FootJoy Confirmed As 2013 Hooked On Golf Blog Fantasy Golf Sponsor

Written by: Tony Korologos | Wednesday, March 6th, 2013
Categories: Fantasy Golf • Miscellaneous • Site News

footjoylogo FootJoy has been the longest continually running sponsor of HOG Space fantasy golf and that relationship continues through 2013! FootJoy is confirmed.

Recently I reviewed the new FootJoy M:Project golf shoes. We haven’t discussed the prizes yet, but perhaps the lucky winner will be hooked up (pun intended) with a pair of M:Projects. They are awesome.

FootJoy M:Project Golf Shoes

It is never too late to join HOG Space fantasy golf FREE. Follow the easy instructions below:

1. Go to www.buzzfantasyleagues.com
2. Create an account if you don’t have one
3. Click on “Join an Existing League”
4. Enter League ID 233, and Season ID 335
5. Create your team, enter league password “HOG”

Prizes

Nike Golf – Covert Driver
FootJoy – Shoes/Apparel
Bridgestone Golf – Golf Balls
Tornado Tee – Golf Tees (weekly prizes)

Sponsors Wanted

If you wish to sponsor 2013 Fantasy Golf, let me know. Sponsorship would mean providing prizes in exchange for weekly air time, banners and links to your web site via the fantasy golf updates.

Discussion

HOG Space fantasy golf is a dual effort between Hooked On Golf Blog and The Golf Space. Official fantasy golf forum discussion thread is in The Golf Space Forum here.

Brought To You By

Fantasy golf is brought to you by Hooked On Golf Blog and The Golf Space.

Fantasy Golf – Honda Classic Winner

Written by: Tony Korologos | Wednesday, March 6th, 2013
Categories: Fantasy Golf • Miscellaneous • Site News

Grand Prize – Nike Covert Driver

Honda Classic Winner: Out Of Gas

SPONSOR UPDATE

The following four sponsors have been confirmed for 2013!

Nike Golf – Nike Covert Driver
FootJoy – Shoes/Apparel
Bridgestone Golf – Bridgestone Golf Balls
Tornado Tee – Very cool golf tees (weekly)

I’m still hammering out prizes and arrangements for coupon codes to claim the weekly prizes. Stay tuned!

It is never too late to join HOG Space fantasy golf FREE. Follow the easy instructions below:

Prizes

I’ve managed to get some great prizes sponsored by companies like FootJoy, Bridgestone Golf, Nike Golf, Nicklaus Golf, Ogio, Sun Mountain, Champ, Frogger Golf, Tattoo Golf, Bobby Jones Golf and many others over the years. I’ll be working on this year’s prizes between now and the season.

Sponsors Wanted

If you wish to sponsor 2013 Fantasy Golf, let me know. Sponsorship would mean providing prizes in exchange for weekly air time, banners and links to your web site via the fantasy golf updates.

Discussion

HOG Space fantasy golf is a dual effort between Hooked On Golf Blog and The Golf Space. Official fantasy golf forum discussion thread is in The Golf Space Forum here.

La Cima Golf Course, Colombia – 10,000 feet above sea level in the Andes Mountains – Put this one on your golf bucket list

Written by: Tony Korologos | Tuesday, March 5th, 2013
Categories: Course Reviews • Golf • Golf Courses • Golf Life • Golf Lifestyle • HOG World Tour • Reviews • Travel

Get ready for a series of posts about Colombia, because I’ve been there for the last week and there’s a lot to tell. I didn’t have much time to actually write while in Bogota because I was too busy enjoying the fine landscape, golf, people and food. Colombian women? I’m a fan.

La Cima Club de Golf – Click to enlarge

La Cima Club de Golf – Golf Bucket List

I can’t wait to express how special the golf experience I had at La Cima Club de Golf. This is one I’d definitely add to the golf bucket list. La Cima is located in the Andes Mountains, about 45-60 minutes east of Bogota, Colombia. The golf course is set amongst Colombian potato farms and cattle ranches. The track flows with the natural landscape. It is part of the landscape. Normally I mention the course designer in my reviews, but in this case I have no idea who it is. There wasn’t much earth moving involved in building this course, just flattening out a few teeing areas and shaping some greens. The rest was done by mother nature. I love tracks that flow with the landscape and are not artificially created.

La Cima Golf Course, Colombia – #1 Tee – Click to enlarge

La Cima sits at around 10,000 feet above sea level. The locals call golfing at La Cima “golfing above the clouds.” In the case of my round there I did just that. I golfed IN the clouds as well. The tee shot (pictured right) on the first hole was shot a little after 6:00am. To get the best golf above the clouds experience, get an early tee time. My tee shot disappeared into the clouds below the first tee, which is extremely elevated. I’m guessing the altitude of hole #1 tee to be around 9800 feet above sea level. The elevation change from the tee to the fairway his huge. The drop from the fairway to the green is even more severe. My best guess is that this hole drops some 300-400 feet in elevation from tee to green. Nothing like hitting a 5-iron 240 yards to pin high.

