Happy Holidays

Happy holidays to all of my 7 followers. A few of you out there have asked for my next post and due to several things on my plate I was unable to deliver until today. I have no excuses and my New Year’s resolution is to double my followers and to post at least once a month.
Since I live in the Mid-Atlantic trying to play golf in December is almost a foregone conclusion. For those of you who live in the southwest you are probably the only individuals who are not experiencing ridiculous cold & windy temperatures. Two words I dread to hear as a golfer. I’ll play in a thunderstorm before I’ll play in windy and freezing temperatures.

The one thing about golf and the quickest way to improve your game is practice. If you’re familiar with “The Story of Success” by Gladwell the premise of the book is the 10,000 hour rule. If you practice a specific task for 10,000 hours you will be successful at it. I’m not telling you to go and putt, hit the range, and chip for 10,000 hours (equivalent to 416 & ¾ days) but I am telling you to at least pick up the club and swing. There is no feasible way if you leave your clubs in your room, garage, or the trunk of your car for the winter months can you expect to play as you did before you took your hiatus. Don’t let weeks go by without at least swinging your club. Just remember if you swing indoors-don’t let go.

Since the holidays are just around the corner and I have long said I am not into gimmicks. If you’re looking for an inexpensive way to improve your game alignment sticks are a great tool to have. Before the extremely cold weather came into my region I began to use alignment sticks to improve my accuracy. When I work on my game I usually have specific objectives I want to accomplish. If I just hit balls in the range with no plan, I’m not really accomplishing too much. If I know I am aligned correctly to a specific target, I can eliminate the fact I’m not aligned correctly when I hit a wayward shot. It's one less thing I can eliminate when something goes wayward.  Again the sticks are not expensive and you can use your own clubs to align yourself if you have to. On the other hand I really like my clubs and don’t want to put them in harm’s way.  

Have a good holiday season and a happy New Year

The good, the bad, and the ugly....

The Ugly
Before my round in Maui, I played in a few tournaments in the month of August.  I played in a two day tournament in Hershey, PA, and played two other tournaments the following weekend at Bulle Rock and 1757.  All of the above tournaments were played on the Golf Channel's Amateur Tour.  The two day tournament was played on Hershey Country Club's East Course the 1st day and the West Course the following day. 

This was my first trip to Hershey, PA and town was great, though it didn't smell like chocolate.  I have heard the town smells like chocolate during the week when the factory is going on throughout the work week.  I guess since I arrived Friday afternoon the factories were already preparing for the weekend. 

Hershey Country Club's facilities were top rate and I really enjoyed the staff at the course.  Time and time again the organizers for the Golf Channel's amateur tour really do a great job of organizing their tournaments.  Periodically throughout the season the Golf Channel has what they call majors where the tournaments across the country are usually played at an upscale course for two days.  Major tournaments cut off the amount of players for the tournament at 180 players and are broken into their respective flights according to USGA handicaps.  Players across the country are eligible to play.  My particular flight called Sarazen(named after the great Gene Sarazen-winner of 7 major championships) for individuals with handicaps within 12.0-15.9  had 27 participants.  No way did I think I was going to win the tournament but was hoping for a top 10 finish(I think top 6 or 7 was eligible for prize money).

Day 1 recap
After the 1st round I was tied for 6th, I shot an 88(45 on the front and 43 on the back).  I felt the course played fairly easy.  The East course plays fairly short for a par 71 course at around 6347 yards with a rating of 71and a slope of 133.  Basically accuracy is key and the greens were fairly fast.  I didn't particular putt or hit my approach shots well but I was pretty good off the tee and scrambled well.  So in my mind since I didn't play well and shot an 88, I could only improve on my score the following day.  Boy was I wrong.....

