Golf Confessions

Phil will tee it up in the Shell Houston Open.  Phil likes to play the week before a major and will do so this week in preparation for The Masters.  Phil will join Adam Scott and Geoff Ogilvy at the Redstone Golf Club.  The almost 7500 yard layout will be a challenge for the field.  The course is designed to play hard and fast and hopefully the weather will cooperate.

Lorena Ochoa blew away the field at the Safeway International in Arizona.  Ochoa won by seven shots over a strong field.  The LPGA will have it’s first major of the year this week and the odds are that Ochoa will be the choice of the field.

Lorena has played in three tournaments this year and she has won two.  She is definetely putting a tight grip on the number one player title on the LPGA.

Ernie Els will not be playing in the Shell Houston Open this week.  Ernie has cited a recurring problem with a virus as the problem.  The fans will miss an opprotunity to see one of the premier players in the world.  Ernie has not gotten his from back since suffering a boating accident in which he had to have surgery on a knee.

Ernie will need to rest and be ready for The Masters.  The Masters is the one tournament that Ernie truly would like to add to his trophy case.

I made a trip to qualify for the British Senior Open in Northern Ireland and the tournament was played at one of the best links courses in the world, Royal Portrush.  This was my first time to be in Ireland and the entire experience was great.  I got over to Ireland about three days before the qualifying round so I could get over the jet lag and play a couple practice rounds.  The first day I went over to Royal Portrush in the morning and got a practice round in on the tournament site because this was the only time that non exempt players would have a chance to play the course except the day before the tournament started if you were lucky enough to qualify.  When I got to the club house there were some guys that I knew standing on the tee and they had room for one more so I joined them.  I was fixing to see just what kind of Irish luck was following me around.
 
Without getting a chance to warm up I jump up on the tee and reach into my bag to take the head cover off my driver and the head of my driver comes off with the head cover.  So here I am holding my driver head in my hand and I do not have a back up driver.  I hit a three wood off the first hole, which was just fine since I had a lot of adrenaline built up.  Then I run into the pro shop and the old Irish pro tells me that he has a shaft just like the one that had broken and he would have one of his assistants reshaft my driver.  My foursome goes out and plays this great course and for the moment I forget about the driver as I am admiring this most spectacular piece of the world.  Even with my luck starting as it had I knew I had made the right decision to go to Ireland.
 
Upon finishing my round my attention focused back on my driver.  I went into the pro shop and the trusty assistant had started the job but had hardly completed it.  I went into the little repair area and finished the job myself.  Next I hurried over to one of the two courses that the approximately 230 players were to qualify on.  The qualifying field is broken into two groups and half will be on each course for one 18 hole medal play on the Tuesday of tournament week.  Each course will have approximately 24 successful qualifiers out of a field of about 115 to 130.  My qualifying round was on Castlerock.  Castlerock, like most courses in Ireland is fairly old and is a lot of fun to play.  I get a young caddy and off we go for my first practice round.  This first round I am not concerned about scoring but getting a feel for the way to play the course and my strategy on some of the tricky holes.  Most of the holes are just what you see but the biggest variable is the wind.  Depending upon the wind direction the holes can really play so different, the wind here can really blow as I was to later learn.
 
I spent the next couple of days playing Castlerock and working on a couple things on the driving range.  My biggest problem was the newly shafted driver.  Even though the shaft was suppose to be the same as the one I had taken out, as is the case most of the time they never are the same.  As with most of my clubs the weight really makes a difference and this new shaft made my driver feel so much lighter.  I spent a lot of time on the practice tee adding lead tape and taking lead tape off.  I never got the feel I was looking for and the next thing I know it is Tuesday and time to qualify.  You will remember the Irish luck I mentioned earlier, well there is good luck and bad luck.  My tee time is the last one in the field, we all start from the first hole since number ten is not at the clubhouse as is the case with links style courses.  Since everyone starts from number one my starting time is quite late in the afternoon.  The day starts off well enough but as time goes on the weather starts to slowly deterate and thirty minutes before I tee it up the wind is bending the flag sticks over and almost touching the greens and the rain is blowing side ways and is some kind of cold.  Playing in the rain and cold is not my favorite but this is Ireland and you do as the Irish do. 
 
