With father in a bit of a bad way, I've had cause to reflect on how he and mom and my golf life have intersected.
One of the traits that I picked up from dad was asking questions of strangers. "What was your father like? What did he do? How did you start playing golf?" This usually worked well to open someone up, but then there was the answer, "I never knew my dad. But I had a lot of uncles." Oops. He was cool about it, but it was an awkward moment.
"Who introduced you to golf?" If you are black, the answer was invariably a co-worker. If not then it varied. But it was rare that someone came from multiple generations of golfers. That's my modest claim. When I walk on to a course I remember an early vacation when I was 12 or so and dad and I and grandpa were going to play a round. The grass, mowed and well tended, the excitement of the outing, the company of dad and grandpa made it quite special. I've never lost that memory or feeling. A round of golf is still a treasure.
Dad and mom would on occasion wander off the Rob Roy driving range which was a town or two over from Rolling Meadows, where we lived for 10 years or so. I got to hit the occasional ball. I remember mom exclaiming, "Did you see how far he hit that?" I can see the hitting stations and the broken tees littering the ground. It was lighted and these trips were occasionally at night.
Golf was a very rare occurrence when I was young -- exclusively on vacations. When I got to high school the local course in Palatine had a youth rate that was $75 for the whole summer. I remember playing a bit then. But rounds with the folks were during vacations until they retired and I could find my way to Albuquerque to join them.
There were a number of courses we got to play. The University course, Paako, and some of the other Indian/casino courses come to mind. Dad was never a good golfer. I don't know what he shot when he was in his 70's. I suspect 100+ or so. His course management was not the best and he was never very long off the tee. He had practice gear in the back yard, but I don't think he really cared what he shot or how well he hit the ball; it was more being out and playing with friends and family.
I joined mom a couple of times playing with her ladies 9 hole group at Los Altos -- I still have a hat from there! Nice people and fun to out with them.
As I'm writing this, old memories are coming back. Dad's best round was an 82, a pair of 41s and I can see the course in my mind, but can't put a name on it. Hoffman Estates somewhere I think -- maybe Golden Acres? Dad mentioned that he played there once after a flood and the smell dying worms was potent. He later belonged to a links type course out west of Palatine for a year or two. The day he had an eagle and a hole in one, he was playing by himself.
I played there with him a couple of times. We signed in at the Pro Shop and the pro mentioned that they had a celebrity on the course. It was Miller Barber. 11 time PGA winner. A well known player in his day. We saw him tee off when we were a couple of holes behind and course wound back on itself. I remember that the ball was a mile in the air and I never saw it come down. He had a flying elbow backswing with a huge lift of the arms. The sound carried over to us and it was different, not a sound I was familiar with. Probably still true to this day.
Fathers day is coming up -- a time to reflect. Dad and mom did a real good job raising me. I'd have to put the introduction to golf as one of the more enduring activities they left me with. One could argue that coming out of childhood without any mental baggage was as important. Certainly that allowed all the other successes to so much easier. "You never get mad," Ted tells me. Well, it's all my folks' fault for that one.
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Monday, May 27, 2019
Friday Golf Observations and a Trip to the Museum
I should probably do this in reverse order as the memory seems to be stacked to favor more recent events. If family history is applicable, it will not always be that way.
We, the two Barbaras and I, went down to the DeYoung museum to see the Monet exhibit. It was the last weekend for the exhibit. The paintings were from Monet's latter days. He had an estate in Germany where he altered a river to create a pond to grow water lilies. That worked until he found that there was dust coming in from the dirt roads near the estate and he was unhappy about how it settled on the lilies. He would clean them every day. Not being shy and apparently of enough coin, he had the local roads paved to put a stop to that.
He used to tend to the lilies himself but as the task grew, he turned it over to gardeners and eventually had eight of them in his employ.
In this period of his painting career, he spent endless canvases on images of the lilies and of a Japanese bridge. He worked in larger canvases and we might presume, used larger brushes. The works displayed were pretty big, mostly done in a vibrant green color. There were some tans and such tossed in, but to my eye, it would have been a good time to have stocked up on green paint.
I usually find museum trips to be quite inspirational and I return home with visions of breaking out brushes, or stone chisels and such, but this exhibit left me quite cold. One of the "features" of the art was that there was a lack of details. Very little draftsmanship there. Oh, you could tell it was a tree and some plants and the occasional tree and some bushes, but that was about all. You were not going to learn anything about the objects themselves. Now, it maybe that this style of painting was selling in those days. A bit more on that later as we discuss the Gauguin exhibit. But sadly, the works looked too messy to me and not exciting.
As it happened the museum had an exhibit by Gauguin in the building too and we wanted to spend enough time to justify the travel time and parking fee -- note to self, get there early and park on the street, that will pay for lunch. They had paintings of course, but they also has some wooden relief carvings and some pottery. I liked the pottery. They were of faces and highly decorated vessels. They appealed in their forms and shapes and subjects. A lot of the pottery didn't survive as it was not considered valuable at the time.
Gauguin started out as a stock broker and got married and started to have kids. But then he fell under the spell of the smell of oil paints and pretty soon he was a full time artist. This left the wive and five kids pretty much abandoned. He wandered off to Tahiti a couple of times and then returned and sought to sell his stuff and that didn't work well. Meanwhile the wife raised the kids and helped out a bit and worked, but he had little to do with the family. It might have been interesting to see how the kids viewed all of this.
