This vacation is certainly well-timed. I know I haven’t done a progress update in a little while, but a week ago at the driving range, I hit a shot, got into my follow-through and immediately felt something blow right along my ribs on my side (kind of more toward my back). It felt like someone sticking a knife between my ribs. Right now, coughing is very painful and sneezing makes me want to cry.

It’s not a back problem or anything like that (I’ve dealt with a herniated disk in the past), so I’m assuming it’s some kind of pulled muscle that just needs rest. Oddly, it doesn’t hurt to walk, sit, drive, or anything like that. So, at least I’ll be able to enjoy the next few weeks.

Healthy or not, I wasn’t planning on playing any golf the next few weeks anyway. I’m headed out on the open road for an epic road trip. On a similar trip in 2008, I only managed to play one round of golf and get to the driving range once, so I think I’m going to leave my clubs home altogether this time and just step away from everything for the whole three weeks. Physically, I need to recuperate and mentally, I can certainly use the break.

I’m leaving New Jersey early Saturday morning and headed through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, down to New Mexico and back, Nebraska, and then back from whence I came.

I’ll be hitting several of the major sites along the way: Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park. I’ll also be visiting an eclectic mix of other places. For instance, how can I pass through Iowa without seeing the Field of Dreams? I’m going to try and make a stop at the Minuteman Missile National Historical Site in South Dakota. A missile silo? You’re on drugs if you think I’m going to pass up visiting a missile silo.

I’ll be driving the Beartooth Highway, recognized as possibly the most scenic byway in the country. I’ll make a stop by the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. How’s this one: I’m going to head down to New Mexico to visit the town where they filmed Red Dawn. WOLVERINES! I might even stop by the set where they filmed Dances with Wolves in South Dakota (the Fort Hayes location).

That’s not enough to fill three weeks! So, I’ll take a day hike in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Area in Montana (to Mystic Lake – maybe I actually will do a little fishing there). I’ll drive to the top of Pike’s Peak, ride the 1880 Train in South Dakota, and stop and see the Little Big Horn National Monument. I might even see the Cody Stampede Rodeo in Wyoming. Then, of course, there’s Triple-A baseball in Salt Lake City, Pictograph State Park near Billings, Montana, and the Strategic Air & Space museum in Nebraska.

And I’ll spend a lot of time staring out the window admiring the awe-inspiring scenery that the United States has to offer. Now, we’re talking.

Anyway, hold down the fort for the next three weeks and I’ll be back and all recharged. Hopefully this rib thing heals by then because I’m already missing playing golf and it’s only been a week. By the end of three more weeks, my hands are going to be shaking from withdrawal. I’ve been making nice progress too, but it’s going to have to wait a little longer.

© 2007-2010 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Gone Fishin’

I’ve done posts in the past about making the most of practice time. There’s lots of information here and across the web and in books and TV programs about practicing effectively. Dave Pelz likes to say, “practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent.” I agree but I’m not even talking about those ways that we can make practice time provide maximum benefit.

Let’s approach this from another angle.

Life in the 21st century can be pretty hectic. Yes, certainly a lot of that is self-imposed. We take high-pressure jobs, give ourselves longer commutes, and work longer hours in search of the almighty dollar (or whichever currency that might be if you live outside of the U.S.).

Parents put their kids through a virtual wringer of activities and sports and other things that place a lot of demands on their time. When I grew up, in the summer, we went outside and played. Now, there are year-round sports, art/music/dance classes and recitals. The list goes on.

For a lot of people, golf is a luxury. Maybe not as much a financial luxury as a luxury of time. Being able to find the time can be tough for people.

I completely understand that. I also understand that finding time to practice regularly is an impossibility for many people. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re a player that takes the game somewhat seriously (in a passionate, fun way, I hope), and I also expect that most of you practice with more regularity than the average player. In fact, I had a poll that showed that 87% of you practiced at a driving range or practice green in the past 12 months.