This was the worst I had ever played in, including getting caught in the snow a couple times.  I hit some shots with the wind that seem to go for ever and the ones into the wind were brutal.  Thank goodness the days are long in this part of the world because this weather called for some slow play which I also hate.  When you are in this kind of situation you never know what everyone is doing and how the weather is effecting scores so you better just hang in there and see what happens.  As usual I made a couple mental mistakes that I tend to do under these conditions and especially when I have not been playing a lot of tournament golf.  Coming into the final holes the weather was getting even worse which I thought was impossible and I was trying to hang on.  I double bogeyed two of the last three holes and missed a eight foot birdie putt on the last hole for a 81.  Under most any other circumstances this is not a good score and in this case it also proved not to be good enough because I missed the playoff by one stroke.  I was the last man to putt out and there were a lot of guys around eighteenth green to see what we were shooting.  There were several players affected by what I shot when it came to the playoff.  Eight guys would playoff for one spot and I was not one of the eight and I suddenly realized just how close my dream had come to reality.
 
The entire experience was well worth the trip.  Later in the week I went south of Belfast and played another of the great links courses-Royal County Down.  If you ever have the opportunity to play golf in Ireland don’t pass it up.
 
See you on the next tee. 

Are golf pros boring and does this hurt the game that millions love.  First let us not forget that the ones that play the game for a living-they are people just like everyone else.  Yes they can do things with a golf ball that most can only dream of, but this is their job and they have spent thousands of hours trying to perfect their skills.  It is impossible for most golfers and the non golfer to imagine the thousand of balls these professionals hit and the hours spent, usually alone trying to become good enough to make a living.  When you consider the number of people that play the game of golf and the percentage of people that make a living at this sport it is remarkable.  For someone to dedicate themselves to this routine-he or she has to give up many of the frills of every day life.  Standing on a practice range hitting ball after ball is not that glamorous, the heat of the summer the chill of those cold months.  Bending over putting putt after putt takes its toll on the back.  But all of these hours are necessary if you have the slightest chance of competing. 

I to do not condone some of the things some players do, like not wanting to sign autographs, you may think this is terrible and you may be right.  The player that just passed you by may have other things on his mind, for after all he could be thousand of miles from home and his love ones and he missed his sons baseball game last night or maybe he did not get to see his daughter take her first step.  His work had him on the road and he had just had a bad day on the course because he to wanted to be home and get a bite of that birthday cake.  There has just been a lot of talk about what a great entertainer Johnny Carson was, but in small crowds he was shy and wanted to be by himself.  Every player can not be a Lee Trevino and use telling jokes as a way of releasing tension and a bad case of nerves. I know most of us have bad days and good days and so do these guys.  Most business executives can choose the time and place they meet their clients but these golfers have all sorts of people in their office every day.  And something that most people don’t stop and think about is that the tournament in your town comes once a year and these players go sometimes several weeks in a row to tournaments and so it is a different party each week.  I would compare this to the average person looking forward to the holiday season and all of the parties and after you have been to several parties you are looking for an excuse to stay home for some peace and quite.  But these players have to go on the road each and try and make a living.

The competition is enormous and you only have the top 125 exempt in the entire world of the PGA tour and if you loose this exemption it can be brutal to get back in the exempt status.  Just ask Ian Baker Finch, David Duval, Chip Beck and many others that have lost their game a bit and have struggled to get back in form.  Again whether it is right or wrong many of the greats and not so greats can’t always be in the best of moods.  We marvel at the talent of these guys, but they were not born with golf clubs in their hands, their success usually came from he dirt as Ben Hogan referred to his skills.  You must realize just how fickle the game can be, one swing can generate extreme confidence or send you packing and looking for a new career. 

I don’t think the press should try and dictate how a person performs in his office, just like the press does not like someone else telling them what to write and how to write it.  The game of golf is still the purest form of sportsmanship and one of great character.  Where do you see someone calling a penalty on himself for something that no one else even saw and this act of honor and abiding by the rules could cost him one million dollars.  I also do not like some of the rude behavior and what may seem selfish acts at times by some players, but for the most part you do not see these guys going into the crowds or their names headlining police investigations.

What are your thoughts and comments?

See you on the next tee.

John Daly’s opening round in New Orleans was a one over 73.  It has been a long time since John has had a decent tournament.  I beleive the off the course antics, and poor physical condition has caught up with the very talented player.  John needs to get back into contention in some tournaments or this may be the last we see of him on a regular basis.  The tour is about performance and bringing in the money for the sponsors.  John still has a large following, but with all of the big hitters on the tour his glamour may start to fade.

I personaly would like to see John Daly dedicate himself to improving himself physicaly and using his great talent and finish out his career in style.  The sponsor exemptions that John is living off of to get into tournamnets may start to get fewer and futher apart. 

