Golf Trip to the Coast

I am typing this post from the cozy confines of a couch in an oceanfront cabin just outside of Newport, OR.  A full week off of work has afforded me a rare opportunity to go on a real golf vacation. Yesterday, I played an old 9-hole course called Agate Beach Golf Course, which was built in the early 1930s.   The course was about what I expected (which wasn't much), though I was disappointed to discover that you can't see the ocean from anywhere on the course.  The course is mostly flat with fairly straight-forward holes until the last 3 holes, where it gets a little more interesting.  While the gentleman staffing the proshop was extremely friendly and welcoming, I don't know that I'll go back.  Ultimately, the course wasn't good enough to warrant the $18 greens fee for 9 holes. 
I decided to treat Agate Beach as a warm-up round, especially since I haven't been playing much at all recently.  While I had a romantic notion of playing little "mom 'n pop" 9-hole courses around the Newport area, my rather disappointing experience at Agate inspired me to make some new plans.  I decided to make the hour-long drive south to Sandpines Golf Course in Florence, OR this morning.  I had played the course once before on a cold and sunny afternoon last December.  Several things stood out in my memory of Sandpines: 1) the back 9 is really fun to play, 2) the front 9 was soggy and not very fun to play, and 3) I was violently limping through most of the round the first time around due to a really bad case of runner's knee.  I decided to go back today to see what the front 9 would be like after a rare spell of dry days, and to see how what kind of score I could post with both of my knees functioning properly. 
I got there nice and early so I could hit some balls on the range before teeing off.  I almost never do this, but an internet special brought my greens fees for 18 holes all the way down to $25 so I felt like I could afford the luxury of spending another $5 on a bucket balls.  Furthermore, I didn't hit it all that great at Agate, so I wanted to see a couple of good shots before teeing off.  The course was surprisingly busy for a Monday morning.  I was grouped with a couple of very pleasant bogey-golfers: the type who could make conversation and were out there to have fun (and not getting competitive with me or each other).  A frost delay had us teeing off on the back 9 first, which was a relief.  The front 9 is much tighter than the back, so it's nice to get a full 9 in before being forced to play more precise golf. 
The back 9 at Sandpines is one of my favorite 9s that I've played in Oregon because it's so fun.  The fairways are wide.  The greens are fairly large with subtle breaks.  The ground is firm and undulating.  The wind blows through this exposed section of the course and really forces you to think.  You don't have to be terribly precise, but there are definitely places where you can't hit it.  Water comes into play on the last 2 holes, the last of which is a classic water-all-the-way- up-the-left-side par 5 (which plays more like a long par 4).  The par 4s and 5s invite you to swing away at your driver while mounding and fairway traps outline the wide, firm, and hump-filled fairways. 
While I wasn't hitting the ball all that great today, I still had a blast playing that 9.  The persistent breeze, seeing the ball curve in the air and bounce when it hits the ground- this brand on links golf brings me right back to my roots and the tradewind-swept municipal courses of Hawaii.  I absolutely love it. 
The front 9 at Sandpines was so utterly disappointing when I played it the first time, but I tried to go into it with an open mind.  Mostly, I was hoping that they had fixed the major drainage issues they were having the last time around.  The front side wasn't underwater today, but it was still a bit soggy.  Part of what I don't enjoy about the front 9 is that it takes driver out of play even for a medium to short hitter like me (I fly the ball about 230 in the air with a lower ball flight, which puts an average drive for me between 250 and 270).  In fact, I can't even hit 3-woods on several tee shots.   I just don't enjoy that type of target, conservative golf.  There are also long walks between greens and tee boxes on this 9, which is a real pain.  To cap it all off, the worst hole on the entire course is the utterly boring 9th hole.  A 400-yard straight-away par 4 lines with trees and very artificial mounding up the left side.  It's bland and ugly and makes for a terrible finishing hole. 
My knee didn't flare up at all today, but I was worn out after about the 13th or 14th hole.  I realized that I hadn't walked 18 holes in quite some time, and the layout on the front 9 makes for a very long walk at Sandpines.  That being said, I kept it together and finished up with a pair of 38s for a nice little 76.  Not a bad round considering I only made one birdie (I knocked it to a foot on one of the par 3s).  Of course, it could have been a lot better had I rolled in some putts.  I made absolutely nothing today, but making putts was a tall order as the greens were still healing from aeration (which is a nice way of saying they were very, very bumpy). 
There's not much as far as quality golf courses go around the Central Coast area. Sandpines is the exception, as it provides some fun golf and better than average conditions at very reasonable prices. 