Hopefully, you do take steps to make sure your practice time is useful and productive. I implore you, though, please don’t take time out of your busy life to “practice” if you’re just going to waste it.

I can feel you wondering where this is coming from, so let me get to that.

Earlier this year (March 24th according to the dated note on my iPhone – I’ve been sitting on this one for a while), I was at my course putting in some work at the practice green.

There was another guy there stroking practice putts. I happened to notice that he was putting while carrying on a cell phone conversation for at least 20+ minutes.

All I could do is cringe as I watched this go on and on and on and on and on. It’s not like he was using a headset or something. The whole time, he was cradling the phone between his shoulder and cheek.

As I said from the top, I completely get the busy life thing. And it wouldn’t have been so frustrating if it was a couple of different calls like, “honey, pick up milk on the way home” or “daddy, are you coming to my dace recital tonight” types of calls. No, this was just an inane social call.

In fairness, maybe it was a friend or relative he doesn’t see much and the call was personally important. Hey, I get that. But in that case, put the frickin’ putter back in the bag and have a seat under a shady tree and enjoy the conversation.

Standing there putting for 20 minutes while on the phone did absolutely nothing for his game. It was too long ago for me to recall whether he was warming up before a round or whether he was there on a practice session.

Either way, it doesn’t matter because he was accomplishing nothing with that 20 minutes. Actually, he may have been accomplishing less than nothing because unless he’s going to be cradling his phone between his shoulder and cheek out on the course then he’s probably grooving a feel that’s going to seem foreign when it counts.

It saddens me enough when I hear people complain about the state of their games because they don’t have the time nor inclination to spend time practicing. Golf should be fun, no matter what your skill level is. But, it’s that much worse when I see people do stuff like this in hopes of playing better when it’s just a waste of time when time itself is increasingly more valuable than it used to be.

This guy could have gotten just as much result by sleeping next to his putter in hopes of transferring some positive energy to it. He certainly wasn’t grooving a repeatable stroke, getting a feel for the speed of the greens, or working on his in-game level of concentration.

I feel for those of you that just don’t have the time to practice. Show up and play and have a good time if that’s the best you can do. But if you’re going to practice, I implore you to make it count or you’re quickly going to start wondering why you bother putting in the time. Otherwise, you might as well just skip practicing and catch up on the phone with an old friend.

© 2007-2010 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Wasting Practice Time

I wasn’t sure it would happen, but all three of my favorite quotes were identified. And, they were identified by three different people.

That means that we have three automatic winners and the remaining two copies will be awarded by drawing among the other three entries.

Before we get down to business, let’s take a look at my favorite three quotes. I’d be lying if I said it was an easy choice. In fact, when the entries started coming in, some of the guesses were absolute classic quotes from the movie that I easily could have been swayed into picking as my favorites.

Without further ado…

Free Bowl of Soup

Rodney Dangerfield was a king of one-liners and this movie was basically a vehicle for him to deliver a ton of them. It’s difficult to choose the best among them, but the one that really gets me laughing happens when Al Czervik walks into the Bushwood pro shop for the first time and starts buying everything in sight. He sees an awful hat on the counter and says:

Oh, this is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh? <sees Judge Smails wearing the same hat> Oh, it looks good on you though.

What really does it for me is the look he gives as he says, “Oh, it looks good on you though.” I can’t count the number of times I’ve said something to someone and given them that look as a nod to Al Czervik.

Carl Loops for the Dalai Lama

Carl Spackler is one of the greatest comedy characters of all time. I’m a big Bill Murray fan and his work as Carl was some of his best. Carl had so many great lines in this movie, and his riff on the Dalai Lama probably isn’t his most famous. In fact his “cinderella story” quote is the one that made the AFI list of 100 years, 100 movie quotes.

Here’s the exchange between Carl and Angie D’Annunzio

Carl Spackler: So I jump ship in Hong Kong and I make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas.

Angie D’Annunzio: A looper?

