I was watching the Memorial tournament today and one of the announcers was talking about watching the ball after it's missed the hole and keeps rolling out. This is only important when the ball is breaking.
We have a ball that is at its highest speed (usually) at the hole and is decelerating as it stops. The point was that on the return putt the speed profiles are reversed. The highest speed will be at the point furthest from the hole.
This switch of speeds will affect how the ball breaks as it returns to the hole area. There is one more point that I would add to this and that is that the ball has traveled down hill from the pin. The amount of break is now less coming back.
It seems that one should spend a bit of time determining what part of the green caused the ball to break. Was it the area near the hole or in the area where it stopped and was moving the slowest.
Issac Newton, an avid golfer, had something to say about this too. He always said that all putts were going to run straight unless something caused them not to. I'm unsure of the Latin on that one, but I think one can find it under Newton's second law of putting. It's a rare volume, but worth the effort to find it.
We have three cases: 1) The slope of the green is constant from the center of the hole to the ball's location. 2) There is more slope near the hole and 3) the slope is closer to the ball.
How do we want to use that data?
In case 1, think we want to play less break than we had coming down. Trying to hit the ball firmly to remove break seems to appropriate. The breaking of the ball should increase as it approaches the hole due to its losing speed.
In case 2, we would expect more break near the hole, but with a straight roll until it gets close. Again a firm putt looks best as it will break less if the ball is moving faster near the hole.
In case 3, since the ball will be moving fastest where the majority of the break is, it would seem that the ball should have less total on the way back. So play less break and, why not, hit it firmly!
Assuming that we will not be risking a four putt or more by being aggressive coming back, it looks to be winning strategy to always hit the comeback putts firmly. We would expect to have the occasional three putt, but expect to make more two putts. Also a firmly struck putt playing less break should hole more putts generally.
--
It was a day off from playing and I've wanted to put a thicker grip on my putter, but I didn't want to pay $35 to do it. I wandered over to Golf Galaxy to recheck their stock. Rich II mentioned the grip he had on his putter was only $8 or so. I liked it; I would seek it out. Ha!
The grip he had was now priced at $25.
The repair guy, who was mono-syllabic when I was in about a possible warranty repair, was crazy in need to provide help. He came out and we looked through the stock. Bottom line is that he wasn't much help, but he tried this time.
I did find a Lambkin grip for $7.95. It also had a green sticker on it. When it was rung up, the total bill came to $6.05. That magic green dot was very powerful!
I take the grip and return home and retire to the work bench. I cut off the old Ping grip and find that the tape on the shaft looked pretty good and I decide that I can probably use it like it is. There is not a lot of effort in a putt and I wasn't worried about spinning the grip out of position even with the old tape.
I put some solvent in the grip, cover the little hole in the end of the grip, shake it around and pour it over the tape. This is common practice.
Now the new grip should slide all the way down and be slippery enough for some minor adjustment.
But I start the grip and it goes on about 2 inches and seems to get stuck. Yipes! I pull it off. Well, I tried to pull it off, but it was not moving. Hmm... I manage to slide a tool under the grip to break the tape's tenacity and get it off. Note that I wouldn't be able to cut the grip off as it was the last one the store had with or without the magic green dot.
I bite the bullet, wipe the sweat from the brow and scrape the old tape off. I install some new, use the last of my grip solvent to rejuice the grip and the new tape. The new grip slides effortlessly all the way down. I align the grip using a level -- this is a first, but seemed to work well.
All done and I expect no more than 20 putts tomorrow.
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Monday, May 28, 2018
Other Interests
Konichiwa!
One cannot live by golf alone and a new(ish) interest is in Sumo wrestling from Japan.
I watch the matches on YouTube. There is a channel from Robert Mensing who provides the matches in condensed format the day after they take place.
As I understand it, the actual ceremony and early match posturing takes considerable time, but the condensed matches are shown in about 20 minutes. There is a commentary in English with a smattering of enough Japanese words to keep my linguistic curiosity alive.
There is a match every two month. Each basho is in a different city. They last 15 days and it's a round robin format. The wrestler with the best score wins the Emperor's Cup. He doesn't get to take it home. They also pass out some trophies and the odd bow -- bow as in bow and arrow.
There are the occasional interview after something important happens. These are interesting. They seem very typically Japanese to me. For example they interview the Yakazuna (high & mighty wrestler who has attained both skill and a spiritual demeanor): "How do you feel that you won the Emperor's Cup for the third time in a row?" "I will train harder and do better." And on the other side of the scale: "How do you feel that you only won one match for the first time in your career?" "I will train harder and do better." I'm not joking much about this. :-)
The matches usually only take a few seconds. They line up across from each other in a crouch a bit like a football line. When both have touched both hands down to the clay surface, they launch into each other and frequently smack their heads together. Then there is pushing and slapping and someone is pushed out of the circle. Other matches are when the wrestlers lock up and there is actual wrestling. This can be stomach v. stomach and being bumped out. Or there are rear or frontal push outs. There are some throws too. Either by their belts (miwashi) or arms.
The circle they wrestle in is about 15 feet across and there is a small apron outside of the edge of the circle. The circle boundary is a raised rope or something. Then the apron, then there is a 4 foot drop off into the seats. The spectators are right there. It's not unusual for these guys to tumble in the crowd. There are no seats of course. They are all sitting on very flat areas. Shoes are off. There is the odd kimono in the crowd.