Autumn Golf

A cold and gray, yet dry Saturday afternoon was all the motivation I needed to go play a quick 9.  These are the perfect days to play golf- there is the ever-present threat of rain and it's just cold enough to keep the crowds away.  I arrived to find my usually overrun neighborhood municipal course largely empty.  I passed by one of the assistant pros on my way to the clubhouse, who invited me to play with him and another one of the pros.  I obliged, curious to see what kind of game the pros had, and equally curious to see if I could bring to the course the ballstriking clinic I put on at the driving range a few days earlier.  I got off to a slow start, mis-hitting a 5-iron off of the short par-4 10th tee box, which left me another 5-iron to the green.  I hit that a little heavy and blocked it out to the right.  Fortunately, I was left with an easy chip shot, which I put to within tap-in range.  The two pros also made pars, though their pars were less sloppy.  One pro hit it to the middle of the green and burned the high side lip with his putt.  The other pro landed it on the middle of the green, but put so much backspin on the ball that it zipped clear off the front of the green.  From there, he got up and down after calmly canning a 10-footer right in the heart.  The second hole wasn't much better.  I clanked a pair of 3-woods, which left me some 40 yards short of the green and in the left trees on the dogleg right par 5.  I hit a nifty little punch gap wedge that took a peek at the hole before coming to rest about 12 feet from the cup.  I took two putts from there and carded another unspectacular par, grateful that my short game was keeping my head above water.  I was hitting last on the next hole, an uphill par 3 over water.  The two pros both hit a couple of sloppy 7-irons leaving them lengthy looks at birdie.  I stepped up and pured my 7-iron right over the flagstick.  Unfortunately, above the hole is no good on that green and I had no choice but to lag my birdie putt.  I struggled a bit with my longer clubs the rest of the round, but my iron play remained very solid.  I wasn't getting the yardages right, so I didn't make any birdies, but I hit a handful of iron shots that went right at the pin only to come up 20 feet short or 20 feet long.  One of the pros shot 2-under for the 9, while the other pro shot the same score that I did.  Truth be told, I struck my irons just as well as the pros (in fact, I'd say my ball-striking and short game was better than the pro I tied), but their distance control and putting were far superior.  They left the ball in the right spots and gave all of their putts a chance.  In other words, they may not have been hitting in flush every time, but they definitely knew how to score even though they weren't firing on all cylinders.  It was a good reminder for me that a solid round of golf requires much more than just hitting the sweet spot.  

First lesson in a while

I gave my first golf lesson in quite a long time the other night.  I got paired up with a young gun with some game at Eastmoreland for a “super twilight” round.  He stepped up to the first tee, a very short and narrow par 4, and striped a 5-iron some 200 yards right down the middle with a soaring draw.  I hit my little punch 6-iron down the fairway some 20 yards behind his drive (but with the perfect yardage for a full swing gap wedge).  We chatted as we walked to our drives and found that we were both self-taught golfers.  The difference was that he had only been golfing for 5 years and could already routinely shoot in the low 80s.  The 2nd hole is a long straight-away par 4.  He was shocked when I outdrove him despite a hooked drive that ricocheted off of a tree on the edge of the fairway.  Perhaps that got in his head, because he played pretty poorly from then on.  It was obvious that he was a fairly skilled player, but his scorecard was an absolute mess due to a block slice on one shot per hole.  As I watched him swing and listened to his self-analysis, I could see that he had no clue why he was slicing the ball.  Even worse, he thought his slice was caused by coming over the top with an open clubface.  On the contrary, he was coming too far from the inside and over-rotating, which left the club stuck behind him with an open face.  

