The Golfchick

That chick blabbing about anything golf related.

Month: January 2007 (page 2 of 3)

Eat Golf Tools: golf course finder and product comparison

Occasionally I’ll get questions from readers asking for recommendations on golf courses or golf products. If I don’t have intimate experience with the areas, courses or product types, I usually refer these people to the awesome tools over at www.eatgolf.com.

Eat’s creator, Rich, developed some really cool gizmos for just these types of inquiries. I like to use them myself. Rich is the geekiest stud in the online golf world. And I’m proud to say he’s also a personal friend of mine.

So, I have added both of these tools to my site in the sidebar.

Golf Course search

Search for a golf course in the United States by entering a zip code.
(Sorry, Hawaii’s not in there yet)

Golf Product Shopper

Search for a golf product by entering keywords. Be as general or specific as you want.

I challenge you to try ’em out and NOT think they’re terrific!

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Birdie Girl: more fabulous than a blogger

“We may not be able to correct your slice and we sure can’t shorten that dreaded par 5. But what we will do, is make you the most talked about golfer this side of St. Andrews.”

When I started this blog, I was looking for a more interesting name than “The Golfchick” and really just started using that as a placeholder until I came up with something better. It took me too long and golfchick just stuck. Even if I had considered the name Birdie Girl, I probably would have shied away from it anyway. I mean, I doubt I could be that presumptuous since I’m happy when I get any birdies in a given round and hardly qualify as a “birdie girl.”However, I think it’s a great name for this line of bags, umbrellas, headcovers and accessories designed for women by women “who define themselves by how they look – on the scorecard or in the clubhouse.” Birdie Girl had sellouts in their first set of offerings and have announced that they’re doubling their line for this season.

Oooh, I think that orange bag has my name all over it.

Founder of Birdie Girl, Rosemary Brdar, says she “founded this line with a single, stubborn mission: to create a line where women were the focus, not the second thought.” Hear here, girlfriend.

Birdie Girl already has a few supporters on the Duramed Futures TourTina Miller, Jessica Shepley and Connie Isler. Not surprising these women would carry such cool bags with their respective degrees in graphic design/marketing, journalism, and finance/international business.

Compared to some other female targeted product lines, these items are acutally reasonably priced, too! Check out their pink set benefiting the Rethink Breast Cancer program for only $149.


So if you can’t make it to the 2007 PGA Merchandise show, check out the golfanista smorgasbord over at www.birdiegirl.ca. Maybe you’ll be the next “most talked about golfer this side of St. Andrews.” (Wow, really?)

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True “winter golf” isn’t for sissy-babies like me

Here in Southern California, winter golf just means possibly wearing long pants and a long sleeved shirt when we play. Maybe a light jacket. Since taking up golf a couple years ago, this became the number one reason I am glad to live here. A real rationalization for paying a premium for my mortgage and other costs of living. I can golf year round – comfortably. Usually.

I mean, it’s January and a few days last week saw temperatures of 80 degrees. Circumstances have precluded my playing much golf this “winter,” in fact it had been over a month since my last round. I was happy to get the chance to go out and play this past Saturday in my club’s first tournament of the season. But the 80 degree weather was long gone! In fact, when I arrived for my teetime it was half that. That’s right – 40 freaking degrees plus a cold wind. People were out there in ski hats and mothballed sweaters. I wore a turtleneck under my golf shirt plus a jacket and I was still freezing. I actually wore a scarf around my face and ears a lot of the time. I kept my golf glove on even while putting and put a glove on my right hand in between shots. Some folks had on long-johns which they said helped keep them warm. I don’t own any long-johns. My ass was numb by the end of the round.

They actually predicted snow here – SNOW! Had there been any precipitation with this cold snap, it certainly would have been of the flaky variety. Come on, this is Southern California. This ain’t right.

Like I said, I hadn’t played in awhile and couldn’t arrive early enough to hit any warm-up balls in advance of the round. I was so stiff I could barely complete a full backswing, and it kind of hurt. I hit the snack shack on #2 where I picked up a hot cocoa and a bottle of Jack Daniels – you know the little airplane/minibar sized bottles that make you feel like a giant. That warmed and loosened me up right quick! I birdied #3 with authority and almost birdied #4 but tapped in for par. That was the highlight of my round. I just couldn’t stay warm or focused.

There was a two-club wind that swirled around and refused to be predicted. I don’t think I was the only one who couldn’t get over the fact that it was this freakin’ cold. The last few holes were in the shade and it was getting close to dusk so the temperature dropped even further. I could see and hear the chattering teeth of one of the guys in my foursome.

Too many double bogeys later, I ended up shooting 96 for a net 78 (on a par 70 course!), which was surprisingly the second best score in my group. Greg, who has a handicap 5 points lower than mine, shot a 97. The winner of A-flight shot a net 2-over, so I guess that means we’re all a bunch of sissy-babies out here.

At least I won 20 clams for claiming the long drive victory. They had me playing the forward tees so I had a big advantage, but I didn’t feel too bad about it because the guy I out drove to put my name on the card was behind me by more than the difference in the tees. Most people didn’t keep it in the fairway.

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Tadd Fujikawa – where’s your shiny Rolex?

You’re a sixteen year-old amateur. You’re playing in the Sony Open against the big boys. You eagle the final hole on Friday to make the cut by three strokes. The world knows your name and image and you have multi-million dollar endorsement deals with Nike…… screeeeeeeeeeeeech.

Sorry about that last part. That’s the girl behind you in the funky hat. She has the weekend off. The cameras and attention will be on you really soon. Really. As soon as they’re done back there. Maybe tomorrow when she’s gone.