The wrestlers are not small. They are close to 200 kilos in weight. The heights are all over the place -- there are some tall guys too. They are built like the super heavy weight power lifters. Enormous stomachs are pretty common. Their legs are, shall we call them sturdy?
Also, the Japanese culture seems to be to me fairly exclusive. But Sumo wrestlers come from all over the world. There are the Japanese of course, but also Mongolians, one guy from Brazil, another from Georgia. I guess if you are big enough, you are welcome.
For each tournament you have 15 bouts. If you score 8 or more, you have made your kashi koshi, or more wins than losses. There is another term for being on the short end of it. If you keep making your kashi koshis you will move up the rankings. Don't make it and you will be demoted.
There are rankings. Yakazuna is the highest and there are about 6 levels below that. Making Yakazuna is not easy and as mentioned about, just winning is not enough. There is a committee that meets and approves the rankings.
I've watched enough that I've have a couple of wrestlers that I recognize and root for. Give it a try, it's different!
One cannot live by golf alone and a new(ish) interest is in Sumo wrestling from Japan.
I watch the matches on YouTube. There is a channel from Robert Mensing who provides the matches in condensed format the day after they take place.
As I understand it, the actual ceremony and early match posturing takes considerable time, but the condensed matches are shown in about 20 minutes. There is a commentary in English with a smattering of enough Japanese words to keep my linguistic curiosity alive.
There is a match every two month. Each basho is in a different city. They last 15 days and it's a round robin format. The wrestler with the best score wins the Emperor's Cup. He doesn't get to take it home. They also pass out some trophies and the odd bow -- bow as in bow and arrow.
There are the occasional interview after something important happens. These are interesting. They seem very typically Japanese to me. For example they interview the Yakazuna (high & mighty wrestler who has attained both skill and a spiritual demeanor): "How do you feel that you won the Emperor's Cup for the third time in a row?" "I will train harder and do better." And on the other side of the scale: "How do you feel that you only won one match for the first time in your career?" "I will train harder and do better." I'm not joking much about this. :-)
The matches usually only take a few seconds. They line up across from each other in a crouch a bit like a football line. When both have touched both hands down to the clay surface, they launch into each other and frequently smack their heads together. Then there is pushing and slapping and someone is pushed out of the circle. Other matches are when the wrestlers lock up and there is actual wrestling. This can be stomach v. stomach and being bumped out. Or there are rear or frontal push outs. There are some throws too. Either by their belts (miwashi) or arms.
The circle they wrestle in is about 15 feet across and there is a small apron outside of the edge of the circle. The circle boundary is a raised rope or something. Then the apron, then there is a 4 foot drop off into the seats. The spectators are right there. It's not unusual for these guys to tumble in the crowd. There are no seats of course. They are all sitting on very flat areas. Shoes are off. There is the odd kimono in the crowd.
The wrestlers are not small. They are close to 200 kilos in weight. The heights are all over the place -- there are some tall guys too. They are built like the super heavy weight power lifters. Enormous stomachs are pretty common. Their legs are, shall we call them sturdy?
Also, the Japanese culture seems to be to me fairly exclusive. But Sumo wrestlers come from all over the world. There are the Japanese of course, but also Mongolians, one guy from Brazil, another from Georgia. I guess if you are big enough, you are welcome.
For each tournament you have 15 bouts. If you score 8 or more, you have made your kashi koshi, or more wins than losses. There is another term for being on the short end of it. If you keep making your kashi koshis you will move up the rankings. Don't make it and you will be demoted.
There are rankings. Yakazuna is the highest and there are about 6 levels below that. Making Yakazuna is not easy and as mentioned about, just winning is not enough. There is a committee that meets and approves the rankings.
I've watched enough that I've have a couple of wrestlers that I recognize and root for. Give it a try, it's different!
Friday, May 25, 2018
Is That a Light I See in the Tunnel?
It was a wonderful day on the links. Ok they are not links and it was dark, overcast, a hint of rain, and more humidity than usual, but still a wonderful day.
I've been working on getting the butt end of the grip to be pointing towards the ball on the downswing. My old habit was to come down poinitng below the plane and hope my hands could save it. They could, but it was tough on my hands and the grips. Grips cost money and while the pension is beyond generous, it's not that big, and one shouldn't squander! Besides the athletic tape to keep my thumb from bleeding was getting expensive too.
So I've been trying to aim at the ball and this quiets my hands. Now, there is one other strange puzzle piece lingering is the gestalt of my modern swing and that is a strange, early, and seemingly without purpose raising of the right foot.
It's coming up too early. People are talking about it. And we are talking about an international conversation here.
I usually am not aware of it. I thought it might be an adjustment of my early hand path and it would just wander off to some other dimension when it was no longer needed.
Now, today, I'm flattening the swing. Then it seems that if I want to, I can add some speed/effort right at the bottom of the swing. This seems to work well, too. I'm losing some minor directional control, but the club ball contact is producing sounds that even Ben Hogan would find satisfying.
I hit one 5 iron and Sonny remarked on the sound and he was 50 yards away at the time.
As I was doing this, I notice that my hands are running ahead of the body. You could think of this as stopping the body and flinging the arms forward. One should not want to be known as a "flinger" and it didn't feel like a good long term swing facet on to which I wanted to hang.
So I think to myself, mayhaps I can move the body first and bring the arms along in due time? Since the hand path is better than it was, perhaps this is now possible, where I wasn't capable of it earlier due to the need to flip the back on path.