I bit my tongue until he sliced two drives in a row off the 9th tee box.  As we walked off the tee box, I admitted that I once gave lessons and would be glad to give him my two cents if (and only if) he was interested.  He told me he was all ears.  I told him I would fill him in after we finished the hole.  In the meantime, he filled me in on what he had been working on in his swing.  It came as no surprised when he described how he had been focusing solely on coming from the inside on the downswing.  

We made the turn and I demonstrated to him what he was doing that was causing the block slices.  He couldn’t believe it.  Well, it started as disbelief, which then turned into a bit of rejoicing.  He’d done it- he had re-routed his swing so thoroughly that he was coming too much from the inside.  In fact, I don’t think he thought it was possible to come too far from the inside, so he told me that he was just focus on not over-rotating his lower body on the downswing.  I told him that was one way to go about it, but that it would serve him best to keep the club in front of him on the downswing so he could rotate as hard as he wanted to on the downswing.  I demonstrated how I could point my belt buckle not just at the target, but even left of the target on the downswing and not get the club stuck behind me if I kept the club in front of me during the downswing.  But it was too late- he was fixated on coming from the inside and limiting his lower body rotation, and it was all he could talk about as we finished up the last few holes in the twilight.  

I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that I wasn’t able to get through to him.  At the least, I gave him an accurate diagnosis.  A lot of the time, that’s much more valuable than the prescription.  

Tournament time + new favorite course

I rarely play in tournaments anymore, but last weekend I played in a scramble and I will be playing in another scramble tournament tomorrow.  It seems that when I play in scrambles, I’m expected to be the “ringer.”  The first couple times, I was very uncomfortable with that role, but the more I play in scrambles, the more confident I’ve become.  I realize now that scrambles are very low pressure tournaments in comparison with the college tournaments I played in back in the day.  I have the luxury of hitting last, so there’s almost always already a ball in the fairway or on the green, which means that I have the green light to play aggressively- I don’t really have to be strategic at all.  I also enjoy being in the mindset of making/expecting birdies- something I should be doing every round.  

Last weekend, I was the ringer for my group at a scramble tournament in Central Washington.  We played the Prospector Course at Suncadia and were greeted by 20 mph winds howling through the high desert forest.  With my low ball flight and lots of experience playing in the wind, I knew we would have a shot at being in the money.  I was even more encouraged when another guy in the group proved that he could also hit the ball well on occasion (I’m used to playing in scrambles where I’m the only player who consistently shoots in the 70s, while the rest of my partners shoot in the high 80s and low 90s).  We had a blast out there- ham and egging around the front 9 and piling up the birdies.  Then we hit a lull when not one of us could make a putt.  After going 6 or 7 under on the front 9, we only managed to make 3 or 4 birdies on the back 9 and wound up shooting a very respectable 10-under 62.  Had a few more putts fallen, we could have easily broken 60.  

I took several things away from the tournament:

1) It was REALLY nice to have a partner who could hit a really solid shot every couple of holes

2) I need to work on my putting

3) Prospector is the best course that I’ve ever played

There’s not much more to say about #1 and #2 above, but I do feel the need to explain #3.  While I’ve been known to occasionally exaggerate things, I can honestly say that Prospector is the best course I’ve played because it had so many good holes and absolutely zero bad holes.  It helped that many of the holes kindly suggested that you hit a little draw.  That being said, you could work the ball either way and do just fine.  I also appreciated the greens at Prospector- they were simple medium-sized greens with subtle breaks, not the overwrought, everything multi-tiered BS of many new courses.  Indeed, there was a simple elegance to the course- the holes seemed to blend into the landscape perfectly.  There were bunkers in all the right places, and the landing areas were fair.  I really enjoyed how everything was right there in front of you- no gimmicks, no hidden hazards, no trees or bunkers or boulders in the middle of the fairways.  Beyond that, the views of the surrounding forested hills are absolutely spectacular.  Combine all that with excellent conditions and you’ve got the best course I’ve ever played.  

