I’m really making great progress on my golf aerials photo/video rig. If you need aerial photos or video, contact me. Yesterday’s shoot at Hidden Valley Country Club here in Sandy, Utah, produced some fantastic shots. It was quite windy, so I’m not sure the videos I captured will turn out, but the photos are fantastic.
Hidden Valley Country Club Lakes Course – Par-3 6th – click for more HVCC photos
Left: Lakes Course 9th green – Right: Mountain Course 9th green – Clubhouse behind – click to see more
I’ve enjoyed the challenge of building a setup to capture these images, and the challenge of flying it. Looking forward to seeing what the future holds for this type of media.
Here’s a nice golf gift for Christmas, birthday, or other occasions. Bill Kroen’s Golf Tip-a-Day 2015 Calendar
is a daily rip-away calendar which gives a golfer daily doses of golf advice and game-improving information.
Bill Kroen’s Golf Tip-A-Day
It is tough to learn many golf tips at a time. One at a time per day will be absorbed into the golfer’s brain and retained at a much higher rate.
Top: The Daily Extra
As a bonus, the backside of each tip has another interesting nugget of information called the “daily extra,” not necessarily related to golf.
What’s the next best thing to a scottish caddie? Another scottish caddie of course. After that I’d go with a laser rangefinder for my yardages. The next golf laser rangefinder on the Hooked On Golf Blog review queue is the new Bushnell Golf Tour Z6.
Bushnell Tour Z6 Laser Rangefinder with Pinseeker + Jolt
The Tour Z6 is a compact laser with Bushnell’s “pinseeker” technology plus their new “jolt” feature. What is the jolt feature? When the laser locks in on the pin 47,000 volts of DC current electrocutes the golfer. Well, not really. But the unit does vibrate in the user’s hands to indicate that the pin has been acquired.
My first round of testing the Tour Z6 will be in two days. As usual I do extensive testing. No drive-by reviews. Stay tuned.
Most golfers like to have “friendly” wagers against their playing partners on the course. There are hundreds of different golf betting games for said friendly wagers, and perhaps someday I’ll post them here as a fun resource for golfers. It would take quite a while.
I’ve been involved in many “money” games over the years and had some crazy situations arise when emotions and tempers flare up. Golf can do that, and in the heat of the moment we can make dumb choices. For me a typical friendly bet is a $2 nassau, $1-$5 skins, and maybe a $5-10 overall low (net or gross) score wager. With those numbers one might win a few bucks when playing well, or lose just a few when not playing well.
There is a point at which a friendly bet becomes not-so-friendly. That’s the point where the money becomes the focus, rather than a friendly golf game with your buddies. Putts which would normally be in the “friendship zone” and called good in match play are suddenly not good and must be putted out. That’s a point in time where players can become irritated that their putts were not called good, and tempers can flare.
A friendly game is not one in which the losers go home pissed off at their friends because their round cost them too much money. If that’s the case, the bets are too high or there have been too many presses. When my friends play well to beat me, I have no problem shaking their hand, patting them on the back, and giving them their $4.00. But if I have to hand over $50, along with green fees, I’m looking at $100 day. That isn’t exaclty fun.
I’ve had some crazy bets and scenarios happen in my day, below are a couple of the most memorable.
Winning $150 with my pants down
A guy I used to play regularly loved to double the bet when he was down. It would start at a $1 per hole, then $2, then $5… $10 etc. On the 17th hole I was beating the guy so bad he threw his putter about 40 feet up into a pine tree and had to climb up and get it. He owed me $50 at that point. By the 18th tee he was so mad after climbing the tree that he wanted to bet me $100. I agreed to the bet figuring at the worst I’d lose $50 and as mad as he was, I’d probably win the hole.
I duffed my tee shot on the short par-4 though, and it didn’t make it past the ladies’ tee. Back then we strictly enforced the pants down rule if one’s tee shot didn’t make it past the ladies’ tee. With my pants down I crushed a 3-wood and though the finishing hole was uphill, I reached the green. Naturally (pun intended), with my pants down, I drained the birdie putt to win the hole.
Total take $150 and one pissed off former friend.
The bet too big to collect
Years ago on the driving range with a buddy we started a contest. A quarter to each player on the range who could hit the targets out there. This range had 50 gallon drums, old cars, and all sorts of targets. We went back and forth hitting targets and betting. Soon we started to do double-or-nothing bets.
The game moved to the practice putting green where it started at $1 per hole. I started to win holes and my opponent doubled up the bet each time, figuring he would eventually win. He didn’t. The bets started to get out of hand. $25, $50 etc… It got to the point where the guy owed me $250.
“Double or nothing,” he said when down $250. I told him that the game got out of control and I was not going to let it go any farther. I was done. He begged for one more bet, so I begrudgingly agreed and picked a hole some 100 feet away to insure we would both 2-putt and be done.
One problem.
I made the putt.
I never collected the $500 from that day’s crazy practice bets. I told the guy to forget it. I can only hope he would have done the same for me, but I suspect he would have insisted on collecting.
I’m excited to post that a new GolfBuddy PT4 golf GPS range finder has been submitted for review. This is a very fine looking golf GPS, featuring a four inch color LCD touchscreen which shows all sorts of great and useful information to the golfer.
As much as I hate to use stock photos for my product articles, I had to this time. It is difficult to photograph the LCD screen without a bunch of aliasing lines which don’t look great. So the featured photo to the right is courtesy of GolfBuddy.
Here is a feature list for the PT4:
- + 4” LCD screen with high resolution
- + New user interface with capacitive touch control
- + Slim body design
- + Water resistant
- + Dynamic Green View
- + Preloaded with 37,000+ global courses
- + Automatic course and hole recognition
- + Easy scoring feature
- + Score tracking module (up to 4 players)
- + Statistics Analysis Module
- + Precise distance to any target
- + Customizable targets
- + Shot distance measurement
- + Moveable Pin Placement
- + Replaceable Battery
- + 8 hour battery life
- + 50 channel satellite reception
I’ll be putting this baby into play for the first round of testing in 2-3 days. As most of you HOG patrons know, I test quite a bit before writing a full review. Stay tuned.
Here’s a shot from my house last night. As you can see, HOG World Headquarters 3999 yards from the center of the first green at River Oaks.
GolfBuddy PT4
Related Links
GolfBuddy VS4 Mini Talking Golf GPS Review
GolfBuddy World Platinum Golf GPS Review
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