Since winning my club championship, I haven’t written much here and for that, I apologize to all three of my readers. I have my reasons, though. Maybe I was caught up with other priorities (gasp!). Maybe I also lacked inspiration. More importantly, whatever I did on a course or the range, whatever thoughts I had about golf, I didn’t want to post it for fear of “jinxing” my performance at the Tournament of Club Champions on December 5.
It’s true: I’m not just stitious, I’m superstitious! (That’s actually a phrase I made up to describe my actions at Angel games e.g. using a certain stall in the restroom, only purchasing beer and peanuts from certain vendors. And yes, I believe in the power of the Rally Monkey. Actually, I believe in the power of the energy the Rally Monkey generates, but let’s not get too technical.) Anyway, now that the jig is up, so to speak, I’m free to post, provided the inspiration comes and priorities allow. I’ll be posting about my experience at that tournament soon. Thank you for your patience.
The Golfchick
That chick blabbing about anything golf related.
Page 43 of 48
I wish I could say I read every post on every golf blog, but who’s got the time for that? One I do enjoy is over at Golfpunk, so I’ve added a link to it on my side bar. It shouldn’t have taken another mention of me over there to get me to do it, but hey, my inattentiveness can be penetrated by ego like any other human being.
I recently played in a foursome with three men. Okay, I do that a lot, but most of the time, the men I play with are civilized. I doubt it’s just because I’m there, either. I bet they’re the kind of men who actually prefer to use restrooms on the golf course. Occasionally, though, I witness the guy who prefers to “give back to nature.” In most cases, I think it must be a preference and not a necessity. I’ll accept that occasionally someone might drink one too many beers to make the excruciating wait for a couple of holes until we reach the next restroom. No, I won’t. If you’ve been potty trained, and chances are, if you’re playing on a big boy golf course with 18 holes with fairways and everything, you have, you are grown-up enough to anticipate this type of need and plan for it.
Since other men seem to be offended by such crude behavior, I don’t think this is a case of men feeling “restricted” by women on the course. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the whole idea behind men’s-only clubs is so they can burp, fart and wave their penises around as they urinate all over the course. Then, right before they turn on the cameras at Augusta, their mothers come along, straighten up their collars and tidy up their hair and faces with a little spit on the thumb and everyone’s on their best behavior. Maybe that’s the big secret men’s-club thing and I just don’t know the handshake.
I know someone’s going to read this and surmise that I have “penis envy.” Personally, I think that is more of a phenomenon amongst current penis owners and their feelings of inadequacy. However, I will admit that it does upset me that my lack of a penis earns me about 25% less salary than my male counterparts in my current professional position. Other than that, I can assure you that the only desire I have for a penis requires its attachment to my man. But I digress.
Golf is supposed to be such a civilized sport. We wear nice clothes, observe proper etiquette and obscure rules, and follow the honor system with scoring. It seems to me that using the provided restrooms would be at the very basic level of that etiquette system. Or doesn’t it count unless it is written in some golf-specific etiquette book? You can look up any kind of golf etiquette question on the internet and get detailed descriptions of how to tend the flagstick, or even what is proper tipping in the restrooms of the fancier clubs. Tipping in the restrooms? Relax. If you’re still struggling with whether or not to use the restroom, you’re probably not on a course that would have an attendant in there anyway. Probably the reason this isn’t on any etiquette list is that if you know how to read, it’s expected that you’re already following this simple standard. I guess that means posting a sign would be useless as well.
Raise your hand if you can hit your 3-iron consistently well. Not all at once. Anyone? Okay, you in the back… you may be dismissed. And here’s a one-iron as a parting gift.