Carl Spackler: A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I’m a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald… striking. So, I’m on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one – big hitter, the Lama – long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga… gunga, gunga-lagunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, “Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.” And he says, “Oh, uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.” So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.

How can you not laugh as Carl tells this fantastic tale while standing there holding a pitchfork to Angie D’Annunzio’s neck? I don’t know about you, but as I watch that, there’s always part of me thinking that he might actually be telling the truth.  And of course, for me, the punctuation on the whole thing is the last line.  All that and he finishes with, “So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.”

If you’ve ever worked at a golf course, as I have, then you probably knew someone who wasn’t too far from that level of ridiculous.

The Old Billy Baroo

Or is it “Barue”? I have no idea, but I do know that the world of comedy took a big hit the day Ted Knight died. In Caddyshack, his Judge Smails character is an absolute classic. To me, just about everything he says and does in the movie is funny.

Picture the last hole of the match between Smails, the doctor, Al Czervik (with Danny playing for him by then) and Ty Webb. The judge has to make a putt which will force Danny to make his to tie.  The exchange goes something like this:

Spaulding…this calls for the old Billy Baroo…Oh Billy, Billy, Billy…don’t let me down, Billy.

Spaulding presents the old hickory-shafted putter wrapped in a full-length knitted sleeve and Judge Smails proceeds to clutch it tightly and beg it to help him make his putt.

Be honest – is there a serious Caddyshack aficionado out there who has stood over a putt he needed to make at some point in the last 30 years and not recited that line at least once? I know I have done it repeatedly, and I’ll do it again.

It may not be the funniest line that Judge Smails had in the movie, but it’s one of the most memorable to me and one of the ones that lends itself to repeating during an actual match with other Caddyshack fans.

The Winners

Because we had fewer than 5 people guess one of my favorites, those entries that did will win automatically.  They are:

• TP Golf Online wins for guessing the Dalai Lama story.
• Tizzy wins for guessing the free bowl of soup.
• Keith wins for guessing the Old Billy Baroo.

And, since there were 5 copies available, the other two will be awarded by drawing.  I drew names for the runners-up and the other two copies will be awarded to:

• Randy B.
• Josh

Sorry it didn’t work out, Doug, but hang in there and I’m sure I’ll be having some other contests before long.

I’d like to thank Warner Brothers for making this giveaway possible and I’d also like to thank everyone that participated. It was a lot of fun for me.  If you’d like more information about the Caddyshack 30th Anniversary Blu-ray release, please visit the website.

© 2007-2010 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Caddyshack 30th Anniversary Contest Winners

Is there an adult golfer alive who hasn’t seen Caddyshack? It’s hard to even believe it’s possible, but if you know anyone who fits the bill, it’s time to get them a copy, stat.

For the rest of us, this movie is nothing short of classic. Now, Warner Brothers has finally brought Caddyshack to Blu-ray with the 30th anniversary release.  It contains not only the film, but a feature-length behind-the-scenes 30th anniversary documentary as well as a retrospective documentary filled with outtakes, interviews, and rare footage.

Visit the Caddyshack 30th Anniversary Blu-ray release website for complete details.

The good news is that Caddyshack is available on Blu-ray, but the better news is that I have five copies to give away and I love having a fun contest.

The Contest

I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen Caddyshack countless times.  On top of that, I’m a big movie quotes guy and have been known to throw out some of my favorite lines from Caddyshack on occasion.  Well, maybe a little more often than that.

What better way to give away five copies of Caddyshack on Blu-ray than to have a quotes contest?  I suppose I could ask you for your favorite, but that’s too easy!

So, here’s what we’re going to do.  I have identified my top three favorite Caddyshack quotes.  Anyone that guesses any of my favorite three Caddyshack quotes will have a chance to win a copy of the Caddyshack 30th Anniversary Blu-ray release.

The 30th Anniversary release is also available on DVD, so in your entry, specify which you prefer, should you win. If you don’t specify a preference, then you will automatically be awarded a Blu-ray copy should you win.

