mirv

78 saturday, 79 today (same course). starting to gear up for my first club championship, which'll be played on said course. it's going to be flighted, so i'm thinking if i shoot something like 80/77 i should be able to at least place in the second flight.

so today my dad and another fellow named dale were playing at the local muni. we'd finished our regular 18 and were going to play another nine when two guys pull up behind us on the first box and say "hey fellas, you want to scramble 2 against 3?" i look at dad and dale, who just shrug, and i say "sure, why not? do you guys want extra strokes or anything for having one less player?" the guy says "nah," all cocky. now my dad wasn't having his best round ever, but dale was hitting some great tee shots and chips, and i was just being fairly consistent all around (shot 78 for the par 70 course), so i knew we weren't going to get totally crushed, but as confident as these two were acting, and pulling up and challenging us 2 against 3... i was assuming they were a couple of scratch players looking to take our lunch money. that didn't quite prove to be the case. first hole, the cocky one (chris, his name was) hits a huge hook into a pond. his partner (blake) swings right under his ball and pops it about 20 yards straight up into the air, and it lands about 10 yards in front of the box. they play the 10-yard drive and manage to pull out a bogey. dad, dale and i get an easy par. second hole, we roll in a birdie, chris and blake get a par. third hole, blake goes OB right, chris goes OB left. they wind up with a triple bogey to our par. fourth hole, chris and blake finally put one in the fairway and get a birdie (however, i chip in from off the green to also get a birdie for our team). fifth hole is a pretty tough 165 yard par 3 to an island green. i stick my shot 10 feet from the flag, chris goes in the water, blake hits the bank but rolls back into the water. so dad, dale and i are standing to the side of the green after i've marked my ball, chris and blake are looking for blake's ball so they can pull it out and drop there. after a few minutes of searching and i guess ultimately not finding the ball, they get in the cart, drive back towards the fifth tee box... then keep on going. we never saw them again. i mean really, come on. we hadn't been ragging them or anything, we'd been nothing but nice. i thought it was both comical and downright rude all at once for them to just drive away like that. granted we had a 5 stroke lead on them (about to be more, since we were in prime birdie position and they would be trying to save par from the designated drop area 50 yards out), but still... if you're going to abandon the round, at least come over, shake hands and say as much. you guys got any stories about strangers challenging you on the course?

well, i sorta have two first eagles. the first one was on a very short course that's barely a golf course at all and more like a goat farm with some flags sticking out of the ground. the par 4 third hole really isn't a par 4 at all, i don't think, because it's only about 210 yards long. so i hit the green in one, walk up there and sink my putt, but just can't convince myself that i really made my first eagle. it doesn't feel right. it feels like i just made a really excellent birdie on a long par 3. the first one i count was at a course only about 2-3 miles away from the previously mentioned course. it's a pretty short par 4 as well, but it's about 260 yards and going slightly uphill, so it takes (for me) a pretty good driver to hit the green from the tee. however, i didn't get that drive - what i got was a pretty weak drive that landed about 30 yards short and in front of the green. good lie though, and i pitched it onto the green where it rolled straight into the hole for what i say is my first legit eagle.

i think personality has a lot to do with it for me. my faves on the tour are dustin johnson, steve stricker, luke donald and fred couples, and all of those guys seem to be calm, collected, and pretty laid back.

if i'm playing by myself, it depends on if i'm feeling good about my game that day and/or if i want to challenge myself. either of those being the case, i hit from the tips. if i'm not feeling very confident, i'll hit from the middle tees. if i'm playing with a group of mid-to-high handicappers, we usually all compromise on the middle tees, which i have no problem with. my dad has a real issue about ego in regards to tee boxes, though. for years he insisted that he play the same tee box as me, despite my average drive being 260 and his being about 180 (his irons are equally short on distance). he'd always come in with a 100+ score and i'd say, dad, i promise, you'd have a Lot more fun out here if you'd get up on the senior tees. so now when it's just he and i, he'll play from the forwards, but if there's a group of 4 or 5 of us playing, he still wants to get on that middle or back tee with the rest of us. i pulled him aside again awhile back and said "dad, nobody thinks poorly of you because you're on the reds. we're all friends here, it's okay. get on up there on the reds and shoot 85 and put these guys on the whites in their place." that kind of fired him up a little, i think, and sure enough, he carded an 84 to the other guys 95s.

