Filed under: Golfist Art, Golfist Wintertime Diversions, My Bidness, NaNoWriMo, Naturalism, golf news | Tags: abandonner, chick lit, kindle, memoir, NaNoWriMo, narcissism, NY Times Bestseller List
Video update of my NaNoWriMo project, Abandonner: A Memoir of Regret. It is taking all of my powers of literacy and observation of women in their natural environment to write this exploration of the feminine psyche from the perspective of men who abandon them. I am writing in the Chick Lit category.
Filed under: Golf and Religion, golf culture, golf equipment, golf news, my golf | Tags: 2009 golf season, bitter dregs, final round of golf, last round
The last weekend of golf is like the final sips of a good bottle of wine. Some people stop after the first glass, but I tend to take golf to the bitter dregs if given the opportunity. I played last weekend during a splash of 60 degree weather. I walked 3 holes -the first three of Wakonda which are the toughest three starting holes in Iowa. I birdied the first hole by holing a chip, tripled the second after getting in the bunker off the tee shot and flubbing the sand shot due to wet sand, and bogeying the third after getting on in regulation and three putting.
This was 2009 in a precise nutshell. I should give up golf and only write about it.
Filed under: HAC, golf culture, golf news, golf philosophy, my golf | Tags: arnold palmer designed course, HAC, Ryder cup style match play, TCI, tournament club of Iowa
Steam rising from the beast
The HAC was played at the Tournament Club of Iowa (TCI -link). After 27 well fought holes, the South of Wilden crowd has won their first trophy in several decades. In my matches, paired with the stalwart MS, aka Cutter, we fought hard against our opponents, RT and TB, but driving accuracy, length, and good looks cannot match laser wedges and dropped twenty foot putts. My hat’s off to our opponents.
I have one comment to make about TCI. Designed by the inimitable Arnold Palmer, it is an anomaly in Iowa. Unlike much of Iowa which is flat as a tabletop, this area around Polk City above the dam is topographically more like the moderately hilly parts of Pennsylvania farm country. There are ravines and low buttes. Arnie, using his deep experience with golf as an instrument of pain, has created a monster that demands to be fed golf balls.
These are not subtle tricks of the light that cause golf balls to wink out into moderate rough like at Wakonda. No, its craters are like giant salad bowls filled with knee deep vegetation that swallow up those Titleists, Bridgestones, and Nikes like grains of table salt shaken into a green shag carpet.
Golf is about the mind. Each of us have fears that certain golf courses use to guide us away from our purpose of reaching the hole. I grew up playing golf in Florida, and I welcome water and sand. Florida, like Iowa, is usually flat, but water and beach sand are rare commodities here in Iowa and are usually my allies in matches against the land locked. Hills and elevation changes add a third dimension that I often find confounding on approaches, and the penalties of a lost ball are much higher than for water or sand.
But despite all this, everything is trumped by the ability to get the ball close and dropping that putt, and that is where I failed. It’s back to the lab.
dropping putts is the whole point of golf
Filed under: HAC, golf culture, golf news, my golf | Tags: GHIN, golf handicap, transparency, USGA
The HAC, our neighborhood tournament, is coming up and to insure complete transparency in the handicap process, I again offer up my card. I have been struggling while I fix my short game using the books by Stan Utley available on Amazon. Occasionally, I will hit a pitch that defies all reason but it could be really really good or really really bad. I carry a 20 course handicap at Wakonda. The anomalous 76 taken under shamble/scramble/individual conditions was posted after some deliberation, again for the sake of transparency.
Filed under: golf equipment, golf news, my golf | Tags: cheap golf ball, gamer, golf ball review, top flite
I am a big fan of cheap golf balls. I see no need in spending 4 dollars a ball on one of the premium ProV1’s or Nike Tour balls -I reserve these for tournament play. I have been playing the Costco Titleist -which has changed its label, but I believe it is in the range of the DT SoLo, and it is a good ball, costing about 28 bucks for 24 balls, or 1.17 dollars a ball. Its an okay ball, but it always felt a bit dull around the greens with moderate feel and spin. It has always been a tradeoff between added distance and feel/spin/stopping power, and only the premium balls seem to combine these two qualities.
I decided to give these balls a try. They cost 18 per dozen, or 1.50 per ball. It is a three piece ball, which is a premium indicator. The packaging and logo are garish, a symbol of these loud times, but the ball is a winner.
