Got a new putter after perseverating with classic shaped putters. I just couldn’t bring myself to get a 2 or 3 Ball putter, but the pro shop at my club had these in various heights. After testing it out -it felt so good, and visualizing the line is made much simpler. It resists twisting better.
The proof is in the improved putting I had yesterday despite a steady rain. I averaged 2.1putts/hole down from 2.7 last year. If the manner in which you manage the course reflects your intellect, then the way you putt reflects your temperament.
Saw Happy Gilmore for the first time last night -enjoyed the humor but found the stretching of golf rules too much. Far and away, Caddyshack is the golf movie of record.
The View Ti Golf’s strength is as much in its scorekeeping functionality as in the yardage by GPS. The round I played today at The Legacy in Norwalk, IA, was an evolutionary step. First -the front nine was a better round on several measures – there was only two three putts, and I putted 17 times -under the 18 putt goal. The back nine was another story. The last three holes were played in 8 over par. This is in distinction to the first six holes played in 5 over par. Overall, I was striking the ball purely and was in fact made seven of 18 GIR’s which is pretty good. I had three or four up and downs -these aren’t tracked explicitly in View Ti, but hinted at by the one putts. The things I have to work on can be summarized by the stats screen to the right:
I drove pretty well -in fact, I missed four fairways into the first cut of rough, and had one out of bounds. I played the par fours at bogey but suffered on the par 3 and par 5’s.
But again, to accentuate the positive -I took an average of 2.1 putts/green which is better than 2.7 putts per green which was my season average based on the cards that I kept. I kept a positive attitude through the round and for the first time in a long time, could see the line. The line was not the problem today -it was the strength with which I hit the putts -I missed two birdies by overrrunning the hole.
It was a great round played in bad weather -for most of the round, we had steady light rain and cool winds which kept the balls on the green -I stopped a hybrid 4 at 176 yards dead on the green thats how soft it was. My playing partner, DH, who also toughed it out, agreed that it was a fine day for golf.
I mean, would you miss church because it was raining a little?
The video is a demo of the capabilities of Where To Golf. I will give it a spin and give my two cents. It is currently on sale for a special rate of 0.99 USD. I once thought, well, for free or just under a buck, what’s not to lose by loading the program and trying it out?
For the most part -free stuff is hit or miss. Both categories -cheap and free, do annoy me when they take up valuable space, not do what they are intended efficiently, and worst of all -crash the iPhone which for me is “mission critical.” Being on AT&T in Des Moines is dodgy enough. Having to reboot the phone is really bad -something that I associate with Windows Mobile phones.
The worst free app -the NY Times App -I really hate it. Every few months, I reload the dang thing on my iPhone and try to love it but become stupefied by its slowness and tendency to freeze up the phone.
Because I am willing to go long crazy distances for good golfing experiences, having quick access to a formatted database such as this is potentially useful. So here are a list of my expectations based on my personal needs before I even try the app:
good user reviews of courses -no one line flames and h8trs
ability to upload reviews from non-app sources not typed on iPhone of which the entry method lends itself to one liners
ability to easily request courses
broad database of at least the major public and accessible private courses in every burg and county -Doral is a no brainer, but knowing that a small farm community has a nice 9 or 18 hole track is useful information in planning your life around golf
speed and efficiency
stability
beauty
course layout/scorecards
course slope, handicap, and USGA number for posting of handicaps
posting of handicaps -please someone make this a smooth process when playing away from your home course
So there you go. It’s suppose to rain today, but barring a tornado, I’m playing. I have great Nike rain gear that lets you get hosed down and still stay warm and dry.
Addendum 4/17/2009
Launching the application gives you four methods of searching the database: course name, city, zip code, and GPS location. Choosing location, I get the search list to the right. It has most of the public courses around here, and also includes Ponderosa which no longer exists having been turned into a modern village/pedestrian community of condos, shops, and community meeting places. It was actually the first course I played in Iowa in 2004, but hasn’t been around since 2005. This screenshot was from earlier in the day, and listed courses within about a half hour driving distance but was missing The Legacy which was where I played today. Now, it shows up -I’ve also just started getting followed by WhereToGolf on Twitter. It’s a strange coincidence. My wife tells me my favorite song goes, “Me, me, me, me.” But this is evidence that when it comes to golf, strange things do occur.