Day 2 recap(final round)
Though I had to deal with off and on rain throughout the day it shouldn't affected how I played so poorly.  Whether it was due to playing in the second to last group or thinking about playing for a monetary prize, I absolutely did not show up to play.  I would of been better off teeing off with a pitching wedge on every hole.  I didn't hit one single green and didn't make one single putt.  My scores for the front and back nine respectively were a 49 and a 47 for a mind boggling 96.  Started the day tied for 6th and ended up 17th out of 27 golfers. You may say to yourself that it wasn't that bad but in all actuallity my scorekeeper may have made a mistake that I didn't catch until after my round.  On one of the par 5 holes my score keeper(playing partner) inadvertently wrote down a double bogey 7 instead of the 9 I actually received.  I'm pretty sure he was into his playing round, he shot pretty well and placed 2nd for the tournament and I was so distraught with how I played, I didn't care what my score was.  I just signed my card after the round and wanted to go home.  So I really shot a 98 for a course that played 6480 yards with a rating of 71 and a slope of 129.  The feeling I can describe is when you think you prepare for an exam and you still perform poorly.  No explanation, you know the material, you just didn't perform well.  It took me a few days to get over how I played.  It was so frustrating I immediately signed up for two tournaments for the following weekend.  One tournament at Bulle Rock and the following day at 1757.  Now that I can look back, I look at the experience as a positive and can only help me with when I play in future tournaments.  By the way the person who won the tournament shot 79 on the first day and 82 the second day.  He was from Texas. 

The Bad
This brings me to Bulle Rock.  Hershey left a bad taste in my mouth and I wanted to treat myself to play in one of countries top public courses.  Now I knew I had low expectations going into this round.  After the Hershey tournament I revamped my swing to follow my driver swing "Outside In vs. Inside out blog".  I figured it worked for my driver it should work for my irons.  Conceptually it makes sense-when I was first starting out playing I just wanted to make could contact with the ball.  I wanted my swing plane to give me the best chance to hit the ball square.  Once I accomplished hitting the golf ball on a consistent basis I accepted my ball flight to move from left to right or what's called a fade(slice or block if its really ugly).  So with this thinking and regardless of how bad I scored at Bulle Rock I wanted to play the round with my new swing.  Bulle Rock(named after the 1st racing horse brought to America) is a Pete Dye design and is probably one of the most difficult courses I've played.  The facilities are top rate and rank above a lot of private courses.  The rating and slope for the course is 72 and 138 with the tees we played from measuring approximately 6360 yards.  There were 17 participants playing in my Sarazen flight, I placed 15th shooting 101.  Shot a 47 on the front nine and a grand ole score of 54 on the back 9.  I still enjoyed my round..... I could of shot a 125 and I would of enjoyed myself.  Again golf is a funny game- you can shoot poorly and enjoy your round.  I feel golf is a game and you should enjoy it regardless on how you play but you will enjoy it more if you play well.  More of a reason it frustrated me playing in Hershey, the game rarely frustrates me to that point.  Even though I shot poorly and finally shot in the 100's this year after coming very close on a couple of occasions this year, it was a lot of fun.  Mind you on a good day I may shoot in the high 80's at this course.  It's just that difficult-the person who won shot an 87.  On most tournaments for my flight a score in the low 80's usually wins the tourney. 

The Good
This brings me to my tournament round at 1757 club out in the Dulles, VA area.  1757 recently opened this year and is one of the few courses where their practice facilities dwarfs the course.  The course is new so I expect in a few years the course will slowly grow into a decent course.  The practice facilities have a good driving range that includes grass tees a challenging putting green and a nice short game area.  For the tournament, it was the last official tournament for the Golf Channel amateur tour before a national tournament was to be played in Florida over a span of 4 days(includes rounds at TPC Sawgrass).  Basically you had to qualify to register for nationals.  At this point I did not qualify or knew how to qualify.  All I knew was if you won a tournament or placed in the top 3 at a major you qualified automatically. 

