Looking for a Unique Holiday Golf Gift? Photo Ball Markers!
Stumped as to what to get for the golfer in your life? Whether it’s a stocking stuffer or major gift budget for you, $25 can get you an awesome and unique gift for that golfer who has everything (even if that golfer is you).
If you can capture it in a photo, you can put it on a ball marker. Well, Photo Ball Marker can for you! Simply upload your photos and you can have an amazing set of ball markers and you can customize the gift to include a magnetic hat clip, necklace, brooch, divot tool or keychain! So they go well beyond the golf course, you see!
Holidays are coming up so get creative! Kids, pets, other family members, places, logos, keepsakes and memories… you’re not limited by much if you can use your imagination!
Above are some of the fabulous ball markers I’ve gotten from PBM. The necklace pictured is my own magnetic necklace, not sold by PBM but they do sell some beautiful styles of their own. One thing I really like is that the back of the ball markers have that handy arrow for when you have to move your marker out of someone else’s putting line. You simply flip over your marker and point the arrow in the direction you need to move it back to your spot so you don’t forget. Always a nice feature of a ball marker, in my opinion!
If you haven’t already clicked off this page to go shopping at PBM, happy holidays and happy shopping!
Published by golfchick on November 30th, 2011 tagged Golf Goods, Golf gifts, Vito | 7 Comments »
There’s Nothing Average About Par
I have been thinking about how hard golf is and how most people never break 80, let alone shoot par, and remembered this article I wrote that originally published over at World Golf. It has been so long now since I wrote it I thought I’d share it with you here now. Would love to hear your thoughts on the subject of par!
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What is par? The American Heritage Dictionary defines par as “an amount or level considered to be average” or in sports usage “the number of golf strokes considered necessary to complete a hole or course in expert play.”
How – or more to the point, why – did a word meaning average get morphed into expert when it pertains to golf? Experts in golf are a tiny fraction of the golfing population. The rest of us are left struggling to achieve such a high standard which is, perhaps, one of golf’s addictive properties. But does it even have any relevance?
Why do golf holes and golf courses have numbers set for par? Whether par on a hole is 3, 4 or 5, if you shoot 5, your score is still 5. And if your total score for 18 holes is 85, does it really matter if par is 70 or 72? You know if 85 is a good score for you or not. Aren’t personal goals more relevant than par? I guess par can be a good reference point when setting your own goals. For example, if you’re playing a long or tricky “par 4” hole, you might be happy to make a 5 or 6 there. I know some people set their own personal pars that might be equal to an “official” bogey or double bogey on any given hole. So what difference does par make to the average (not par) golfer?
According to the USGA, any hole measuring 400 yards or longer is a par 5 for women, regardless of what the scorecard states. If the scorecard lists a hole at 425 yards as a par 4 and a male and a female both shoot a 4, she gets to feel better about it and consider it a birdie? Yawn. At the end of a round, my score is still what it is so who cares? Handicap calculations are based on the USGA course and slope ratings for both genders from a given set of tees and the formula doesn’t consider par. In fact, the USGA offers a formula for determining the Bogey Rating of a course and recommends that “every golfer worse than a scratch” use it as a “truer yardstick of the challenge.”
I recently played a course with my boyfriend and we both played from the same set of tees at 6575 yards. Here is an example of the Bogey Rating in action:
Him: Slope Rating (121) divided by 5.381 (set value for men), plus the Course Rating (69.0) = Target score of 91.48. Actual score: 88
Me: Slope Rating (138) divided by 4.24 (set value for women), plus the Course Rating (75.2) = Target score of 107.74. Actual score: 100
*Interesting side note: if I use the men’s ratings with the women’s set value or the women’s ratings with the men’s set value, the result is much closer to my actual score.
I have my own, more precise calculator that uses my actual handicap index rather than just a standard bogey golfer index and it gave me a target score of 94, so the 100 I shot was 6 over. Greg’s target would have been 83 so his 88 was 5 over.
On the scorecard, par is 72, but there are 4 “par 4” holes from these tees longer than 400 yards which adds four more strokes to par for women for a 76. If we compared our scores to par instead of our targets, I would have been 24 over and Greg would have been 16 over. Like many golfers of our skill levels (our indices only differ by 2.3), he actually does compare his score to par. I just don’t see the point.
Considering that most golfers aren’t experts, if we’re going to put par on a card, shouldn’t we also list some kind of a bogey golfer par? Since par is synonymous with average, Par could be the higher number for the average player target score and the lower number that is currently called par could be called Expert Target Score (ETS).