It feels indistinguishable from the ProV1 or the Nike Tour. I didn’t get as much distance off the tee as I usually do with the Costco Titleists, but the real benefit is around the green. I have been obsessed with feel and control around the green, and these balls are fitting into my game. They have a very nice feel off the wedge or putter, roll true, and have excellent traction. On medium soft greens (sprinkler only, no rain all week), I stopped a 3 iron within 4 feet of its ball mark on three occasions (three rounds yesterday, a day off).
What is great is that Top Flite which had the reputation of “Top Rock” with its dumping of crappy distance balls has developed a niche -the cheap premium ball. This ball is the Subaru WRX of golf balls -you get M3 performace for a bargain. Now if they could only gentrify the packaging and de-WalMart the logo, I’ll be a happier camper.
Filed under: golf culture, golf news, my golf | Tags: GHIN, golf handicap, golf transparency, USGA
I played a speed 9 today after work and before dinner. Some people love to go to the gym and get on the treadmill for an hour. I prefer to play a quick nine. After my recording a 76, a score lowered by the format of the tournament, but listed on GHIN for the sake of completeness, I played today and had a reasonable round of golf -more in line with how I usually play.
I hooked my first drive into the woods. I spent about 15 minutes looking for it, and found it. It’s a luxury to play with nobody behind you, and in finding the ball, I didn’t have to go back and hit another one. I hid a beautiful fading 7 iron over an obstructing oak tree back onto the fairway, and fluffed my pitch, with a subsequent long and short putt, I made double, which on #1 is a common score even when you’re on the fairway. #2 was fired with the 10mph right to left wind -I shot a perfect fade which straightened out, but was short because of how high I hit it. I pitched short, but made a remarkable 15 footer for par.
#3 was a bogey of not much note -I missed a 5 footer for a par save. #4 was a great sand save, with an up and down for par. On #5, the trouble began. I couldn’t hit an approach shot for anything and ended with a triple. #6, I hooked OB and struggled to get a triple. #7, lost ball and a triple. #8, OB left and subsequent triple.
The stretch of four triple bogeys gave me some perspective. I was swinging away without much purpose, and the purpose of the game is to make physical a mental and even spiritual plan of action. Keeping my thoughts in the moment, I had the same hard 10mph wind now left to right and slightly from behind. I took a 6 iron and played my natural draw. It almost hit the flagstick and landed 15 feet behind. I visualized the line and executed -dropping the putt for birdie.
This game is at first a purely physical one for the 90+ shooter. In the 80’s, it is a game of processes -pars and bogeys. To get the the 70’s and closer and even under par, you have to get spiritual.
I left #9 thinking I could reel off five or six more birdies. I was quite sure of it, but didn’t feel overly pressured to do it. I went home for dinner. Not all that unhappy about my 4 triple bogeys, but contemplative about my one birdie.
Addendum: By slowing down my swing over the weekend, I managed to hit over 70% of my fairways, and reach 60% of the greens, but was troubled by putting -this was because the Stimp meter was running out at close to 12 feet! At Oakmont speeds, I was rolling the ball over the holes or lipping out. Earlier this week, after work, I played after the greens were a more manageable 10.5 feet on the Stimp, and I shot a 41 and 47 for an 88 -the back nine was done in a rush and I had three triple bogies due to errant tee shots. Slowing down the game, visualizing -trying to see the ball lying in the grass, the terrain, the sky, the wind, the trees, the green, and above all the target, really does pay off.
Also, my putting improved after copying Wie’s putting changes -hand press forward, no slap, athletic spine posture.
Filed under: Golf and Computers, golf news | Tags: contest, giveaway, View Ti Golf
I was having problems with my View Ti Golf, but the usual fix of removing, resetting, and reloading appears to have fixed it. On my home course, I have made it a practice to keep a notebook of findings, conditions, plays that work, and yardages, so I only rarely use View Ti Golf. It’s when I go to a course that isn’t as well marked and new to me that View Ti Golf shines. My review is linked here.
View Ti Golf, which has never given me any funding or support, recently responded to a support query about the same crashing question. I have no reason to believe that it was the program, but the way that the iPhone apps can interact. I have found them to be a gracious, class act. They have given me a free download of View Ti Golf. Which I will give away to a reader who comments below. The contest will close out on 12am of Father’s Day, US Central Daylight time. I will then program my HP15C calculator to generate a random number between 1 and the number of commenters, and I will run this program five times, picking the fifth result. I will post on Father’s day.