If you play golf at least twice a month, you could probably benefit from a custom set of clubs.  You need to be playing with some degree of regularity so that you can establish some tendencies to your game.  When you play very little and your ball flight is totally different from one round to the other, then you would have a hard time deciding what you may need to help your problem.  What you are trying to find in your game is something that you can repeat.  Repetition is what even the best of players are constantly looking for, and they are trying to find the right equipment that will help them find this consistency.  Most good players will tell you that there biggest concern is not what the ball is doing but can they do the same thing each time.
 
So what you should look for in your equipment is something that fits your ability and will allow you to be as consistent as possible.  Don’t worry about what your friends play–such as stiff shafts or no offset on their woods or irons.  You don’t want to give into your ego when getting fitted for golf clubs.  What you want is something that will allow you to get the most out of your ability and be able to post the lowest score.  Most people play with shafts that are too stiff and usually have too high of a kick point that will not allow them to get the ball airborne sufficiently for maximum carry.  It is a good idea to look at the fairway metal clubs to replace the long irons in your set, most all of the pros on all tours are now carrying at least one hybrid club in their bag.  A lot of pros have started using 5 and 7 woods that were never carried by them just a few years ago, these clubs have taken the place of the 2, 3 and the dreaded 1 iron.  The loft and perimeter weighting in these fairway clubs have made them much easier to hit out of the rough and bad lies.
 
Women and youngsters that are just getting started should get with a qualified club fitter, so they can get suggestions on clubs that will fit their abilities.  If you start out with clubs that do not fit your body frame and the clubs are too heavy and too long there is a good chance you will develop bad habits that may stay with you forever..  The worst thing that can come from ill-fitting clubs is that you may not be able to hit the ball very well when you are trying to learn and you become dejected and quit.  Everyone likes to see some progress and you can use all the help you can get in the beginning.  You do not necessarily have to spend a lot of money with your first set of clubs, even if you only have a start up set, make sure they are not too heavy and the lie angle fits your posture.
 
A good club fitter can usually take your existing clubs and tweak them to fit your needs, such as checking your shaft flex,  and your clubs loft and lie.  He may suggest changing the shafts in your clubs to help you with lack of distance or certain shot configurations. Modern technology has brought about a lot of good equipment that can be used in determining what best fits each player when it comes to fitting equipment, but remember the equipment is only as good as the person using it. There is an old saying in golf-its not the arrow but the indian-there is some truth to this, but all good indians have arrows that best fit their bodies and abilities.
 
Please share your comments and what you may experienced with cusom clubs.  
 
See you on the next tee.

In three weeks the elite golfers of the world will be headed to Augusta, Georgia, home of the Masters.  This week the tour is in New Orleans and next week will move to Houston.

Davis Love is in danger of having his major apperanace streak come to an end.  Davis needs to win this week in New Orleans in order to extend his streak. 

The Masters will be the first Major of the year and is the tournament that the top golfers are anxious to add to their resume.  Tiger Woods is especially looking forward to this event because of the talk of him possibly winning the grand slam in a calendar year.

Do you think Tiger will win the slam this year?

There are many great places one can travel to enjoy a golf vacation.  Most resorts worldwide use golf as the main attractant in their brochures.  Golf has become so popular that it is only natural  to tie their favorite past time in with their vacations.
 
The great thing about choosing a golf vacation destination is you can accommodate everyone’s pleasures.  Some of the most beautiful golfing adventures can be in the  Rocky Mountains of Colorado or the Allegheny mountains of Virginia.  If the mountains are not your thing, then you can head to the Gulf coast or the beaches of some island resort off the coast of Georgia or enjoy the rugged coast line of California.  For those that may like a much drier climate, Arizona has some of the most beautiful courses any where.
 
Then there are the vacations for those that want to see where the game originated.  A golfing trip to both Scotland and Ireland should be done by all at least once.  There are so many intriguing things to see and do in these countries, and what better excuse to go than golf.  If you have the luxury of being able to travel any time of the year, then you can usually find some great packages to fit most any budget. 
 
Please share your golfing vacations and comments.
 
See you on the next tee.

I thought the announcers at Doral and the Golf Channel personnel were going to cry when Tiger did not win.  I think Geoff Ogilvy did not get any credit for winning the tournament.  I beleive Tiger Woods is a great golfer, but I also beleive that there are some others that can also play.

The media is close to hurting the tour by their actions on Tiger.  If you listen to the press, a tournament is not worth attending if Tiger Woods is not in the field.  I beleive this is bad for golf.  More credit should be given to any golfer that is able to win on the PGA Tour.  The competition is very strong no matter who is in the field and there are a lot of great shots being made every week. 

What are your thoughts?