What was clear from the explanations of his life, is that the image of the starving artist was true in his case. His stuff didn't sell. He spent a lot of time trying to become accepted as an important artist. If he was such, then the paintings would sell and until they sold he wouldn't become an important artist! Seems tough to break through that barrier. Of course only a tiny number of artists ever make it. I think this is true of any product. If you are not producing what people want, you are in real trouble. Frequently artists will petition cities and states and governments to support their life style. I don't have a lot of sympathy for these folks. The market for music, art, literature, etc., is a harsh one. I don't think it's valid that taxpayers ought to kick in to "make it happen" for them. This is all probably worthy of a few posts down the road, but now is not the time!
We retired to the Dim Sum Tea House for lunch. It was crowded and we shared a table with a couple of gals. I tried to spill hot tea in their laps. They were quick and I only caught the table and floor. One of the gals had seen the Monet and Gauguin exhibits and was somewhat derogatory towards Gauguin's family attentions. But, looking at the larger picture, sure he was pretty mean to six folks, the wife and kids, but provided the world with paintings and art works that have inspired and delighted folks for a hundred years. Might be a good trade off -- certainly the question has more than one side. If he had remained a stock broker, would the world be better off?
Ok, enough of that art stuff... Let's get back to the things that matter and we are talking the long iron out of a fairway bunker.
I played a few times over last week and there were somethings that I found interesting and encouraging.
My goal was to keep my head still while swinging. A simple goal you might think, but it's hard to do these things at speed. "Well, slow down then!" I hear you say. That's actually pretty good advice and working on hitting the ball well and not "hard" is an excellent goal.
There were a couple of shots that stuck in my mind. I've decided that my short putts are a problem. Not enough speed for the most part and I have a tendency to pull them. Pulling seems to be caused by my shoulders getting too active and then my head is involved and then the putt goes left. I will try not rocking the shoulders and short putts and getting more handsy with them.
I hit some long drives, one close to 250, which would really be useful to my scoring if I could do it consistently. If I can do it once, then the ability is there, and good things might be down the road.
I also hit a number of shots that got close to the pins from long distances. I managed to hit a five iron 180 out of a trap. That put me over a difficult green, but I would have expected to be 20 yards short of that result usually. I see this as a good thing as the strike was so pure.
I've come to the conclusion that my backswing needs some work. If it is good, then the downswing will be simpler and easier and more frequently effective. I ran across a video by Athletic Motion Golf on Youtube. They went into some detail about what you want. I jotted down some notes to capture the essence, which is to keep things on the elbow plane. The club will join this plane and will walk back out to the ball on the down swing. Getting off this plane will result in an over the top move or an early extension. But stay on it and all is golden. Well, assuming that you keep the spine in its place too!
For the next round I'm going to work on the take away. On the whole I'm pretty happy with what I'm doing and the results I've had. My short game is getting more nuanced and I've got more shots. I picked up something from a Phil Mickelson video on chipping and that has been incorporated for long shots that don't require pitching the ball. But I'm hitting more greens, so the short game is not used as much as it was.
That's about the wrap for the moment. This is getting too long. I'll be playing every day this week and I should have some feedback on my current view of things.
We, the two Barbaras and I, went down to the DeYoung museum to see the Monet exhibit. It was the last weekend for the exhibit. The paintings were from Monet's latter days. He had an estate in Germany where he altered a river to create a pond to grow water lilies. That worked until he found that there was dust coming in from the dirt roads near the estate and he was unhappy about how it settled on the lilies. He would clean them every day. Not being shy and apparently of enough coin, he had the local roads paved to put a stop to that.
He used to tend to the lilies himself but as the task grew, he turned it over to gardeners and eventually had eight of them in his employ.
In this period of his painting career, he spent endless canvases on images of the lilies and of a Japanese bridge. He worked in larger canvases and we might presume, used larger brushes. The works displayed were pretty big, mostly done in a vibrant green color. There were some tans and such tossed in, but to my eye, it would have been a good time to have stocked up on green paint.
I usually find museum trips to be quite inspirational and I return home with visions of breaking out brushes, or stone chisels and such, but this exhibit left me quite cold. One of the "features" of the art was that there was a lack of details. Very little draftsmanship there. Oh, you could tell it was a tree and some plants and the occasional tree and some bushes, but that was about all. You were not going to learn anything about the objects themselves. Now, it maybe that this style of painting was selling in those days. A bit more on that later as we discuss the Gauguin exhibit. But sadly, the works looked too messy to me and not exciting.
As it happened the museum had an exhibit by Gauguin in the building too and we wanted to spend enough time to justify the travel time and parking fee -- note to self, get there early and park on the street, that will pay for lunch. They had paintings of course, but they also has some wooden relief carvings and some pottery. I liked the pottery. They were of faces and highly decorated vessels. They appealed in their forms and shapes and subjects. A lot of the pottery didn't survive as it was not considered valuable at the time.
Gauguin started out as a stock broker and got married and started to have kids. But then he fell under the spell of the smell of oil paints and pretty soon he was a full time artist. This left the wive and five kids pretty much abandoned. He wandered off to Tahiti a couple of times and then returned and sought to sell his stuff and that didn't work well. Meanwhile the wife raised the kids and helped out a bit and worked, but he had little to do with the family. It might have been interesting to see how the kids viewed all of this.
What was clear from the explanations of his life, is that the image of the starving artist was true in his case. His stuff didn't sell. He spent a lot of time trying to become accepted as an important artist. If he was such, then the paintings would sell and until they sold he wouldn't become an important artist! Seems tough to break through that barrier. Of course only a tiny number of artists ever make it. I think this is true of any product. If you are not producing what people want, you are in real trouble. Frequently artists will petition cities and states and governments to support their life style. I don't have a lot of sympathy for these folks. The market for music, art, literature, etc., is a harsh one. I don't think it's valid that taxpayers ought to kick in to "make it happen" for them. This is all probably worthy of a few posts down the road, but now is not the time!