As for the tourney and 1757, it plays really short from the tees we played from for this particular tournament, 6105 yards for a par 70 course.  The rating and slope were not recorded but if I had to estimate I would think 68 for a rating and a slope of 126.  There was a huge delay on when we tee'd off on the first hole.  The delay on the first tee was about an 40 minute delay on when we were suppose to tee off and when we did tee off.  It probably explains why I posted a 10 on a par 4 hole.  I hit my tee shot out of bounds(hit 1 drop 2), retee(3) and hit the fairway, send my approach shot(4) from the fairway over the green into a pond(didn't know it was there drop 5), retee(6) from the fairway again into the woods, hit from the woods(7) to the fringe of the green, chip(8) to the green and two putt(10).  It was a masterpiece!  Posting a 10 fired me up and I followed the first hole with a birdie and complete the front 9 with a 47.  I Played the back fairly solid until I sent my approach shot on 17 over the green onto a cart path and baaack baaack back & gone.  I had to retee from the fairway and end up posting a snowman 8 on a par 4.  I end up shooting a 43 on the back 9 with a total score of 90.  The score was good enough to place 3rd.  The winner of my flight shot an 82.  For placing 3rd I received $40 in gift cards to golf galaxy(official sponsor for the amateur tour) and won some money for the two birdies I posted on my round.  Though I shot an 90, I was seeing the fruits of my new swing and finally was seeing improvement in my game. 

The following day I received an email from my area director and he informs me that I qualified for nationals in Florida.  I was really excited that I qualified for nationals but declined my invitation due to costs of the tournament and the time I would have to take off from work.  I plan on going next year if I qualify. 

This brings me to present day.  I plan on making posts to the site on a bi-weekly to monthly basis due to time restraints.  In the next blog I will talk about an experience at a local country club I was luckily invited to and about an upcoming two man scramble at PB Dye's course in Md.  I hope my playing partner Chris has a strong back, he may need to carry our team.  I'm going out on a limb and say we shoot 3 or 4 under.  Chris and I have played in a scramble before and shot around a 69 to finish in the middle of the pack.  I'm hoping for better things this weekend.         

Mahalo

The Best for 1st.......

It has been a long layoff from my last blog. I just came back on a vacation that included going out of the country to Seoul, Korea and visiting Maui for the 1st time. In the weeks prior to my vacation I was able to play in a few tournaments on the Golf Channel’s amateur tour. I wanted to post something after a two day tournament in Hershey, PA but I was so disappointed in my play on the 2nd day of the tournament I couldn’t bring myself to write about it that day. A week later I played in two tournaments one at Bulle Rock on Saturday and at 1757(the last tourney of the year) on Sunday. I was going to start writing then but I was finalizing my trip to Korea and Hawaii. I thought of combining all 3 weeks into 1 blog but my lady convinced me that I should write and tell about each event. So it brings me to first talk about the great first, the good second, and the ugly last.


If I haven’t stated previously I first started playing golf at around the age of 19, I can’t give you an exact date I can only tell you my older brother introduced me to the game and I fell in love with the game ever since. So 15 years later I am writing to tell you in Maui I have played the most beautiful course to date. I haven't experienced places such as St. Andrews or Pebble Beach but I have played courses on the RTJ trail in Alabama, some beautiful courses in South Carolina, and a lot of courses in Virginia and Maryland.

So I stopped in Maui on my way to visit my parents in Korea with no intentions on playing golf and didn't bring my clubs.  I was only going to be in Maui for a short time and didn't think I would get the chance. I definitely thought about it but I was visiting a friend I graduated with in college and knew she didn’t play. I was to make two trips to Maui, one on my way to Korea and on my return back home. Basically Maui is the halfway point to Korea from the Washington, DC area and financially it made the most sense to purchase two roundtrip tickets from DC to Maui and from Maui to Korea instead of buying a one way tickets to Hawaii and Korea. I used to stop to see friends on the west coast in my previous trips to Korea-something about flying 17 hours straight on an airplane makes me want to jump off the plane at the 10 hour mark.  My friend recently moved to Maui and it was a great opportunity for me to see her. 

