This is an automated post. If you’re reading this today (”Day one” Thursday the 21st) between the hours of 8am-1pm Eastern Time, I’m on the road driving South. If you’re reading between 1pm-6pm I’m at The Ledges (pictured below).

This Winter here has been brutal to say the least. The courses in Salt Lake are still closed. I can usually squeeze in 10-20 rounds over the Winter between November and March. This year, 15 holes. We’re at more that 150% of our annual average snow fall. Needless to say, the courses should be nice and green this year with all the extra water.

Every February, I go on a golf trip with about 20 of my closest friends to Southern Utah. This year I’m more stoked than ever to go, since the cold has been so bad.

Day one: The Ledges

I’ve done a review of The Ledges already. Click here to read it.

I’ll be checking out the course again to see any improvements and what’s new.

Day two: Green Spring

Green Spring is a great course with some amazing holes.

There are also a couple of “circus” holes too, but it’s a fun track.

Day three & four: Sunbrook

Sunbrook is a 27 hole course with some amazing holes.

I’d call Sunbrook a “big boy” course. One day I’ll do a review of Sunbrook.

Man I still can’t believe how strange the match was between Tiger Woods and JB Holmes at the WCC-Accenture Match Play today. After 13 holes JB was up three and looking good. Everything was going wrong for Tiger. He was slipping on his tee shots, falling backwards and blocking drives way out into the desert. At one point Tiger took a disgusted swing at his golf bag after he wasn’t thrilled with an unplayable lie and drop out in the desert.

All the sudden, Tiger birdies 14, 15, 16, then EAGLES 17 and JB is suddenly down one on the 18th. JB missed a putt to extend the match in a match he’ll have nightmares about.

If Tiger was ever “beatable” in a match play round, today was the day.

The match of the day is without a doubt Tiger Woods playing JB Holmes. Not much work for me today so I’ll be able to watch most of it live.

Should Tiger beat Holmes he’d play the winner of the Weir-Oberholser match. Weir beat Tiger in the President’s cup last year so you never know…

The full bracket, with live scoring is HERE.

UPDATE: Tiger Woods’ first shot of the round went out of bounds.

UPDATE 2: Tiger does not look good. He’s actually off balance with the driver and finding the desert. JB is 3-up after 13 holes.

There’s still snow on the ground here but the pro across the street has a net set up and a JC Video golf analysis system set up. So I went and hit a few balls into a net yesterday to stay loose.

I managed to figure out how to get the video system working, being the tech geek I am. I video taped a few swings and found some pretty major flaws.

The good… or the “good enough”

My setup and my takeaway both look “OK” from the front. But you can’t really see my “over the top granny upright swing plane” from the front so I’ll take that with a grain of sand (from a bunker).

My tempo seems alright too. Not too quick or jerky and fairly smooth.

The bad

I have a lack of flexibility which shows in my turn both back and through. I’m tight now as I haven’t swung a club for a couple of months so some flexibility will come back as the season progresses. But with a bad back I’m never going to be as flexible as I’d like to be.

My head is all over the place. I put a graphic marker on my head position with the video system to have something to compare head positions during my swing. Man what a nightmare. I actually thought I was keeping my head fairly still, yet during my swing my head moves back, up, down, forward and then up again. It’s a miracle I can hit the ball at all moving around like that.

The ugly, the terror, horror, OMG, kill me….

The biggest problem and concern I have is my follow through. Right after contact my left arm breaks down into the dreaded chicken wing. That jams up my left side and doesn’t allow a full release. When I freeze frame myself just at the right time you can see how completely jammed up I am at that point.

I talked to my friend the pro and he told me he knew about my jammed up chicken wing since he and I play so many rounds together. He gave me some drills to try to release and get rid of it. I tried a few, but boy is that going to take some time on the range.

More thought about this makes me realize I may be able to solve my “golfer’s elbow” problems I have with that left arm. Maybe a proper release will help this issue.

How to make yourself want to quit golf entirely

The video system has a swing comparison feature where you can bring up other swings to look at side by side with yours. Naturally I chose Tiger Woods’ swing. The video clip I used was a few years old as Tiger wasn’t as buff and he looked a little younger. It was nothing short of comedic comparing my swing with Tiger’s.

Tiger is about 10 trillion times more flexible than me and that could be an understatement.

I marked Tiger’s head position and watched in amazement as it stayed in the same position behind the ball through almost his entire swing. His head only moved down about a half an inch when he started his down swing. His head finally moved up when he was in the finish position.

I closely looked at Tiger’s release to see what he does with that left arm so I could know what to do with my chicken wing. When focusing just on his left arm it was unbelievable. That left arm stays straight practically until it reaches past shoulder level in his follow through! Unbelievable. That gives him a TON of extension and makes his swing arc huge.

Geometry

One last humbling comparison I did was with the load angle. When a player cocks his wrists and is coming down to the ball there’s an angle between his arms and the club shaft. The smaller that angle, the more power he generates as that angle releases and fires through the ball. At about 1-2 feet behind the ball, I had already released. My power curve shot it’s load before impact. One to two feet behind the ball my load angle was about 48 degrees.

I freeze framed Tiger’s swing at the exact same position where my angle was at 48 degrees. Tiger’s angle in that position was an unbelievable 12 degrees.

At that point just about all I could do was laugh.

To-Do list - in order of priority

1. Learn how to release and eliminate the left arm chicken wing

2. Get better load angle and release that angle closer to the ball

3. Quiet down upper body and head movement

4. Increase flexibility

5. Take up bowling

Speaking of my golf videos…

I’m happy to say that my two video features with master club maker Jesse Ortiz can be found on the Bobby Jones Golf web site!

The first video (below), featuring the new Bobby Jones driver can be found here.

The second video (below), covers the new wedges which are a collaboration between Jesse Ortiz and short game guru Dave Pelz. The wedge video can be found here.

I currently have over 150 videos on my YouTube account. Recently my views topped 300,000!

I understand that videos which say “Britney Spears Vagina” or “Britney Spears Nude” can log a million views in a single day. That is a sad testament to our society in my opinion. But for a video publisher who specializes in golf, I think 300,000+ views is a substantial number…

My YouTube golf video channel can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/thegolfspace

I’ve always been a huge Annika Sorenstam fan. I haven’t jumped on the Lorena Ochoa bandwagon yet. I’m very glad to see Annika get her 70th win in Hawaii at the SBS Open, after going over a year without a victory.

As I’ve said many times, it’s a privilege to have watched golf during the Tiger AND Annika eras.

I sat down tonight to watch the rebroadcast of today’s round at Riviera from the Northern Trust Open. Despite there being no Tiger Woods, I’m enjoying watching Phil Mickelson, John Daly and a bunch of other great PGA Tour pros.

I’m in the middle of dinner, a burrito and a chianti. Don’t knock it until you try it. I suddenly started to feel sick to my stomach. I almost had a gag reflex or some sort of convulsion and nausea.

After a few seconds I finally figured out the source of my sudden illness. Tiger Golf Channel (a.k.a. The Golf Channel) had Kenny G playing their theme music on his kazoo. The reason for my nausea was because I thought I was in an elevator. I almost lost my dinner and my chianti, which would have been a shame.

Does ANYONE out there actually like Kenny G? I’ve never met one person who does. And what does the “G” stand for? I’m guessing “gag.”