Remember, you’re not identifying the best quotes from the movie, you’re identifying any of MY favorite three. This isn’t only a test of how well you know the movie, but it’s also a test of how well you know me.

The Rules

Here are the official rules for the contest.

• Each person is limited to five guesses, so don’t bother cutting and pasting all the quotes you can find.  If anyone enters more than five, I’ll accept the first five and ignore the rest.
• You don’t have to precisely quote the lines. As long as I can figure out what you mean, then your entry is valid. Feel free to describe the scene for clarification if you’re not exactly sure how a quote is worded.
• The winners will be chosen by drawing. Anyone who guesses any of my three favorites correctly will be entered in the drawing, where five winners will be chosen.
• If fewer than five people guess my favorites, then those people will win automatically and everyone else will be entered in a drawing to award the remaining copies. If exactly five people guess correctly, then they will win automatically.


Well...we're waiting

• The contest is only open to residents of the United States and Canada.
• Any comments violating my comment policy will be discarded, as always.
• The contest will remain open for one week from the date of posting.
• Winners will be notified via e-mail (and via a follow-up post), so please fill in the e-mail field of the comment form with a valid e-mail address. Entries with non-valid e-mail addresses will be disqualified.

There you have it. Post those quotes and let’s relive a little of the greatest golf movie of all time.

Hints

In case you’re having trouble figuring out what makes me tick, here are a couple of hints.  I might add more as the week goes on.

• Looking at the list of quotes for Caddyshack at IMDB, I only see two of my favorites listed.
• My favorites aren’t necessarily widely recognized as the most popular or well known from the movie, but they’re definitely not obscure.

Visit the Caddyshack 30th Anniversary Blu-ray website for more information about the release.

© 2007-2010 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Win a Copy of the Caddyshack 30th Anniversary Blu-ray Release

There are few benefits to living in New Jersey (don’t get me started), but one of them is that I’m only about an hour away from Galloway, NJ, home of the Seaview Bay Course where the Shoprite LPGA Classic is played.

Thursday, my brother called me at work and brought up the idea of taking a ride to Galloway to see the ladies play. It’s funny, even though this event has been played on the New Jersey coast for a number of years (I think it may have moved around here and there), it had never even occurred to me to hop in the car and go.

At that point, I was resolved to go, so I went to the tournament website and bought a couple of tickets and we headed down to see some of the second round on Saturday.

Without question, the verdict is that I had a great time.

First and foremost, have you heard the PGA Tour tagline, “these guys are good”?  Well, these ladies are good, too. They might not hit it as far as the men do, but I witnessed some great golf yesterday.

I also found that the ladies are much more accessible than their male counterparts. After finishing up, many took time to sign autographs. They seemed very personable and there were times when we were walking around the club house area and players were just going here and there. A couple of times, we were walking along, and looked at each other with the look of “wait, was that a player walking by?”

It has been my experience at PGA Tour events that the players there are kind of sequestered away somewhere and then they just appear and get inside the invisible rope wall and finish up and disappear. Sure, many do sign autographs, but the larger crowds make it more difficult to have a chance to get one, or even to get up close to the golf action.

That was another big plus. As a spectator, you simply cannot beat the proximity to the action that you can find at an LPGA Tour event. While we didn’t stay long enough to see the final groups play (hey, I had to get back and work on MY game), I found that it was easy to see the more popular players up close.

In fact, right after we arrived, we walked down toward the 9th hole, where Michelle Wie was finishing (she started the day on ten). Naturally, she has a larger gallery, but it was certainly not too big to prevent anyone from getting a pretty good view of play.  If you’ve ever been in a Tiger Woods gallery, you know what I mean.

We were standing right by the 9th green as she finished and we noticed that an autograph line was forming right where we were standing. We didn’t have any intention of getting autographs, but we figured we’d just hang out and see what happened.