I played a round with friends today, and it was suggested that we play a game where we switch tee boxes throughout the round based on how you score on the previous hole. If you make a par or better, you move back one tee box. If you make a bogey or worse, you move forward one tee box. Everyone started on the ladies tees on hole 1, and by the turn everyone was on a different tee box. It really was quite a bit of fun and let us see some new views of the course. My friend noted that "it kind of naturally handicaps you a bit through the round," which seemed a fairly accurate assessment. Normally he would shoot 95ish from the white tees on this particular course, and today he shot 83. My score didn't change much since I would normally play the tips anyway, and that was where I found myself spending most of the round (wound up with an 80 after falling apart on the last hole). If you're looking for a way to spice up the game a little, I would suggest this little sub-game.

77 today. 79 yesterday (played with permission from the course owner, since the course was closed). at my home course, i've gotten to where i'm almost never more than 2 strokes away from 79. i love the consistency, though i wish i was shooting 75 (or better!) instead of 79.

wow, that's a pretty cool coincidence - i found myself just two or three days ago contemplating whether yoga would help me get some more flexibility in my golf swing. i log in here and lo and behold, a thread about it sitting right on top of the forum sub-section. one of my best friends, his mother teaches a yoga class just a few minutes up the road from here - i think i may give her a call and make some inquiries.

Psh, no. "Dwight David Eisenhower got in his share of golf, and then some. A study of the 34th president's daily itinerary during his eight years in office from 1953-'61 turns up a staggering 1,000-plus days of golf, including almost 800 rounds everywhere from Augusta National to Cypress Point to Turnberry and beyond. Not that playing 100 rounds a year was a bad thing. But no president before or since played so avidly, and we're now in an age where there's intense pressure on politicians to avoid being perceived as slackers." At the end of Eisenhower's 3rd year as president, he had an average approval rating of 75% and held onto as much while the Cold War was raging. "Commies? Hm. Sounds complicated. I'm going to go ponder this situation on the course." So, say what you will about what Obama has/hasn't accomplished, either way, it very, very probably has absolutely Nothing to do with how much golf he's played.

Age: 32 Where are you from: Cabot, AR How long have you been playing: 8.5 years Best Score: 69 (-1) Favorite clubs: driver, gap wedge, putter Golf Books: hogan's five fundamentals, be the ball, various biographies/autobiographies of famous golfers Where do you play: various courses around central arkansas Things you enjoy most about golf: the sensation of knowing you just hit an absolutely perfect 280+ yard drive without even having to look up at it. you hit it pure, everything felt fluid in your swing, and you know there's no way that ball is doing anything but splitting the fairway. Goals for 2012: get my stance figured out... i never quite feel comfortable over the ball. i think if i could do that i could shake off those last few strokes keeping me from scratch.

Golf might have saved my life.

Ben Hogan always said "I've hit this shot a thousand times, and the shot is still the same, no matter if you're playing for fun, a club championship, a Tour championship, or the US Open." He spoke of Karl Wallenda, "The Great Wallenda," perhaps the greatest high-wire walker in the world, who walked the wire between New York City skyscrapers. When Wallenda was asked, "Do you get more nervous the higher they put the wire?" His answer was, "Why should I? The wire never changes." That puts the whole thing in perspective. Hogan said "I've hit it a thousand times. Why should I be nervous? The wire never changes." When you get to the 18th hole, do you get more nervous because it's the last hole? Why should you? The wire never changes. I think that's the best golf statement I've ever heard. - Ken Venturi