When I arrived in Maui and to my surprise my friend’s boyfriend was also an avid player(surprise surprise) and told me that on my return to Maui that he would setup a round at the local course that hosts PGA’s first tournament of the year the SBS Championship at Kapalua Resort. He told me he couldn’t promise anything but would do his best. Of course he came through and on the last day of my vacation I was able to play Kapalua’s Bay course, the resort has two courses and the Plantation course is where the pros play their tourney, not like I was disappointed to play just the "Bay" course.  As I mentioned before I didn’t bring any of my equipment, I knew I would need to rent clubs and other accessories to play.  I was able to get hooked up with rental clubs and played in my nikes.  Did I forget to mention that my rental set was a set of Titleist AP1's decked out with Titleist woods and a Scotty Cameron putter to match.  Not bad for a rental set. 

By far and away playing on a course that borders the pacific ocean is one the most breath taking scenes you could ever see or get a chance to play.  I could care less on how I shot, I was just giddy to play.  If you ever get a chance to play Kapulua's Bay course I highly recommend it-just don't expect to shoot your lowest round.  As breath taking as the course was from the water outlining many holes, the wind on the island is just as fierce.  Maybe on a calm day if a day exists you might be able to go after some of these holes.  We played from the white tees that measured only at 6051 yards with a rating of 69 and a slope of 129.  Don't let the numbers fool you as much as you can score low, you could easily put up crooked numbers on many holes.  To my surprise I was able to shoot a 91 with the clubs I rented and sneakers I wore.  I was very pleased.  To sum it up I state it like this playing golf on Maui is one of the greatest joys I ever had on a golf course.

Here is the breakdown on what I paid for this experience:  Hat $28, Clubs $50, golf balls free, Beer $30, not losing a ball in the ocean(lost two in the bush), and paying only $28 for a $200 round...... priceless......  Here is a picture of one of their many signature holes a par 3 that played at about 160.  By the way I pulled my shot to the left, chipped to about 12 feet and 2 putted.  No way was I going into the ocean.  Now I started with the best and will slowly post the good and the ugly.

Mahalo

Triple Exposure

Outside In vs. Inside Out

Ok, so one of my many aspects of my game that needs improvement is the "Big D".  Whatever you want to call it a "block", fade, banana, slice, or just plain pushing it to the right this is the ball flight my driver has been going for an extended period of time.  I have played with the "block" in my game accepting to give myself roughly about 20 yards to miss to the right off the tee.  If I hit 10 tee shots I will push 5 shots with a pretty big slice, 3 manageable fade shots and maybe 2 shots where I am happy with.  I have used a Taylormade R7 SuperQuad driver for the past 2 and1/2 years.  It has served me adequately during that time. 

I completed a driver fitting at an authorized Callaway performance center to receive feedback on the results from swinging the driver.  I have never received detailed results from my driver swing.  I have recorded my swing in the past and currently analyzing my swing on a kodak playsport.  The performance center records information such as swing speed, backspin, attack angle, carry, total distance, side spin and a whole other information that is over my head.  The key components I remembered and concentrated on were my swing speeds, the backspin speed, ball speed and side spin. 