Choosing The Legacy, options to call the course, find the course on Google Maps App, and review. You can write your own review which I will do. Launching Google Maps quits you out of Where to Golf, but that is a feature of the iPhone OS.
It is a nice database client -I wish electronic medical records could be as straightforward with their user interface.
It competes with View Ti’s course finder feature, but at least as a start here in Iowa, Where To Golf is more comprehensive, and seems to update before my very eyes.
Given its 0.99 cent price, you can’t beat it because the cheapest flavor of View Ti goes for around ten bucks (the View Ti crew change the price frequently, and have about five to seven different versions -they must be getting their clues from the Windows Vista marketing people).
The call function is a killer function! You figure out what courses are nearby and then call them for tee times -can’t get much better.
As with View Ti -I will keep addending as I come up with thoughts but at least on the first day of use, it does have a reasonable database of local courses (but not all -will check later today and see what else new comes up).
I suppose the next thing to add that no one else has is a way to search for practice facilities, golf shops, and teaching pros/schools.
Addendum 4/22/2009
Got that powerful golfing jones and I booked out of work to get in 9 holes as it hit 78 degrees today in Des Moines. As I was tooling down the expressway, I couldn’t remember the exit. My car’s GPS only has eateries. I open up Where to Golf, press “location” and find Waveland -my destination. I choose map and voila -came up on Google Maps app -it took one more button click to get a route and the exit. Amazing!
My spring effortts are firming up. This included a series of sessions with my father whose short game is spot on when it’s going. He gave me a system to concentrate on. The pitching wedge and the 52 degree gap wedge are full swing clubs. He controls distance by feel, knowing how far the P and G will fly on a full and half swing. The sand is for everything fifty on on by half swinging. Distance control is by choking up for shorter shots. Direction is paramount. The lob wedge is for getting out of sand only and special short stuff when the ball is teed up. This has given me direction.
Putting improved with his tips, but the putting rug has also helped. The big thing is vision. Seeing the line takes practice. The rug helps.
I’ve settled on the R9 Quad driver. It gives me the ability to shape shots. The Sumo straightens me out too much and the offset results in too many hooks. The power fade is a very important bail shot and a technical driver like the R9 lets me do it naturally.
The move to a 4 wood was great. I can jack it almost as far as 230 yards on the fly and it is forgiving. The Nike SQ feels wonderful at address. The previous 3 wood gave me only distress. Carrying the 4 let’s me drop my 5 wood which was my bushwacking club. The hybrid 3 and 4 have the small head that run through rough well and go at least as far as the 15 year old Taylormade steel wood went.
The putter has been moved back to a more traditional putter and is a Never Compromise bought on eBay. I have gained respect for the putter that I never really had before. If you want immediate impact on your game, you need to produce on the green.
This is how the dipstick looked after it was plunged into my golfing soul. 2008 was a great year ball striking -I hit some crazy good shots onto green, but my putting average per hole was about 2.7. This means that I give up an average of 12 strokes a round to bad putting.
It is fairly routine for me to get on the green in regulation or close to it and 3 and four putt.
I think I know now the reason why. All last season, I played with bifocals. This was wrong.
I am now focused on becoming an average to good putter. I will no longer obsess about the purely struck ball. We’ll see what happens.
The LL Bean boot is the footgear that started the empire. It was perfectly normal for me to slide these on over thick wool socks, and tuck my dress pants into the leather uppers. This was okay to do in the Northeast. It is not in the Midwest. Some of my nurses, those who became familiar enough with me to find humor in my actions, found it hilarious to the point of pointing fingers and guffawing. They no longer work for me, but not for this reason.
Truthfully, it is a bit of an affectation because rarely does snow ever reach so high that this is necessary, and most places that I frequent are either indoors or cleared of snow. I did not grow up wearing these in Florida.
I could have many choices of footgear for the snow, but I really like these boots. This despite the fact that they are not all that warm, especially compared to a modern snow boot. In college, in the midst of serious preppies, I found that this is what you wear when you want to take your yellow labrador retriever for a walk in the snow up in your cottage in Vermont. It is permissible to wear jeans for this, but only blue, lightly faded, and only Levi’s.