We retired to the Dim Sum Tea House for lunch. It was crowded and we shared a table with a couple of gals. I tried to spill hot tea in their laps. They were quick and I only caught the table and floor. One of the gals had seen the Monet and Gauguin exhibits and was somewhat derogatory towards Gauguin's family attentions. But, looking at the larger picture, sure he was pretty mean to six folks, the wife and kids, but provided the world with paintings and art works that have inspired and delighted folks for a hundred years. Might be a good trade off -- certainly the question has more than one side. If he had remained a stock broker, would the world be better off?
Ok, enough of that art stuff... Let's get back to the things that matter and we are talking the long iron out of a fairway bunker.
I played a few times over last week and there were somethings that I found interesting and encouraging.
My goal was to keep my head still while swinging. A simple goal you might think, but it's hard to do these things at speed. "Well, slow down then!" I hear you say. That's actually pretty good advice and working on hitting the ball well and not "hard" is an excellent goal.
There were a couple of shots that stuck in my mind. I've decided that my short putts are a problem. Not enough speed for the most part and I have a tendency to pull them. Pulling seems to be caused by my shoulders getting too active and then my head is involved and then the putt goes left. I will try not rocking the shoulders and short putts and getting more handsy with them.
I hit some long drives, one close to 250, which would really be useful to my scoring if I could do it consistently. If I can do it once, then the ability is there, and good things might be down the road.
I also hit a number of shots that got close to the pins from long distances. I managed to hit a five iron 180 out of a trap. That put me over a difficult green, but I would have expected to be 20 yards short of that result usually. I see this as a good thing as the strike was so pure.
I've come to the conclusion that my backswing needs some work. If it is good, then the downswing will be simpler and easier and more frequently effective. I ran across a video by Athletic Motion Golf on Youtube. They went into some detail about what you want. I jotted down some notes to capture the essence, which is to keep things on the elbow plane. The club will join this plane and will walk back out to the ball on the down swing. Getting off this plane will result in an over the top move or an early extension. But stay on it and all is golden. Well, assuming that you keep the spine in its place too!
For the next round I'm going to work on the take away. On the whole I'm pretty happy with what I'm doing and the results I've had. My short game is getting more nuanced and I've got more shots. I picked up something from a Phil Mickelson video on chipping and that has been incorporated for long shots that don't require pitching the ball. But I'm hitting more greens, so the short game is not used as much as it was.
That's about the wrap for the moment. This is getting too long. I'll be playing every day this week and I should have some feedback on my current view of things.
Sunday, May 19, 2019
Gravity Grip
I know you are all excited about the Gravity Grip review. Well, let us not tarry any longer...
I'll start with a video and then I'll add my comments.
As you will note from the video, the grip is asymmetrically weighted. The idea being that the grip will seek to square the club face provided you've installed it correctly. The grip needs to be perpendicular to the club face. Then magic happens!
Mygolfspy.com has a video review of the grip too. The guy there found that his ability to return the club face to its initial face angle improved about 40%. He was close to being plus or minus 1.0 degrees and with the grip he was down to 0.6 degrees. Now you have to be withing 1 degree to make a 10 foot putt.
The guy took the grip back to the lab and did more exhaustive testing. He did find that the grip provided a fair amount of help squaring the club face.
I ordered it from Amazon and when it came took it and my putter over to Jake at the local driving range. I would have installed it myself, but I wanted to get the original grip off without damage. I don't have the tools for that, I usually cut them off. I expected Jake to loosen the glue then use compressed air to pop it off. It turned out to be a bit tougher than that as Jake inserted a rod down the grip and added tape solvent as he went. Considerable strength was applied to drive the rod down. He managed to get it off without damage, though there was a expectation that it wasn't going to happen that way.
He installed the Gravity Grip and off I went.
I got to play with it a couple of times this week. I've been rolling the ball well and that continued. My problem is not being able to start the ball on my intended line. I would suspect that the grip helped with this. I had a couple of birdies and for the most part putted well. There were a couple of three putts when I got the speed wrong and I stubbed one putt too. I'm not convinced that this is the acme of grips, but I'm not convinced it was a waste of money either.
Let me add some remarks about what it felt to swing the club with this grip. Sonny had tried it before when he was at the Evnroll factory. He felt it made the club head feel light and he didn't like it. I was a bit worried about that, as I like the heavy weight of the Evnroll putter heads. After installation I didn't find the club's head weight to be much different. The grip is a different profile from the old one. It is move oval and fills my fingers better. I like the new shape. I could feel the weight in the sense that the club shaft and head seemed more connected. As I swung the club with a very light grip, the face seemed happy to track along and I didn't feel I was throwing the head or that it was lagging. That was a useful tendency and I've no objection to it.
I'm driving the in the car a couple of days later and thinking about the putter and it occurred to me that there is a trade off here. With a weight positioned "off" the shaft, the inherent tendency of the putter face to swing has to be affected. The "face hang" would be lessened by the counter weight, would be another way to think of this. I initially thought that the weight would just dampen and inhibit the swing, but as I type this another possibility occurs to me that the face opening and closing might just happen more quickly as the hands seek to keep the weight at its low point. I like to think I move the putter back and forth with minimal opening and closing of the face, but this might be wrong. Certainly with short putts you don't want a wildly long swing. The connectedness of the face to grip (see last paragraph!) is probably the effect of this weight change.
So I've added another variable to the golf mix. Keeps me young I hope!
I'll start with a video and then I'll add my comments.