Hole #2 starts just above the level of #1 green and turns right back around up the steep hill hole #1 came down. After climbing to fairway level one may unfortunately realize the air at this altitude is quite thin. Luckily for me I live at a fairly high altitude and didn’t have a problem. I’ve read many accounts of altitude sickness in the area so make sure you’re ready for some steep hills and thin air. There are NO golf carts. I did find myself needing to take a few deep breaths, party because of the altitude and partly because the place is so severely hilly.

#6 Tee from about 9,950 feet above sea level – click to zoom

Tee

The tee shots at La Cima are quite dramatic. Many very large elevation changes make judging distance tough while the tightness of the tree lined fairways makes accuracy extremely important. On this course distance off the tee is not the most important and at this altitude, the ball flies very far so driver isn’t always the club to pull on par-4’s and par-5’s. In fact, quite often the hole design requires a much more conservative iron-off-the-tee approach for the best placement.

Fairway

The fairways at La Cima can be tight. If one manages to place a ball on the fairway there can be many challenging lies due to the hilly Andes mountain terrain. I’m right at home on this kind of track having learned golf on mountain courses. There is not a straight hole on the course. Most of the par-4’s and 5’s have some sort of dogleg and many of them feature double doglegs.

La Cima Club de Golf – 17 approach is very tight – click to enlarge

Just like the tee shots, in many cases conservative shot selections are best. Some cases, like the par-5 17th hole, only one play will really work, safe.

Green

Approaching the greens is perhaps the most challenging part of golf above the clouds. The steep Colombian terrain all but guarantees that one side of the green will have a hill above and the other a large drop off. Missing the green to the side of the drop off is death. I know. I did it a few times. In fact, hitting a green in the wrong place can be just as penalizing as missing the green flat out. On two occasions I hit the green but the spin of the ball took it off the edge where it ran away some 20 yards down a slope. 20 yards combined with 30 feet of elevation makes for a tough ask. I managed to channel my inner Phil Mickelson on one great up-and-down by hitting a mega-flop shot. Unfortunately I failed on that same shot a few holes later, three times. Having missed the green and run down a huge slope, one must get the ball on the green. If not, the ball will roll right back to your feet like it did for me, three times. I’d channeled my inner me on that one.

Me on the 5th green at exactly 10,000 feet above sea level. Notice how nice the green is? Click to zoom…

The surfaces themselves were surprisingly good. I was led to expect that they would be bumpy and slow. Led to believe they’d be poorly taken care of. In fact the putting surfaces were quite nice, rolled true and held shots like the best country clubs I’ve played. I backed a gap wedge up about 20 feet on the 16th hole.

Conclusion

I can’t begin to express how special and fantastic playing at La Cima really is. I kept telling my playing partner Daniel, a local, how great it was. Hard to put into words, especially with my limited vocabulary, what the experience golfing in the Andes Mountains is like.

La Cima isn’t a country club. Not a resort. There are no golf carts. No hotel. No pool. No condos. No gourmet restaurant. If that’s your fancy then fine, have fun with it. For me it is about the golf and the experience. I’ve played golf on some of the world’s most famous courses from all over the USA to St. Andrews. This was an experience like no other. I’ll always remember golf above the clouds and will do my best to get back to La Cima Club de Golf as soon as possible.

Related Links

La Cima website (Spanish)

La Cima Club de Golf photo gallery

Interview: Web.com Tour’s Dusty Fielding On Making His First Cut

Written by: Tony Korologos | Monday, March 4th, 2013
Categories: Pro Golf • Web.com Tour

What a week in Bogota, Colombia last week! Wow. I made a bunch of new friends, one of which is Dusty Fielding. Dusty is a local from St. George, Utah who in Bogota was trying to make the first cut in his Web.com Tour career. The Colombia Championship in Bogota was his 2nd start. He missed the cut the previous week in Panama. Check out the interview with Dusty below. Dusty improved his position greatly over the weekend and if you listen to what he had to say about his position he did exactly what he said he would do. He was in last place coming into Saturday, but took advantage of making the cut to move up to a T7 finish when it was all over. Well done.

Apologies for the audio quality. The new Nikon shoots great HD video, but the microphone sucks.

Image Gallery – Web.com Tour’s 2013 Colombia Championship

Written by: Tony Korologos | Saturday, March 2nd, 2013
Categories: HOG World Tour • Pro Golf • Web.com Tour

I’ve been shooting photos of the Web.com Tour’s Colombia Championship and uploading them from here in Bogota, Colombia for the last three days. I’ve got photos of many players and the beautiful golf course which is home to the event, Country Club de Bogota.