I'm willing to give it a try. It felt that the swing was in control and the body and arms were synced and working together. Yippie! This is the holy grail of the golf swing -- to be synced up. Much better than to be in a state of flingdom.
I stumble on this about hole 12. I then hit an iron over the green. This is better than it sounds as a club that is going too far is indicative of swing efficiency. On the long par 5 13th I hit a nice, long drive. The second is a fairway wood that goes where I aimed it and I find a bunker about 140 with lip that loomed. I hit an 8 iron that clears the lip and then I find I'm 4 feet from the pin. It's a fast sliding putt, but in it goes.
14 is a another great drive. An iron in and two putt for par. 14 is the last of the tough holes on the back nine and I'm close to licking the proverbial chops.
An interesting phenominum takes place when I'm playing well, I seem to disconnect and just play along. I don't think about much and am not real aware of the score. It may be the "being in the zone."
The 15th is a long par 3 with a back pin and wind. I hit one of the better hybrids into this and it's an automatic two putt. 16th is a longish with a tricky green. Well, it's tricky if you don't hit it to 5 feet after a wonderful drive.
17th was a 4 wood down the right side of the fairway. Short of the pond and looking directly up the length of the green. An mid iron in and another simple par.
The 18th is a dog leg to the left. It curls quite a bit and there is a forest of sycamore trees that do not allow you to cut the corner. Another drive, hit with confidence, down the right, which opens the corner of the dog leg.
I hybrid into the wind to setup an 8 iron to a deep pin.
I cream that and it floats over the green. I pitch back to 4 feet and hit a beautiful putt. It doesn't go in, but it rolled with a honesty seldom found in public life these days.
So the back comes in at 1 over 37. The feeling that I have almost complete control over the long shots is bit overwhelming. One fears that it will vanish! However it seems to me that the understanding of what I am doing is somewhat mastered. If I just stumbled upon it, I could see it wandering off. But with all this struggle to discover it, I think I'll be able to hang on to it. Besides, it's a lot simpler than what I was doing before.
Even the errant right foot is starting to stay out of the action.
What a day. The frozen yogurt tasted especially nice at lunch. The afternoon nap was one of comfort and satisfaction. I look forward to the next outing.
I've been working on getting the butt end of the grip to be pointing towards the ball on the downswing. My old habit was to come down poinitng below the plane and hope my hands could save it. They could, but it was tough on my hands and the grips. Grips cost money and while the pension is beyond generous, it's not that big, and one shouldn't squander! Besides the athletic tape to keep my thumb from bleeding was getting expensive too.
So I've been trying to aim at the ball and this quiets my hands. Now, there is one other strange puzzle piece lingering is the gestalt of my modern swing and that is a strange, early, and seemingly without purpose raising of the right foot.
It's coming up too early. People are talking about it. And we are talking about an international conversation here.
I usually am not aware of it. I thought it might be an adjustment of my early hand path and it would just wander off to some other dimension when it was no longer needed.
Now, today, I'm flattening the swing. Then it seems that if I want to, I can add some speed/effort right at the bottom of the swing. This seems to work well, too. I'm losing some minor directional control, but the club ball contact is producing sounds that even Ben Hogan would find satisfying.
I hit one 5 iron and Sonny remarked on the sound and he was 50 yards away at the time.
As I was doing this, I notice that my hands are running ahead of the body. You could think of this as stopping the body and flinging the arms forward. One should not want to be known as a "flinger" and it didn't feel like a good long term swing facet on to which I wanted to hang.
So I think to myself, mayhaps I can move the body first and bring the arms along in due time? Since the hand path is better than it was, perhaps this is now possible, where I wasn't capable of it earlier due to the need to flip the back on path.
I'm willing to give it a try. It felt that the swing was in control and the body and arms were synced and working together. Yippie! This is the holy grail of the golf swing -- to be synced up. Much better than to be in a state of flingdom.
I stumble on this about hole 12. I then hit an iron over the green. This is better than it sounds as a club that is going too far is indicative of swing efficiency. On the long par 5 13th I hit a nice, long drive. The second is a fairway wood that goes where I aimed it and I find a bunker about 140 with lip that loomed. I hit an 8 iron that clears the lip and then I find I'm 4 feet from the pin. It's a fast sliding putt, but in it goes.
14 is a another great drive. An iron in and two putt for par. 14 is the last of the tough holes on the back nine and I'm close to licking the proverbial chops.
An interesting phenominum takes place when I'm playing well, I seem to disconnect and just play along. I don't think about much and am not real aware of the score. It may be the "being in the zone."
The 15th is a long par 3 with a back pin and wind. I hit one of the better hybrids into this and it's an automatic two putt. 16th is a longish with a tricky green. Well, it's tricky if you don't hit it to 5 feet after a wonderful drive.
17th was a 4 wood down the right side of the fairway. Short of the pond and looking directly up the length of the green. An mid iron in and another simple par.
The 18th is a dog leg to the left. It curls quite a bit and there is a forest of sycamore trees that do not allow you to cut the corner. Another drive, hit with confidence, down the right, which opens the corner of the dog leg.
I hybrid into the wind to setup an 8 iron to a deep pin.
I cream that and it floats over the green. I pitch back to 4 feet and hit a beautiful putt. It doesn't go in, but it rolled with a honesty seldom found in public life these days.
