A Golf Blog

Road Trip

A couple of us here at the ‘ranch’ have started banging around the idea of a road trip to Arizona for spring training. It’s about 1100 miles – the drive through west Texas is boring as the dickens but you can really fly when the speed limit is 80. Heck, nobody does 80. I’m thinking it’ll take a couple of easy driving days.

I’ve never been on a golf road trip so I can see this one doing double duty – half baseball and half golf. There’s no shortage of good courses out there. What we’re not sure of if there will be a shortage of good baseball. You see, here in the Metroplex, we have the Rangers and last year they finished 75 and 89 – 19 games behind the Angels in the AL West. But, with each spring comes renewed hope. Maybe Josh Hamilton will continue on his tear.

Now, the touchy part. I suspect you can’t just announce something like ‘time for my nap, let’s close the blinds and turn off the TV. But, you can pretty much accomplish the same thing with one of these beauties.

Don’t leave home without one. This model even has ear muffs. They block out about 60 to 70 percent of background noise.

Horn Me

Bear with me here; I’ll get to the golf tie in shortly….

One of the few things I watch on television before the sun sets is Around the Horn. It runs daily on ESPN between Jim Rome is Burning and Pardon the Interruption. The show is hosted by Tony Reali and one of the tag lines he uses as a transition to a commercial is ‘Horn Me’. The horn in the context of the ESPN show is kind of like the gong was in Chuck Barris’ The Gong Show (that takes me way back to 1976). Come to think of it, The Gong Show was something of a predecessor to even American Idol but I digress…..sorry

So I got to thinking – when golfers do really dumb stuff like this , are they subliminally asking to be horned? I could do that with this   but thinking about some of the stunts I’ve actually seen, I’m not sure a refill would last even a week.

Keep it in the short grass; just don’t drive there.

Santa's Sweet Swing

You know, the Jolly Old Elf is one busy guy this time of year. Even Santa gets wrapped up in deadlines (hint: he has one big one coming this Wednesday night) and a break from routine probably helps him from going a little crazy.

Hat tip to Brian Milne of San Luis Obispo for the pointer. More on Santa's Sweet Swing and some of Santa's other pre-Christmas stress relievers right here.

Natures Blanket

I've been here at 'the ranch' for about 5 and a half years. Loosely translated, that works out to be 5 winters.

In that time, the course superintendent only once had to actually drag out the greens tarps because forecasted temperatures were supposed to get below freezing for 3 or more days  in a row. I know for some of you, tarps are a regular happening at your course this time of year.

Because we rarely have cold enough weather for a long enough period, our 'turf titan' waters. That creates a temporary blanket that keeps the grass plants from frostbite.

Know what? After seeing this picture, it's no secret how this green drains.

Monday, Wonderful Monday

I know some of you are thinking that I’m slowly recovering from blunt force trauma to the melon but I’m not. My reference to Monday is not to poke anyone in the eye that has to return to work, it’s to herald the day after the winter solstice.

This is where the daylight continuum turns from shorter to longer – it also means that there’s more daylight each and every day to play golf. If you’d like to keep tabs on daylight in your city or town, you might consider starting right here.

Sweet, huh?

Speeding at the Ranch

I just got back from this weeks installment of stimping the greens here at the ranch. Today's wind speed is almost non-existent. The sun is shining and the temperature is a balmy 49 degrees.

Our course superintendent is throwing down quite a bit of water overnight and the greens are still a bit damp. I'll ask, but it's my guess the extra water is to guard against frost burn. We've had light frost dustings the past several nights.

Today's speed - 9.5; not bad, really. Stay tuned as I'm predicting the speed will increase as the days and weeks pass.

Swing Reminders

Several weeks ago I had a note from Scott Jessee, a fellow veteran and the owner/inventor of Swing Reminders.

