2016 has been a struggle for me on the golf course. Most of the spring I’ve been shooting some very high scores and trying to keep myself calm and “enjoy the walk.” Because I’ve been playing a lot of golf recently my game seems to be getting better, slightly. For the last few rounds my driving has gotten very long and accurate. The iron game is very good, putting solid. Short game improved from that of a 36 handicapper to maybe a 15. Yes, short game is my weak point and source of most of my frustration.
Coming into the 2016 City Am at Bonneville Golf Course I had just won a 27-hole tournament with my dad, and won a match a few days prior. I was feeling very confident in my driving and irons, and thought my short game was improved enough that it wouldn’t cost me too many shots.
Bonneville Golf Course Aerial Photo by Tony Korologos
Pressure
This tournament, as I’ve said many times, is the one that I look forward most every year. I really value my performance and have thoughts of winning it, after placing 2nd a couple of years ago. I feel a lot of pressure, adrenaline, butterflies. It is difficult to get the ball airborne for the first tee shot. In fact, the first tee shot of the event I missed going out of bounds by about five feet. Since I don’t play a lot of tournaments I don’t have a lot of experience in dealing with that kind of pressure. That lack of experience doesn’t help. I find that nervous feeling very strange yet interesting. I feel like I’m strong mentally. I can’t believe I don’t have the mental strength to overcome having rubber arms that feel like they’re made out of lead. I’m sure more experience in the pressure of a real tournament would help me get used to it better.
So many factors and weird things happened this week. Temperatures jumped up big and the end of the 2nd round the temperature was 98 degrees. For the first time of the season my hands were sweating so much that I couldn’t keep them dry. Some of my grips, like on my driver, get slippery when wet. Try hitting a pressure shot when you can’t hold onto the club. So I wear a glove. I hate gloves. I only wear them when my hands are slipping. As a result, I think my accuracy suffered. My driving was not as good as normal, which put me into situations which brought bogey and double bogey into play. I’m talking about trees, bunkers, even snack bars. More on that later.
Shoe/Sock Scripting Malfunctions
I had some other problems too, in the shoe/sock department. I can laugh now but at the time I was not laughing. Read the next post for details on that. Needless to say, the pressure, sweaty hands, 95 degree temperatures, bad short game, wrong socks, blistered feet… all added up to my simply trying to eek into the prize money.
Highlight of the Tournament
This is surely the 2nd craziest par I’ve ever had. The first being one I made on the Road Hole in 2011.
I nutted an 8-iron on the 160 yard par-3 17th. It flew over the green and hit a downslope, rolling some 40-50 yards into a pile of sand in ground under repair near the snack shack. My nearest relief from the ground under repair left me an impossible situation. I was behind a wall of trees about 80 feet high, hitting up to an elevated green some 20 feet above my head. I could barely see the top of the flag and I could not go right at it. To top it off, my drop slowly moved from grass to a bare piece of dirt.
All I could do was try to punch a 7-iron into the hill and hope that it bounced onto the right half of the green, or off the front of the green. Then maybe I could chip and one-putt for a bogey. The situation had big numbers written all over it.
I chopped the 7-iron in a downward motion because of the dirt lie. The ball came off left of target and went right at one of the trees. It went right through a V in the tree, ticking some leaves. It then hit into the hill and bounced straight up into the air, right at the flag. I didn’t know they were watching, but the players behind me on the 4th tee saw it and clapped! I was left with about a 20 foot par-putt. I made the putt. It was probably the only putt over 15 feet I made all weekend.
Jeff Dalebout
I’m not sure how I managed that par. I think perhaps I had a little help. One of the trees behind 17 green has a plaque under it, with a dedication to an old friend named Jeff Dalebout. Jeff was a bouncer in the bar my rock band used to play at for many years. When his favorite X songs would come on, Jeff would jump up on stage and sing them with us. We became good buddies over the years. Along with being a bouncer, Jeff was one of the “night watermen” at Bonneville. For about the first 86 years the course existed, it had no automatic sprinklers. The night watermen would haul hoses all around the course and water it in the dark. Jeff and I played many rounds of hungover golf at Bonneville, after gig nights.