The ultimate craigslist find

Within the last year or so, I’ve started keeping tabs on golf clubs on craigslist.  Not surprisingly, I mostly see worthless Costco sets and/or overpriced brand name gear.  Every now and again, though, I find an underpriced gem.  It started last summer, when I snagged a mint condition Odyssey White Hot Tour #9 putter with an upgraded grip for a mere $35.  I followed that up the next week with a Nike VR wedge with an upgraded grip for $30.  Both are currently in the bag and have saved me a stroke or two a round- not a bad return on a $65 investment.  

Having filled the need for a different putter and a more versatile lob wedge, I’ve been looking for a decent set of irons to serve as my back-ups and to offer up to out-of-town guests.  While I do still have my old set of blades that I used in college, I don’t think it would be good for my psyche to try to play them again.  So I’ve been looking for some sort of game improvement set that still appeals to lower handicappers.  In other words, I was hoping for some sort of “tour” cavity back- ie a set of Taylormade R7 TPs or a set of forged cavity backs.  My spending limit was $100, which isn’t much when it comes to a set of irons.  I figured I don’t really need another set of irons and that it would have to be an out-of-this-world deal for me to spend money on a set of clubs I would rarely use.  Honestly, I didn’t think I’d ever find a decent set for less than $100.  

Then came a rather innocent post about a set of “player’s game improvement” irons for $60.  I clicked on the link and was shocked to see a picture of a set of Ben Hogan Apex Plus irons.  I was lucky enough to hit one of these on a driving range once back in high school.  I remembered hitting a 5-iron and being floored by how soft it felt.  This was exactly what I was looking for.  The picture in the ad, however, only showed the cavity side of the irons- there were no shots of the faces, grips, or shafts.  I called and left a message with the seller.  He called back several hours later and a couple hours after that, I was in his garage with an iron in one hand and my baby boy in the other.  The seller lived in the wealthy town of Lake Oswego.  He said I would find his house if I looked for the red BMW convertible in the garage.  His car was sparkling, the clubs were not.  They were caked in dirt, but there were no visible dings or gouges or scratches.  Beyond that, he had just had them regripped last year with Golf Pride Tour Wraps.  The shafts were the original Apex 3s.  I picked up the 6-iron.  The clubhead looked bigger than I remembered, which was a good thing since my bogey-golfer father would likely be using this set in a month.  It also felt a touch shorter than my set, again, not a bad thing considering my father and I are both 5’6”.  I gladly handed over the $60 and hoped that when I scrubbed the dirt off, I’d have a set of forged cavity backs in pretty good condition.  

That evening, I gave those irons a thorough cleaning.  The clubs were in even better shape than I thought- they were in nearly mint condition.  As I had suspected, they were a quarter inch shorter than my set, and the clubheads were larger (specifically, the clubfaces are much taller in the area between the middle of the face and the hosel).  The next day I took them to my buddy, who is an assistant pro at the country club where we worked together.  He adjusted the lie angles one degree flatter and refused to accept any money for his work.  What a deal!

The power of positive thinking

“The mind messes up more shots than the body.” -Tommy Bolt

Once you learn how to hit the ball well enough to keep it in play and have a decent short game, playing a round of golf becomes an almost entirely mental affair.  Having recently taken an entire month off, I’ve been slowly getting the physical part back (i.e. keeping the ball in play), but my mental game has been awful.  I find that I really have to work on my focus and concentration when I return from a long layoff.  I’ve noticed that it’s nearly impossible for me to hit a decent shot when my thought over the ball starts with “don’t,” as in don’t hit it right, don’t go over the green, or don’t leave it short.  While that might seem like the first lesson in Mental Golf 101, it’s one that I tend to slide back into when I’m rusty, mostly because I tend to play from a place of fear when I’m not sure where the ball is going.  As I’ve discussed before, my only swing thought when I’m playing well is to hit it hard.  When I’m chipping and putting well, I don’t feel like I’m thinking about anything except, “I can make this.”  I’d go so far as to say that having a positive thought helps me more than being focused on a very specific feel, target, or shot shape.  