Does everyone else have a hybrid or a 7-wood or, like me, do you just sacrifice that yardage and hit the crap out of a 4-iron or go easy on a 5-wood? My 5-wood used to be my favorite club aside from my driver (someday I hope my putter will earn the spot). Lately, I haven’t been able to hit either of my fairway woods well (I have a five and a three and yes, I’m aware they aren’t actually wood). Maybe it’s because my irons are really developing and it’s messing up my wood swing. For now, that’s okay. I’ve managed to play well without them for the most part, only breaking them out in dire situations. Hitting a wood fat has more effect on the shot (decreasing yardage) than hitting an iron fat. But at least it goes straight. I will get my wood swing back. I’m assigning it to the inexperience and developing categories. Meanwhile, my 4-iron is probably the club I use the most in an 18-hole round. I use it from the tee, from the rough, from the fairway, from the bunker and for longer punch shots. I think I have fallen in love with my 4-iron. We go everywhere together. Probably even to places where it’s inappropriate. But that’s part of what love is, right? I feel like I abandoned my 3-iron prematurely, though. Like if I would have given it some of the attention my 4-iron was getting, maybe we’d be a nice, happy ménage-a-trois. But alas, I’ve neglected it. Since I’m getting so comfortable with my 4-iron, I’m thinking the 3 can’t be that different. I just didn’t want to risk it in my journey to the club championship. Why mess with something that’s working well enough? Well, to make it better, of course. And now I can.
Ready for a small spending spree
A week before the club championship, I went down to my local Pro Golf Discount. I’d been keeping my eye on the Taylor Made Rescue clubs. I figured if I didn’t want to change things up immediately, I still wanted one or two in my bag for later. The prices have really come down lately. Golfsmith had them for $129.99 and Pro Golf had them for $119.99. (Side note — Costco has also lowered their price to $119.99 but they only have the 4 in stock at the warehouse near me). I went in with a wad of cash, ready to buy at least one, maybe two of them — I was thinking the 2 and the 3. Yes, I’ve considered other brands and tried some out. Since I don’t see a huge difference, I feel I might be better served to stay within the Taylor Made line because the shafts are the same as my woods, which might help with consistency in the long run. I swung them both in the simulator, and the yardage was a little short of what I was hoping to achieve with them. The sales clerk told me that people hit differently indoors in a simulator than they do on the course. Some people hit longer because of the ideal lie, but most hit shorter because of the atmosphere and enclosed feeling. I told him I was looking to replace my 3-iron and that I thought there might be a big enough yardage gap between my 4-iron and my 5-wood that I was looking into the 2-utility as well as the 3. He asked if I had my clubs with me so I could swing them in the simulator and find out what yardage was really lacking. On a course, my 4-iron goes an average of about 170, and the 3-utility was doing the same thing on the simulator, so we needed to compare apples to apples. Of course my clubs were in my trunk, so I brought them in and we figured out that there was only the gap of the 3-iron. He asked me to swing it, so I pulled out the shiniest club in my bag. Lo and behold, I hit it clean and straight every time. No yardage gap after all. The sales clerk talked me out of buying the two clubs I came in to get. How is that for service? I decided right then I’d be bringing my business back there.
He said to take my 3-iron out on the course and see if I could apply that swing in a real situation consistently and to come back if I still wanted the hybrid club. I didn’t do that right away because when I played, I was either preparing for the competition or competing and I didn’t want to mess with my game. Now that I have the opportunity to test it out, I’ve also had more time to consider the other reasons I wanted the utility clubs in the first place. It’s not just a yardage thing, it’s a situational thing. Out of the rough or the sand, irons can be more unpredictable. With the utility club, I can swing it with the confidence of my iron swing and, theoretically, have better results with the hybrid. Hey, maybe that’s why Taylor Made called their utility the “Rescue.” There’s also something to be said about just having a new toy to play with.
You can take the kid out of the toy store…
I decided to just buy the 19° 3-utility anyway. A little over a week after the guy talked me out of it in the first place, and a day or so after the tournament, I went down to Pro Golf to buy it. They were out of the 3 in the shaft I wanted — graphite regular — so I had to order it. I went out of town that week and when I got back it had
arrived and I picked it up on Saturday. I played with it on Sunday and I already like it. I used it in a lot of those situations where I used to pull out my 4-iron. I need more time with it, but I can tell I’m not going to work on my 3-iron as much as I intended (if at all). It is the 14th club in my bag, so if I decide to add the 2-utility later, I’ll have to eliminate something else. Let me think… what might that be? My 5-wood is my goose (I’ll explain later) and I have a sentimental attachment to it. I also bought a used left handed 6-iron I want to put in my bag for emergencies. Also, I keep hearing announcers talk about gap wedges and lob wedges. I don’t know what good they could do for me, but I have to explore that, too, don’t I? It’s not looking good for my 3-iron. It better pull out all the stops in its limited opportunities to woo me or it’s likely to be history pretty soon.