Jeff passed unexpectedly back around 2003 at a very young age. I tip my hat to him every time I walk by his plaque behind 17 green on the way to the 18th tee. I think he gave me a helping hand on Sunday. Thanks my old friend. You are missed.
Best Bud Caddies On Sunday
Speaking of old friends… My best buddy once told me the best things in life are “experiences.” If that’s true, Sunday’s round was one of the best things in life, and an experience I’ll never forget. My buddy Alan Nelson, who normally resides in Philly, was in town. He asked if he could caddie for me in the 2nd round. How cool is that?
Naturally I said yes as long as he understood the “three ups” in caddieing:
- Show up
- Keep up
- Shut up
I loaded my golf bag full of bricks and let him have at it. A fine job of caddying he did. Old Course caddie John Boyne would be proud. Alan did an even finer job of doing what he has been best at for years, being a great friend. He knew when to talk to me and when to leave me alone to cool off (like after I bladed a wedge across the 16th green).
What a great experience. I should find out if I’m in the money when I get to the course tomorrow. Rest assured my caddie will get his customary 10% of the take. I hope he doesn’t spend the whole $1.75 in one place.
Got my first shipment from ThreadLab today. It’s a mail order clothier for people like me that don’t know how to match a white shirt with navy pants.
I’m a little behind on some posts and for a very good reason, I’ve been golfing like mad recently. In the last six days I’ve played 108 holes of golf:
- Monday: Net match (won)
- Tuesday: 18 hole practice round at Hidden Valley CC
- Wednesday: 9 hole league at Bonneville, plus an additional 9
- Friday: 27 hole tournament
- Saturday-Sunday: 36 hole tournament
So the first news is to proudly report that my dad and I won the Spring Invitational at Hidden Valley Country Club on Friday. That’s a 27-event which includes 9-holes best ball, 9-holes alternate shot, and 9-holes scramble. We won by a mere .2 of a stroke. Handicaps were fractionally divided, thus the decimal points.
Shot of the Year
The possible difference maker (one could count every shot as the sole difference maker however) is the eagle I made on the tough par-4 5th hole of the lakes course. This is a long par-4 uphill. After a good drive I hit a 5-iron from 181 uphill. I wasn’t thrilled with the shot and actually did some whining about it. But the ball released right up the center of the green toward the pin. Upon getting to the green there was no ball to be found. Only one place it could have been, in the hole and that’s where I found it! Since I got a pop there that made my score a “net one.” Never had one of those before.
Love Playing Golf With My Dad
It is always fun to play golf with my dad, and we have really done well over the years in many tourneys at his club. These are times I value greatly, and one of the best parts of my personal golf experience.
Just got back from a Memorial Day family barbeque. We toasted and expressed our appreciation for our love ones lost, and for our lost military who made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could, well, have a family barbeque. In that spirit I thought it would be a good time to bust out my stars and stripes golf apparel from Royal & Awesome. I’ve got a great pair of USA shorts and a USA cap, seen below. These are called “Pars and Stripes.”
Also with the ensemble is a white Royal & Awesome belt, below.
The american flag golf shorts are very comfortable and I love the style of the cap. I believe the Scottish might call the cap a bunnet.
I can’t wait for the 4th of July golf tournament to bust this apparel script out again.
One note on the shorts. I’ve found that Royal & Awesomes sizes are “skinny UK sizing” as opposed to “fat American sizing.” Knowing this I ordered one size larger on the shorts and they actually fit perfect.
The 4th of July is coming. Just sayin’.
This past week I experienced a bit of an embarrassing learning experience while golfing with fellow golf blogger John Duval of IntoTheGrain.com. We were playing at Soldier Hollow Golf Course here in Heber, Utah, which had been getting pounded by rain and even hail. The bunkers (known by some as sand traps) had been compacted and not maintenanced. So that meant the sand in them was extremely hard and even had a bit of a crusty layer on the top.