I received a box of the tokens and shared them with golfers on the range here at the ranch. I kept 2 as mementos; the rest are now in the pockets or golf bags of about 15 or 20 others. Each token is about the size of a half dollar; it’s wood and has a ‘reminder’ on each side. Reminders like ‘one shot at a time’ and ‘forget the last shot’ and ‘no three putts’.

I especially liked them as a reminder that it’s ‘still just a game’. That’s sometimes difficult to remember, especially after missing the 3 footer for a birdie on 18 that would have broken 80 for the first time. (Or you can insert your own lapse about forgetting that golf is only a game)

And, as the holidays approach, Swing Reminders would make a great stocking stuffer for your special golfer or for those in your regular foresome.

A Golf Blog – An RSS Tutorial

Feedburner tells me that I have just about 300 subscribers to this blog. I’m also guessing that there are many that periodically check the blog to see if there’s anything new.

Many of my friends at the ranch are pretty web savvy but I doubt that many know about syndication and feed subscription via an aggregator. Simply put, you would subscribe to a feed and every time the content changes, that change is sent to you.

Your subscriptions are managed by the application you use to access the content. My preference is the Google Reader but there are many others to choose from. If you’d like to give the Google Reader a try but don’t have an account, send me an email and I’ll see that you get an invitation.

Basically, all you have to do is copy the blog’s web address; in this case you’d copy http://www.acemakr.com and paste it into the subscription box displayed in the reader of your choice. Then, viola; the reader goes to the blog, finds the new content, and downloads it for your viewing pleasure.

It’s really much easier than trying to remember a lot of blog addresses. By the way, there’s lots of content besides blogs that you could subscribe to. Sports news, game scores, etc. as well as item availability on EBay or Amazon.

Try it, you might even like it.

Training Aid Cooperative

I’m willing to bet that most of you that 1.) play golf and 2.) read this blog have a stash of training aids that you acquired to improve your game.

For many, it started when The Golf Channel went infomercial crazy selling spots to anyone with a few thousand dollars that wanted to sell something. Geez, they even put Chuck Norris on. For others, it was the promise of a quick fix for lower scores without having to practice much to get better.

Let’s see, from memory, I’ve bought a golf hypnosis CD, a series of DVDs where AJ Reveals the Truth about golf, weighted clubs, hinged clubs, Swing Machine Golf, and more. I’ve even purchased golf tees that had a cup like shape for the ball to fit in that guaranteed straighter ball flight through less spin. Why bother with a tee when chap-stick covertly applied to your driver will do the same thing? For one, it’s against the rules. But, I digress…..

I believe that there are golfers like me, even here at the ranch, that are pretty much in the same space as me – lots of aids that are tucked away in some dark corner of the garage or closet that are gathering dust.

If there were a catalogue of aids that golfers were willing to lend (or perhaps for a small fee) would you be willing to take the plunge and try it out? I’d be interested in hearing what you think of the idea. I’ve got several irons in the fire right now (our MGA handbook needs an update and we’re working out the details for a match play tournament to kick off the season this coming spring) but after they are addressed, I’m going to start the ball rolling on a golf training aid coop.

While I’m at it, anyone out there have one of these? I’d be willing to go as high as $20 a day (two day minimum) to give it a try.

Stimping at the Ranch

I made another round today to measure green speeds. I tried to duplicate the same ‘measuring space’ as last week. As you may recall, last weeks average was 11.0 with temps in the mid 60s and winds from the south at 5 to 10 mph.

What I found today was that wind speeds can have significant impact on putts. Winds today are from the south west and are running 25 to 30 mph with gusts above 35. The sun’s out and the temperature is similar to last week; mid 60s. The stimpmeter average today was 9.0; a full 2 feet less than last week. Today, a down hill, down wind putt will peg out close to 20 on the stimpmeter – I’m not playing today but if I were, I try to hit those down wind and down hill putts just hard enough to get the ball half way to the hole.

So if putts struck with high wind from the south west are, on average, 2 feet slower on the stimpmeter, imaging what putts are like with wind howling from the north east?

Where’s that number for the Texas Golf Association?