So the back comes in at 1 over 37. The feeling that I have almost complete control over the long shots is bit overwhelming. One fears that it will vanish! However it seems to me that the understanding of what I am doing is somewhat mastered. If I just stumbled upon it, I could see it wandering off. But with all this struggle to discover it, I think I'll be able to hang on to it. Besides, it's a lot simpler than what I was doing before.
Even the errant right foot is starting to stay out of the action.
What a day. The frozen yogurt tasted especially nice at lunch. The afternoon nap was one of comfort and satisfaction. I look forward to the next outing.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Wonderful Things!
My golf schedule is fairly rigid. Golf with pals on Monday and Friday. Tuesdays were with Phil, when he was in town. Wednesday a subset of the Monday group would play. Usually Thursday off and I would usually go to the range to hit some balls and ponder the mystery of it all.
But Phil has left to go north and earn his yearly bread. I wandered over to the home course and the ladies have the course early. They don't play that quickly and if I get there at 9 or so, it's kind of a long day. Not as long as getting behind the seniors, mind you. They can stretch out a round with worst of them. In fact they put their slowest players at the end and many times we've had to watch them totter slowly to the end.
A solution to this is to play the 9 hole "links" course. I did this yesterday and then played 9 on the regular course and called it a day.
Now, as the scene is set, let's talk of wonderful things.
One of the many things I don't know is the correct hand path on the downswing. Oh, I had a theory or two, but I chanced across a reference the other day that pushed me to try something.
My understanding of what happens with hands and then clubs in the downswing is that the path down with the hands was the same one used in the backswing.
However there are hints out there that this is not correct. Jim McLean was selling a laser pointer that attached to the bottom of your club and a hitting mat. The idea was to make the laser walk along a path that took the club out towards the ball and not down towards one's toes.
I also think that I ran across an instructor that stated that this was wrong.
My thinking is that if the angle between the arms and the club shaft are constant, then you have to come down under the club head plane to allow this angle to swing the club head into the ball.
What happens at speed may not match this understanding. The centripetal acceleration may easily cause this angle to straighten thus requiring a hand path closer to the plane.
So in this model the hands move up closer to the body than they do on the downswing. There are some nice things in this. There is more room for the arms and hands to move to the ball. Also a movement of the grip towards the ball will cause the club to fall backwards towards the body. This is not bad as it tends to promote an inside to outside movement. The opposite of this is a movement where the club comes from outside to in, and that promotes nasty slices.
Note that one can be too flat in the downswing and then one needs to do something to get the head of the club down to the ball.
Phil has a very flat swing. I can't figure out how he manages to the hit the ball at all. I think he has to slow down to do this and it's costing him distance.
To get back to the story, for some reason I was thinking about this when playing the links course yesterday. And always willing to try things, I tried this. It did feel strange, but I immediately found that the contact with the clubs was more solid. The shots were going higher, which suggested the club face was more properly being presented to the ball.
I didn't find the distance changing. I also was tending to hit the ball to the right. Note that there have to be a lot of lingering adjustments left over from being under the lane -- I'm not surprised that club faces are now no longer aligned with the swing.
But I felt that this was an improvement.
I blow around the links course with no waiting. Nothing wonderful to report in re scoring, but I was hitting some solid shots. They felt better and I was doing less work to get the job done.
As I've mentioned in prior posts the long clubs and especially the drive has been an issue for over a decade. I also tear up my grips in a specific pattern. An earlier three wood had the grip worn all the way down to the shaft. A coach exclaimed that he'd never seen that before. But sadly he was not curious enough to help me find out what was causing this.
It seemed to me that I've been fighting the clubs rather than swinging them. An incorrect path down and late adjustments to hit the ball at all would explain this.
The is an old rule of thumb in the software world, "If you found an error that would produce all the bad symptoms, you're work is probably done." So I am optimistic that perhaps, just maybe, with a coaxing from the old gods and the new, that I am on the path to enlightenment.
"Well, how did you play today, Mr. I've Finally Got It?" I hear you ask. The answer to this is actually quite well. The driver is quickly turning into a weapon. It's straight, it's up in the air, and I'm not fearing to swing it. I've not hit a horrible drive for 27 holes at this point.
Since my hands and arms are in a better place it shouldn't be difficult to start thinking about more club head speed.
I've got rounds setup for the next couple of days. I'll report back when the smoke has cleared!
But Phil has left to go north and earn his yearly bread. I wandered over to the home course and the ladies have the course early. They don't play that quickly and if I get there at 9 or so, it's kind of a long day. Not as long as getting behind the seniors, mind you. They can stretch out a round with worst of them. In fact they put their slowest players at the end and many times we've had to watch them totter slowly to the end.
A solution to this is to play the 9 hole "links" course. I did this yesterday and then played 9 on the regular course and called it a day.
Now, as the scene is set, let's talk of wonderful things.
One of the many things I don't know is the correct hand path on the downswing. Oh, I had a theory or two, but I chanced across a reference the other day that pushed me to try something.
My understanding of what happens with hands and then clubs in the downswing is that the path down with the hands was the same one used in the backswing.
However there are hints out there that this is not correct. Jim McLean was selling a laser pointer that attached to the bottom of your club and a hitting mat. The idea was to make the laser walk along a path that took the club out towards the ball and not down towards one's toes.
I also think that I ran across an instructor that stated that this was wrong.
My thinking is that if the angle between the arms and the club shaft are constant, then you have to come down under the club head plane to allow this angle to swing the club head into the ball.