I brought my R7 to have my current information recorded.  The results I saw were 230 yards carry, 102 mph for swing speed, over 3500 mph on backspin, 141mph for ball speed, and over 800 yards of side spin.  Those results on a course equate to about 25 yards to the right of a target you are aiming at and maybe 240-270 yards of total carry for a drive.  Adam, who was administering the fitting informed me that I want to be under 3000 mph for backspin, around 500 for side spin, 150 mph for ball speed.  The fitting lasted a little over an hour and during that hour I hit about 10 different drivers and hitting approximately 5 drives per club.  I was pretty much stumping Adam on the combination of driver head and shaft to use.  Adam agreed that I definitely needed a stiff shaft driver and looked to get my backspin mph reduced to under 3000 mph.  On all of the drivers minus the square head Nike driver I was hitting, I was making good contact on the drivers but still getting a lot of backspin.  Reducing the backspin on a drive will cause the ball to float in the air covering more distance.  It was during this time Adam suggested when I go to the range that he noticed during my swing plane I was making an outside in swing plane and was causing me to push my driver to the right.  He wanted me to practice a swing plane on the driver to make an inside out swing plane.  With any new tweaks to a swing, its going to be feel uncomfortable at first and gradually feel more natural once muscle memory kicks in.  Well the results from making this tweak was that I was still pushing the ball a little right but my backspin numbers went down below 3000 mph, side spin decreased, and my carry distance were now showing 250 yards with a slower swing speed of 97mph and the ball speed at 141 mph.  My swing speed decreased by about 5 mph and I was getting better results.  My ball flight is also slowly going back to a right to left flight path.  With my outside in swing path the problem I was having was either having a fade or a slice with not a whole lot of carry with the driver, again I can hit my 17 degree 4 wood close to a 230 yard carry and have mostly used my 4 wood of the tee the past couple of rounds only using my driver on "wide open spaces".  The problems I will now face using an inside out swing path will be sending the ball right if my hands don't turn over, hitting a good shot straight or slightly right or left with some good carry, or attempting to turn my hands to soon and hitting the ball about 20 yards in front of me.  Either scenario is not a good thing but something I will need to work on.  I am a little concerned since I have a tournament this weekend in Hershey, Pa for a 2 day tournament playing on Hershey's country club east and west course.  I'm competing in the Golf Channel's amateur tour this weekend playing on the east course on Saturday and the west course on Sunday.  I have hit the range earlier this week working on the driver hoping to utilize the driver this weekend.   I will definitely update the blog with my results.  I have uploaded a video on you tube to show my latest swing that I was working on Monday.  I plan to hit the range a few more times before I tee off on Saturday.  I just have to remember to tell myself to not force my hands to turn over too quickly, the swing naturally should turn over(or that's what I'm telling myself). 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0gJXy-7gc8

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36 holes later a new low is notched on the belt with a caveat and a asterik

If you are one of the 4 followers of this blog you should be aware I have been somewhat in a slump with my game.  Whether I'm thinking too much to score low or not concentrating enough, the proof is in the pudding(or scorecard).  Prior to this weekend my scores for the past month or two are as follows:  90, 83, 91, 80, 95, 88, and 98.  An average of 89.29, basically playing bogey golf.  Nothing great, nothing too terrible.  I personally would like to be on average at around 85.  My last post I was in the belief where I will have no expectations on scoring due to my better days on the course resulted in having no expectations at all and whenever I attempted to score low, the opposite would occur.  So for the time being I will use that philosophy.  There is no need to put unnecessary pressure while on the golf course, the game is hard enough itself to concentrate for 18 holes.  As a note especially for those of you starting out I like to break up the 18 holes into couplets.  Depending on how your concentration level is, I tend to tell friends to look at the 18 holes into 3 hole intervals.  It is almost immpossible for a beginner to concentrate for 18 holes and to set a realistic goal for those 18 holes.  If you break up the holes over the course of the 18 holes you will eventually be able to handle concentrating for more holes.  ie.  if you start with 2 hole intervals work you way up to 3,4, a 9 etc.  For those of you trying to break a 100 on a consistent basis I'm talking to you. 

Now this past Saturday my friend and I decided to play 36 holes.  Since I knew I wasn't available to play this upcoming weekend I would need to balance it out by playing 36 holes.  I'm using the fuzzy math methodology in my thinking.   We played 18 holes at two locations.  The first 18 was played at Stonewall Golf Course in Gainesville, Va and the 2nd 18 was played at Heritage Hunt and Golf Club also located in Gainesville, VA. Stonewall an upscale public golf course where the course is usually kept in great conditions did not meet my expectations this past weekend.  The greens were not in tip top shape and the fairways were patchy in a lot of places.  Not sure if the lack of rain in the area is the culprit but for a course that charges a premium, it was dissappointing to see.  On the other hand Heritage fairways were in great condition and was located 15 minutes away.  At Stonewall I was unable to get a true feel for the greens as my 36 putts would reflect my issues.  I ended up shooting a 92 on a course with a 70.2 rating and 136 slope at 6191 yards.  I don't think I necessary played a bad round but the poor putting probably added 5 to 6 strokes to my round and on top of that I struggled from the bunkers.  When I say struggled I can remember two holes, one on a par 5 where I attempted to reach the green in two and found the greenside bunker.  I'm thinking to myself hit a decent bunker shot and I'll give myself a good look at birdie, what happened was I skulled the bunker shot probably about 40 yards past the green out of bounds.  I end up taking a drop back into the bunker and leaving the hole posting a double bogey 7.  On the other hole also a par 5 where I was trying to reach the green in two(common theme here) I reached another bunker approximately 30 yards to the green.  This time I skull the ball 40 yards past the green into a hazard where I'm able to locate the ball.  I hit the ball in the hazard back into the original bunker I skulled the first shot.  I leave this hole with a snowman 8.  And folks that is how you shoot a 92 hitting 71.4% of your fairways. 