After Michelle Wie finished, she took the time to sign autographs, making extra effort to make sure that she signed for the kids in the gallery. She signed for pretty much everyone and as she walked by us (she’s almost as tall as me!) my brother asked her to sign his program, and she did. He thanked her and she moved along, headed back up to the club house.

We were giddy like a couple of kids. It was probably pathetic to watch, but we were thrilled that we could so easily get an autograph from one of the most popular players, and let’s face it, her fame rivals that of many of her male counterparts.

Later on, we hung around the practice green and watched Natalie Gulbis and several other players get ready for their afternoon rounds. That’s where the golf geek in me really enjoys myself. As I’ve written about before, I absolutely love to watch professionals prepare for their rounds and see what kinds of things they do to get ready. I would have liked to hang out at the driving range for a bit, but the final groups were just preparing to head to the tee so there wasn’t going to be much activity at the range.

We headed home after walking around for a few hours, quite happy that we took the time to go. If you’re a golf fan and haven’t had a chance to attend an LPGA event, I wholeheartedly recommend it. And if you’re already an LPGA Tour fan and haven’t been to an event, then you’re missing out, big time.

There’s nothing like attending a PGA Tour event. I’ll be the first to say that. But because of the smaller galleries, you have an opportunity at LPGA events to get up much closer to the action and the golf is plenty enjoyable. In fairness, the galleries for the final groups were probably a little bigger than what we experienced, but judging on the number of people around the practice green when the final groups were warming up, I’m betting they weren’t too huge to keep anyone from getting a good view. At a PGA Tour event, sometimes it’s hard to get on the rail at the practice green or driving range let alone following the final group on the course, but when I watched Natalie Gulbis warming up, I was right on the rail less than ten feet away.

The bottom line is, I will definitely make it a point to attend more LPGA Tour events in the future and I recommend that you do too. It was great golf and great fun.

© 2007-2010 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

A Visit to the 2010 Shoprite LPGA Classic

We’ve all heard many times how much benefit golfers can receive from a good fitness program, especially one which focuses on flexibility and range of motion. The G2 program aims to fill that role.

According to G2, the golf trainer mat features the following technology:

• Eco-friendly (100% Recyclable) material
• Physician-certified stretches
• Thick-cushion design
• Bacteria resistant
• Washable, non-slip surface
• Long-lasting and durable
• Revolutionary, patented material
• Instructional videos available online after purchase

Most notably, the stretching program is printed on the mat itself, making it somewhat unique. To augment that, instructional videos demonstrating each of the stretching exercises are available on the G2 Lifestyles website after purchasing the trainer mat.

The mat folds up and includes a tote bag for easy storage and transportation.

Evaluation

I’ve used the trainer mat a handful of times in the last few weeks and am hoping to rekindle a regular stretching program.

I like this product/program for several reasons:

• The exercises are printed on the mat. This makes it so easy to do the program that it’s like cheating. There’s no need to print out or memorize the program because it’s right on the mat.
• The inclusion of instructional videos is a big bonus. Really, lacking those would have made this a deal-breaker for me. As I moved through the exercises, I found myself wondering several times if I was doing certain ones correctly. The videos were a great help.
• The instructional videos can be downloaded and viewed on an iPod. That makes things much easier because you can view exercises as you’re going through the program without having to run to a PC for a little help.
• I’m not a fitness expert, but based on my experiments with fitness and flexibility over time, this program seems pretty comprehensive to me. It’s not simply five or six token stretches. The program consists of 29 exercises.

I only have a couple of reservations, and they’re really just unknowns.

First, I don’t know how durable the mat will be over time because I simply haven’t used it enough. I can only compare it to mats I’ve used at my local gym. Those mats give me the impression that they would survive a nuclear war. However, they have to be extra durable because they’re used by tons of people every day. I wouldn’t say this mat is likely to be as durable as those, but I haven’t used it long enough to know. I will say, though, that the G2 mat is more comfortable to use.

