At 3:30am this morning my good friend Bobby Drabner lost a 2.5 year battle to cancer. I’m paying a little tribute to my friend here.
I’ve known Bobby for many years. He’s about 20 years older than me, but we became good friends through golf. We’ve probably played 200 rounds of golf together. Golf can bring people of different ages, backgrounds, ethnicity etc. together.
For about the last 4 years or so Bobby has been a member of the locally famous “Thursday group” which is one foursome that plays every Thursday here, provided there’s no snow on the ground. The Thursday group is as tight a group of buddies as you’ll find. Bobby has a picture perfect golf swing and on Thursdays I always stand directly behind him and look at his perfect swing plane. You can see from the picture here he’s already made contact but his eyes are still down.
About 2.5 years ago Bobby was diagnosed with cancer and given 6 months to live. He made it past 6 months big time. Eventually we stopped calling him Bobby and started calling him “Miracle Man.” In the last year or so sometimes Bobby would miss a Thursday because he was too weak from the chemotherapy to play. Then the next week he’d be out on the course.
Each Thursday we’d get an update and he’d tell us the cancer was in his organs, then it would be in his bones, and finally it hit his brain.
Bobby was very healthy and took good care of himself during his life. He never ate any “bad” food. A great quote he said one day to me at the turn was “Fuck it. I’m eating a hot dog. That healthy food didn’t do shit for me.” That’s the way he was. He spoke his mind.
I played in many weekend tournaments and events with Bobby. The most notable was this last year’s club championship at Meadowbrook. Bobby and I played in the 27 hole club championship match. We weren’t playing against each other. I was an A flight finalist and he was a B flight finalist. We both rode together and gave each other moral support in the very stressful 27 hole matchplay event. I was very glad to have him there for me. It was my first championship match and I could hardly hold my breakfast down.
Though I was 2up after 18, I didn’t close the deal. But Bobby absolutely destroyed his opponent who was a good 25 years younger than him and knocked his drives 80 yards farther. He closed his opponent out with 6 holes to go. Keep in mind, this guy won a club championship 2 years after he should have died, and after at least a year of chemo. Simply amazing.
Tonight I’m going to crack open a bottle of wine and raise a glass in a toast to my good golfing friend. Here’s to you Bobby. I’ll truly miss you. You won’t be forgotten.
I managed to get a media credential for this year’s PGA Merchandise Show. I’d planned on attending and coming back with tons of great news about equipment and all things related to golf.
Unfortunately I have a close friend who is sick and some other commitments here and I won’t be able to bring this to you.
Bogeyman from Bogey Lounge is going and I’d recommend you check out his site for updates. I believe someone from The Sand Trap will be reporting from there as well.
Remember the old golf videos made by Cybervision? The theory was if you just watched the video of a good golf swing over and over again you’d ingrain it in your brain and your swing would benefit. The $99.00 Teego Practice Ball Dispenser doesn’t show you a good golf swing to look at, but it does allow you to groove your swing.
What is a Teego?
The Teego is an automatic golf ball teeing machine. The unit looks like a funky gum ball machine. The top section has a spiral track which the balls are loaded into, and an extra ball/tee storage area in the center.
The Teego comes with brush tee which you solidly anchor into the ground. You align the Teego’s arm to the brush tee and now you have an automatic teeing system. Tap a button on the side of the Teego with your golf club and the Teego’s arm nicely places the ball right on the brush tee.
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I saw an amazing golf lesson the other day. I was sitting in on a lesson of a golfer who I thought had a great swing. His swing plane looked great to me, the untrained non professional.
The instructor had this guy only work on one thing, posture. (Many good instructors will give a student only one thing to work on or think about). A quick look from the video camera showed that the student was actually slouching. His shoulders where rolled over as well.
The instructor had him hold a club away from his body parallel to the ground while standing straight up. The goal was to try to push the shoulder blades together. Then he dropped the hands to belt level, but kept the club parallel to the ground. At that point the instructor had the student simply bend over until the club was in position. Instantly the players stance looked more like Charles Howell than a slouching hacker with a hunched back.
When the student hit shots from this better position the change was amazing. First the players hands were in a better position. Before his hands were too close to his body, causing some possible re-routing issues. The player’s swing plane suddenly changed from a two plane to a one plane swing all the way through. Last, when freezing the video at crucial points, the properly adjusted posture put the club face at perfect positions at 1/4 back, the top of the swing and completely through the follow through.
Simply making sure you have good posture can help fix many other problems you may be having in your swing. Check it out in front of a mirror.
Callaway’s Press Release Below (the date says December 05, 2005, but the release will be this week at the PGA merchandise show in Orlando):
MICROVISION, CALLAWAY GOLF REACH SUNGLASS LICENSING DEAL
SAN DIEGO, December 05, 2005 – MicroVision Optical today announced it has entered into a licensing agreement with golf club and golf ball manufacturing giant Callaway Golf (NYSE:ELY) to produce and market a line of technologically advanced sunglasses bearing the Callaway Golf name. San Diego-based MicroVision Optical will incorporate its ground-breaking NEOX lens technology into the production of the new eyewear line.
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