some envision spanking the sand, or pulling the heel of the sand wedge down into the sand.

When playing from deep rough, a “hit” is certainly required to wrench the ball from the tall grass. When playing a knockdown shot underneath a canopy of trees, many times you’ll want to “punch” the ball.

Golf, strangely enough, can sometimes be a game of vocabulary as we make associations between verbs and the actions required to pull them off. Who know a dictionary and a thesaurus could lead to lower scores?

Long Par Threes

Play golf intelligently and score well, even if it means playing that difficult par three as a par four.

The course on which I grew up had a difficult par three – bunkers and mounds left, right, and long, a rather significant ridge in the green, and tight pin placements. The yardage? 227. Needless to say, this wasn’t ranked a bit higher than the 15th toughest hole on the course.

At the time, I’d typically hit a 5W, 3W, or a 2I to the green. I’d usually be short, and I’d usually be in some trouble in a bunker, on a mound, or more. Until I decided to play the hole with a regular old 4I. There was no trouble short, and I could pitch the ball relatively close. I parred the hole half the time and bogeyed the other half. I almost never got up and down when going for the green, so my scoring average on the hole dropped when I played it almost as a very short par four.

Golf is a game of scoring, and sometimes the path to the lowest score involves a bit of creativity in how you play those holes that seem to have your number.

Woods Goes Fishing (and Lands a Wife)

Tiger Woods marries Elin Nordegren in Barbados.

Elin and TigerEnding weeks, even months, of speculation, Tiger Woods did indeed go fishing in Barbados yesterday. To entertain himself – and the gossip columnists – while he was there, he also married his fiancée (who else?), Elin Nordegren, in “a lavish but top secret $1.5m ceremony.” Click one of the following links for the tedious details.

I can now see one of two things happening. Either Tiger’s game will improve, and everyone will claim that the stability of married life has allowed him to be less distracted on the golf course, or his form will dip (or stay the same – Woods not winning at least eight tournaments a year, including three majors, will always be considered a failure in the eyes of the media), and further speculation about the supposed effect of Elin on his game will ensue.

Congratulations to both of them anyway.

2004 WGC-AmEx Championship: Ernie Els

What Titleist gear did Ernie use to win the 2004 WGC-AmEx Championship?

ernie_els.jpgErnie Els used this gear to win the 2004 WGC-AmEx Championship:

Driver Titleist Titanium Prototype 9.5° with Fujikura Speeder 757 shaft
3 Wood Titleist 980F Strong 15°
2 Iron Titleist 690 CH
Irons (3-PW) Titleist Forged 670
Wedges (SW, LW) Titleist Vokey Design 54°, 59°
Putter Scotty Cameron by Titleist SC-303
Ball Titleist Pro V1x

Yes folks, Els is a Titleist kinda guy.

Big Break II: Jay Can’t Hit a Green

The viewer’s choice Jay McNair goes home after failing to hit a big huge green. Three times.

big_break_ii_mcnair_elim.jpgThe viewer’s choice for this seasons’s Big Break can’t hit a green in three tries from 180, 135, and 110 yards. Jay McNair went home without earning a single point in the elimination challenge. Several others earned only one or two points.

Who can’t hit a fairly big green once? The wind wasn’t that brutal, and if it was the camera sure as heck didn’t show it. The flagstick was barely leaning to one side, for example, and the green was “50 yards wide” as one other contestant said.

I like that there are three challenges each week, and that a player can be granted “immunity” by winning the first. Read more at The Golf Channel.

Bad Holes

Don’t let bad holes get you down: fight to get those strokes back on the remaining holes.

“Oh my goodness, I just quadruple bogeyed the eighth!” Good players will go one direction from here and bad players another. Bad players will assume that their round is trashed and give up. Good players will say “hey, I only have to make up three or four strokes. I’ve got ten holes to do it. That’s just a good chip, a long putt, and a pair of solid shots on that tricky par five.”

Good players don’t get down on themselves after a bad hole. Whether it helps you to think that the golf course “owes you a few” or whether you have to “fight back,” pick a winning strategy, a positive mindset, and not a negative one. You may end up playing some of your best golf.

Beer Cart Girls

Vote for your favorite beer cart girl. Win, uhhh, nothing for yourself!

beer_cart_girl.jpgI’m a nearly married man who doesn’t drink, so I’m not sure what the buzz about hot beer cart girls is. If anything, they’re just an on-course distraction and a reason for a 10-minute delay every time they circle by in their short shorts, tight shirts, and cute little hats.

I’d much rather appreciate the beer cart girls (while enjoying a nice, cold glass of milk) off of the course! And now I can: BadGolfer.com is bringing us over 100 Beer Cart Girl photos. You won’t see these images many other places, though you may want to check out beercartgirl.com. Mia R is pictured at right in, of all things, a sand trap.

Almost makes me want to order a beer. Or eighteen.

Rodney Dangerfield

Rodney Dangerfield passed away at the age of 82.

caddyshack.jpgRodney Dangerfield, 82, passed away today.

Dangerfield fell into a coma after undergoing heart surgery and died at 1:20pm today. Dangerfield had a heart valve replaced on August 25 at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center. He’d suffered a small stroke and some infections after the surgery, and had emerged from the coma just recently. Dangerfield is survived by his wife and two children from a previous marriage.

Rodney was known for his role in Caddyshack and many other movies, standup acts, and sketches. Mr. Dangerfield, you had our respect.