Second, I haven’t done the full program long enough to know how much of a positive effect it would have on my game. As I said above, it’s quite comprehensive and includes many of the exercises that I’ve used myself over the years. I just can’t sit here and tell you specific things it has helped in my golf game because I haven’t done it enough.

Overall, I like the program and trainer mat a lot. I feel comfortable recommending it and will continue using it myself.

For photos of the mat that I took during my evaluation, click here to visit the photo gallery.

For more information please visit the G2 Lifestyles website.

—————————————–

Disclosure

G2 Lifestyles sent me the trainer mat and gave me access to the instructional videos at no cost. I was not compensated for this review in any other way. I do not have any affiliate marketing relationship with G2 Lifestyles.

© 2007-2010 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Fitness Review: G2 Golf Stretch Fitness Program

Think about how on one hand, the golf swing seems so simple. Just pick up a club and hit a ball with it. Easy. It truly is that simple.

On the other hand, if you want to optimize the power and control of that swing so that you can maximize your distance and fly the ball at the desired height, at the desired spin rate, and with as much or as little curve as desired, now we’re talking about an extremely complex machine.

So, how do problems and symptoms relate to that? I thought you’d never ask. Actually, I thought you would, but that’s just a figure of speech. Technically, it was me asking, though. Having fun yet?

Not only is the golf swing a complex machine, but it happens in a well-defined sequence. What that means is, we could also call the machine, a “chain of events”, where a mistake early on can easily carry all the way through the entire swing.

How many times have you heard the importance of a proper finish in the golf swing? Certainly, the point of that is not so that you can look good, though, I wonder with some people. What that means is, it’s important to get to a proper finish because it probably means we’ve done things right along the way.

At the same time, if we’ve mangled up the whole swing, but have a great finish (which we probably wouldn’t, but let’s pretend), then what have we achieved?

That’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about as a symptom and not the problem. Concentrating on fixing that symptom might not address the real problem.

Don’t get me wrong – that’s just an example and working on a better finish may very well help you fix the actual problem. But the finish happens well after the ball is in the air, relatively speaking. So, the odds are that something went wrong earlier that led to a poor finish.

If you have an infection, you could take some aspirin to help your aches fell better and maybe your fever will go down some. You might take some decongestant to help with the sniffles. But you still haven’t addressed the infection itself.

That’s at the heart of what I’m talking about. You need to make sure your swing is getting antibiotics, or your problems will just linger.

Back to the idea of the swing as a machine, or as a chain of events. If you’ve read Life in the Rough regularly, you know that the takeaway is something I’ve had to work a lot on over the last couple of years. In fact, I find that even when I have it fixed, I need to keep an eye on it periodically because for reasons I can’t explain, over time, I will tend to start to take the club back slightly to the outside of the target line instead of in a nice arc slightly to the inside.

From there, several things can happen, but for example, it might set this possible chain of events into motion: I re-route the club too far inside, it gets too vertical over the plane, it’s too steep coming down, I come over the top, and I pull the ball left.

That chain of events is set into motion by the simple fact that I start the club back to the outside the line. Put another way, all those things are really symptoms, not the actual problem.

That’s hard to grasp because we’re kind of wrestling over semantics. Sure, coming down too steep is a problem.  But it’s not the problem.

Until I realized this, I caused myself a lot of anguish and wasted time.

I like to look at my swing on video occasionally. Last year some time, I recorded some swings and I looked at the video. Lo and behold, what was I doing but getting too steep in my down swing. It was easy for even me to see. A few instructional books and some episodes of The Golf Fix and even I’m qualified to diagnose that problem, er, I mean,symptom.

Or, am I?

I set out to fix that steepness by resolving to make my back swing flatter. I’ll spare you the gory details. The point is, I couldn’t do it.  After a few weeks, I was a wreck.

The reason I couldn’t do it was because I didn’t know enough to set out to fix the problem. I didn’t really understand why the club was getting steep. It’s not like I was purposely hoisting it straight up in the air.

