World Tour Travel Day to Mesquite and Las Vegas, Nevada

Written by: Tony Korologos | Thursday, May 1st, 2014
Categories: HOG World Tour • Site News

The Hooked On Golf Blog World Tour is back on the road in about two hours. Next stops: Mesquite, NV and Las Vegas, Nevada.

Tomorrow I’ll be doing a course review at Rhodes Ranch Golf Course in Las Vegas.

Stay tuned here and especially the HOG Twitter @hoggolfblog and my personal twitter @thegolfspace.

Gear I’m bringing: Cameras, golf clubs, DRONE.

See you on the road.

This Week on Tour – PGA, LPGA, Champions, European Tours – Mickelson & McIlory in Action

PGA TOUR
Wells Fargo Championship
Dates: May 1-4
Venue: Quail Hollow Club, Charlotte, N.C.

Tournament Airtimes On Golf Channel (Eastern):
Thursday 3-7 p.m. (Live) / 7:30-11:30 p.m. (Replay)
Friday 3-7 p.m. (Live) / 9:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m. (Replay)
Saturday 1-2:30 p.m. (Live) / 9:30 p.m.-2 a.m. (Replay)
Sunday 1-2:30 p.m. (Live) / 9:30 p.m.-2 a.m. (Replay)

In the field: Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy, Zach Johnson, Justin Rose, Jimmy Walker, Rickie Fowler, Lee Westwood, Webb Simpson, Jonas Blixt and Derek Ernst.

LPGA TOUR
North Texas LPGA Shootout presented by JTBC
Dates: May 1-4
Venue: Las Colinas Country Club, Irving, Texas

Tournament Airtimes On Golf Channel (Eastern):
Thursday 12:30-2:30 p.m. (Live)
Friday 12:30-2:30 p.m. (Live)
Saturday 3-6 p.m. (Live)
Sunday 3-6 p.m. (Live)

In the field: Inbee Park, Suzann Pettersen, Michelle Wie, Lexi Thompson, Stacy Lewis, Na Yeon Choi, Cristie Kerr, Jessica Korda and Angela Stanford.

CHAMPIONS TOUR
Insperity Championship
Dates: May 2-4
Venue: The Woodlands Country Club (Tournament Course), The Woodlands, Texas

Tournament Airtimes On Golf Channel (Eastern):
Friday 7:30-9:30 p.m. (Tape Delay)
Saturday 6:30-9:30 p.m. (Tape Delay)
Sunday 7-9:30 p.m. (Tape Delay)

In the field: Fred Couples, Bernhard Langer, Tom Lehman, Nick Price, Kenny Perry, Mark O’Meara, Rocco Mediate, Mark Calcavecchia, Jay Haas, Fred Funk and Colin Montgomerie.

EUROPEAN TOUR
The Championship at Laguna National
Dates: May 1-4
Venue: Laguna National Golf and Country Club (Masters Course), Changi, Singapore

Tournament Airtimes On Golf Channel (Eastern):
Thursday 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (Tape Delay)
Friday 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (Tape Delay)
Saturday 6:30-10:30 a.m. (Tape Delay)
Sunday 6:30-10:30 a.m. (Tape Delay)

In the field: Peter Uihlein, Rafael Cabrera-Bello, Kiradech Aphibarnrat, Ross Fisher, Chris Wood, Simon Dyson, Thomas Levet, Bernd Wiesberger and Brett Rumford.

Struggling to Keep My Cool – May Quit Golf and Take Up Justin Bieber Listening

Written by: Tony Korologos | Wednesday, April 30th, 2014
Categories: Golf • Hackers

Hulk smash.

The past round or two I’ve lost my cool quite badly. This is not normal for me, as I’m typically calm, quiet, and controlled on the course. It is early in the season here in northern Utah and every year at this time I’m fighting to get my game back due to 4-6 months layoff from playing due to snow. I have some raw golf talents, like the ability to putt well, but other parts of the game do not come naturally at all to me. Primarily I’m talking about short game. After time off, even a couple of weeks, the short game can get pretty bad. After 4-6 months? Its like the short game of a 30 handicapper, not the 2-handi that I supposedly am.

Yesterday’s frustration had me wanting to literally smash every club in the bag, shut down the blog, sell all my golf equipment on ebay, and quit the damn game. On two occasions I literally thought about what I could do instead of golf, for all the hours I spend practicing and playing. Alternatives which sounded more fun than screwing up simple chip shots and turning pars into bogeys and doubles included plucking my fingernails out with pliers, jabbing ice picks into my eyeballs, and listening to Justin Bieber.

