Archive for March, 2009

I think I found my irons again

After my disheartening showing on Sunday at Bear Creek Masters, my biggest gaping hole right now is my iron play, specifically 4I – 6I, but let’s be honest, I couldn’t even hit a good PW last week.

I’ve been anxious all week to hit the range and try and figure out what the hell I’m doing.  I finally made it out to Melrose yesterday.  I was tempted to just take a 5I, but decided to take my whole bag.

Boy, did I hit the shit out of the ball.  Typically, I overthink my swing and end up being too mechanical, thus losing any fluidness (is that a word?) and power.  Yesterday, my goal was to not think (too much) and just knock the cover off the ball.

I think it worked!  I was flying my irons at regular distances.  I was still hitting a few shots really fat and I’m not sure why yet, but what the hell, in the words of Paul Newman, “I’m back!”

Hope the weather holds up and I can hit Gus Wortham over the weekend.

Bear Creek Masters

Well, this kinda ties in with my last post.  The league outing today was Bear Creek Masters and wow, I don’t think I could’ve played worse.

The course wasn’t in bad shape.  There were a few greens that were in some sort of repair stage (one guy 4 putted from 5 feet, OUCH!!!!), but it wasn’t too wet, which is normally the complaint about this course.   There’s not too much water in  play here, but most of the greens are surrounded by bunkers, which puts accuracy at a higher level.

The funniest part of the day for me was one of my playing partners hitting a tree from the tee box (hole 10), then on his next 2 shots, hitting the saem tree and having it bouncing straight back at his feet!  That made me feel a lot better when I hit a tree dead on from my second shot on the same hole.

All in all, I shot like shit, and my dad had to talk me off a ledge from quitting the game for good, but the positive thing is I can’t get any worse!  So now that daylight savings time is back in effect, I can work on hitting some balls after work and we’ll see where that gets me.  Hopefully in 2 weeks, I’ll be able to put some good consecutive shots together again.

Getting Ready for League Event part deux

I’m officially joining the Little John Golf League tomorrow.  I played in my first event as a guest at Blaketree about 2 weeks ago.  Our event tomorrow is at Bear Creek Masters.  I played there once before about 2 years ago and shot horribly. 

I remember the day before that painful experience I thought I had figured out “the secret” to golf.  I crushed balls on the range that day… no matter what weapon I chose, it was long and straight.   “Eureka!” I thought, “I better book a tee time ASAP so I can utilize my newly discovered talent and wisdom….”  The next day when I went out to conquer the world, I shortly realized any gained insights on the driving range vanished while I slept and I went on to shoot my worst score of the year!

Hope the sequel is better than the original!

Lack of a Good Map

One of the biggest reasons I wanted to start this blog is to provide fellow Houston golfers with an interactive map that easily shows the available golf courses in relation to where you live.  Most sites will only give you a directory, but it’s impossible to see where they are unless you map them all our individually.

Here’s a couple of bone-headed attempts at golf maps in Houston:

http://www.playgolfhouston.com/public/map.asp (totally lame)

http://www.myhoustongolf.com/map.htm (pretty crappy)

http://www.har.com/golfFinder/ (this is the only one that’s not half bad, but they put Memorial golf course close to the beltway)

Hopefully within the next few weeks, I can convince someone I know who knows flash to create a cool, interactive map of Houston golf courses.   For your sake, wish me luck.

Melrose Park Golf Course

This course is a hacker's special. Melrose Park Golf Course is a dumpy, par-3 goat field. But it's really cheap! It's a great place if you really suck or if you want to work on your short game.

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The Birth of Houston Golf Nut

I’ve got to tell you, there are a ton of golf courses in Houston.  I’ve only been in Houston for a few years, but only started playing golf seriously about a year ago.  Before that, I played only a handful of times a year.

My recent addiction started about a year ago.  I found this cheap little golf course, Melrose place (close to I-45 and Airport Blvd), where I could play for about $15 on the weekend.  Of course, it’s only a rinky-dink par 3 course that’s in crappy condition at best, but that’s not the point.  It got me playing almost every weekend, which led to getting lessons, which led to playing more courses, which led to trying to playing the same 2 or 3 courses all the time, which led to joining a golf league, which led to deciding to start this blog!

One of the things that disappointed me about golf in Houston had nothing to do with actually playing golf in Houston, but more to do with finding courses close to where I lived that were reasonably priced.  I couldn’t find any golf sites out there that intuitively provided good content about Houston golf.  There are a lot of national sites that sprinkle in Houston golf courses, but they pretty much suck in my opinion.

Over time, my goal is to build this site around Houston golf, including course reviews, an interactive map displaying all area golf clubs, my own personal ramblings about my own crappy attempt at being a good golfer, and whatever else comes to mind.

Welcome!