In golf, there is nothing average about par.
Published by golfchick on November 1st, 2011 tagged Breaking 80, Don't get me started, Golfchick Performance And Progress, Worldgolf.com | 12 Comments »
Breaking 80 Golf Game Progress Report - Getting Closer!
After I posted that last video of my swing when I thought I had a real breakthrough, my swing coach, Jay Lim, left me some notes in the comments for things to work on. At first glance it seemed like a whole lot to think about and change and I felt a little overwhelmed. But when I started to implement it I realized it was pretty much all the same thing - setup. Nothing to feel deflated about. In fact, as soon as I took those ideas to the range and called Jay to clarify his meaning about tilt, it started working right away. In fact, it made the other things I was doing even easier to repeat. Brilliant. I continued practicing it throughout the week and, once again, was eager to go try it on a golf course.
On Friday afternoon I rushed to a local course and since I wanted a good chance of finishing my round before dark, I skipped my warm up. As a result, my first few holes were disastrous and it took a few more to really get the feel of my new swing anywhere near comfortable. (I also had some trouble holding onto the club - details at end of post if you’re interested - but as this is something I’m just going to have to deal with, it is not something that I will allow to account for a poor swing or score.) I played alone for the first 5 holes until another single jumped a foursome and joined me. My swing improved a bit but never really got in the groove. My new walking buddy was impressed but I felt down and frustrated as I posted my 102! (White tees, 6000 yards, ratings 75.6/132.) It’s the identical score to the last two times I played there earlier in the month. Where’s the improvement? Can’t even break 100? How long until 80 now???
Then I soothed my mind and body with a nice relaxing bubble bath and a couple giant martinis. I got my head right, found my smile and shook off any discouragement. I would play the next day and try again, but this time with the right kind of warm up for my swing and mental game. I decided to try the little executive course where I played my first 18 hole round when I took up golf. I figured it was a great place for me when I was just starting out and since I’m essentially doing that again, maybe I can recapture some of that mojo. I hadn’t been there in years. I was excited!
Getting Closer!
I stretched, hit a small bucket of balls and my swing was feeling good. Did a little chipping and some ninja putting drills and hit the course. I played the back tees, which are only 4961 yards (par 67, 68.4 CR/112 slope). I went to the first tee alone and could see the foursome approaching the green up ahead on this 293 yard par 4. My tee shot went straight up the middle and I waited in the fairway 70 yards from the flag while the 4 guys finished. I stuck the green and two putted from about 8 feet for a ho-hum par. That was the only green I hit on the front nine, but with 15 putts I salvaged a 41*, making me 6 over at the turn. A twosome joined me on the second hole and we ended up playing through those guys in front of us and joining another single on the back nine. On the back I had two doubles, 3 bogeys and finished with 4 pars, which felt great and totaled 40. I posted an 81. *After I got home I realized I had forgotten to give myself a penalty stroke for moving my ball off a tree root in an effort to save my wrist. I should have posted an 82.
If I had broken 80 that day, I would not have counted it as achieving my goal (though I would have awarded a prize to Billy D, who chose that date in my Break 80 pool). I want to achieve it from the white tees at a regular “grown up” course. However, my personal best score is an 82, the same I shot on Saturday, and it occurred to me to look up the length and ratings on that course, since we played the red tees. Turns out it was only 4799 yards, par 71, 66.5/111 rating. I count that as my previous personal best! Should I? Should I reconsider allowing myself to feel like I accomplished this goal if I break 80 from the red tees? Does it matter? In golf, everything matters mentally, and you know I believe I can do whatever I think I can. The really good news is, I felt like I easily should have broken 80 on this course and shot my 82 with relative ease. Friday’s disaster and realization was merely the stumbling block I needed to make mental adjustments and try a different route. I am beyond encouraged. Nice try, Friday! (c:
Video Update
The video here includes a couple of my honey badger practice swings on the range on Thursday as well as my tee shots on the last two holes of this round (two of my pars - the par 3 17th (pitching wedge) and the par 4 18th). Sorry - it had a cool tune with it but was disabled for copyright snags. Maybe I can get Big Head Todd to approve it. Meanwhile, hope you enjoy the silent movie.