As you will note from the video, the grip is asymmetrically weighted. The idea being that the grip will seek to square the club face provided you've installed it correctly. The grip needs to be perpendicular to the club face. Then magic happens!
Mygolfspy.com has a video review of the grip too. The guy there found that his ability to return the club face to its initial face angle improved about 40%. He was close to being plus or minus 1.0 degrees and with the grip he was down to 0.6 degrees. Now you have to be withing 1 degree to make a 10 foot putt.
The guy took the grip back to the lab and did more exhaustive testing. He did find that the grip provided a fair amount of help squaring the club face.
I ordered it from Amazon and when it came took it and my putter over to Jake at the local driving range. I would have installed it myself, but I wanted to get the original grip off without damage. I don't have the tools for that, I usually cut them off. I expected Jake to loosen the glue then use compressed air to pop it off. It turned out to be a bit tougher than that as Jake inserted a rod down the grip and added tape solvent as he went. Considerable strength was applied to drive the rod down. He managed to get it off without damage, though there was a expectation that it wasn't going to happen that way.
He installed the Gravity Grip and off I went.
I got to play with it a couple of times this week. I've been rolling the ball well and that continued. My problem is not being able to start the ball on my intended line. I would suspect that the grip helped with this. I had a couple of birdies and for the most part putted well. There were a couple of three putts when I got the speed wrong and I stubbed one putt too. I'm not convinced that this is the acme of grips, but I'm not convinced it was a waste of money either.
Let me add some remarks about what it felt to swing the club with this grip. Sonny had tried it before when he was at the Evnroll factory. He felt it made the club head feel light and he didn't like it. I was a bit worried about that, as I like the heavy weight of the Evnroll putter heads. After installation I didn't find the club's head weight to be much different. The grip is a different profile from the old one. It is move oval and fills my fingers better. I like the new shape. I could feel the weight in the sense that the club shaft and head seemed more connected. As I swung the club with a very light grip, the face seemed happy to track along and I didn't feel I was throwing the head or that it was lagging. That was a useful tendency and I've no objection to it.
I'm driving the in the car a couple of days later and thinking about the putter and it occurred to me that there is a trade off here. With a weight positioned "off" the shaft, the inherent tendency of the putter face to swing has to be affected. The "face hang" would be lessened by the counter weight, would be another way to think of this. I initially thought that the weight would just dampen and inhibit the swing, but as I type this another possibility occurs to me that the face opening and closing might just happen more quickly as the hands seek to keep the weight at its low point. I like to think I move the putter back and forth with minimal opening and closing of the face, but this might be wrong. Certainly with short putts you don't want a wildly long swing. The connectedness of the face to grip (see last paragraph!) is probably the effect of this weight change.
So I've added another variable to the golf mix. Keeps me young I hope!
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
A Brief Sojourn
I took Monday away from the golf course and returned to the bridge table after a long layoff. As there is no golf news from Monday, I think I can drip in a bit of nostalgia and maybe talk about a hand or two.
David, my friend from the UK, took up bridge late in life and still is on the path upwards towards enlightenment. He is leaving the country soon and the Monday game in Livermore represented a chance to get together another time before his exit.
I've never played in the Monday morning game as when I was playing I was also working, so a 10 am game was not in the cards (ha ha!). I think the game has moved around a bit over the years. It's currently in the "IOOF" building on First Street. Which was built in 1874 and the IOOF guys started their gang in 1873.
The block along First Street where we find the building, is doing some construction and if you are early enough, you can find a parking place behind the building, which is scarce. Assuming a construction vehicle does not crush your car during hte game, this leaves you a short walk to the back stairs. Up to the second story we go and there are a number of rooms there for dining and meetings and you also find some strange hallways and small rooms. They are no doubt useful for arcane lodge type activities. Has the layout changed over the 100 plus years? Hard to tell, this was my first time in the building.
One the street front, the building hosts a couple of small businesses. There is a small front door with label of "IOOF" on it. Old pictures of Livermore typically show this building. It's gathered a number of fellow buildings over the years and no longer stands alone and proud on this central section of the Livermore downtown area. And how odd do you have to be to be an "Odd" fellow?
Back in the day, I was considered to be one of the younger players at my various "home" clubs. Well, that has not changed! This was an old crowd. I felt pretty spry. It's been about 20 years since I played in the Pleasanton - Livermore valley. I think I recognized two folks. What happened to my peer group? I know a bunch have passed on to the great table in the sky, but I did think I'd recognize a few. Maybe the day bridge crowd was different than the one I hung with?
David and I finished almost at 50%, sadly I have to round to get there, but we were rally close. And a casual survey of the hands revealed not too many disasters. Oh, we had to guess a bit on a couple of hands as we've never spent any time working through the details of the bidding and there are always some strange things that come up. But we worked our way through the game and got the last sit out, and ate some of the snacks and had a nice time.
I was going to put a couple of hands in this post, but to my amazement, I don't have a head crowded with the hands. And, this is important, in the night following the game, no bridge dreams! This is nice and unexpected. Even with my 20 year layoff I still get the occasional bridge dream. They are not very pleasant and I do not look forward to them.
So all in all it was fun to see an old friend or two, try to figure out some problems and get a bit of time in with David.
Tuesdays and Thursdays have opened up as Phil, who has the membership at Wente, has gone back to work for the Summer. Pickleball may fill those slots. I played today and then went to the golf course. I felt rusty. Just goes to show that taking a day off is just not a good idea. I got behind a foursome and was able to do some practicing. I have a tee time tomorrow. And I've ordered a Gravity Grip! I'll talk about that down the road...
David, my friend from the UK, took up bridge late in life and still is on the path upwards towards enlightenment. He is leaving the country soon and the Monday game in Livermore represented a chance to get together another time before his exit.
