AJGA Tournament Trip

I have a friend, Dan, who is a rules guy for golf.  He invited me to ride along for a junior tournament yesterday.

It was at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City, CA.   We left Pleasanton at 5 am to avoid traffic and arrived about 5:45.

Now, it's not well known, but Daly City makes all the cold fog for the rest of the state.  Frequently it is quite cold in Daly City and yesterday was no exception.  It was in the low 60s with fog and some wind.

It's about 100 degrees in Pleasanton and has been for a while.  I'm not used to dressing for 60 degrees.  But I grabbed a fleece and a wind shell and even some long pants.  I wish I'd tossed in wind pants, warmer jacket, gloves and hand warmers.

The club wanted the tournament to be completed in two days, so the kids went around twice and we were there from start to finish.  We got back home about 9 pm.  Long day.

I looked in the mirror this morning and found my face red with wind and sun burn.  I received a nice AJGA ball cap and, while warm, didn't have the sun coverage I'm used to.  My ears and neck and face are under repair.

While it was a long day, it was inspiring watching these 12 to 19 year old kids smack the ball.  Most of the kids were on the older side.

They could hit it for sure.  Much longer than I am.  Skinny little kids and diminutive girls with drives that soared off down the fairways.

Dan tells me the girls are all about accuracy and rarely miss a fairway.  The boys however, are more into the "hit it real far and find it mode."  But it was all impressive.

I learned a lot about the rules of golf.  The cypress trees that dominate the course are good at catching golf balls, so the "what do I do when the ball doesn't come down from the tree" ruling came up a lot.

I spent most of my time with Dan in a cart, but walked a nine with a threesome of boys.  I would have followed them more, but after the turn they ran into people just teeing off and pace of play got too slow to walk along comfortably.

I normally play on Tuesdays, but I was so beat up from the cold and sun that I just went to the range today.  I wanted to try some of the things the kids do before trying to do them on the course.

The kids do a couple of things that most of the rest of us casual golfers don't do.  Things like a very slow back swing, they are just not in a hurry, their hips are the first thing to fire once the club is swung back.  Then they also stay behind the ball as the hips are way out in front of the spine.

They also generate a lot fewer divots than I do.  Some of their pitches around the green are very low, but very spinny.

I am interested in all of this.  But I only tried the slow backswing and aggressive hip movement for the long game.  I'll spend some time at the pitching area for some of the other stuff.

I was able to get the hips going and I was quite happy with the resultant ball striking.  I was also able to take a slow full backswing with no loss of distance.  My balance was good and I'm happy with what I was trying to do.

I've got a game tomorrow, so we shall see.

The AJGA folks that I interacted with were a great bunch of folks.  Friendly and social and welcoming.  If you get the chance to go to one of their tournaments, do take it in.   It's free to spectate and are on some nice golf courses.  Just a great day.  Bring your lunch and maybe even a jacket!

The web site for AJGA is ajga.org, they are a non-profit and have been around since the 1970's.  Thanks go out to Dan and rest of the AJGA staff for a wonderful day.