What happens at speed may not match this understanding. The centripetal acceleration may easily cause this angle to straighten thus requiring a hand path closer to the plane.
So in this model the hands move up closer to the body than they do on the downswing. There are some nice things in this. There is more room for the arms and hands to move to the ball. Also a movement of the grip towards the ball will cause the club to fall backwards towards the body. This is not bad as it tends to promote an inside to outside movement. The opposite of this is a movement where the club comes from outside to in, and that promotes nasty slices.
Note that one can be too flat in the downswing and then one needs to do something to get the head of the club down to the ball.
Phil has a very flat swing. I can't figure out how he manages to the hit the ball at all. I think he has to slow down to do this and it's costing him distance.
To get back to the story, for some reason I was thinking about this when playing the links course yesterday. And always willing to try things, I tried this. It did feel strange, but I immediately found that the contact with the clubs was more solid. The shots were going higher, which suggested the club face was more properly being presented to the ball.
I didn't find the distance changing. I also was tending to hit the ball to the right. Note that there have to be a lot of lingering adjustments left over from being under the lane -- I'm not surprised that club faces are now no longer aligned with the swing.
But I felt that this was an improvement.
I blow around the links course with no waiting. Nothing wonderful to report in re scoring, but I was hitting some solid shots. They felt better and I was doing less work to get the job done.
As I've mentioned in prior posts the long clubs and especially the drive has been an issue for over a decade. I also tear up my grips in a specific pattern. An earlier three wood had the grip worn all the way down to the shaft. A coach exclaimed that he'd never seen that before. But sadly he was not curious enough to help me find out what was causing this.
It seemed to me that I've been fighting the clubs rather than swinging them. An incorrect path down and late adjustments to hit the ball at all would explain this.
The is an old rule of thumb in the software world, "If you found an error that would produce all the bad symptoms, you're work is probably done." So I am optimistic that perhaps, just maybe, with a coaxing from the old gods and the new, that I am on the path to enlightenment.
"Well, how did you play today, Mr. I've Finally Got It?" I hear you ask. The answer to this is actually quite well. The driver is quickly turning into a weapon. It's straight, it's up in the air, and I'm not fearing to swing it. I've not hit a horrible drive for 27 holes at this point.
Since my hands and arms are in a better place it shouldn't be difficult to start thinking about more club head speed.
I've got rounds setup for the next couple of days. I'll report back when the smoke has cleared!
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Tournament at the Tracy CC
My first exposure to Tracy came in 1984. I was new to California and parked a car there for a week or so. Hot and dusty are what I remember. The car had a dust covering when I got back to it.
The TCC is just through the hills that block the east bay area of San Francisco from the central valley. The central valley is where a lot of California's produce is produced. Well, one might more accurately say a lot of produce is grown there and it feeds a lot more than just California.
Of course we have droughts and during the recent one a "solution" was to restrict water to the farms in the valley. If you drive down I5 towards LA you will see signs "Growing food is not wasting water." But what do farmers know about water usage that politicians don't? Bow to our masters and remain hungry!
The drought was going to "last forever" per our omniscient Governor Brown, so it was no real surprise that in 6 months it was declared over and there were then different issues with dams overflowing. Of course the funds for the dam maintenance were used for something else. And so it goes...
I5 runs through the course. There is a tunnel that allows access to the holes on the east side of the freeway.
The course looks like the driving range in Tin Cup -- lots of sparse grass and some of the driest bunkers I've ever seen. The sand is brown, very fine and what I saw when I played it, not very thick.
Sonny is playing in a scratch tournament. He's thinking that a couple under will be needed to get into the money. There is reasonable money for 1st through 3rd. I'm not sure you'll make your entry fee back if you do worse than that.
There is not a lot of trouble on the course. There are some trees that get in the way. The fairways are reasonably wide and the rough resembles the fairways -- wispy grasses and very little thickness.
The greens are interesting. They are very small compared to my home course. They are also quite fast and there are breaks. If they set up the pins in difficult positions, then it will be challenging.
Sonny does not want to "plan" where his birdies are likely to come. He tried that once and when he got ahead of the plan, got too excited and probably got hit with some low blood sugar and a couple of tough holes until he got back in form.
My thoughts are to pick out holes where one should be aggressive. Then also decide on the holes to be conservative and play for pars. If there is a long shot into a green, be careful about aim points. Greediness can be a killer. However, keeping the driver in the fairway might easily turn the hard holes into easy ones.
The big unknown is what the wind might be doing. It can blow out there. We are having some interesting weather, where in the east bay it's 60 and just over the hills, it's 80. With a temperature differential like that, I would expect wind flows.
Sonny and I are meeting tomorrow at 9 for the drive to the course. He has a 10:30 tee time, so we have about an hour to loosen up and get ready.
Questions: Will there be swag? Water? Watercress sandwiches? Tomorrow will tell.
Tomorrow:
I met Sonny at 9 and we wandered out to the golf course, getting there about 9:30.
There were iron warm ups (the range is still short! See prior posts.) and then we were off.
The format was a foursome. Two of the guys knew each other and Sonny knew the fourth guy.
I could run through each hole and give out all the details, but if you were not there and not excited about those kind of details, there isn't much point in it.
The conditions were benign -- not hot, not much wind, and the sun was not a problem.
When the smoke cleared we (the royal we, and I believe this is proper for caddie - player relationships) shot 81. To get in the money we needed to shave about 12 strokes off of that.