Mama’s got a brand new bag
Oh, while I was at Pro Golf the first time and in the mood to spend, I purchased a new Ogio cart bag with all the bells and whistles. It had the right type of club dividers I wanted and its color scheme is called “chocolate” so how could I go wrong with that? It also has some extra features that caught my eye, like the non-zippered snap-shut ball pocket, a cool rain hood that opens like a mouth from the top to remove or replace clubs, and a removable front pocket. It also has an 
external ball and tee dispenser that’s pretty neat and a place to tuck in the strap while it’s on the cart. I have found a couple things I don’t like, though. It is a women’s bag, which I thought just meant it was lighter or considered frillier or something. It actually means that it’s about an inch shorter than a men’s bag to accommodate the shorter women’s clubs. But I play with men’s clubs, so they hang out a bit awkwardly. Also, the side mesh pockets don’t have elastic tops, so the things I put in there fall out all over when I put the bag in my trunk. That design just doesn’t make sense. Even for a bottle of water or Gatorade, there should be elastic at the top to hold it snug. Instead, they just hang wide open. I think I can probably fix that if I get motivated. Maybe while watching one of these games they call the “World Series.” I’m sorry, but that’s just bad baseball when the umpires determine the winner with incorrect calls. (You’ll get ’em next year, Angels! :)) I think the umpires have money on the White Sox or Ozzie Guillen’s pulling some kind of voodoo on them. I feel bad for the Sox, too, because they’re playing great baseball and could probably win on their own, but now we’ll never know. If I wasn’t rooting for the Astros before (I was), I am now. Let’s go, four in a row!
Well, the “Phil’s on the Phone” Ford sweepstakes to play golf with Phil Mickelson entry deadline has come and gone. They said they would be drawing the winner “on or about October 7” and notifying the winners via phone or mail. I sit by the phone and wait… and he doesn’t call. This must be how high school girls who weren’t out partying felt.
Of course, I did give him my fax number that I don’t actually answer as I do on all forms that might result in telemarketing. But it’s got an answering machine, and he hasn’t left me a message. And I keep checking my mailbox… he hasn’t sent me anything. I’m starting to think maybe I didn’t win. Especially since the winners have to play their qualifying rounds in mid November, so I think they’ve been notified by now. But on their site, it says to check back soon to see who will compete to play. Maybe that’s because they have to make sure to officially notify the winners before posting them up there, like next of kin or something. Maybe someone can’t make it and they need to select an alternate. If there’s any remote possibility left for me to win……
As the B-flight champion, I competed on Saturday against the A-flight champion in a match play round at Los Robles Greens for overall Club Champion of the Treehouse Golf Club. I felt my heart nearly pounding out of my chest on the tee of the first hole and on the last putt of the last hole. After my first shot, and what I wrote off to a healthy dose of competitive nerves, I managed to relax enough to just play my game. All my opponents leading up to this point have had significantly more experience than I and lower handicaps than mine. This time, my opponent had the most developed skill of anyone I’ve ever competed against, with the added threat of coming into the match with a lot of recent winning experience as the A-flight champ and the confidence that goes with it. I think I had him a little nervous as well, with my reputation for a steadily lowering handicap index that as of late hasn’t been able to keep up with the rate of my improvement. (I don’t tell him that I actually worry about living up to that suddenly lower index.) Plus, since I’m the only woman on the club, they require that I play from the white tees in match play, which adds even more strokes to my course handicap for that match. I’d be just as happy if they had me play from the reds and took those strokes away.
The Match-up
On the course and tees we played, my 22 index translated to 29 strokes, and his 8 translated to 9, which left me with 20 strokes. That may sound like a lot, and in stroke play, it would certainly be a bigger advantage, but look at it this way… In match play, the strokes I get are spread out over the holes — one on every hole plus an extra one on the #1 and 2 handicap holes. Now, a 22 handicap isn’t even bogey golf. My opponent has an 8 index, so theoretically, he should be making par on 10 of the 18 holes. Even with my strokes, in order to beat a par, I have to make par myself. In order to not lose to a par, I can’t do worse than bogey. I knew this was going to be a good match, and it was. Our tee-time wasn’t until
The Breakdown:
Hole 1: We both par, I go up one.
