Hello Folks:
I shot a 55 on the front nine at Thornapple. The course was wet and played rather long. I had one par on the day. The forecast is calling for rain tomorrow.
This week is Masters week. Tiger is of course the favorite this week. Reports from Augusta National is the course is wet and playing long.
See ya on the back nine!
Hello once again fellow golf nuts: 3 major things to write about in this installment — the golf league starts on April 2nd, a new golf teacher for me, and improved physical fitness. As you know, every year for the past 3 years, the company I work for has an 18 week golf league. It is that time again. Wednesday April 2, 2008 is the first week on the 2008 league. It looks like the first two weeks will be used to establish our handicaps again. It looks like we are going to have 4 new golfers this year. As usual, what we don’t know is the format we will be using in the league after we establish our handicaps. We are still playing at Thornapple and will again be playing nine holes each week. We will alternate between the front and back nine also.The next thing is I have to find a new teacher. After working with Todd Nemenez at the local Golf Galaxy Store for the past 18 months, Todd will be moving into the retail management end of things. Unfortunately, this means he will no longer be giving lessons. They have brought in a new instructor who teaches at the Easton store and it looks like I will be transitioning to her this saturday. This saddens me because Todd and I made tremendous strides in my game lopping of about 28 strokes per 18 in the time we worked together. I was really eager to see what this year brought about in light of the new clubs and my improved physical condition. This leads me to the last thing in this installment.As you all know, I have started at the gym and using a personal trainer. The company I work for is paying for the entire deal as part of a contest. In addition to losing about 21 lbs, I have reduced my BMI, waist size, and am eating healthier. While there is not a lot of detail I will go into at this time, what is will say is this. What is suppossed to be getting smaller is getting smaller and what is supposed to be getting bigger is getting bigger. I am stronger and more flexible and this will lead to an improvement in scores and distance. See y’all on the back nine!
Hello Again:
This will be short and sweet. New belt and new pants both a size smaller. A thinner me — about 15 lbs at this time. A better swing. Next lesson in March.
See ya on the back nine!
Hello again:
I have lost a total of 11.3 lbs. My color looks better, my face looks thinner, and folks can tell I am getting results. Another thing I noticed was I can pinch about 1/2 inch gap between my waist and pants to make them fit the way I like. I think that means I will be needing new pants at a smaller size soon. My belt is at the smallest hole and I can move the belt past that.Another thing I have noticed is I have more endurance. The first time I was on the exercise bike, I struggled to get 16 minutes on level 1. On monday I rode for 40 minutes with 36 of them on level 5 and 4 on level 4. I have more flexibility than ever before. See ya on the back nine!
Hello again. Yes, it has been over a month since I graced the pages of this blog with my wit and wisdom — yeah, right! I took some time away to do things like work and to actually play a little bit of golf at Wilson Road. Actually, life intruded a great deal since vacation and here we are two days before the first of November 2007. For the most part Golf is over for this year. The weather is getting colder and the days shorter. This weekend will see us “fall back” to eastern standard time and already I drive to work in the dark. I will look ahead to 2008 and look back to 2007. We’ll look back first.2007 was a good year golf wise. I cut 25 strokes off the handicap since the beginning of 2006. I am hitting the ball farther and straighter. My short game was better and I putted a little bit better overall. I had a number of pars this year. I parred one half of the par 3’s at ThornApple. I chipped one in for a birdie at the golf outing on a par 3. I had some pars on a couple of the par 4 holes. I had 6 lessons and revamped my swing and showed a great deal of improvement. As I said earlier, 2007 was a good year. I plan for 2008 to be better.
2008. A new year. I have begun to work on another facet of the swing. One of the things I had trouble with in 2007 was releasing the club. While I did hit the ball straight one of the tendencies was to hit a pull or a pull fade. The cause was taking the club too far inside on the back swing and coming slightly over the top. As the clubs was square at impact, the ball moved inside the target line to the right. When I went to Virginia I took a swing clinic and the assistant pro there diagnosed it. When I went back to Todd and took a lesson we went to work on it. The cure was 2 small changes. The first was to take the club straight back on the backswing. The second change was to allow the club to drop via gravity and straighten both arms on the down swing. This caused a move to the inside and required me to “turn the club” by rolling the wrist. This results in the hands being a head of the ball and a proper release. It feels really weird but the swing is down the target line and video looks like the club head speed is faster. I am still working on this.
The other thing is I have dropped 14 pounds since the Virgina trip. Health concerns have prompted this and I am happy with that. I plan to hit the gym 2 times a week during the off season and take off more weight and inprove my conditioning a bit. My goal is to add 10 yards per club in distance and take off 10 more strokes on my handicap. Make a par on a par 5 and a birdie in a league round. To shot a round of 9 under 50 in the league and a low score of 47 on a non league round of 9 and to shoot under 100 for 18. To shoot under 40 on Wilson Road.
Hello again! Yes, it has been a while since I had the opportunity to blog with you all. Patty, I and two of the children went to Virginia for vacation. Patty and I bought a time share in 2006 at Myrtle Beach. As an incentive, we received an additional week to use anywhere in the world. We had promised the kids a vacation. So, when we received our week, we decided to trade it and go somewhere. We ran into a little problem when we could not get anything booked until the first week in September. This caused a problem when Elizabeth, my oldest, was supposed to start college in late August and Rebecca, Daniel and Nathan were suppossed to start school after labor day. Elizabeth coulsd not go and Daniel, who wants to be a surgeon, decided he just could not afford to miss the first week of school and chose to stay home. So Patty, Rebecca, Nathan and I set out for Williamsburg, Virgina bright and early September 1st. We got a villa at Ford’s Colony in Williamsburg using our bonus week.
After arriving and setting up house keeping, we went out and did a little grocery shopping, came home and had dinner. We then hit the pool and hot tub. When we woke up the next morning, we went over to the front desk after breakfast to make some tee time. As an owner, you get an owner’s card and as part of the Ford’s Colony package an owner gets 6 free rounds at Ford’s Colony Country Club. All you pay is your cart fee. Patty and I were set up with a Tuesday tee time of 1:27 pm and I had a Friday tee time of 1:57 p.m. Ford’s Colony is a rather affluent retirement, resort area in Williamsburg and the club manages three 18 hole courses that run throughout the area. The three courses — Blackheath, Marsh Hawk, and Blue Heron — are fairly short courses but not all that easy. There is wood, water, and sand on all the courses in good measure and the fairways are not really wide. To top it off, the course has bermuda greens and rough. the rough is about an inch deep and you ger a lot of fried egg lies in it. Also balls do not roll well in it. However, the courses are beautiful and marvelously maintained. All 3 courses have 4 tee boxes — Black, Gold, Silver and Bronze. Each presents its own challenges.Patty and I teed off Tuesday on Blackheath. Since Patty only plays about 2 or 3 times a year, we decided to play “best ball scramble” from the silver tees. For those of you who are not sure what a best ball scramble is, it is where every player hits a shot and the best shot is chosen and all players move there ball to that spot and hit from there. Patty and I shot a 111, 52 on the front 9 and 59 on the back. The reason the score is higher than I would have liked is I 3 putted the first 5 holes on the back 9.On Friday, I played Marsh Hawk from the Gold tees and shot a 103. I had a number of par puts and even got to look at 2 birdie putts on 2 of the par 3 holes. In a future post, I will give a more detailed look at Blackheath and Marsh Hawk.