Now for better news the 2nd 18 holes were played roughly 45 minutes after our 1st 18 holes.  Heritage Hunt and Golf club is actually a private course that my friend and I were trying out.  For a country club its really cheap with no initiation fees and no minimum spending a month.  So whenever something sounds too good to be true it usually is but in this case I was pleasantly surprised.  The course is intertwined in a retirement residental community for people over the age of 55 and up.  So you can guess on who makes up the majority of the golf community and why the membership is fairly inexpensive.  The rating and slope from the tees we played from were as follows 70 rating and 127 slope at 5809 yards.  Yes very short and not very difficult.  The only thoughts I would take into the round were that a driver would not be necessary for this round.  I would use irons/hybrid/4 wood off the tee and worst case scenario use a driver for par 5's or really wide fairways.  I end up shooting my best round to date with a 77.  Shooting a 38 on the front 9 and a 39 on the back 9.  My stats for the round were surprisingly average only hitting 50% of my fairways, 31 putts and hitting 55.6% of greens in regulation.  I would definitely say my short game around the greens allowed me to break 80.  For most of the round I used an iron to tee off occasionaly using a 4 wood or hybrid.  As my scorecard shows I also used my driver on a few holes and the lone double bogey was due to losing my drive into the woods.  But there was one thing I forgot to account in my round.  I retee'd my ball on the first hole.  I hooked my 5 iron into someone's yard and I only remember this due to the fact I recorded the incident.  I recently started to record my swing on the range and with time permitting on the course.  So technically instead of the par I posted on my scorecard for the 1st hole, I actually had a double bogey 6 for a total score of 79, tying my personal best.  So no personal records were achieved this weekend but I will take two things from this weekend, 1 keep the driver in the bag and 2 continue to have no expectations on scoring.  I've posted the video of the retee and the scorecard below. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnXAKYOKg9o

 

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Flirting with a C-Note

First thing- playing in temperatures with heat indexes above 100 degrees is brutal.  Mind you I'll still play-also in freezing temperatures, rain, almost anything except for excessive wind.  Unless I am across the pond I have no desire to play in windy conditions. 

Second- I have had plenty of bad days on the course and this past weekend was no exception.  I honestly can't remember the last time I shot over a 100.  Not saying I'm wonder bread (best thing since sliced bread) but really bad rounds I'm usually at around 95.  Shooting that high is something that's definitely not hard to do especially if you hit your ball out of bonds, have to take drops, and re-tee due to errant shots.  All things I did over the weekend.  A friend and I played at Renditions Golf course over in Davidsonville, MD.  If you are not familar with the area it is approximately 10 miles from the capital of Maryland, Annapolis.  I will leave my review for Renditions at the end, but I enjoyed the course and is a course I  played  before a few years ago. 

Ok, back to my hackfest on Saturday.  Again I played poorly a few weeks ago in a Golf Channel Amateur Tour event where I shot a 95.  I wanted to redeem myself and in my mind I wanted to flirt and break 80 on a course I haven't played in awhile but was somewhat familiar with.  Whenever I play a non tournament event I tend to just not worry about my score and enjoy my time with my friends.  I usually just work on my game on areas where I need improvement and if I am finding a good rhythm then I become more aware of trying to score low(scoring low for me is to break 80). 