The first 6 or so, we might have taken off today as we "left some shots out there."
Like many things in life, the emotions get in the way of top performance. Sonny has a great chipping game, but there were a number of chunks in this department today. Frequently when the lies were "too" good. Nothing was bladed - the mark of a really nervous golfer, but a number of times the chips were hitting and sticking short. Sonny described felt he was trying to be too perfect and not letting the club do the job.
The greens are tough here, with strange breaks and lots of curves, so if you were not getting close, they were not dropping.
Sonny, in the post mortem, mentioned that he felt pretty comfortable playing. I think this is his second or third tournament with this organization.
And I think this was apparent. But there was still some nervousness there.
The good players will pay to their potential when they are nervous and the great players will play better.
Easy to say, very hard to do. I'm quoting others here, but the line is that if you enjoy the feeling of doing something for the first time and playing better than you ever have, then you are a very tough guy to beat. But it's rare. All the greats get nervous and if you are up to it, can use it to play better.
So to sum all that up, we could have played better, but we didn't play badly.
The other guys in the group were interesting. Lance and Chris, the guys who knew each other, play together a lot. They are gamblers. They had side bets of a couple of hundred on their score and I think they had another $200 on the last hole.
Golf swings can be quite different. You may not notice this if you watch all your golf on TV, but Lance and Chris probably taught themselves to play. The grips and swings were non-classical, but they found a way to play pretty well.
I've run into other self taught players who could play well. I associate this phenomenon with gamblers. They get good at and have no self conscious feeling about what they are or can do. I understand Lee Trevino was like this. He came out on the tour doing it his way and was not interested in how anyone else played the game. I can't argue with this view. They found what works and became very good at execution. As a contrast to listening to everyone and continual change, I'm not convinced they are wrong at all.
It looked like Lance and Chris probably played to their usual game. Sonny and Peter were playing worse. Chris had never played the course before, but was very good around the greens.
Oh, I was to be the caddie and one might ask how did that go. Basically it was pretty easy. I think I only stepped in someone's line once. I got to ride in the cart, so no walking and no carrying the bag! I washed balls and pulled the odd flag.
I took a lot of notes. When I pulled out the notebook to create a form to make it easier to keep track of each hole, I found some golf notes to myself from 2006. Guess what was in them? Yeah, driver problems! It did sound much more serious back then. It seems I've been fighting this same issue for over a decade.
Sonny and I discussed some strategy and some putting lines, but otherwise I was providing Sonny with company, told him some jokes.
I might have saved him two strokes as he was about to tee off in front of the tee line! Emergency Abort! Start over!
So that was about it. We had a nice dinner afterwards. Went over the holes and what went right and the odd bobbles.
It didn't bother me to not play. I was happy to watch and think about what was happening.
Now the final question is what can I take away from this? I realized that my short game is a match for everything I saw. But they were longer than I. Sonny had a lot of 170 yard shots today. That's at the hairy edge of my comfort zone. And Sonny was hitting it 250 to 270 off the tee all day long. To get to where these guys are, I need another 30 yards from my tee shots.
If I'm really paying attention, I'll decide to play like Chris and just hammer away at being consistent. He was not tentative about any shots. He topped a couple of them in the early holes, but didn't let it bother him. Just kept his foot down and kept playing.
So thanks go to Sonny for putting up with me. (There is a rumor he will be reading this, so comments to him may be answered!)
And back to golf tomorrow morning! I've got a new wedge to replace the TaylorMade one that has decided to flake its chrome. It's a Mizuno forged with Boron! So that will should help.
The TCC is just through the hills that block the east bay area of San Francisco from the central valley. The central valley is where a lot of California's produce is produced. Well, one might more accurately say a lot of produce is grown there and it feeds a lot more than just California.
Of course we have droughts and during the recent one a "solution" was to restrict water to the farms in the valley. If you drive down I5 towards LA you will see signs "Growing food is not wasting water." But what do farmers know about water usage that politicians don't? Bow to our masters and remain hungry!
The drought was going to "last forever" per our omniscient Governor Brown, so it was no real surprise that in 6 months it was declared over and there were then different issues with dams overflowing. Of course the funds for the dam maintenance were used for something else. And so it goes...
I5 runs through the course. There is a tunnel that allows access to the holes on the east side of the freeway.
The course looks like the driving range in Tin Cup -- lots of sparse grass and some of the driest bunkers I've ever seen. The sand is brown, very fine and what I saw when I played it, not very thick.
Sonny is playing in a scratch tournament. He's thinking that a couple under will be needed to get into the money. There is reasonable money for 1st through 3rd. I'm not sure you'll make your entry fee back if you do worse than that.
There is not a lot of trouble on the course. There are some trees that get in the way. The fairways are reasonably wide and the rough resembles the fairways -- wispy grasses and very little thickness.
The greens are interesting. They are very small compared to my home course. They are also quite fast and there are breaks. If they set up the pins in difficult positions, then it will be challenging.
Sonny does not want to "plan" where his birdies are likely to come. He tried that once and when he got ahead of the plan, got too excited and probably got hit with some low blood sugar and a couple of tough holes until he got back in form.
My thoughts are to pick out holes where one should be aggressive. Then also decide on the holes to be conservative and play for pars. If there is a long shot into a green, be careful about aim points. Greediness can be a killer. However, keeping the driver in the fairway might easily turn the hard holes into easy ones.