One lesson and my pro pointed out that my takeaway was a problem. I worked hard on that and wouldn’t you know, I was cured of that affliction.

Even after that, the idea of fixing problems and not symptoms didn’t really stick. It was very recently that it actually sunk in. My most notable problems of late have been not getting a full shoulder turn and getting away from my natural tempo to start the down swing. I have a tendency to try and hit the ball hard, but if I’m not careful, I get ahead of myself and get out of sequence, which causes several other issues, most notably with me coming over the top and pulling the ball left (most of us that do that will slice the ball, but I happen to pull it left and hook it, usually).

As I fell apart again and went in for a lesson and we worked on the same issue of tempo yet again (it’s been a common theme for the last 3 years), it finally started to hit me.

When I fix the actual problems, then the rest just works itself out. I started to hit the ball like you wouldn’t believe.

I’m not trying to say my work is done, but it’s a start. I have to work on making that good tempo more ingrained, along with that solid takeaway and along with that full shoulder turn. It’s not there yet when I’m on the course under pressure, but it’s there on the range. Some sessions are better than others, but I’m getting there.

My point is not to try and boil down everyone’s golf swing into those three things. Certainly, they’re important for everyone. But that doesn’t mean that any of those things is your problem.

At the same time, I know a lot of you are like me and like to tinker and look at swings on video and read instructional books and learn how the golf swing works. That’s all great and believe me, I’m here to walk that path with you all.

Unfortunately, many of us, me especially, have been given just enough rope to hang ourselves. Ultimately, the best thing I’ve done is work with a teacher that is adept at recognizing the problems and not just the symptoms. And even though he was telling me as much, it didn’t really sink in completely until I had a lot of time to think about it and agonize over my swing issues and to try and fail at various things.

Incidentally, a few weeks ago, I was in one of my lowest low points when all this hit me. I scheduled a lesson and was waiting for the day to arrive when I kind of woke up to all this. I went to the range on my own and resolved to fix the problems and not the symptoms and I did it.

I fixed it on my own. By the time I showed up at my lesson, I was hitting the ball as well as ever.  On the practice range, anyway.

Please don’t take this as a warning not to learn and tinker and try to dissect the swing on your own. While I do recommend working with a professional, it’s not that any of us cannot improve on our own. What I will say is, make sure you’re fixing problems and not just symptoms or you might find yourself spending a lot of time on a fruitless endeavor, or even worse, you might even compound the problem, just like I did.

© 2007-2010 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Addressing Problems, Not Symptoms

Without further ado, here are the winners, selected from each contest by random drawing:

Day 1 – Golf Courses of the World: 365 Days

TP Golf Online wins for his selections of a few courses in Canada and the United States, as well as for his favorite hole, the second at Wolf Creek’s east 9.

Day 2 – GOLF Magazine Private Lessons

Sharon A. wins for her simple swing thought: “slow and smooth”.

Day 3 – Bad Lies: A Field Guide to Lost Balls, Missing Links, and Other Golf Mishaps

It’s a repeat winner! (I’m drawing each winner in succession as I write this post so it’s actually kind of exciting).  Sharon wins again for her bad experience with weather on a golf trip to San Diego.

Day 4 – Moment of Glory: The Year Underdogs Ruled Golf

Jim Dauer wins for his selection of Bob May as his favorite underdog for helping to give Tiger Woods a run for his money in the 2000 PGA Championship.

Well, there you have it.  The three winners are crowned.  I will be contacting each of you via e-mail to find out where to have the books sent, so if you don’t see anything by the time this post is published, check your spam traps and if you still don’t see anything, then please contact me.

Thanks to everyone for participating.  It was a lot of fun.

© 2007-2010 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

The Big May Golf Book Giveaway: Winners

Winners will be determined over the weekend and I’ll contact each winner via e-mail and post the results shortly thereafter.

Don’t forget – eligible individuals may enter all four contests and winning any one will not disqualify you from winning any (or all) of the others.