Our tee time was at 6:40 am.  I like early tee times but when the course is an hour away from the DC area it tends to be a little too early.  Renditions is a course where the course is popular for its course design that replicates popular holes on the PGA tour.  The only holes that are familiar to me and I enjoy the most are the holes from Augusta National, Amen corner, and TPC Sawgrass' famous island green par 3.  Again I never played Augusta or Sawgrass but the holes look like they were carved out of TV and placed on this course.  We played from the white tees at approximately 6041 yards with a rating of 69.8 and slope of 122.  On a normal day I should fairly do well on course with a rating and slope with similar ratings.  The length of 6041 is a tad shorter than where I usually like the course to be.  I chose to play from the whites due to playing any further back would be too long for my partner and the twosome we played with also chose to play from the whites.  Since I don't like segregation, I chose to play from the same tees, thinking in my mind I'll have a better chance to score lower.  My ideal length for a par 72 course would be between 6300-6500 yards.  Anything longer than 6500 is too long and anything less than 6300 tends to be too short.  Like I have written before my two biggest areas I struggle with are the shots between 65-90 yds and the driver.  Where courses less than 6300 yds tend to have a lot more shots in the 65-90 yds area and above 6500 yds the driver will be heavily relied upon, most likely in a lot of tight fairways. 

Now the many problems I ran into this past weekend.  This was the first time I can remember that for all the par 3's (4 holes) I played, I posted triple bogeys for each hole.  You don't need a fields medal to know that is already 12 over for the day, so if I parred out, my score would be 84.  I didn't hit a single green and my tee shots on two of the holes were too long and found trouble and the other 2 holes I found water before the green.  If I was more familiar with the holes I may have saved some strokes but again it was my fault to find so much trouble on relatively easy par 3's.  Other than the disasters on the par 3's I relatively hit my irons and woods decent all day.  I hit a few errant shots off the tee but nothing out of the ordinary, but the errant shots ran into bad breaks and either landed in the water or not found.  I had a particularly bad day on the putting greens.  I never really found a rhythmn on the greens and my putting stats reflect that.  My total stats for the round and I'm embarrassed to post them are as follows(all stats were tracked by my skycaddie):
Fairways hit:  28.6%
GIR:  11.1%
Putts:  35 putts (1.9 putts on avg) six 3 putts
3 par's
1 birdie
4 bogey's
9 double bogey or worse

As for flirting with C-note, I came to the 18th tee with a score of 92.  The 18th hole was a relatively easy hole with a small revine a 100 yards to a uphill green guarded with bunkers, playing about 380 yards.  Since I was trying to play it safe and to give myself a good chance of par I chose to tee off with a 5 iron.  Off the tee I can probably hit a 5 iron anywhere from 180 to 195 depending on carry and roll.  I hit a decent shot with my iron and left my ball on the right hand side of the fairway.  I left myself with a 205 yd shot to the green, I hit a 4 iron and landed my ball right in front of the green about 15 yards to the pin.  A bad chip and 3 putts later a double bogey is posted and that's how you score a 98.  The funny thing is my playing partner(Tiger) who shot an outstanding 116 who still has not broken a 100 yet used my score as a reference on how to break a 100.  A whopping 50 on the front 9 and a 48 on the back 9.  No excuses on the bad play.  I will attempt to redeem myself this weekend by playing 36 holes(18 at Stonewall Golf Course and 18 at Heritage Hunt and Golf Club).  As I see it I don't think I can play worse so it can only look brighter for me. 

The premise of today's rant is to remember not setting a scoring goal for yourself before the round begins.  Everytime that I can recall where I wanted to shoot really low that day, I rarely ever do.  My best scoring rounds are usually when I have no expectations at all but still prepare myself(hit the range, work on chipping and putting prior to my round) to shoot well.  You can't expect yourself to shoot well for 18 holes if you don't practice its that simple.  The last two times where I told myself I wanted to shoot and set to score low for a particular day I shot 95 and 98 respectively.  My lessons I learned over the weekend:  don't set scoring goals for yourself and sunscreen is your friend on a hot day. 