swing changes are pure hell. i went to an instructor awhile back who told me three key things that i was doing wrong to cost me consistency and accuracy. for a solid month after i went to him, i was shooting low 90s where before i had been upper 70s. finally after four or six weeks, a lightbulb went off and i understood what i needed to do to make those adjustments work, and i'm back into the 70s again - shot 75 and 73 just last week actually. i think going from 70s to 108 is a pretty extreme case. gaining 10-12 strokes after a lesson, yeah, that's almost to be expected if you're making some drastic changes. if i were to guess, i'd say the other strokes are coming from your mind. you might not have any confidence in the swing and instead of shooting 90, you let it get in your head and 90 turned into 108. it's easy to let that happen.

scramble is definitely my least favorite format, but unfortunately, about 90% of the tournaments around here are scrambles. give me a good fourball tournament any day of the week.

well shoot. played another 36 today but not nearly as well... 82-79. bumped the ol' handicap back up to a 6.2.

still cold, still wet from the rains, but played 36 today and shot 75/73 (one birdie, 26 pars, nine bogies). today might have been the first time that i played consecutive rounds with nothing worse than bogey on the card.

played 45 holes today. woo! it was pretty soggy/slushy out there due to heavy rains last night, and i was having some trouble getting my weight shifted back to my left side, but despite all that, held on to a +10 for the first 18, +8 for the second 18, and then +4 for the last nine. so +22 total for 45 holes.

today was my birthday, and we (my father and a couple of golf buddies) had planned on heading about 90 mins north to a pretty nice course we all like quite a bit. however... 90% chance of rain/thundershowers pretty much put a stop to that. i had the day off, though, and around 1 decided, you know what... screw it. i'm going to play golf. there's no lightning, just a steady rain shower. as luck would have it, the storms broke up a bit while i was playing and i only had to deal with rain for about 6 of 18 holes. the course conditions, of course, were less than ideal... casual water everywhere, and what wasn't underwater tended to be very soggy. given those conditions, though, i didn't feel an 81 (par 70) was too shabby.

at the local muni, there is a short par 4 that's just a shade over 300 yards long, and it is almost impossible to keep your tee ball in the fairway because the entire hole is canted steeply to the right (it's built on a hillside). today i hit the best drive i ever have on that particular hole (meaning that was my best drive ever for THAT hole, not my best drive ever). the drive was 279 yards per my skycaddie, but it was straight up the center and actually held in the fairway instead of kicking/rolling down to the right. i had 24 yards to the pin and was sitting directly in front of the green. i honestly can't recall ever seeing anyone in that position on that hole in the 8 years i've been playing golf there.

played 27 holes today, par was 35 on both sides and i shot 38/39/35, so total of +7.

well, he may not have won outright, but he's the highest ranked american in the tournament by 3 strokes, so i think that would serve to silence those who thought couples was wasting his pick on tiger.

blah, worst score i've posted in a month or so... 86 (42/44) on a par 72. after 14 holes, i thought i was at least on track to do no worse than 80, but a complete and utter blow-up at 15 where i had to take an 8, and then a double bogey on 17, and missed a 12 foot birdie putt by a whisker on 18... it just wasn't my day.

i don't know about a book you can read, but i know there is a club you can use to add 50 yards to your drive. from what i understand, it's true power is unleashed when you yell things like BOOM and POW at impact.

in the book "afternoons with mr hogan," the guy who was hogan's ball shagger talks about an incident where ben hogan was hitting shots from about 40 yards behind a green with a 49 degree pitching wedge, and one shot came in, checked, then back up half a foot UP the slope. that's a pretty fierce amount of spin, 40 yards with a pitching wedge and getting it to spin backwards uphill. he also noted that years later, he told nick faldo about what he'd seen, and nick set out to replicate the shot. he couldn't do it.