Otherwise, you presented yourself within the dress code of your prep school or country club. It was my prep school, then Ivy League college education, that made me a fair mimic of the Prince of Wales, sartorially.
It was also important for me to fit in, and I did not want my clothes to be a barrier. Now that I am wise I realize that people who make clothing a barrier aren’t all that wonderful to be around. But that is the difference about living in the midwest and living out East.
In general, but not as a rule, you have a hard time finding a professional job out East without some kind of Ivy League cred. You might say the same about state schools and the old boy networks, and I found that to be just as stifling when I lived in the south, but that was it -in the south, the old boy networks are very important, but so far, to my experience, not here.
Living here in the Midwest, I have found that these elitist codes, and membership and employment in the satrapies of myopic nabobs who find delight in surrounding themselves with other similar people, don’t work. Some of my patients haven’t a clue what Harvard or Columbia are. Or why it is wearing Bean boots with your khaki Chinos tucked in, all while you’re bundled in fashionable, primary-colored layers, wrapped in a Burberry oil skin hunting jacket which identified you as a member of the elite out East, just makes you a curious fellow here in Des Moines -someone overly involved with looking like they’re about to shoot some pheasants, but absent a shotgun, a pickup truck, or a dog.
These boots are now just useful, waterproof footwear, like they were meant to be.
I find living here in the midwest as close to heaven as I can imagine, especially when I contemplate the great golf that is coming my way this spring. Here I live, and here I will be buried.
The Long Island Railroad is celebrating its 175th anniversary, and it reflects the depth of the infrastructure on the east coast compared to the rest of the country. You could literally get aboard a train in Washington, DC, and get to 90% of the points on the eastern seaboard. Where I live, you are SOL if you don’t have a car, and fuhgeddaboudit when gas hits 4-5 bucks a gallon which it will if the economy heats up or inflation starts.
The driving range near my sister in law’s house was one of those summer resort ranges that also had a putt putt course. It is the off season, and there was no one hitting. A large bucket was 10 bucks -expensive. The owner’s dog was an aloof golden retriever who like his owner appears to have seen it all.
I didn’t bring any clubs, and I was pointed to this rack of used clubs from the seventies and eighties -old Wilson blades and beat up persimmons and first generation steel headed drivers. The grips were smooth and bare. I took the challenge and managed to hit some very nice irons and even jacked the persimmon out beyond the 200 yard mark.
It was satisfying to hit these clubs, and it brought back some memories. I think it would be great to have a challenge tournament where people picked out four clubs and a putter out of a pile of old junked clubs. Call it the garage sale open.
The next day, J gave the blessing for me to go out and play on the wonderful Robert Trent Jones’ Montauk Downs course. It was a hoot. The course was basically empty except for golf crazed locals, and a threesome tucked me in and let me play along.
The course is the poor sister of Shinnecock and Bethpage -both US. Open layouts, the first, so exclusive that you have to be born into the club to be a member, the second a N.Y. State Park layout like the Downs. Montauk was a formerly private course that fell on hard times and was bought by the state. It still has the hints of its glory days, and some teeth, though the deep sea grass roughs were mowed down -the gentlemen I played with told me the grass gets knee high and nearly unplayable in season, and the greens are lightning quick in season.
The rental clubs were deeply offset beginner clubs that accentuated my draw into a hook, making play difficult. I scored poorly, but had enough great shots to bring a smile to my face. I look forward to coming back when it does come into its full glory during the mid to late summers.
Being back to reality can be drag, but the memories leave a satisfied feeling. The good holes and shots stand out -the long chip in, the perfectly threaded 4 wood, the par on #1 at Redstone, the par 5 at Blackhorse I reached in 2, the handful of made long putts. But it was the fellowship of my fellow golfers that leaves me pleased. Golfists all, they played with honesty and put one hundred percent into each shot. Every one revealed their true characters on the course, and that is what golf does. I feel very ready for the 2009 season. I have to thank finally the four wives and nine children who made this trip possible.
Golfism -life is a metaphor for golf 