A few days back I finally played on the course having devoted my golf time to practicing instead of playing in the days leading up to the round.  I didn’t warm up at all, not even a putt.  When I got to the first tee, a very slow group had just teed off and I was playing as a single so the starter gave me a ride to the second tee.  I was grateful, but at the same time I was now going to have to start my round on one of the more difficult holes on the front 9.  I decided to try an old trick I occasionally use to calm first tee jitters- pretend as if you’ve been bombing your driver with a high power draw all day long.  Sure enough, shooting off the clubface came a high draw down the left half of the fairway.  I decided to keep using that thought process over the ball.  From 170 out I told myself that I’ve been hitting this knock-down 6-iron so well all day.  Off came a low bullet that I hit so solidly it bounced clear over the green.  Next came a long pitch shot, as the pin was at the very front of the green.  For whatever reason, I didn’t use that same mental trick and blasted the pitch over the other side of the green.  Here I was chipping for par.  This time I remembered to think to myself about how I’d been chipping it so well all day, and wouldn’t you know I nearly holed out that par.  I used that pre-shot thought on most shots throughout the round, which led to a bunch of easy pars and a birdie.  I found that by convincing myself that I had been playing well all day, I was bombing tee shots, flushing approach shots, and getting up and down when I missed the green.  The thought also helped me commit to a specific shot.  The thought wasn’t just, “I’ve been hitting this 5-iron well today.” I had to be more specific: “I’ve been hitting a lovely baby draw with this 5-iron today,” or “I’ve been hitting a powerful low sweeping draw with this 3-wood today.”  

I think this worked for me because I’ve successfully executed all of the shots that I was telling myself I had been hitting all day.  If I came across a shot that I rarely pull off (i.e. a sky high fade with a long iron), I knew I wasn’t going to able to convince myself that I had been hitting that shot well all day, so I changed my shot selection to something I knew I could hit.  This helped me play smarter and kept me from having that one bad hole that I always seem to have when I haven’t been playing on the course much.  Give it a shot and let me know how it goes.  

I'm back!

I recently returned from a family vacation which resulted in a full month without picking up a golf club.  I didn’t want to jump back in too quickly, especially since I had injured my right elbow playing volleyball just before the vacation.  I started on the chipping green and left a rather large pile of rust behind.  A few days later, I worked up the courage to hit a bucket of balls.  It was probably too soon for that.  My elbow was still tender and I could barely get the ball off the ground.  Stubbornly, I returned to the driving range a few days later and hit another bucket of balls and was talked into playing 9 holes.  Needless to say, it wasn’t pretty.  I hit the ball all over the place and my short game was too rusty to bail me out.  That said, it felt good to be back on the course so a handful of days later, I went right back out and played a round of twilight golf.  I teed off on the tenth hole and promptly made triple bogey.  I noticed the single in front of me waiting on the next tee box even though no one was ahead of him.  As I approached the 11th tee, the single’s golf bag had a high school logo on it.  Sure enough, sauntering back to his bag was a 6-foot athletic 18 year-old.  He asked me to join him and I obliged.  That’s when the competitive juices switched on.  I hit three perfect shots and lipped out the birdie putt.  When I told him that I played college golf, he seemed relieved to know that he was paired with someone who knew how to play.  We ended up chatting about all things golf and school for the nine holes that we played together.  I feel like I really got to know the kid, and I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him.  He had just moved to Portland from Texas, where he was born and raised and where he left behind all of his friends and family.  The transition to Portland hadn’t been a smooth one- he had already changed schools once and was almost certain that he’d be changing schools again for his upcoming senior year.  He wants so badly to go back to Texas for his senior year, but seemed to know that it not going to happen that way.  So there he was by himself on a rainy Thursday afternoon.  His plans for the summer- golf all day and all night.  It reminded me a bit of myself when I was in high school.  I struggled with the transition from a tiny middle school to a rather large high school.  I ended up devoting all of my free time to sports.  Eventually, I got to college and was able to sort of hit the reset button and re-establish a social life.  After we putted out on the last green, he peeled off the rain jacket I lent him when it started pouring.  He seemed sad.  I told him I’d see him around and that I’d look forward to reading about his successes on the golf course in the newspaper.  He invited me to come watch him play in an upcoming tournament.  Part of me wanted to let him know that he was going to be fine and that he was going to absolutely love college, but I got the feeling that he would figure that out soon enough.