For Golfers Only
The Golf Show part of the Travel, Sports and Boat Show isn this weekend downtown. I don't usually like giving away secrets, but I'm feeling charitable, so here's one. If you wait to go until Sunday afternoon, they have killer discounts. I'm guessing it's because the vendors don't relish packing up all that stuff again. Whatever the reason, you can usually do well on Sunday.
Now, a question. OK, two: I want to hear from someone who spends way too much money seeking the magic golf wand, the stick(s) he believes will make the difference in his game. If you have 16 putters stacked in the basement or the garage, if you'd putt with a length of tailpipe if you thought it'd improve your game, you're my guy.
Also: Could use some advice/suggestions on your best golf trips. Make 'em reasonable. Don't tell me about the trek to Scotland or stiffing a 3-iron off the Great Wall. I'm sure that was thrilling, but most of us won't be able to fulfill that corner of our wish list. Keep it simple and continental. Thanks. See you Sunday.
Live big, Odyssey putter from Play It Again Sports
posted by Paul Daugherty at 8:38 AM
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Post a Comment*Want a quick cheap trip??
All of the Kentucky state parks have what they call a tees and zzzz's promotion.
While not all of the courses are great there are a few really nice ones. Dale Hollow is fun, I've played it many times.
I can't say for sure how many putters I have - I'd have to locate them all. I do know there is one at the bottom of a pond on a golf course in western Indiana.
What is scary is that I'm pretty sure that I currently own more bowling balls than golf putters. That's not right, and I may need to come up to the golf show and rectify that.
My best golf trip was to Las Vegas on a long President's day weekend one winter with several other golfers. The weather was great, the courses were easy to get on, and they have great package deals going on around that time.
A memorable shot was made by one of the guys in my foursome while on that trip. Instead of a birdie, he got a duck. He nailed one sitting innocently in a pond with his buddies, using a 4-iron on a long par 4. The ball bounced off of the duck and onto the green. Of course, he missed his birdie putt.
...used to golf at least once a week year round for years...started playing when i was kid...spent way to much on various clubs etc...lesson from curran was best i ever had...fave time to golf was fall-winter-spring...hate carts loved to walk the course...played golf all over ireland on various trips to the isle...best round of my life at ballybunion...then it hit me a few years ago one day while on the course...what am i doing? wasting five hours out here...for what?...not great exercise even when walking... have only golfed once (scramble outing) in four years...don't miss it...got into biking...still follow the tour but have no desire to play...better things to do...maybe the passion will come back some day...i'll keep my closet full of clubs just in case...
Best golf advice ever:
Quit.
Hey Doc,
The northwest corner of Michigan's lower peninsula has some great courses. If you want to come off the course feeling like you went the distance with Joe Frazier circa 1975, there's Nicklaus's course right outside Traverse City. The Shanty Creek courses around the Torch Lake area are gorgeous and challenging but fair. Also, the Boyne courses near Harbor Springs are fun. However, there's one course I've heard and read about in Golf Digest and Links Magazine that looks and sounds absolutely breathtaking: Arcadia Bluffs Golf Course. It's out of the way in Arcadia, MI, but it was just ranked as the 10th best public course in the country, and it's right on the shores of Lake Michigan. The views look mind-blowing.
I have to agree with the comment made about Dale Hollow. It's an awesome golf course - taken care of very well and very challenging. We usually play it in the harsh heat of the summer and even then it's in great shape. Plus you can stay at the lodge right down the road and enjoy the lake while you're not golfing.
One of our favorite things to do is to get a group of guys together, rent a cabin in Gatlinburg for 2 nights, and play at Bent Creek 3 or 4 times. The scenery is naturally amazing and it's a good time to get away for a guy's weekend without being too expensive, too far of a drive, or having to fly anywhere.
Golf clubs are expensive (and arguably overpriced). I've been making my own clubs for 3 or 4 years now. I started doing it because I like use a 7 wood and a 9 wood, and those are hard clubs to find. You can get what you need from GolfWorks. Golf Galaxy started selling their stuff as well. Golf Works is located a few miles east of Columbus, and you can try stuff out there. It's not really hard to make clubs, or re-grip them. If I can do it, anyone can.
Paul,
Anyone considering getting that new $500 dollar driver should invest it into lessons with a PGA pro...it is definitely a better investment. Also, amateurs should get their current equipment tested. Sometimes just changing the shaft makes a dramatic improvement (won't help you find the center of the clubface however).