The details I promised about my grip
I think I have mentioned the aggravating pain in my hands and wrists that hasn’t really bothered me since I was a kid but has returned. It’s actually not always painful per se. Sometimes it’s just more of a discomfort with irritating spasms, locking up certain fingers and joints in odd positions and making it difficult to hold onto things. After the week of practice, my right hand was really getting frisky on Friday (in previous weeks it was more my left). My buddy Jay over at Jaysgolf.com has a better understanding of such challenges than I do and we joked together about the “death grip” we subsequently put on our golf clubs, tearing through gloves and creating callouses faster than rolling O’s.
I understand the more I keep exercising the joints in the manner that aggravates them, the less they will hurt over time. Kind of hard to believe the morning after I’ve played golf and I can’t even grip my toothbrush but golf is certainly better than no golf so you know I will find out if it’s true! Meanwhile, I’m primarily treating the pain by deciding not to feel it or care, along with over the counter and over the bar medicine, and trying to control the spasms with my ninja mind. I don’t have insurance.
Published by golfchick on August 2nd, 2011 tagged Breaking 80, Fitness and Health, Golfchick Performance And Progress, Jay Lim, Mental Game, Putting, Swing Coach, Swing Videos | 20 Comments »
Don’t Be That Golf Pro
Warning: This post contains “un-ladylike” language. Unless that lady is me.
A couple weeks ago I was at a local golf course getting ready to play in my monthly club tournament. Still getting to know my new swing and not having had a breakthrough yet, I gave myself some extra time at the range to try to get the feel for it before teeing off. I had just barely finished stretching and had only hit a few balls. I think it was pretty obvious I was concentrating on what I was doing, struggling, and adjusting.
Cue the douchetard.
I’m pretty good at ignoring what goes on around me at the range. But one person’s hovering seemed to be getting closer and when I saw someone approach my golf bag in my peripheral vision I decided to pay attention. A guy actually grabbed a club out of my bag. Before I could even say anything, he stepped toward me and took the club from my hand! I was stunned and probably had my mouth open as I stood there in disbelief. He handed me the other club, squatted down and touched my leg! He was giving me some kind of instruction about my stance or what he wanted me to do but I couldn’t hear a word he was saying. What kind of idiot hands a woman a weapon and does that? He was not just some random guy offering tips or perving around. He was a teaching pro at the course. Think he’d attempt the same thing with a man? Even an unsolicited tip or offer of assistance? I doubt it!
I smile. A lot. I’ve been told it’s a rather cheery sight. I have also been told that when I don’t smile I look like I’m frowning. I have also been told that when I intentionally frown - especially out of anger - that I can look downright evil and have a pretty fine “death to you” glare. Short story shorter - The fuckwad made it off the range alive. But in a hurry.
So, if you’re a golf pro and you see someone like me as described above, what do you do? Don’t be that pro.
*Image from Metromix Chicago.
Published by golfchick on July 29th, 2011 tagged Don't get me started, IS IT JUST ME?, Rants And Random Ramblings | 10 Comments »
Tested My New Honey Badger Swing at Charity Golf Tourney
As I mentioned in my last post, I had a little breakthrough with my golf swing progress last week. After some exciting practice sessions, I was eager to try it out on a golf course, and I had a great opportunity to do just that on Friday.
I played with two friends (the 4th canceled last minute) in a fun charity tournament to benefit The American Cancer Society. Since it was a scramble format, there was no real pressure on my swing to tempt me back to comfort since I had two others to back me up if all went wrong. However, with their 35 and 40 indexes, I did have some work to do. They were actually quick to point out that when I went last and we really needed to hit a green, that’s when I performed the best. Not really a surprise to me; I dig the pressure.
Photo right- honey badger that ate the canary
Photo below - gallery on 18 at tourney
My swing felt great. Sure, I had a few that missed the mark but overall I am striking the ball much better. I should have counted the greens I hit but we were having too much fun. We shot even par so you know I had to have hit a bunch of them. I was sticking them pretty tight, too. I also had a nice chip-in for birdie. Made a few fantastic putts as well. I love this game!
There was only one hole in the closest to the pin contest and it was for all golfers, not split by gender (although we did have about a 15 yard advantage - 135 vs 150). Honey badger nailed it! 7 iron, no roll - sat right next to its ball mark about a flag length below the hole. Photo left - with tournament organizer & not unhappy about winning.
I got some more practice in yesterday - below is the 7 iron swing that won me 110 clams. You can see it’s still a little loose on top so I have even more room for improvement. As I remember shouting a couple times on Friday - THIS IS FUN! Some more practice this week and maybe I’ll go test it out in my own scoring round. Breaking 80 is still the goal!