The big unknown is what the wind might be doing. It can blow out there. We are having some interesting weather, where in the east bay it's 60 and just over the hills, it's 80. With a temperature differential like that, I would expect wind flows.
Sonny and I are meeting tomorrow at 9 for the drive to the course. He has a 10:30 tee time, so we have about an hour to loosen up and get ready.
Questions: Will there be swag? Water? Watercress sandwiches? Tomorrow will tell.
Tomorrow:
I met Sonny at 9 and we wandered out to the golf course, getting there about 9:30.
There were iron warm ups (the range is still short! See prior posts.) and then we were off.
The format was a foursome. Two of the guys knew each other and Sonny knew the fourth guy.
I could run through each hole and give out all the details, but if you were not there and not excited about those kind of details, there isn't much point in it.
The conditions were benign -- not hot, not much wind, and the sun was not a problem.
When the smoke cleared we (the royal we, and I believe this is proper for caddie - player relationships) shot 81. To get in the money we needed to shave about 12 strokes off of that.
The first 6 or so, we might have taken off today as we "left some shots out there."
Like many things in life, the emotions get in the way of top performance. Sonny has a great chipping game, but there were a number of chunks in this department today. Frequently when the lies were "too" good. Nothing was bladed - the mark of a really nervous golfer, but a number of times the chips were hitting and sticking short. Sonny described felt he was trying to be too perfect and not letting the club do the job.
The greens are tough here, with strange breaks and lots of curves, so if you were not getting close, they were not dropping.
Sonny, in the post mortem, mentioned that he felt pretty comfortable playing. I think this is his second or third tournament with this organization.
And I think this was apparent. But there was still some nervousness there.
The good players will pay to their potential when they are nervous and the great players will play better.
Easy to say, very hard to do. I'm quoting others here, but the line is that if you enjoy the feeling of doing something for the first time and playing better than you ever have, then you are a very tough guy to beat. But it's rare. All the greats get nervous and if you are up to it, can use it to play better.
So to sum all that up, we could have played better, but we didn't play badly.
The other guys in the group were interesting. Lance and Chris, the guys who knew each other, play together a lot. They are gamblers. They had side bets of a couple of hundred on their score and I think they had another $200 on the last hole.
Golf swings can be quite different. You may not notice this if you watch all your golf on TV, but Lance and Chris probably taught themselves to play. The grips and swings were non-classical, but they found a way to play pretty well.
I've run into other self taught players who could play well. I associate this phenomenon with gamblers. They get good at and have no self conscious feeling about what they are or can do. I understand Lee Trevino was like this. He came out on the tour doing it his way and was not interested in how anyone else played the game. I can't argue with this view. They found what works and became very good at execution. As a contrast to listening to everyone and continual change, I'm not convinced they are wrong at all.
It looked like Lance and Chris probably played to their usual game. Sonny and Peter were playing worse. Chris had never played the course before, but was very good around the greens.
Oh, I was to be the caddie and one might ask how did that go. Basically it was pretty easy. I think I only stepped in someone's line once. I got to ride in the cart, so no walking and no carrying the bag! I washed balls and pulled the odd flag.
I took a lot of notes. When I pulled out the notebook to create a form to make it easier to keep track of each hole, I found some golf notes to myself from 2006. Guess what was in them? Yeah, driver problems! It did sound much more serious back then. It seems I've been fighting this same issue for over a decade.
Sonny and I discussed some strategy and some putting lines, but otherwise I was providing Sonny with company, told him some jokes.
I might have saved him two strokes as he was about to tee off in front of the tee line! Emergency Abort! Start over!
So that was about it. We had a nice dinner afterwards. Went over the holes and what went right and the odd bobbles.
It didn't bother me to not play. I was happy to watch and think about what was happening.
Now the final question is what can I take away from this? I realized that my short game is a match for everything I saw. But they were longer than I. Sonny had a lot of 170 yard shots today. That's at the hairy edge of my comfort zone. And Sonny was hitting it 250 to 270 off the tee all day long. To get to where these guys are, I need another 30 yards from my tee shots.
If I'm really paying attention, I'll decide to play like Chris and just hammer away at being consistent. He was not tentative about any shots. He topped a couple of them in the early holes, but didn't let it bother him. Just kept his foot down and kept playing.
So thanks go to Sonny for putting up with me. (There is a rumor he will be reading this, so comments to him may be answered!)
And back to golf tomorrow morning! I've got a new wedge to replace the TaylorMade one that has decided to flake its chrome. It's a Mizuno forged with Boron! So that will should help.
Friday, May 18, 2018
The Perfect Day!
Yes, retirement can be wonderful, but let me relate this day:
1) Worked on the old sports car a bit and actually might have made an improvement!
2) Went off to the range and had a wonderful session.
3) Hit the Walmart grocery store and got some fried chicken for lunch.
4) Barb was not home, so put on the Huston Open golf tournament on the TV
5) The US bridge team trials were on the computer, so turned that on as well. Old Meckwell were at it and they are old opponents, so fun to watch.
6) Gobbled the chicken, had a beer with it.
7) A nap followed somewhere after lunch.
At some point Barb came home, but I managed to get in all the golf and bridge. Body was a tiny bit sore from the golf and auto work, so turned on the back warmer.
Finally, Barb suggests we wander over to an artists' open house and demo. "Will there be free wine?" I ask. The answer was yes and we did that. Had some nice conversations with some of the artists. I find the arts stimulating and that was a nice bonus.