I've never played in the Monday morning game as when I was playing I was also working, so a 10 am game was not in the cards (ha ha!). I think the game has moved around a bit over the years. It's currently in the "IOOF" building on First Street. Which was built in 1874 and the IOOF guys started their gang in 1873.
The block along First Street where we find the building, is doing some construction and if you are early enough, you can find a parking place behind the building, which is scarce. Assuming a construction vehicle does not crush your car during hte game, this leaves you a short walk to the back stairs. Up to the second story we go and there are a number of rooms there for dining and meetings and you also find some strange hallways and small rooms. They are no doubt useful for arcane lodge type activities. Has the layout changed over the 100 plus years? Hard to tell, this was my first time in the building.
One the street front, the building hosts a couple of small businesses. There is a small front door with label of "IOOF" on it. Old pictures of Livermore typically show this building. It's gathered a number of fellow buildings over the years and no longer stands alone and proud on this central section of the Livermore downtown area. And how odd do you have to be to be an "Odd" fellow?
Back in the day, I was considered to be one of the younger players at my various "home" clubs. Well, that has not changed! This was an old crowd. I felt pretty spry. It's been about 20 years since I played in the Pleasanton - Livermore valley. I think I recognized two folks. What happened to my peer group? I know a bunch have passed on to the great table in the sky, but I did think I'd recognize a few. Maybe the day bridge crowd was different than the one I hung with?
David and I finished almost at 50%, sadly I have to round to get there, but we were rally close. And a casual survey of the hands revealed not too many disasters. Oh, we had to guess a bit on a couple of hands as we've never spent any time working through the details of the bidding and there are always some strange things that come up. But we worked our way through the game and got the last sit out, and ate some of the snacks and had a nice time.
I was going to put a couple of hands in this post, but to my amazement, I don't have a head crowded with the hands. And, this is important, in the night following the game, no bridge dreams! This is nice and unexpected. Even with my 20 year layoff I still get the occasional bridge dream. They are not very pleasant and I do not look forward to them.
So all in all it was fun to see an old friend or two, try to figure out some problems and get a bit of time in with David.
Tuesdays and Thursdays have opened up as Phil, who has the membership at Wente, has gone back to work for the Summer. Pickleball may fill those slots. I played today and then went to the golf course. I felt rusty. Just goes to show that taking a day off is just not a good idea. I got behind a foursome and was able to do some practicing. I have a tee time tomorrow. And I've ordered a Gravity Grip! I'll talk about that down the road...
Friday, May 10, 2019
Is it Coming Together?
Another rhetorical question to start it all off. Sorry to all the purists out there.
Also, this may degenerate into a semi brag session, so I should apologize for that too. But, there is golf news, so I shall say no more about form and content and just provide some!
It's Friday evening as I type and I played Thursday at Wente from the Blue tees, which are a bit long for my current abilities. I start with a routine bogey as I can't get it up and down from a short side. But then simple pars on two and three and four. Ok, they were not that simple. I hit a tree on two, but go on in regulation. Blasted to a foot on three when I hit a fat shot into a short par 3, and then a lovely pitch up a hill and a three foot putt on 4.
Five is a short par 5 and I have a wedge in for my third shot, but it rolls out a bit. Not unexpected on this green. But I slam a putt in from 20 feet and I'm back to even par. That score holds up until 9, which is long and I find it difficult that day. There might have been a ball out of bounds, I don't tend to remember holes like that successfully. My father would term that "selective memory repression." I don't think that is a bad thing in the game of golf -- you can't let bad holes make furture holes worse. Let go, let go and expect better outcomes ahead! That's my motto.
We'll let the rest of Thursday slide away and we can talk of today. I looked at a couple of videos last night. One is from Athletic Motion Golf (AMG), which has a lot of data from professional and amateur swings. They had a nice video on the take away and the big three errors they see. AMG was also kind enough to provide some drills to help the golfers who can't get it right without a bit of help.
I'm a firm believer that if you take it back badly, you're not going to come back down well. So the information was quite useful. And it changed the way I've been taking it back. Golf is interesting that while repetitive, strange changes creep in slowly and take over. Then you wake up and decide that you have lost an important element and some ugly thing has taken its place. I was seeing this in my backswing. I was trying to get my arms out of it and the AMG people were saying that it really needs to be there! None of this "one piece takeaway" stuff.
Ok, I'm willing to change bad habits unless it's ice cream or licorice or something. And today I put that into play.
There were two elements I wanted to incorporate and one was the armsie takeaway and the other was the left hip moving dead left to start the downswing. And by the Golfing Gods o' Scotland it worked. While it was not my best scoring day ever, it was in the top couple of days in hitting the ball. I split fairways -- even with the driver!, hit shots close to pins and even putted pretty well. Three birdies on the day, distance control was excellent, contacts were in the middle of the club face, etc., etc. Ah, what a day to be alive!
I'll try to remember the changes and make sure I apply them next time out. Not the easiest of task, mind you. And as it always happens, the game gels on Friday and then I have a couple of days off to forget what I was doing! But I found an old Levenger note pad and I've kept it by my side for a week now. I've covered about 8 pages with notes and comments. Hopefully that will maintain some continuity going forward.
To the future! May all your swings be smooth and unhurried!
Also, this may degenerate into a semi brag session, so I should apologize for that too. But, there is golf news, so I shall say no more about form and content and just provide some!
It's Friday evening as I type and I played Thursday at Wente from the Blue tees, which are a bit long for my current abilities. I start with a routine bogey as I can't get it up and down from a short side. But then simple pars on two and three and four. Ok, they were not that simple. I hit a tree on two, but go on in regulation. Blasted to a foot on three when I hit a fat shot into a short par 3, and then a lovely pitch up a hill and a three foot putt on 4.