Hole 2: He bogeys, I triple! All square.
Hole 3: We both bogey, I go up one.
Hole 4: He par’s, I double. All square.
Hole 5: I double, He triples! I go up one.
Hole 6: Both bogey, I’m up two.
Hole 7: (#1 handicap, 2 strokes) I use my 2 strokes and double, but he birdies! I’m up one.
Hole 8: Both par, I’m up two.
Hole 9: He par’s, I birdie! I’m up three at the turn. (This was so cool, too. My drive was long but ill-placed. I had to punch out low under the branches of a tree but get it up high enough to carry a little lake to land the green, whereupon I one-putted, which is rare indeed. Sweet.)
Intermission… deedily dee dee…
Hole 10: (#2 handicap, 2 strokes) My requisite disaster hole shows its ugly face. I take a 9, he bogeys. So much for my two 2-stroke holes. I’m up two.
Hole 11: We both bogey, I’m up three.
Hole 12: We both bogey, I’m up four.
Hole 13: I bogey, he birdies. I’m up three.
Hole 14: I double, he pars. I’m up two.
Hole 15: We both bogey, I’m up three.
Hole 16: He pars. All I have to do is make a 6 foot putt for bogey and the match is mine. I let myself lose focus to a distraction and choke the putt for a double. He’s fired up, hollers and whips himself into a final frenzy. I can’t let it get to me. I’m up two.
Hole 17: He’s all fired up and hits the drive of the day a mile and right down the middle. He follows that up with a great approach and makes a great putt for birdie! If I par, I win the match. It takes me three to get on and I two putt. Solid, but I lose the hole. I’m up one.
Hole 18: He has to win the hole outright to force a playoff and he’s got the momentum. He hits another great drive and reaches the fringe of the front of the green on his second. My drive is fair. My second shot is headed for the creek on the left of the green. I’ve been hitting short and left a lot today, but the wind has been messing with both of us, especially on that approach shot. I think I see it stop before it goes in, but I’m not sure. I cross my fingers as I approach. My ball is inside the red line but not in the water. It’s a couple inches from the edge, so I don’t have a lot of room to work behind the ball and a couple of inches to the side of one of the big creek rocks. If I’m careful, I think I can get a club on it. I take a couple of practice stabs (I think I need to come down on it sharply to pop it up onto the green from its awkward angle) outside of the hazard and then go for it. It gets up there, but goes way past the hole to the back of the green, leaving me perfectly positioned for the three-putt I’d been perfecting all day. My opponent is licking his chops. The only group from our club that went out ahead of us and includes the board members is now up on the veranda watching. I’m facing a downhill putt of about 35-40 feet. I line it up and take my shot, which has good speed but the wrong line. It ends up about 5 or 6 feet from the hole with a pretty straight line. My opponent makes his first putt from just off the green and leaves it out about 4 feet. He goes ahead and finishes for par, putting the pressure on me to make the same putt I missed earlier to halve the hole for the match. Surprisingly, I’m too in the moment to think of John Daly. I don’t rush, but don’t drag it out, either, and I put it right in the hole. We shook hands and I think I exhaled all the way up to the 19th hole where I bought us both a drink or three.
As I said at the beginning, I felt my heart nearly pounding out of my chest on the tee of the first hole and the last putt of the 18th. Fortunately and necessarily, both ended up being on the mark.
Bittersweet… (did I say SWEET?!)
Perhaps strangely, I’m kind of glad I wasted my two 2-stroke holes. Somehow that makes it seem like a more hard-fought or hard-won match. I’m also glad he won his three birdie holes. It probably would have seemed like he got gypped if he halved them to a par. The reaction to my win from the other club members was underwhelming at first. I thought maybe it was because they changed their bylaws for me so they could allow women in and now that I won they’re resentful. I told them how much I appreciated the opportunity and that I was thankful they made the change to let me in and that I would do all I could to recruit new members for next year. One person made the comment that the hope of the group was to get enough women to join that we could have our own flight. I said it was my hope to be in the A-flight next season, and that with varying handicaps, one flight for women might not work but that we’ll have to see about that if and when the time comes. After some time (and some drinks) most of them came around and seemed sincere in their congratulations, but I actually considered (after the fact) that perhaps I should have lost on purpose. Of course I’d never have done it.