Here are links to the four contests.  Be sure to get your entries in before the deadline for each.

Big May Golf Book Giveaway, Day 1 – Golf Courses of the World: 365 Days
Big May Golf Book Giveaway, Day 2 – GOLF Magazine Private Lessons
Big May Golf Book Giveaway, Day 3 – Bad Lies
Big May Golf Book Giveaway, Day 4 – Moment of Glory

© 2007-2010 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Last Call for the Big May Golf Book Giveaway

We  made it!  Here we are on the fourth and final day of the Big May Golf Book Giveaway. We’ve come a long way and now here we are on the last giveaway (for now!).

The book today is Moment of Glory: The Year Underdogs Ruled Golf, by John Feinstein.  Moment of Glory takes a close look at the 2003 season, specifically the four majors, where a group of unlikely underdogs took advantage of Tiger Woods’ down season.

Here’s some information from the book’s publisher, Hachette Book Group:

After winning 6 of the 12 Majors from 2000 to 2002, Tiger Woods struggled in 2003. Four unknown players would seize the day, rising to become champions in his wake.

Mike Weir–considered a good golfer but not a great one–triumphed in The Masters, becoming the first Canadian to win a Major. Jim Furyk emerged victorious in the U.S. Open. In the British Open, Ben Curtis became the only player since Francis Ouimet in 1913 to prevail on his first time out, and Shaun Micheel came from nowhere to prevail at the PGA Championship. How does one moment of glory affect the unsung underdog for years to follow?

Feinstein chronicles the champions’ ups and downs, giving readers an insider’s look into how victory (and defeat) can change players’ lives.

I’m really looking forward to reading this book.  I haven’t read many of Feinstein’s other books, but I read and reviewed Are You Kidding Me? about the epic battle between an aging Rocco Mediate and an injured Tiger Woods, and found it to be thoroughly enjoyable.

In fact, I just skimmed that review from last year and noticed that I actually referred to it as “thoroughly enjoyable” there too.  So, either I’m a broken record with a limited vocabulary, or I really did find it to be thoroughly enjoyable.  Either way, I have similar expectations for Moment of Glory.  I’ll report back in my detailed review some time in the coming weeks.

OK, enough of me babbling, let’s award this book to a lucky winner.

The Contest

Please note that the contest is only open to residents of the United States and Canada. However, I encourage everyone to feel free to participate in the conversation.  Just let me know if you’re not from the United States or Canada so your entry will not be included in the drawing.

To enter for a chance to win this book, tell me who your favorite golf underdog is, and why.  It can be someone current or someone from the past.

We’ll use the term “underdog” kind of loosely. You can define it how you see fit.  By far, my favorite golf underdog is John Daly. He wasn’t always an underdog, but he’s had some rough patches and is working on getting back to prior glory. Right now, many people don’t give him much of a shot, but that doesn’t mean I’m not rooting hard for him.

Your underdog might be someone most people have never heard of.  It might even be Ben Hogan (I’ll leave out why, in case someone wants to use him as their entry).  It’s completely up to you.

The contest will remain open for one week.  The winner will be chosen by random drawing. Be sure to tune in for the rest of the contests this week.  Winners will not be disqualified from winning the other contests so be sure to get your entries in for all of them.

Please review the comment policy before entering.  Any entries that violate the comment policy will be discarded.

Winners will be notified via e-mail, so please be sure to leave a valid e-mail address with your entries.  I will also publish a summary post at the conclusion of all four contests. The book will be shipped to the winner directly from Hachette Book Group. No P.O. boxes, please.

Good luck!  I’m looking forward to reading all your entries.

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Be sure to enter the other contests this week:

Big May Golf Book Giveaway, Day 1 – Golf Courses of the World: 365 Days
Big May Golf Book Giveaway, Day 2 – GOLF Magazine Private Lessons
Big May Golf Book Giveaway, Day 3 – Bad Lies

© 2007-2010 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

The Big May Golf Book Giveaway: Day 4