Thanks to everyone who participated in the Guess That Hole contest. In total, 24 Houston golfers got the answer right. The right answer is Hole 18 at The Golf Club at Cinco Ranch. Special thanks to Jimmy Krupa, the GM at Cinco Ranch, for offering the generous prize of free green fees for a foursome.
Based on the rules, the winner was chosen at random from the correct entries, and the winner is:
Steve Rahrig
Congrats to Stephen and his 3 lucky friends who’ll be joining him. I’d like to remind everyone to join the notification list because I’ll be queuing up the next contest soon! Thanks again everyone!
Like many addicted golfers who struggle with their swing, I always find myself looking for answers. That new swing thought, drill, club, stance, ball position, and on and on it goes.
I am a high handicapper and I like to try out different clubs as well as different swings. Ebay makes it possible to sample some affordable equipment and then choose to keep them, or (more commonly) sell them at a later date.
Well I had been accustomed to this practice of “trying out” different clubs for a few years before I realized that there is a term for this habit. I was at the driving range two years ago and was chatting with the teaching pro there….showing him a new club I was playing around with. He then addresses the other teacher out there and says: Yup “Brian’s a real club ho”. Read more…
Apparently, one of the women on the infamous Tiger Woods “Mistress Collection” golf ball set has retained attorney Gloria Allred and spoken out against the balls, arguing that they promote violence towards women. Allred postulates, “What’s next, using women’s faces on dart boards?”
On Wednesday at Riviera, site of this week’s Nothern Trust Open, Phil Mickelson spoke up, and it is as heated and intense as you will see Lefty with a camera on him.
As you have been blundered with over the last week, Mickelson’s wedges have been the hot topic. Read more…
Whimsically wonderful Ryo Ishikawa is back on US shores, and not a moment too soon.
While the PGA Tour struggles with a simmering scandal and a weighty rules issue, the young Japanese champion will bring a welcome breath of fresh air… and a rainbow of riotous color… to the 2010 Northern Trust Open later this week. Read more…
There’s a lot more to bunker etiquette than simply raking your footprints before you leave. The next time you ball ends up on the ‘beach,’ consider these following customs:
Try to enter the bunker from a spot as near as possible to your ball, but never from the ‘front’ of the bunker (greenside), always from the rear (opposite the green). The reason for this is twofold. One, it’s bad form. Two, should you hit a lousy shot, you really don’t want your ball to end up in one of your footprints. Read more…
Has anyone seen this yet? Some entrepreneur is latching onto Tiger’s ordeal and looks primed to make a killing by selling a set of golfballs, each ball has the face and name of one of Tiger Wood’s alleged mistresses.
Their tag line is “Tiger loves to play with them… now you can too!”
The Guess That Hole Contest is officially open! Go to the Guess That Hole page to read the rules and submit your entry. The winner gets a free green fee for a foursome at a top-notch golf course in the Houston-area (over a $200 value)! Share with your fellow golfers and good luck!
(Don’t forget to sign up for future contest notifications.)
A friend of mine sent me a link to the iSwing app last week. The website looked a little confusing, but it only cost $4.99, so I decided to try it out.
In short, it’s an iPhone app that you can use to record your golf swing and then analyze it. It allows you to play back at multiple speeds and also to draw lines to see how your swing lines up. Here’s a picture I downloaded from the website that shows how the lines show up.
Another cool feature is the program automatically produces an image which breaks out your swing into an image sequence. I used that feature this weekend and recorded my wife’s cousin. This is like one of those swing fold outs in The Golf Digest.
(The actual image is about twice as big, but I had to shrink it to fit on the blog.)
It’s hard to argue with $5. It’s kinda cool that you can control the video playback in 3 speeds, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to export it. The ability to draw custom lines seems neat, but it’s also hard to make them line up exactly the way you want them because once you draw the line, you can only delete it, you can’t move it.
To be honest, I’m torn. Part of me likes just shooting straight up video from my iPhone that I can just email to my computer. Because the price is so cheap, though, it’s worth downloading and checking it out for yourself.
Wow, here’s another wicked golf cart snafu (courtesy of failblog.org). I hope that guy made it out alright. Wonder if he finished his round… (thx to Brian G. for submitting)
Yesterday, I played in the 1st Little John Golf League event of 2010. (Actually, their first event of 2010 starts in 2009, but that’s a different story.)
The setting was Bear Creek – Masters Course. If anyone looks all the way back to the beginning of this blog (a soft launch last March I think), I played an LJGL event there which almost caused me to quit playing golf altogether.
My 1st shot of the tee was into a hazard! Luckily, it was a par-5 and I was able to save a bogey, so that felt good. The next 2 holes, I sculled 6-irons from the fairway and couldn’t save bogey either time. Then I bogeyed 3 out of the next 4 holes and thought I was starting to put something together, until another 6-iron (which has been my go-to club the last month) screwed me on the damn par-3 and I dunked one into the water!
(One of the dudes in our group, Travis, trying his best Vijay Singh par-3 Masters impersonation, dunked 3 tee shots and suffered through a 12 on that hole. One of the best meltdowns I’ve ever seen, but this kid was a monster with a driver in his hands.)
On the back-nine, I proclaimed to make the Bear Creek Masters course my bitch, barely missing a par putt on 10. That’s when the golf gods puked on me and I carded a 9 on hole 11… and then again on hole 13. Hole 11, I made a bad decision (I’m not talking about the decision to even show up) by trying to clear a tree with a 9-iron when I should have punched it under. (I was in good company because my cart-partner, Randy, was nailing more trees than Woody Woodpecker.) Hole 13, I pushed my tee shot OB. Both holes, the bad snowballed into worse and I didn’t come close to recovering.
On the back-nine, I had 1 par, 6 bogeys, and 2 9’s. Take those nines off and I’d have been in good shape.
So this morning I look and even as poorly as I played, I ended up in 3rd place. I lost the tie-breaker, though, because it’s based on the net score on the highest handicapped hole which, coincidentally, turned out to be one of my 9’s.
I didn’t deserve to win, so I’m glad I didn’t sneak into any money with that round, but I’m closing in. I think the next tourney I’ll play with them is in 4 weeks at The Golf Club at Cinco Ranch, where I’ve scored a 94 and 95 the last 2 times I’ve played there. We’ll see if I can keep those scorecard killers off of my card next time.
Originally from Detroit, Chris Koss has lived in Houston for about 5 years. He started playing golf about 10 years ago, but didn't get serious until mid-2008. Best start ever: par, birdie, par, birdie.
(Welcome guest author Brian Blackburn.)
Welcome Back to America Ryo Ishikawa
A friend of mine sent me a link to the 
Yesterday, I played in the 1st 
Originally from Detroit,