You have to have a valid email. That’s it. It’s a 25-50 dollar value depending on what they’re doing at the App Store.
Good luck.
Filed under: golf news, my golf | Tags: a1/a4 hybrid bentgrass, golf course maintenance, golf course renovation, resurfacing golf course, USGA greens committee, Wakonda Club
Tee box, Wakonda Club No. 12
I played Saturday and Sunday on Wakonda -it’s convalescence from a replacement of her greens and fairways now complete. Many trees are gone, more have been planted, and it’s not playing any easier. I was playing in the 80’s and 90’s this spring on other courses. Coming back, I barely got through just 9 holes on Saturday in 38 degree wind chill and 25 mile/hr winds. Yesterday, I played in club 2 man best ball -was bested by a pair of brothers, but found a new friend in partner TR.
The greens -I can’t say enough about how
A1/A4 hybrid bentgrass -the good stuff
perfectly smooth the grass is and how wicked fast the ball rolls. On 14, a par three with two tiers, my ball on the fringe, on failing to roll up to the second tier, rolled back and off the green. It is like the surface of a very expensive billiard table -the never skipped or jumped but rolled end over end like on a glass surface.
The look of the course is sharply different on some of the holes. No. 11 which I blogged about last year (link) had what I termed an oaken shield wall -all gone. The before and afters are below. The hole plays the same, but you can’t rely on underbrush and trees to slow your progress off to the next hole with errant shots. You need a perfect tee shot to the left center onto an ever narrowing fairway to get an uncluttered approach, or if you go right, you have to deal with the tree of despair which, gratifyingly, has been kept with a high fade with a long iron or hybrid.
Wakonda No. 11, May, 2008
Wakonda No. 11, May 2009
After the third putt...
The course remains a relentless test of golf and character with no bailouts, no quarter given. There is no safe place to run up the ball, no place to bail out with a short slice, and no place to ever let your guard down. It’s stunningly beautiful.
Wakonda No. 3, third of the toughest starting 3 holes of golf in Des Moines, possibly in Iowa.
Filed under: Golf politics, Liberty, golf news, golf personalities, golf philosophy | Tags: afghanistan, hybrid bent grass, resurfacing golf course, spring golf, ssg vile, twitter, Wakonda
Only 10 more days until they unleash the dogs onto Wakonda’s newly resurfaced fairways and greens. The loss of old growth oaks around the greens to ensure 8 hours of summer light may signify changes in the character of the course or just a hair cut. I favor the latter.
I recently started following Twitter and was amazed at the ability to narrowcast my interests to a likeminded group of people. The story of the week is Staff Sergeant William Vile’s disappearance -he is officially MIA (link). The action resulted in US casualties -follow it on www.milblogging.com and www.bouhammer.com. Political persuasion aside, you have to hear it from the people on the lines to make an informed opinion. As much as Huffingtonpost amuses me, to rely on any single news channel (includes you people tuning Fox in the doctors’ lounge) invites tunnel vision.
We’re on the 7th hole of 2009, and we’re going about 4 over. Hopefully, we’ll finish out this nine with a few birdies, including finding SSG W. Vile.
Filed under: Golf and Computers, golf culture, golf news | Tags: golfmoticons, docmoticons, emoticons, twitter, text symbols, hieroglyphics, symbolism, symbol, logo
I’ve been on Twitter for about a month now, and finding it a useful expressive outlet. The above text icon is a golf ball with angel wings. These usually come about as I’m waiting for something to happen -usually a case to start, or a phone call to come in. GolfGirl has collected some of these on her excellent blog site (link). I look forward to the day I can communicate purely in my private hieroglyphic.
Here are some that come to mind:
- /. is teed up
- ≈O≈ is island green or focus
- 8 is of course snow man
- @ is ball in the hole
- ~o is putting the ball in motion
- # is wearing plaid
To these I’ve added docmoticons -symbols of whatever I’m doing while I’m not a golfist, ie. a surgeon
- & is sitting hunched over reading the iPhone
- } { is talking to people
- “( ) is a thought bubble
so when I tweet, &”(/.), it means, I’m sitting with my iPhone, thinking about getting teed up. Or, } {“(~o), means I’m talking to this person, but I’m thinking about getting the ball in motion.
I’ve added another one on Facebook -don’t know which category it fits.
UU UU means two old ladies sitting in a sauna.