As for a golf trip, how about the deal offered by Eagle Sticks and Longaberger, just outside of Zanesville? Two rounds of golf and a night in a hotel for under $200. Both courses ranked in Ohio's top 25. Give me a shout if you go.
Brad
Columbus, OH
Golf Trips -
Fairfield Glade - about an hour west of Knoxville. Reasonable driving distance from Cincinnati. Stonehenge and Bear Trace at Cumberland Gap (a Nicklaus course) worth the trip alone. Beware - not much night life.
Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail - Huntsville, Birmingham, and Prattville. Most of the stops have at least two championship layouts and a par three course.
Lake Jovita - about 40 minutes north of Tampa. Semi-private (keep your shirt tucked in) two courses, formally one of the qualifying stages for the PGA Tour School. Pristine. Very reasonable rates in the summer and heat and humidity were comparable to Cincinnati.
Torrey Pines - San Diego. Can be difficult to get on and will be more expensive with the Open being there this year, but worth it just for the Pacific Ocean views.
Tree Tops in Gaylord, Michigan. Kind of expensive but three great championship courses plus a par three course. Site of the par three skins game.
Cleveland - Fowler's Mill (an early Pete Dye design) and Little Mountain - possibly the best conditioned course I played in 2007 (hot chicks working the clubhouse grill too).
Putting Tip: (for yips or looking up)
On the practice green place a dime, penny or ball mark on the green. Place ball on top of the marker. Execute your putt, but make sure you are still looking at the marker, after the ball in gone.
Simple, but very effective.
Also, find a pro or a low handicapper to set you up with a good grip and posture. When the grip and spine angle are good, the swing becomes easier to perform.
Fred Slezak
Paul, here are some ideas for a golf trip. 1. Peninsula Golf Resort just south of Lexington, KY. On site condo's with stay and play packages. Go in April or October and you can hit Keeneland. 2. There are many stay and play packages in Pinehurst, NC that are very reasonably priced. 3. Fairfield Glade, TN is half-way between Knoxville and Nashville. Great golf and condo packages. A simple google search of Fairfield Glade or Pinehurst will give you plenty to choices. Good Luck!!
Chris
Mason
Let me echo some of the sentiments about playing golf in Michigan (northern lower peninsula or beyond). Given the short golf season, courses up there don't get as played out as in some of the more southern locations. So they are usually in great shape.
There are plenty of great courses in and around Gaylord, MI. A little further north in the area of Indian River is a great course called Hidden River (http://www.golfmichigan.net/hiddenriver/). For your post round dining skip the restaurant at the club and instead make the short trip to Douglas Lake Bar & Steakhouse (http://www.douglaslakebar.com/). You won't be disappointed.
If you care to venture further north into the U.P., I can highly recommend Wild Bluff (http://www.wildbluff.com/) and Crimson Ridge (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario; http://www.golfcrimsonridge.com/).
Gaylord is about an 8 hour drive from Cincinnati. Here's a link for courses in that area: http://www.gaylordgolfmecca.com/course-directory-4/
Paul,
I know you have heard of the Ohio Valley Golf Assoc (OVGA) here in Cincinnati. Every year a group of 24 golfers go down to Myrtle Beach for 6 days. Its awesome down there. We play some top courses down there. I believe the cost is only around $425 and that includes a Room & buffet breakfast in an oceanfront hotel which is very nice. If you are interested contact Chad Stewart of the OVGA (ovgagolf@yahoo.com
Thanks
Jeff W.
Robert Trent Jones golf trail in Alabama best is the best golf trip spot.
11:44am lessons do not work. Pros for the most part want to teach you how you should swing, the problem being you are not capable of swinging like that. You are born with your golf swing and nothing that a pro can ever point out to you is going to change it.
I'm apart of a group of 16 guys who go down to Kentucky every year for a 4 day, 3 night golf trip. We went to Bright Leaf golf "resort" in Harrodsburg for 15 years straight. We switched it up last year and went to another place who's name escapes me last year and we'll be going to this same place again this year. We hold several different events such as scrambles, "3-4-5", pink lady, bingo bango bongo, and limited club (which is really fun). Lots of gambling. Lots of drinking (dry counties...bring your own booze). A bad day of golf is better than a great day at work.
