First Look: ThreadLab
Written by: Tony Korologos | Monday, June 6th, 2016
Categories: Golf Apparel • Golf Gear
Tags: ThreadLab
Categories: Golf Apparel • Golf Gear
Tags: ThreadLab
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.
Oh goody! New delivery from @MyThreadLab pic.twitter.com/JP5C16jFTc
— Tony Korologos (@TheGolfSpace) June 6, 2016
My Dad and I Win 27 Hole Spring Invitational
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.
My Memorial Day Apparel Scripting
Written by: Tony Korologos | Monday, May 30th, 2016
Categories: Golf Apparel • Golf Gear • Reviews
Tags: Royal and Awesome
Categories: Golf Apparel • Golf Gear • Reviews
Tags: Royal and Awesome
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’.
Golf Tip: Getting out of Hard, Crusty, Compacted Sand
Written by: Tony Korologos | Sunday, May 29th, 2016
Categories: Golf • Golf For Women • Golf Instruction • Hackers • Instruction
Tags: Golf Tips • golf wedge • Sand Wedge
Categories: Golf • Golf For Women • Golf Instruction • Hackers • Instruction
Tags: Golf Tips • golf wedge • Sand Wedge
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.
Puma Golf PWRWARM 1/4 Zip Golf Popover Review
Written by: Tony Korologos | Friday, May 27th, 2016
Categories: Golf Apparel • Golf Gear • Reviews
Tags: Puma
Categories: Golf Apparel • Golf Gear • Reviews
Tags: Puma
It is spring here in northern Utah. What that usually means periods of rain, cold, wind, hail, with the occasional jump up to 95 degrees. The last couple of weeks the temperatures have been in the 50’s and 60’s on average. That’s perfect for the Puma Golf PWRWARM 1/4 Zip Popover, which I’ve been sporting on and off the course for several weeks. Here’s a shot from Valley View GC last week.
Puma Golf 1/4 Zip Popover
In the round above there was just enough of a chill that I needed to take the edge off my core, but not enough to wear long pants. Then again, my nickname is “no-pants” so it has to be pretty cold to go that route.
Details
First things first. What on earth is “PWRWARM?” This is some amazing technology actually. It is a ceramic print that helps recycle and redirect the golfer’s body heat. Here’s how Puma describes it:
A CERAMIC PRINT THAT REFLECTS MORE OF YOUR BODY HEAT BACK TO YOU, SO YOU CAN KEEP PLAYING.
HERE’S HOW IT WORKS
High-performance golf apparel that keeps you warm in cold conditions; it’s a simple idea. Here’s how it works:1. Heat is absorbed by the PWRWARM ceramic coating from the body.
2. Excess heat is stored by PWRWARM away from the body.
3. Stored heat is released back to your body if it gets too cold.
So basically a ceramic material stores and releases the golfer’s heat back to him as needed.
Sizes/Colors
The color shown above is one of seven color combinations, “white / gray medium heather.” Other combos include gray and black bases with the color orange, purple, and a couple of blue shades.
Sizes run from small to double XL. The size I’m wearing is an XL and it fits great, not too loose.
On The Course
As I mentioned, I’ve had this fantastic Puma Golf outerwear piece in action on the course for a few weeks. It has served me very well, taking the edge off the sometimes cold spring air here.
During the golf swing the 1/4 Zip Popover is extremely comfortable. There is no binding. No tight areas. No restriction when the body is coiled up or releasing a massive drive down the fairway. I particularly like that the fit is slimming but not loose. I need all the slimming I can get.
Off the course I’ll wear this piece in the office when it is chilly, or when I’m out on the town. It’s so sharp and comfortable it can work well for many situations off the course.
Final Thoughts
I love the style, performance, and comfort of the PWRWARM 1/4 Zip Popover. The white/gray matches up well with just about any apparel scripting I’m sporting. I especially dig how the gray matches up with my HOG hat.
Some golf outerwear can get into the crazy zone price-wise. Based on all the great properties and style of the 1/4 Zip Popover I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was in the $200+ range, but this piece is an extremely reasonable $75.00 retail price.
I’m stoked to take this piece as one of my scripting choices for my upcoming Scotland golf trip in July. Even in the summer the temps in Scotland can be a bit chilly if the sun goes behind the clouds. The 1/4 Zip Popover will be a perfect solution. Can’t wait.
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