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Coveting my neighbor’s course: Sherwood Country Club

My friend Scott over at Time Fore Tee had the good fortune to play the ultra-exclusive Sherwood Country Club as a reward for volunteering at the Target World Challenge. I’m sure that’s the only way I’ll ever be able to play there myself, but so far I haven’t been able to take the weekdays needed to do the volunteering. Hmmm… of course if I got an invite, I’d somehow manage to take a weekday off to play the course!

Anyway, Scott has done this for several years now but now that he has a blog he has written a post about this year’s Volunteer Day playing experience. Sure, he pimps his wares in the post, the fine Tartan Golf Grips he creates – why shouldn’t he – but most of it is about the golf! He wrote about the actual volunteering in another post, but I get more excited about playing golf than watching the pros play. Especially on a sweet course like Sherwood. I will play there one day!


It is quite a long write up, giving salivating readers like me a nice big juicy taste of what a day spent playing at Sherwood is like. He explains how his camera battery took a dive so there aren’t as many photos as he (or I) would like but there are still quite a few! In the post, he points out how it’s been very dry and windy out here lately so the course is dry and the greens are fast. Then he mentions the “cart path only” rule they made the players use that day. Usually that rule is for when it’s wet and they don’t want the carts to damage the course. Maybe they just don’t trust the riff raff not to do burnouts on the fairways.

I guess it’s awfully nice of them to let the volunteers play at all. I mean, this is no ordinary country club. If I put all my golf beans in one kettle I could have a membership at a few of the clubs around here. Not Sherwood. I could maybe swing the annual dues, but not the ~$400K+ membership fee (I think it’s less if you own a house in Sherwood – another $5 million+).

So until I get an invite or earn my own way on by volunteering, I’ll just sit back and covet. And read about others’ experiences there to make me drool and covet even more.

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Rules of Golf Animations

With the new golf season beginning, some people may want or need to refresh their knowledge of the rules of golf. Some people may just be starting out or still learning the game and want to know more about golf etiquette and the official rules.

The USGA website has a nifty new tool to help. They have flash animations of some of the rules and etiquette.

Here’s a captured image from the animation on “Ball Lost or Out of Bounds“- playing a provisional ball.

There are low and high bandwidth versions of the animations and they’re also narrated to explain the rules. Not all rules are animated, of course, but the more basic ones are.

It’s important to know proper etiquette as well, so don’t forget to check out the etiquette section including animations.

You can also search the rules to lookup something more obscure, or browse the FAQs for the in-betweeners. You know, common enough to get asked frequently but not common enough to animate.

Here’s a snippet of some of the FAQs. Just the faqs, ma’am.

My club’s first tournament is this weekend. Now that I’m a board member, I may be asked by other players to rule on stuff during the round. Dog help us. Luckily, the president of the club is usually in my foursome and he’s been known to call people on minor infractions (how diplomatic am I?) so I guess I can just defer to him.Next post.

Non-golf Goose post

This isn’t golf related but if anyone’s interested in seeing more of the infamous Goose, you can see a cute video of her opening some of her Christmas presents here.

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Paula Creamer isogood and calendar

There is a golf photoblog called “onedayoneshot” and that’s exactly what it is. Every day the owner and artist, Patrick Micheletti posts a new golf photograph and each image is truly amazing. For a long time I had it on my links list under “other golf sites” and consequently forgot to check it regularly. I moved it to my “favorite golf blogs” category so that I might better remember to get my daily fix. Either way it’s no loss because I can always scroll back through the days if I’ve missed any.

A couple days ago, Patrick posted this beauty of Paula Creamer. You really have to look at the photos on his site, though. It is set up to display them in all their stunning glory .

I’m no fashionista but I know what I like and what I don’t. Paula will occasionally make a misstep in my opinion but this is not one of them. I do like pink in the right combinations and I especially like it with brown. In fact, I wore my own brown and pink set of duds just yesterday. Sure, she still completely over-accessorizes but she’s a young little chippie so somehow it works for her. This is a fine getup. And let’s not overlook her concentration! I’d like to think I wouldn’t be looking at the ball yet, either.

But the real approbation goes to Patrick for his photos, not Paula for her outfits. I am simply in awe of his work.

In the same Paula post, he provided a link to a site with Paula Creamer’s calendar. Personally, I like Patrick’s photos better. Maybe she should hire him for her 2008 offering. Now don’t go thinking her calendar is one of those salacious or semi-naked PR machinations. Paula’s got more class than that. Or at least more modesty.

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Oh Lord, Won’t you Buy Me a Mercedes Benz

Okay, so I have nowhere near the amount of soul to pull off that song.

And I’ll probably never get a real Mercedes-Benz as a gift.

But I like to think that the PGA Tour and its players are honoring my birthday by kicking off their season today on Maui with the Mercedez-Benz Champonship at the Plantation Course of the Kapalua Resort.

I just wish they would have brought me with them. Maybe a couple days early, you know? Perhaps play a *friendly* round with Adam Scott or something? Warm him up a bit? Just thinking out loud here. Or at least thinking through my fingertips. Oh don’t be like that – you know what I mean.

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Snap previews: annoying or cool?

I found a little plerb that I added to my site that shows snapshot previews of my links. Run your mouse over any of my outbound links and you’ll see what I mean. I got it on snap.com and thought it was groovy but now that I see it in action I think it might get old fast. I haven’t decided yet if it’s annoying or not. Any thoughts?


Update: They were really getting on my nerves so I took ’em down. Thanks for the input and not complaining when I make up words like ‘plerb’.

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