On one of the six, yes six, par-3’s on the Silver Course, I had trouble getting out. I kept blading shots and line-driving them into the lip. Luckily for John the lip stopped one of them, or my ball might have killed him, or at least caused severe eye damage. Inside joke there. Like the extremely intelligent golfer I am, I kept trying the same shot and getting the same result, blading shots into the lip. After a few of them I picked the damn ball up with my hand and threw it at the hole. That was the shot of the day.
A couple of holes later on yet another par-3 I was again in a greenside bunker. This time a bunker quite short of the green, about 20 yards. Instead of sand wedge I chose lob wedge. I got out of the first bunker no problem, but went into the 2nd one. Lob wedge again from the 2nd one was no problem onto the green.
The Lesson
The Reader’s Digest version of the lesson was that out of crusty, hard, compacted sand my lob wedge was a better choice than my sand wedge. Why? The design between those two clubs in my particular bag is quite different.
Sand Wedge
My sand wedge, and the majority of most sand wedges has a lot of bounce. The bounce comes from the sole of the club, or the bottom line which is what touches the ground when a golfer is holding the club in position before a shot. This area of the club head can be flat, rounded, v-shaped, or custom ground into all sorts of shapes. The shape of bottom of the club produces a certain amount of bounce. Most common in sand wedges is about 10-12 degrees, quite a bit of bounce.
Why a lot of bounce? In regular sand which isn’t hard like the sand I described above, a club will go into the sand and dig or burrow in. This can stop the club or severely slow it down. A club which is decelerating in sand will not produce a good shot. This is why most amateur golfers hit fat shots in the sand, and the ball only goes a foot or two, leaving them another sand shot. The bounce of the sand wedge helps the club deflect off the sand and prevents it from digging in. This way the club travels through quickly and gets the ball in the air and out of the bunker.
Bounce and hard sand? So if the sand is extremely compacted and hard, the design of the sand wedge will make the club bounce far too much. The club will not go under the sand. Instead it will bounce up and the leading edge of the club, or blade, will hit the ball. This is called “blading a shot” and is what produces the line-drive shots I was hitting into the lip.
Lesson one is that clubs with a lot of bounce are generally not a good idea in hard sand or on very hard ground.
Lob Wedge
My current lob wedge has quite a different design or “grind” on the sole of the club compared to my sand wedge. Rather than 10 degrees of bounce, it has only four. This is not a lot of bounce at all. When I switched to the lob wedge in the 2nd trap, the club did not bounce in the sand. It went under the ball without going back up too soon from impacting the sand. Therefore I did not blade the shots. The first shot didn’t travel far enough because of the loft of the club and how hard I swung it, but the ball got out of the crusty sand with no problem at all.
Conversely a lob wedge or club like mine with a small amount of bounce may not be a great club selection for an average golfer who is hitting out of soft sand. The club will not bounce off the sand but will dig in, producing a fat shot which will come up short.
Lesson two is that clubs with very little bounce are a good idea for compacted sand or very hard ground.
Left: 56 degree sand wedge with 10 degrees bounce | Right: 60 degree lob wedge with 4 degrees bounce
Look at the image above. Left is my sand wedge and right is my lob wedge. The green line shows the leading edge of the face. The pink line shows the bounce. You can see that the sand has much more mass and the angle of the sole (between the pink and green lines) is much higher. That’s the bounce!
Lesson three from this experience which I learned, probably re-learned, is to not be too lazy to go get the right club. Once I hit that first bouncy bladed sand shot into the lip I knew the ground was too hard and the sand wedge was the wrong club. I should have gone to my bag and gotten my lob wedge before taking another swing. Instead I was too lazy to go get another club. The result was a big number and loss of hole.
If it were a tournament or important situation other than a casual round, I would have changed clubs.
Final Thoughts
Next time you find yourself in a bunker, look at the sand and get a feel for it with your feet. Is it hard? Is it soft? Now you may have a better idea which of your clubs is the best choice. If by chance you choose the wrong club, don’t hesitate to take a few more seconds to grab the correct club and save some strokes.
« Previous
1
…
126
127
128
129
130
…
1,163
Next »
HOGWire – Golf Industry News
