New Masters Press Room

Written by: Tony Korologos | Tuesday, April 4th, 2017
Categories: PGA Tour • Pro Golf • The Masters
Tags: Masters Tournament

Not many changes at Augusta this year except for some traffic modifications, concessions, and this new press room. Wowsies. It’s beautiful.

I’ve not done the Masters press room. Haven’t applied for a credential. As nice as it is I’m sure if I was ever there “working” for the blog, I’d be out on the course for 99% of the time.

Masters Tournament to Allow Female Competitors Starting 2018

Written by: Tony Korologos | Saturday, April 1st, 2017
Categories: Golf • Golf For Women • LPGA Tour • PGA Tour • Pro Golf • The Masters
Tags: LPGA • LPGA Tour • Masters Tournament

I guess hell just froze over. Stay tuned for a big announcement today from Augusta, GA. Augusta National Golf Club, home of The Masters, has been a venue the LPGA Tour has wanted to compete at for decades. They’ve wanted a “Ladies Masters” tournament of some sort, but those wishes have fallen on deaf ears. My inside sources have informed me that The Masters Tournament committee has frog-jumped the LPGA Ladies Masters idea and gone right to admitting female competitors in the Masters Tournament starting in 2018.

Don’t expect to see female competitors for half the field in 2018 though. In fact, I’d only expect to see perhaps five or less. My source has told me qualifying for females or males will be basically the same except for the additions to allow the female USGA Amateur champion in, along with the five (if there are in fact five) LPGA Tour major champions from the previous year.

I can’t wait to hear what Martha Burke has to say. Twitter and the social sphere will surely be exploding as the news gets out.

What are your thoughts? Is this the right move or not? And will the ladies be playing the member tees or the Masters tees? There are only two sets of tees there, and personally I think the Masters tees would destroy any female golfer’s chances because the course is so long now.

My Utah Golf Courses Android App is Now Available

Written by: Tony Korologos | Friday, March 31st, 2017
Categories: Apps • Golf • Golf Courses • Golf For Women • Miscellaneous • Site News
Tags: Golf Utah • Utah • Utah Golf

Big announcement! I’ve release my first-ever mobile app! To increase my skills in the day job area of web development I tasked myself with learning a complex programming framework which lends itself to creating “device agnostic” applications. Part of that learning, and my winter project, was to make a mobile golf app. So I took my website Utah Golf Guru and created an app based on the same data. Utah Golf Courses is NOW AVAILABLE for free at the Android Play Store. I’ve submitted the IOS version to the Apple App Store also, but it is awaiting approval.

Utah Golf Courses mobile app

About Utah Golf Courses App

Utah Golf Courses works on any Android or IOS device. The app provides a listing of every golf course in Utah. The user can search for courses based on keywords. The user can also filter courses based on the type of course (public, private, resort, military), and geographic location. So the user could filter the list to show public courses in the southwest region of the state.

Course Details

Each course has a ton of details when the user taps the course to view it, like yardage, slope, rating. One can even find the types of grass on the fairways and greens. I also offer playing tips and commentary on many of the courses, including the range ball quality.

Tablet view of a course

The majority of the course photos were shot by me with many by drone.

Why?

There are many reasons behind making the app. The first two listed above were learning new coding skills and learning how to make an app. The other reason behind this one is that I’ve often found myself and my buddies looking for courses to book tee times, and not knowing their numbers. In just two taps of the user’s finger, the user can find the course and dial the course from the app.

Links (pun intended)

Utah Golf Courses for Android

Utah Golf Courses for IOS (coming soon)

Utah Golf Guru Website

2017 Masters Flag Giveaway

Written by: Tony Korologos | Wednesday, March 29th, 2017
Categories: Contests/Giveaways • Miscellaneous • Site News • The Masters
Tags: Masters Tournament

I’m going to be giving away another Masters flag this year, just like last year. I have yet to come up with a cool way of doing it. For now, give the sponsor of this contest, MMO, a click on the image below!

Stay tuned for contest details.

2017 Round 3 – The $21 Short Game Lesson

Written by: Tony Korologos | Monday, March 27th, 2017
Categories: Golf • Hackers

Pop quiz: Is it possible to lose $21 playing golf with a $2.00 bet?
Answer: Yes, when you’re me and playing against the guy with the best short game in the world.

Yesterday was round 3 of the 2017 season for me. I have low expectations since I have now logged 3 rounds in 3 weeks and 3 rounds since November. It doesn’t even bother me that my rounds are getting worse. I know through many years of experience that it takes me a while to get my game back in the spring. That’s a great reason to move somewhere I can golf all year, but that’s a blog post for another day.

Yesterday’s round featured a match between the team of me and my buddy Arnie, and Dalton and Al. Al is a senior player closing in on 70 years old who I’ve played 100’s of times with. He has the best short game of any amateur golfer I’ve ever seen, and better than most pros. Man was that short game on display yesterday.

Al is not a long player, so he often misses greens he’s unable to reach in regulation. If he misses any green in regulation by 70 yards or less, I’d put his lifetime up and down percentage at around 75%. It was so amazing yesterday that I was hoping my putt from the fringe would be closer than his shot from 60 yards. By my calculations yesterday he failed to get up and down once out of around 14 times. That was on the 18th hole when the match was already closed out and it didn’t matter. Hehe.

At the end of the day Al had taken all the cash I had on me, $21. Nothing more fun than leaving the course with an empty wallet. But it was the cheapest short game lesson I’ve ever had and I learned a lot from him. He hit almost every shot low. Low runners. And unlike what a lot of short game experts tell you (to land the ball just on the green and have it release) he would land the ball short of the green and the ball would roll to the hole like a putt… to 1-2 feet. His release on those shots is pretty low and short too.

Inspired by Al’s short game I was able to get up and down three consecutive times on the back nine, probably a world record for me.

The Takeaway

I must resist the lob wedge and go low and run my short games unless the situation forces a high shot. That’s a goal for this season.

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