Renditions Golf Course

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 would be a Pebble Beach and a 1 would be hitting on your backyard with patchy grass, Renditions would rank a 7.  The course is relatively in good shape due to all the dry weather.  The greens are surprisingly fast for greens that have recently been aerated.  The twosome who decided to retire after 13 holes were members and said prior to the aeration the greens were ridiculously fast.  The course provides a great value at $69 for a weekend rate.  Pretty much in the DC Metro area you are not going to find non twilight rates much cheaper.  For the price it is definitely worth its bang for the buck.  The replica holes of Amen corner is worth the price of admission.  The course used to charge a premium at around $100 a round on the weekend.  Again I recommend playing early for this course.  It seems they send groups 10 minutes apart and load up the course accordingly.  I finished the round in exactly 4 hours and 1 minute(again skycaddie tracks pace of play too) at a 6:40 am tee time with 4 players for most of the morning.  Expect at least a 4 1/2 to 5 hour round if you play later in the day.  Renditions is definitely a place for your next golfing destination.  The course supplies a GPS unit for your cart and utilize it heavily.  Plenty of blind shots where without course knowledge your score will suffer.

Recovery

A battle to break 100

I currently have two friends of mine who have recently picked up the game and starting at the same time have placed a wager to break a 100 first. The stipulation is they have to be witnesses of the score and ruling of any score must be accepted by any 3rd party.

The names I use for my friends will be anonymous but for battling purposes I will use Tiger and Phil as references. The background for each player is below:

Tiger: typically shoots around 110's for a course with an avg of 70 rating with a slope of 130. Easier courses he has chances of breaking a 100, and more difficult courses the score increases. Tiger is stubborn in his ways and will constantly stick to a club (ie. driver) that is not working on that day and continues to use it. Tiger is a pretty decent iron player with needing work on his short game and putting. Length is a problem for him, he mostly swings with his upper body only.

Phil: also shoots around in the 110's for the same slope and rating. Phil used to be stubborn but nowadays is a little more self aware of what to do and not to do. Phil's biggest problem is shot selection and bad habits. Phil gets pretty good distances with his clubs when contact is made but is too inconsistent at this point. Again putting and the short game are big issues but have seen improvements. With other high handicappers your mindset is just to get contact on your club and to hit the ball solid. HH's have no visualization on what your ball is going to do and where it may go. The high handicapper just has an idea of how far he may hit the club and is happy to land somewhere where they aimed.

As for athletic backgrounds both Phil and Tiger are fairly athletic with Tiger probably being the "better" athlete. I will continue to update you on the trials and tribulations of Phil and Tiger and hope to post there bitter feud on video.

For the hacker in you...

For all you golf aficionado's I am the voice you need to read about. I am an avid golfer who truly has passion towards the game. I first started playing about 14 years ago with a few hiatus' in between due to work, school, life. I currently play at an 8 handicap but it in no ways mean I am that great. There are always ways to improve your game and always opportunities where the blow up hole is not far from arms reach. If you are first starting out I know the frustrations you may feel with every skull, chunk, slice or hook. Regardless how many strokes it takes you to hole out on a hole it only takes one shot to receive satisfaction. I am offering a blog to not only make you a better golfer but to help me become a better golfer.

My philosophy on golf is to enjoy the game, don't let any one hole, 1 shot get you to down, play smart and play fast and remember its just a game. Again I hope to not only inform/educate you on the way I play golf but also to entertain you. I will also give you my thoughts and reviews on the courses I play.



If you ever are in the DC metro area, VA National maybe a course for you. A decent track out in the boondocks with great views and history with reasonable prices. Just don't come out in July and early August or come prepared with hornet repellent. The entire back 9 was filled with hornets and nests. Even with the hazards with the hornets where sometimes we would leave our balls on the green, I shot a 49 on the front 9 and a 39 on the back for a score of 88. It was a day where I wasn't really trying to look to score but more enjoying myself with friends and looking to improve areas of my game that needs improvement, mainly my driver and my 90 yds and in short game.