The Golf Grouch

A couple years ago, I moved about 20 miles west to the beach town of Santa Monica, CA. As a result, my home course went from the Rose Bowl parking lot to Rancho Park, former home of the L.A. Open. On the par-5 18th tee, there's an interesting plaque to commemorate Arnold Palmer's achievement at the 35th L.A. Open in 1961.

Here's the engraving:

The first day of the 35th L.A. Open, Arnold Palmer, voted Golfer of the year, took a 12 on this hole.

As an inspiration to all Golfers The L.A. Jr. Chamber of Commerce dedicate this monument.

Palmer hit a fine drive. He sliced his next 2 shots into the driving range, then hooked two more onto Patricia Ave. Hit the green with his sixth shot, and two putted. Eight strokes plus four penalities add up to 12.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine sent me an article about Tiger Woods' post injury return to golf written by Sally Jenkins.

What shocked me most about this article was the writer's prematurely drawn conclusions about Tiger's golf game. Just read this passage:

But so far, Woods's comeback has been a relatively humdrum event...After an eight-month layoff to repair the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, Woods missed dozens of putts and seemed frustrated by the slow pace of the whole affair. All of which was a reminder that the injury is a clear demarcation in his competitive life: He's now 33 years old and in the last third of his career, and while he surely has a lot of greatness left, the game may no longer come so easily.

At the time that the article was published, Tiger had been out of competitive golf for almost 9 months and had logged fewer than 6 competitive rounds. That's right, the writer believes that this sample size is sufficient to derive meaningful conclusions. Anyone who plays golf regularly at any level knows that golf is fickle and it can take a long time to recover one's form after a sustained layoff. Just because Tiger is a little rusty, it doesn't mean that he's lost his game. To make that kind of jump is just regoddamndiculous!

A couple of years ago, ESPN's Gene Wojciechowski wrote an article that included a seemingly absurd proclamation that "Tiger Woods is the greatest individual athlete of our time. OK, of all time." After Tiger's unhuman-like performance at the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, Wojciechowski's statement might be right on the money. Winning the most difficult tournament against the world's best with a torn ACL and a double stress fracture is nothing short of miraculous. Unfortunately, recovering from that injury will cost Woods the rest of the season. It seems that Wojciechowski might be the Carnac the Magnificent of golf with his prescient statement: "Only injury stands between Woods and any record worth owning."

But there are always haters out there who will try to bring you down. Surprisingly, the sharpest barb came from the usually docile Retief Goosen, himself a two-time US Open champion. When asked whether he believed that Woods was faking the extent of his pain, he said: “I think so. It just seemed that when he hit a bad shot his knee was in pain and on his good shots he wasn’t in pain. You see when he made the putts and he went down on his knees and was shouting, ‘Yeah’, his knee wasn’t sore. Nobody really knows if he was just showing off or if he was really injured. I believe if he was really injured, he would not have played.”

Two weeks ago, I took my dream golf trip to Bandon Dunes with 7 of my golf buddies. Here are my quick thoughts on my off-the-course experience and hopefully they will help you plan a Bandon Dunes golf trip:

Air Travel

The fastest way to get to Bandon is to fly into North Bend airport (OTH). Unfortunately, there's not a lot of flights into it. Your best bet is to fly to Portland and then take a puddle-jumper to North Bend. If you're nervous about flying like I am, be warned that the plane from Portland to North Bend is small. There are only 9 rows of seats with 4 seats per row! Thankfully, the airline (Horizon Air) offered complimentary wine and beer to take the edge off.

Ground Transportation

The resort is about a 20 min. drive from the airport. I called about 5 local ground transportation services for quotes. I decided to go with Aviation Transportation (877-315-7963). Not only were they the best deal at $50 round trip per person, but they offer complimentary beer.

My friends over at the Sand Trap got the latest scoop on Titleist's upcoming 2008 iron lines. It includes four new models, the AP1, AP2, ZB and ZM. My first reaction was, "Oh crap, has Titleist just jumped the shark?"

"What the hell does that mean?" you ask? Well it's an entertainment industry term that refers to the point when a successful show has passed its peak. The phrase refers to a scene in "Happy Days" where Fonzie (Henry Winkler), wearing swim trunks and his trademark leather jacket, jumps over a shark while water skiing. The sheer ridiculousness of that scene sent the popular TV show into a ratings tailspin. Now it has been used as a metaphor for anything that has passed it's peak. I use it often to describe some of my favorite companies when they start to make crappy products.

Introduced in the Fall of 2000, the Titleist Pro V1/V1x was one of the most revolutionary golf balls of all time by incorporating a multi-layer construction with a soft urethane-covering to virtually eliminate the traditional trade-offs between distance, spin, feel, and durability. Since then the Pro V1/V1x has been the dominant ball in golf. Dominant among pros and amateurs alike.

Not wanting to be left behind, I adopted the Pro V1 as my primary ball from the get-go. I'm always open to trying the competitor's new offerings, but I just haven't found anything that's materially better yet. Part of the reason is that Titleist isn't content to rest on its laurels. There has been at least 2 major revisions to the original Pro V1/V1x. The newest adds the A.I.M. (Alignment Integrated Marking) sidestamp so that you don't even have to manually line up your golf ball anymore!

My favorite part of golf is hitting irons. I can spend all day at the range without hitting a wood and be perfectly content. Irons are the surgical instruments of golf. In the right hands, they can place a ball within 10 feet of a hole from 2 football fields away. If you think about it, that's pretty amazing. The U.S. military would love to have a weapon that accurate! There's also no better feeling than hitting that pured iron shot.

But mastering the irons is much easier said than done. To understand the concept of hitting irons properly, you must throw logic out of the window. Like most things in golf, your common sense will lead you down the wrong path. Most people look at a pitching wedge and assume that to get the ball in the air one must somehow get the club under the ball and hit it with an upward blow. In other words, people see the clubface and assume that the club must impact the ball perpendicular to its the loft. This is incorrect and the reason that most people have difficulty with irons.