The Icing on the Cake
As for the simultaneous stroke play tournament that was going on, we both played well enough to earn victories in it, too. He played to one under his handicap, with a 77 gross, 68 net, to finish second in A-flight. I played to three under my handicap, with a 95 gross, 66 net (shame about that +5 on the 10th hole!), for a first place finish in B-flight. Sounds like a good match to me!
Our club is having an awards banquet in December after our fun Turkey-shoot nine-hole tournament. I’m told my name will be inscribed on a wall plaque at the Treehouse and that I’ll be receiving a trophy at the banquet! :)!
Now I get to go on to represent our club at the SCGA Tournament of Club Champions on December 5. It will be at a private country club (etiquette advice, anyone?) and I’m allowed to bring a caddie. I have asked Greg to caddie for me and he seems be hip to the idea. He certainly knows my swing better than anyone and can read a green way better than I can. I seem to play a little better when he’s not with me, but it might be different if he’s not playing, too. I think it’s because I pay too much attention to his game and lose focus on mine. My fault, not his.
I can’t find much information about the tournament online and I’m only now sending in my entry application so I don’t have the package yet. So I don’t know much about it yet, however, there are two flights for the net tournament and I think it’ll be stroke play. I hope the club will allow the riff-raff in the weekend preceding the tournament so we can get at least one practice round on the course. I’m excited and I’m getting butterflies just thinking about it!
86!
I played River Ridge Vineyard Course this morning and set a new personal best by breaking 90 for the first time – with authority. A solid 86. I actually had to adjust it to an 85 to post because I took a nine on the par 5 #11 hole. I got greedy there and made some bad decisions because I have birdied that hole before. My drive was bad (tried to chew off the corner) and I had to punch out to the fairway. My third shot which should have been my second I decided to “go for it” instead of laying up because I wanted to make up for the lost shot and… I put it in the lake. Dumb, dumb, dumb. So I was all discombobulated when I dropped and proceeded to pitch it not just over the lake but over the green, where it took me two more hacks to get on the green and then I two-putted. ARGH.
I had a birdie, three pars, three bogeys and two doubles for a 42 on the front nine, and I was so excited. Then I doubled on #10, and after the disaster on #11 I thought my record round was over. But I pulled it together, re-grouped and followed that up with par, birdie, par, bogey, bogey, par, bogey. Solid! 7 fairways hit, 10 GIRs (all of the par 3s) and 38 putts (4 3-putts). Boy, that felt good!
I’d post it on your site, Media, but I don’t like registering for stuff.
Happy 40th birthday!
Gonna give you barley, carrots and potayters,
Pasture fer the cattle, Spinach and tomayters!
Lake Hefner North Course #9
Here’s a shot from the 492 yard par 5 #9 tee box (I played the white tees). I played a great drive chopping off a little of the corner around the dogleg to the right. My playing partner tried the same thing after seeing my result and ended up in the water to the right and over the trees. He really struggled here — must have been in the double digits — and ended his round after nine. I took a par and thought I might actually get in all 18 playing on my own the rest of the round. A single on #10 let me play through and I really thought I was on my way. My roll was over when I caught up to a relaxed twosome (threesome if you count their friend Jack Daniels) that insisted I join up with them at #12. I played four loooonnnnnng holes with them as the sun completely disappeared and I lost my chance to complete my round.
**Side note: Guys, if this happens to you, if you’re going to offer to have someone join you, PLEASE also give them the option of playing through. Especially if it’s late, there’s no one in front of you and you are playing by your own rules anyway. If she wants your company, she’ll join up. Also, don’t add insult to insult by acting rejected if she misses a putt after you tell her you’ll buy her a steak dinner if she makes it. This suggests that she missed on purpose – as if!!! Unless she’s
Anyway, these guys went on to play #16 in the dark, heading further away from the clubhouse and civilization and I politely declined to continue on with them. Many a new day will dawn, many a red sun will set, many a blue moon will shine before I do.