Five is a short par 5 and I have a wedge in for my third shot, but it rolls out a bit. Not unexpected on this green. But I slam a putt in from 20 feet and I'm back to even par. That score holds up until 9, which is long and I find it difficult that day. There might have been a ball out of bounds, I don't tend to remember holes like that successfully. My father would term that "selective memory repression." I don't think that is a bad thing in the game of golf -- you can't let bad holes make furture holes worse. Let go, let go and expect better outcomes ahead! That's my motto.
We'll let the rest of Thursday slide away and we can talk of today. I looked at a couple of videos last night. One is from Athletic Motion Golf (AMG), which has a lot of data from professional and amateur swings. They had a nice video on the take away and the big three errors they see. AMG was also kind enough to provide some drills to help the golfers who can't get it right without a bit of help.
I'm a firm believer that if you take it back badly, you're not going to come back down well. So the information was quite useful. And it changed the way I've been taking it back. Golf is interesting that while repetitive, strange changes creep in slowly and take over. Then you wake up and decide that you have lost an important element and some ugly thing has taken its place. I was seeing this in my backswing. I was trying to get my arms out of it and the AMG people were saying that it really needs to be there! None of this "one piece takeaway" stuff.
Ok, I'm willing to change bad habits unless it's ice cream or licorice or something. And today I put that into play.
There were two elements I wanted to incorporate and one was the armsie takeaway and the other was the left hip moving dead left to start the downswing. And by the Golfing Gods o' Scotland it worked. While it was not my best scoring day ever, it was in the top couple of days in hitting the ball. I split fairways -- even with the driver!, hit shots close to pins and even putted pretty well. Three birdies on the day, distance control was excellent, contacts were in the middle of the club face, etc., etc. Ah, what a day to be alive!
I'll try to remember the changes and make sure I apply them next time out. Not the easiest of task, mind you. And as it always happens, the game gels on Friday and then I have a couple of days off to forget what I was doing! But I found an old Levenger note pad and I've kept it by my side for a week now. I've covered about 8 pages with notes and comments. Hopefully that will maintain some continuity going forward.
To the future! May all your swings be smooth and unhurried!
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
A Vital Topic
Today's topic are the evils of sun screen.
Yes, I know a lot of you think sun screen is the second coming and some of you might have noticed that I'm stating that there are more than one evil associated with sun creme with my use of a plural verb and subject, but there is a dark side to these oozie bits of body goo.
Firstly we should suggest that there may be a couple of good things about it. One being that the skin is protected from UV ray damage and yes, if you have delicate skin, this can be useful. Skin cancer is one issue and there are little things that seem to thrive in the sun and not covered.
However, the goo also blocks the skin from creating Vitamin D. We've all heard the horror stories that 30% of all Americans are short in their vitamin D levels and this is going to cause problems and please take our super-dooper vitamin D tablet, now, daily, and forever.
By the way, vitamin D is not a vitamin but a hormone. I understand that there are about 4 different types in the body. One of the interesting things that it "seems" to do is to protect you from heart attack! As one doctor put it, swapping heart attacks for skin cancer might be the best trade off; we can easily cure skin cancer. My prediction on all of this is that we have the first generations coming into late adulthood who have been spared that childhood beach back burn and who think that a bit of tan is the devil's work. We shall see if life long use of these chemicals will be an issue.
I also read a scientific paper's abstract the other day that measured how much of the active ingredients in sun screen were modifying body chemistry with their use. Of course they were slathering the subjects with daily usage and over 70% of their bodies. They did see the chemicals show up in the blood work. Dangerous? Hard to say, but the paper did suggest that more research was required! If you are not familiar with scientific papers, the last is always a request for more research funds. There are a lot of folks out there who are deathly afraid of chemicals, who always eat "organic" and whose bodies are very sensitive to strange ingestions, and those folks might want to tread carefully around the sun screen displays!
Finally, in a new area of interest, I've found and can confirm that there is another reason to avoid the use of these dangerous chemicals... I discovered this while slapping some on my face this morning. Yes, I use it, don't eat organic, but keep the old arms and legs out in the sun for proper vitamin D generation. I conclude from my inadvertent discovery, n = 1, that sun screen is dangerous because you can get this stuff in your eye and if that happens it will sting. It's close to two hours after my application to a lower lid and I'm still feeling a burning sensation!
Be careful out there my friends and moderation in all things! Ah, I guess, in moderation too.
Yes, I know a lot of you think sun screen is the second coming and some of you might have noticed that I'm stating that there are more than one evil associated with sun creme with my use of a plural verb and subject, but there is a dark side to these oozie bits of body goo.
Firstly we should suggest that there may be a couple of good things about it. One being that the skin is protected from UV ray damage and yes, if you have delicate skin, this can be useful. Skin cancer is one issue and there are little things that seem to thrive in the sun and not covered.
However, the goo also blocks the skin from creating Vitamin D. We've all heard the horror stories that 30% of all Americans are short in their vitamin D levels and this is going to cause problems and please take our super-dooper vitamin D tablet, now, daily, and forever.
By the way, vitamin D is not a vitamin but a hormone. I understand that there are about 4 different types in the body. One of the interesting things that it "seems" to do is to protect you from heart attack! As one doctor put it, swapping heart attacks for skin cancer might be the best trade off; we can easily cure skin cancer. My prediction on all of this is that we have the first generations coming into late adulthood who have been spared that childhood beach back burn and who think that a bit of tan is the devil's work. We shall see if life long use of these chemicals will be an issue.