I’m having a hard time staying cool and letting time, practice, and many rounds get my game back into shape. Logically I know I should improve over the next month or two as the weather and conditions get better and I play/practice more. Still, right now I’m finding it hard to enjoy shooting rounds that are 15 shots higher than my handicap.

I’ve got a small road trip coming up this weekend to watch my cousin compete in an Iron Man down in St. George. The day before and the day after I have all to myself in Las Vegas and Mesquite. Friday I’m playing golf at Rhodes Ranch in Vegas, and will visit my golf pro friend Jeff Bricker there. I may be able to squeeze a lesson out of him but at the least I should have many hours in the afternoon to work hard on the short game. I’m also visiting my friend and pro at the Oasis Golf Club in Mesquite, Adam Schwartz. Might try to squeeze a lesson from him as well, or work on the short game at his great facility.

The short game frustration comes as certain other parts of the game seem to be okay at this early stage of the season. My driver contact and distance seems to be better than last year already and thanks to a new hybrid I’m confident on long shots of 210-240 yards. But that may be adding to the frustration. Better ball striking off the tee, but worse scores because I can’t get the ball on the green quick enough to let my decent putting do its job.

On second thought, maybe I should listen to Justin Bieber.

First Look: BombTech Golf Grenade Driver

Written by: Tony Korologos | Tuesday, April 29th, 2014
Categories: Golf Clubs • Golf Equipment • Golf Gear • Site News
Tags: BombTech Golf

I just unboxed the new BombTech Golf Grenade driver and shot a few photos which I’ve added to the new HOG BombTech Golf photo library. I dig the black and green color scheme and this thing looks very nice from the topline.

BombTech Golf Grenade Driver – click to see more photos

The unit came in at an opportune time, as I’m playing in a (gasp) scramble this afternoon. Scrambles are perfect for driver testing! It will take me far more than one round of testing to do my complete review. Unlike other lame blogs and golf websites, I actually put the club in play for about a month, 15-20 rounds, to be sure I’ve got the feel and full background on the club’s performance.

BombTech Golf Grenade Driver Topline

I hope to beat my opponents senseless with this monster. Not physically, but with big drives. Well, maybe.

Eat Golf Lives

Written by: Tony Korologos | Monday, April 28th, 2014
Categories: Miscellaneous

I’ve said many times that the best benefit of running this golf blog for close to 10 years is the fantastic people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and befriending. Yes I’ve managed to play some great golf courses and test a lot of gear, but the best part about the golf world is the people.

Eat Golf

I received a delivery yesterday, a small box. I get boxes full of random golf gadgets and such all the time, but the return address on this one meant quite a bit to me. Quite a bit. The return address was titled “EAT GOLF.” That could only mean one thing, something very special inside from my good friend Rich Hodge.

History

Back when I started my blog I looked up at other existing blogs like a young boy looking up to his father. At the time there were 3-4 golf blogs. Now there are 100’s, and most suck. I looked up to GolfBlogger.com, Bogey Lounge, and Eat Golf. Eat Golf had a certain twisted flare which really held my attention. There was an authenticity to the writing there which I still have yet to see again in the golf blogosphere.

Over time I got to know Rich Hodge, creator of Eat Golf. We became online friends, both golf blogging geeks back before most of today’s golf bloggers even knew what a blog was. I often asked Rich for advice and we both helped each other grow our followings, as the original blog crowd did. A rising tide raises all ships.

I started to dabble in PHP programming because I wanted to provide my visitors a way of punching in their golf stats and having the system spit out handicaps, fairways hit, putting stats and all that. On a nightly basis I was obsessively trying to learn a programming language with no formal training at all. Rich was (and is) a PHP pro. Almost nightly Rich and I would use some kind of online chat messenger at 2-3-4 in the morning. I’d ask Rich, “why does my screen say ‘Fatal Error:… bla bla bla?” or “why is my screen blank?” He would tell me, “put a semicolon on line 76” and like magic the errors would disappear and suddenly my program would come back to life. He was like some kind of geek oracle.

When I asked Rich what blogging software he used, he told me he wrote the software himself. Yup. Oracle.

Years went by and Rich’s interest in golf waned, and his interest in pool took off. Eventually his site Eat Golf became a shell of what it once was. It eventually disappeared.

Rich and I have kept in touch over the years on Facebook, and I’ve been hounding him to transfer the domain registration of EatGolf.com to me so I can bring it back to life. I might even move my entire blog over to that URL, as it is so much better than the lengthy and PITA HookedOnGolfBlog.com.

The Box

Inside the box where some goodies from the famous Maui Hawaii course Kapalua, home of the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. Obviously Rich has been there recently, and the golf bug is still in his system. You never really shake it.