Fred Slezak (re, putting tips) - will try your recommendation - but I know the concept works (in pool, same as golf).
Get your line (the easy part) & then focus on the getting the putter (cuestick) to strike the ball exactly spot-on with the right angle/elevation. It works.
PDaug, this blog will set the all-time record for responses - good work & fun for all.
Butterball; your rules are unfair; I wanted to talk about hitting out of a sand trap while golfing in Giza next to the pyramids.
Oh well; how about a couple nice courses in West Virginia:
Cacapon State Park has a scenic Robert Trent Jones designed course and the green fees and lodging are very reasonable.
Up the road in Hedgesville is the Woods Resort; much more expensive fees, but the local newspaper often prints discount coupons.
Doc....off topic, but I wanted to commend you on your Mick Cronin article.
Very well done, I read the whole thing three times.
"...to see little brother continue coaching the resurrection in Clifton."
So great.
QuarterNelson, I won an annual 4-some outing at Cacapon. It's pretty but I wouldn't recommend it to any of my friends. The crowned greens suck. Don't do it.
My group would never go back.
Doc, the best trip we have been taking for the last 15 years is to Pine Needles/Mid Pines in Southern Pines North Carolina just one mile from Pinehurst. Two GREAT Donald Ross courses, great accomodations, at half the price of Pinehurst and you can drive there in 8 hours. The U.S. Womens Open has been held at Pine Needles 3 times since 1996.You can write a column about Mrs. Peggy Kirk Bell[the owner]while you are there.
A group of pals from college and I piled into a couple cars and headed south for the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. Ross Bridge and the Fighting Joe were two of the most fantastic golf courses I've ever seen and played.
Paul,
For you, I'd recommend Lunar Golf. Back in 71' during the Apollo 14 mission to the moon, the late Alan Shepard hit a 6 iron well over 1,000 yards. All you'd need is your wedge.
Lou E
My regualar foursome try to play one premier course a year. that way you spread your expenses out and the wives dont get too upset. So far we have played:
Ocean Course, Kiawah Is, SC
Torrey Pines
Pinehurst #2
Whistling Straits
This year we are heading to Bethpage Black.
best golf tips:
1) slow is good (you dont have to swing hard to make the ball go, think Freddie "boom boom" Couples.)
2) down is up (you have to hit down on the back of the ball for the ball to go up in the air with that nice, tight trajectory you see on the practice ranges at the tour events)
3) keep the driver in the bag (most amateurs dont have enough swing speed to use a driver with less than 11 or 12 degrees of loft, either get one of those [which is essentially an old 2 wood] or use your three wood and outdrive your budies)
[repeat after me]
slow is good, down is up, keep the driver in the bag... [repeat until you believe it]
11:17 Whistling Straits looked beautiful but awfully difficult on TV - what did you think? Windy?
Beautiful & Windy. But not as windy or beautiful as The Ocean Course. By far my favorite and the most challenging.
I thought the Ocean Course was terrible. Just a bad resort course that becomes virtually unplayable in the wind (and there's always wind) and is far enough removed from the ocean to actually have any really great views. Nothing compared to Pebble or any of the course around there. I wouldn't play it again and played several other much better courses in Kiawah, though I think they all were private (Cassique, River Course, even Turtle Bay was better).
I hear Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Ala. is amazing and on the cheaper side, as golf goes.
Best golf trip I ever went on (and I've done a lot of them) was just me and my dad to Pebble and Spyglass when I was 16. We drove down 17 Mile Drive to where it nears Cypress Point, brought a driver and a putter, snuck on to #16, ripped a drive into the wind, over the ocean, and on the green, 2 putted for par and ran back to the rental car. My dad's one cool guy.
4:30 here, back as a referee.
I consider Ocean (Kiawah) the ultimate test of golf. Look at (but don't try to play) the "Tournament Tees". It's also beautiful although not so much from an ocean view standpoint. (Aside note: at the height of Ryder Cup fever, Langer & Irwin came to 18 with the match on the line >> and they played just like you & me (both hacking & Langer missing 4' putt to loss)..
That said, my all-time best was Pebble Beach. Lots of Monterrey Bay views, lots of challenging, familiar (from TV) holes. AND Jack Nicklaus' all-world favorite hole (think about that!) -#8.
Tie goes to ... Pebble.
I could be wrong.
Take a week on two or three of the Alabama Trail locations. One of the greatest bargains in golf.
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