I intended to try to play the back nine or a different course the following evening, but the wind was steady at about 40 mph with gusts of 50-60. No thanks. Then I was going to sneak in an early morning round before my flight the next day and again the weather didn’t cooperate. I’m glad I got in the 15 holes when I did. I hadn’t planned on being able to play that day at all!
I’m told there are a lot of pro golfers from Oklahoma and that golf is really big in the state. So I guess I just scratched the surface of what OK has to offer by visiting the closest municipal course. Maybe I’ll make it back and try out another segment.Overall, I’d say my golf experience there, like Oklahoma itself, was OK!
Oklahoma City National Memorial
The last time I was in
Below are some photos I took of the outdoor symbolic memorial. There are two gates – one that says “9:01” which represents the time of innocence, and one that says “9:03” which was the minute after the bombing. They are at opposite ends of where the building used to be, and in between is the reflecting pool, flanked by the “field of empty chairs” on one side and the survivor tree, rescuers’ orchard and children’s area on the other. In the field of empty chairs, there is one chair for each person who died in the blast, organized by where they were in or outside of the building when it happened. At night, the whole place is lit beautifully including the translucent chair bases. Unfortunately, my nighttime photos didn’t turn out so great.
For more information on the memorial, visit http://www.oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org/index.htm.
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My two cents on Michele Wie – don’t forget my change
Will she be a failure if she doesn’t win X number of tournaments in her first year as a pro? In her first 5 years? 10 years?
Will she be a failure if she doesn’t outperform Paula Creamer in her first year? First 5?
Will she be a failure if she doesn’t out-gross Tiger Woods’ total earnings to date in her first year? First 5?
Come on!
Photo © UPI
I’ve held off commenting on the Wie situation because there’s enough of that squabbling going around and I usually try to keep this blog more about my own story/experience/development as a golfer. However, I think I’ve got a way to do both: by offering Michele my own yardstick. (Not that she wants it- doesn’t every golfer dream of having her talent?)
To me, she’s already a success. I’d love to see her have more success and achieve her goals. I’d love to see her do well in the LPGA and the PGA and I bet she will. But if her pro career ended today, she wouldn’t be a failure to me. I’d be disappointed, because I want to watch her progress.
A discourse on success and happiness
Me? I’d be happy just eking out a modest living playing golf so that I didn’t have to do anything else unless I wanted. At least I think I would. I suppose that might take some of the “fun” out of it. Ideally…
*Cue the dream-scene music* I could just play whenever and wherever I wanted without worrying about a pesky day job. But I’d be good enough so that I could compete with the best in the world, male or female. Sometimes I might even make a top ten. Heck, sometimes I might even win! And I understand that in golf, the better you are, the better you want to be. At the top level of golf, all you can do to be better is win more often or win by a greater margin.
*Needle across the record of the dream-scene music* I could get really philosophical and dissect the meaning of “better” and how losses develop character and character and behavior are more defining parts of a champion than a low score – but I won’t. And I don’t want to give you the wrong idea so I should tell you that I love competing and winning and I’m not one of those people who think they shouldn’t keep score in little league.
*Re-cue the dream-scene music* I don’t even need the gazillions in endorsement dollars to complete this dream scenario, but if I have to be 15 again, (not to mention be 15 and grow up in front of the judgmental world), I’ll take those gazillions for my pain and suffering.
You see, there’s a difference between being the absolute best, being a champion, and being successful. And people can be happy without being any of those in anyone else’s eyes. Oh yes they can, and they certainly should. Of course that becomes a lot harder when you’re in the public eye. If I had to guess, I’d say Michele Wie will be happy by being the best she can possibly be. And maybe to her that can mean being the best in the world at some point. Starting a pro career at 15, she certainly has time. But if that is her goal, it’s because she wants it, not because some sportscaster thinks she should. And it’s especially not because some blogger thinks she should. She’s got to set her own goals and her own timetables to achieve them. I really hope she’s not listening to all the hype —positive or negative. Actors talk about not listening to critics, but actors don’t have to worry about the impact that can have on their games the next day. How a single extra stroke caused by that loss of focus could make or break a round.
Like any golfer, pro or not, Michele’s just got to play her own game.
I changed my mind… you can keep the change.
Should be filed under the “more power to her” category, if I had one.
Next post.