I also read a scientific paper's abstract the other day that measured how much of the active ingredients in sun screen were modifying body chemistry with their use. Of course they were slathering the subjects with daily usage and over 70% of their bodies. They did see the chemicals show up in the blood work. Dangerous? Hard to say, but the paper did suggest that more research was required! If you are not familiar with scientific papers, the last is always a request for more research funds. There are a lot of folks out there who are deathly afraid of chemicals, who always eat "organic" and whose bodies are very sensitive to strange ingestions, and those folks might want to tread carefully around the sun screen displays!
Finally, in a new area of interest, I've found and can confirm that there is another reason to avoid the use of these dangerous chemicals... I discovered this while slapping some on my face this morning. Yes, I use it, don't eat organic, but keep the old arms and legs out in the sun for proper vitamin D generation. I conclude from my inadvertent discovery, n = 1, that sun screen is dangerous because you can get this stuff in your eye and if that happens it will sting. It's close to two hours after my application to a lower lid and I'm still feeling a burning sensation!
Be careful out there my friends and moderation in all things! Ah, I guess, in moderation too.
Saturday, May 4, 2019
LPGA Report
The LPGA was at the Lake Merced golf course, which is in Daly City. Paul, a golf instructor for the local community college, gave me a ticket and since Barb was off at plant places, off I went on the BART. I have a new Senior Bart card that I wanted to try out too. All in all, it was time for high adventure.
It took about an hour and a half to get there. I just missed the train from Pleasanton and spent 17,33 minutes waiting for the next one. The Bart cars were pretty empty on the way out. The tournament provided a shuttle service from the station to the course. It was couple of minute's drive and then I was on site.
I'd been to this course before when I went to see an American Junior Golf Association tournament. It's a hilly course with mostly Cyprus trees, wide fairways and Po Ana grass greens.
When I watch a tournament on site there are a couple of things I like to do. I will walk the course if I've not been there, I like to watch the players at the driving range, and find a good spot where there is a lot of action near a green. I wandered on to the course and walked over to the range. The ladies were warming up before going out. The range had distances out to 250 and the gals were getting there.
I'll get back to what I noticed there in a moment. From the range I wandered just a bit and found the back of the fifth green. From a virtual tour I just looked at, this is 420 yards long. The gals were playing it as a par 5. Now, that's a nice distance for me for a par 5, but I'm surprised that it wasn't a par four for the ladies. Most of the gals were getting there in two shots. The green is pretty fast and a lot of shots that landed on would run to the back and even off into the light rough.
There were traps to both sides of the green. The green is triangular in shape and the pin was placed in the back right corner. There are drop offs if you miss it right, so most of the shots were coming in left and a lot of those were catching the bunker.
The spectator ropes were placed very close to the edge of the green. It was a great place to watch and had everything I wanted so I settled in. I watched about 15 groups go through. I could see them with my useful binoculars hitting from the fairway, then whatever work they needed around the greens. There was a lot of chipping and pitching and many long sand shots. One gal rolled over the back on the short side and partly down the slope. She managed to flop the ball into the hole for an easy birdie.
I think I saw about two bogies, a few pars, many birdies and just the one eagle. Again, it was all of 420 yards and on a good day I could have gotten there in two. The gals were good around the green. It was pretty fast and the putts and chips didn't need a lot of effort to get the ball to the hole. The long bunker shots were usually played to the center of the green. One gal got aggressive and ran it through the green and ended up with the rare bogey.
I sat near a gal in her 70s who with her husband comes down from Humbolt county to watch the tournament every year. They are on site for all 4 days. She golfs about 2 or 3 times a week, has a grandson who plays. We exchanged some golf stories and watched each other's stuff while water was fetched or refreshments procured.
There is an old line supposedly by Mark Twain about the coldest Winter he ever spent was the Summer he spent in San Francisco. Lake Merced is a lot like that. I was quite cold on my prior visit, so this time I brought fleece, double walled wind breaker, long wind breaker pants, and my Winter hat. It worked well and I was comfortable. Most of the players were bundled up too. Long sleeve shirts, vests, long pants, hats, etc. Except for the gal from England who wore a couple of thin top layers and then fairly short shorts. Yipes! It may all come down to what you are used to, I guess. I saw her later on the range and she was still in minimal clothing.
After I watched all the groups go through, I went back to the range. I wanted to take some video, which was explicitly against the rules, but no one seemed to care, though there wasn't a lot of it going on. One of the things that struck me was how many of the gals were still working on technique. Now this is a bit obvious and every time I've been to a pro tournament there are players with aiming sticks and towels under their arms and such. There were a couple of coaches working with the gals and stressing things that I was aware of. It struck me, this time, that the need to investigate technique would have been dispensed with years ago. The gals are the best in the world, the assumption that you'd have to know it pretty well by the time you got to that level, but empirically this is wrong.
As I keep at this game, I find more and more things to think about and try. The gals have been at it longer than I have and supposedly at a deeper level. Of course there is the stereotype about the dumb jock who can do it, but doesn't know nor care how. A bit of the old savant, I guess. Coaching for tournament players is a profession; there must a need for it. So we can conclude that the pros to some degree don't know what they should be or are doing.
Here are the technical things that I noticed. The pros swing slowly. The shoulders turn, the arms come up and then there is very slow move back to the ball. It looks about 1/3 as fast as I think I swing. I'm determined to work on this. It should provide better contact and probably higher ball speed.
I ran across an article about releases and rolling the forearms looked to be useful. Of course I ran across another article that suggested that you don't want to do that. Don't roll and just rotate through the swing. The ladies don't seem to roll the forearms.