But back to home after that. Off to bed about 10. The alarm was set for 6 as I had a 7 am tee time on Friday.
Day 2:
Got up with the alarm clock. Got to the course and played with the long knockers from the back tees. Well, I was giving up 40+ yards on all the tee shots, but it didn't matter. The putter was hot. The wedge was hotter and the irons were pure. I even managed to hit most of the drives. "Swing it like a nine iron!"
I've played a couple of times early and it's always been nice weather and a very fast round. We managed 3:30 for our threesome. Done by 10:30. Just time to get a frozen yogurt from Costco!
Home for a nap after that.
My lord, could it get any better?
1) Worked on the old sports car a bit and actually might have made an improvement!
2) Went off to the range and had a wonderful session.
3) Hit the Walmart grocery store and got some fried chicken for lunch.
4) Barb was not home, so put on the Huston Open golf tournament on the TV
5) The US bridge team trials were on the computer, so turned that on as well. Old Meckwell were at it and they are old opponents, so fun to watch.
6) Gobbled the chicken, had a beer with it.
7) A nap followed somewhere after lunch.
At some point Barb came home, but I managed to get in all the golf and bridge. Body was a tiny bit sore from the golf and auto work, so turned on the back warmer.
Finally, Barb suggests we wander over to an artists' open house and demo. "Will there be free wine?" I ask. The answer was yes and we did that. Had some nice conversations with some of the artists. I find the arts stimulating and that was a nice bonus.
But back to home after that. Off to bed about 10. The alarm was set for 6 as I had a 7 am tee time on Friday.
Day 2:
Got up with the alarm clock. Got to the course and played with the long knockers from the back tees. Well, I was giving up 40+ yards on all the tee shots, but it didn't matter. The putter was hot. The wedge was hotter and the irons were pure. I even managed to hit most of the drives. "Swing it like a nine iron!"
I've played a couple of times early and it's always been nice weather and a very fast round. We managed 3:30 for our threesome. Done by 10:30. Just time to get a frozen yogurt from Costco!
Home for a nap after that.
My lord, could it get any better?
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Wednesday Golf
It has remained cool in this part of the country. There was some wind too and the marine layer was coming into the valley, which means that not much sun was going to warm us. If you grew up in Chicago and saw the marine layer coming in, you'd seek the shelter of the basement.
Per my last post I was seeking better ball contact with the long club. I was able to do this. I shot a painless 77 with 40 on the front and one over 37 on the back. I basically bogeyed the easy holes and parred all the hard ones. There were no birdies and a couple of three putts. All in all I was happy with what I could do.
I played from the middle of the fairway for the most part.
The par threes on the front nine require 150 yard carries. In one case you have to clear traps, the other a pond full of frogs, herons, coots, and geese.
It was with these two holes that I learned that a full 150 carry is a pretty rare thing. Even with some long hitters that I play with, getting to the greens is an accomplishment. Today I managed to hit two nice irons to these pins and tapped in for pars each time.
I played with Wayne. He is an interesting guy. He will easily admit that his temperament is not suited to the game. He generates a lot of club speed, but there are consistency problems. I don't see anything glaringly wrong, but there are some chicken wings fluttering and more drop kicks than the old NFL.
So an occasional club is not returned to the bag without it being subjected to a bit of abuse and on occasion, half way through the hole is enough and Wayne will be happy to put his ball in his pocket and do no more than tend the flag for those are playing out.
But I like him. He is quite quiet and a good companion. He'll even talk to you on occasion, but that's pretty rare. He does have a sense of humor and from my perspective, we get along just fine.
We played a twosome today and the pace was good. There was little lacking in this outing.
I must say that the golf has been more than a boon to my retirement life. The exercise feels good, I'm still carrying my bag, and the folks I've joined to play with have been augmented the experience delightfully.
Tomorrow is an off day. Then an early Friday and then the tournament on Sunday.
Per my last post I was seeking better ball contact with the long club. I was able to do this. I shot a painless 77 with 40 on the front and one over 37 on the back. I basically bogeyed the easy holes and parred all the hard ones. There were no birdies and a couple of three putts. All in all I was happy with what I could do.
I played from the middle of the fairway for the most part.
The par threes on the front nine require 150 yard carries. In one case you have to clear traps, the other a pond full of frogs, herons, coots, and geese.
It was with these two holes that I learned that a full 150 carry is a pretty rare thing. Even with some long hitters that I play with, getting to the greens is an accomplishment. Today I managed to hit two nice irons to these pins and tapped in for pars each time.
I played with Wayne. He is an interesting guy. He will easily admit that his temperament is not suited to the game. He generates a lot of club speed, but there are consistency problems. I don't see anything glaringly wrong, but there are some chicken wings fluttering and more drop kicks than the old NFL.
So an occasional club is not returned to the bag without it being subjected to a bit of abuse and on occasion, half way through the hole is enough and Wayne will be happy to put his ball in his pocket and do no more than tend the flag for those are playing out.
But I like him. He is quite quiet and a good companion. He'll even talk to you on occasion, but that's pretty rare. He does have a sense of humor and from my perspective, we get along just fine.
We played a twosome today and the pace was good. There was little lacking in this outing.
I must say that the golf has been more than a boon to my retirement life. The exercise feels good, I'm still carrying my bag, and the folks I've joined to play with have been augmented the experience delightfully.
Tomorrow is an off day. Then an early Friday and then the tournament on Sunday.
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