Finally let's talk about trying to spin a chip shot. If we think about how this is done with a tennis racket, we have a lot of motion that is in a different direction than the ultimate direction of the ball. The greater the difference between these two directions trades forward motion for spin. Many of the short shots the gals made around the greens was done not as a swing, but as a glancing blow to the ball and club would not be completing the swing -- it would be stuck into the ground. Its motion restricted to providing mostly spin.
So, next up are experiments in tempo, wrist release, and spin creation.
I had had enough and was ready to go home. I walked out, caught the shuttle back to the Bart station and was on my way. It was a nice day and it's been a long time since I was at a pro tournament. The gals put on a good show for me. They are not so far removed from my abilities that I can imagine being able to emulate their skills one day.
It took about an hour and a half to get there. I just missed the train from Pleasanton and spent 17,33 minutes waiting for the next one. The Bart cars were pretty empty on the way out. The tournament provided a shuttle service from the station to the course. It was couple of minute's drive and then I was on site.
I'd been to this course before when I went to see an American Junior Golf Association tournament. It's a hilly course with mostly Cyprus trees, wide fairways and Po Ana grass greens.
When I watch a tournament on site there are a couple of things I like to do. I will walk the course if I've not been there, I like to watch the players at the driving range, and find a good spot where there is a lot of action near a green. I wandered on to the course and walked over to the range. The ladies were warming up before going out. The range had distances out to 250 and the gals were getting there.
I'll get back to what I noticed there in a moment. From the range I wandered just a bit and found the back of the fifth green. From a virtual tour I just looked at, this is 420 yards long. The gals were playing it as a par 5. Now, that's a nice distance for me for a par 5, but I'm surprised that it wasn't a par four for the ladies. Most of the gals were getting there in two shots. The green is pretty fast and a lot of shots that landed on would run to the back and even off into the light rough.
There were traps to both sides of the green. The green is triangular in shape and the pin was placed in the back right corner. There are drop offs if you miss it right, so most of the shots were coming in left and a lot of those were catching the bunker.
The spectator ropes were placed very close to the edge of the green. It was a great place to watch and had everything I wanted so I settled in. I watched about 15 groups go through. I could see them with my useful binoculars hitting from the fairway, then whatever work they needed around the greens. There was a lot of chipping and pitching and many long sand shots. One gal rolled over the back on the short side and partly down the slope. She managed to flop the ball into the hole for an easy birdie.
I think I saw about two bogies, a few pars, many birdies and just the one eagle. Again, it was all of 420 yards and on a good day I could have gotten there in two. The gals were good around the green. It was pretty fast and the putts and chips didn't need a lot of effort to get the ball to the hole. The long bunker shots were usually played to the center of the green. One gal got aggressive and ran it through the green and ended up with the rare bogey.
I sat near a gal in her 70s who with her husband comes down from Humbolt county to watch the tournament every year. They are on site for all 4 days. She golfs about 2 or 3 times a week, has a grandson who plays. We exchanged some golf stories and watched each other's stuff while water was fetched or refreshments procured.
There is an old line supposedly by Mark Twain about the coldest Winter he ever spent was the Summer he spent in San Francisco. Lake Merced is a lot like that. I was quite cold on my prior visit, so this time I brought fleece, double walled wind breaker, long wind breaker pants, and my Winter hat. It worked well and I was comfortable. Most of the players were bundled up too. Long sleeve shirts, vests, long pants, hats, etc. Except for the gal from England who wore a couple of thin top layers and then fairly short shorts. Yipes! It may all come down to what you are used to, I guess. I saw her later on the range and she was still in minimal clothing.
After I watched all the groups go through, I went back to the range. I wanted to take some video, which was explicitly against the rules, but no one seemed to care, though there wasn't a lot of it going on. One of the things that struck me was how many of the gals were still working on technique. Now this is a bit obvious and every time I've been to a pro tournament there are players with aiming sticks and towels under their arms and such. There were a couple of coaches working with the gals and stressing things that I was aware of. It struck me, this time, that the need to investigate technique would have been dispensed with years ago. The gals are the best in the world, the assumption that you'd have to know it pretty well by the time you got to that level, but empirically this is wrong.
As I keep at this game, I find more and more things to think about and try. The gals have been at it longer than I have and supposedly at a deeper level. Of course there is the stereotype about the dumb jock who can do it, but doesn't know nor care how. A bit of the old savant, I guess. Coaching for tournament players is a profession; there must a need for it. So we can conclude that the pros to some degree don't know what they should be or are doing.
Here are the technical things that I noticed. The pros swing slowly. The shoulders turn, the arms come up and then there is very slow move back to the ball. It looks about 1/3 as fast as I think I swing. I'm determined to work on this. It should provide better contact and probably higher ball speed.
I ran across an article about releases and rolling the forearms looked to be useful. Of course I ran across another article that suggested that you don't want to do that. Don't roll and just rotate through the swing. The ladies don't seem to roll the forearms.
Finally let's talk about trying to spin a chip shot. If we think about how this is done with a tennis racket, we have a lot of motion that is in a different direction than the ultimate direction of the ball. The greater the difference between these two directions trades forward motion for spin. Many of the short shots the gals made around the greens was done not as a swing, but as a glancing blow to the ball and club would not be completing the swing -- it would be stuck into the ground. Its motion restricted to providing mostly spin.
So, next up are experiments in tempo, wrist release, and spin creation.
I had had enough and was ready to go home. I walked out, caught the shuttle back to the Bart station and was on my way. It was a nice day and it's been a long time since I was at a pro tournament. The gals put on a good show for me. They are not so far removed from my abilities that I can imagine being able to emulate their skills one day.
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