Awesome news!
Everyone’s favorite Golf Blogger has now “officially” donned the hat of freelance writer. 
I am writing Orlando Golf Course Reviews for OrlandoGolf.com!
I did my first course review out at Shingle Creek Golf Club and you can view it here -
Orlando Golf Course Review – Shingle Creek Golf Club
If you get a chance, read it over and leave your comments. I’d like to know what you think about it.
-Dave
Little Monday Golf Humor for you
A retired corporate executive, now a widower, decided to take a vacation He booked himself on a Caribbean cruise and proceeded to have the time of his life, that is, until the ship sank. He found himself on an island with no other people, no supplies, nothing, only bananas and coconuts.
After about four months, he is lying on the beach one day when the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen rows up to the shore.
In disbelief, he asks’, Where did you come from? How did you get here?’ She replies’, I rowed from the other side of the island. I landed here when my cruise ship sank.’ Amazing’, he notes.’ You were really lucky to have a row boat wash up with you.’ Oh, this thing?’ explains the woman. ‘I made the boat out of raw material I found on the island. The oars were whittled from gum tree branches. I wove the bottom from palm branches, and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree.’
‘But, where did you get the tools?’ Oh, that was no problem’, replied the woman.’ On the south side of the island, a very unusual stratum of alluvial rock is exposed. I found if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into ductile iron. I used that for tools and used the tools to make the hardware.’ The guy is stunned.
‘Let’s row over to my place’, she says.
After a few minutes of rowing, she docks the boat at a small wharf. As the man looks to shore, he nearly falls off the boat. Before him is a stone walk leading to an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white.
While the woman ties up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, the can can only stare ahead, dumb struck. As they walk into the house, she says casually’, It’s not much, but I call it home. Sit down, please. Would you like a drink?’ No! No thank you’, he blurts out, still dazed. ‘I can’t take another drop of coconut juice.’ It’s not coconut juice’, winks the woman. ‘I have a still. How would you like a Pina Colada?’ Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepts, and they sit down on her couch to talk.
After they have exchanged their stories, the woman announces’, I’m going to slip into something more comfortable. Would you like to take a shower and shave? There is a razor upstairs in the bathroom cabinet.’ No longer questioning anything, the man goes into the bathroom. There, in the cabinet, a razor made from a piece of tortoise bone. Two shells honed to a hollow ground edge are fastened on to its end inside a swivel mechanism.
‘This woman is amazing’, he muses.’ What next?’ When he returns, she greets him wearing nothing but vines, strategically positioned, and smelling faintly of gardenias. She beckons for him to sit down next to her.
‘Tell me’, she begins suggestively, slithering closer to him’, We’ve been out here for many months. You’ve been lonely. There’s something I’m sure you really feel like doing right now, something You’ve been longing for?’ She stares into his eyes.
He can’t believe what he’s hearing.’ You mean .. ‘ he swallows excitedly and tears start to form in his eyes.
‘Don’t tell me You’ve built a Golf Course!!!’
One More
WIFE:
What would you do if I died? Would you get married again?
HUSBAND:
Definitely not!
WIFE:
Why not – don’t you like being married?
HUSBAND:
Of course I do.
WIFE:
Then why wouldn’t you remarry?
HUSBAND:
Okay, I’d get married again.
WIFE:
You would? (With a hurtful look on her face).
HUSBAND:
(Makes audible groan).
WIFE:
Would you live in our house?
HUSBAND:
Sure, it’s a great house.
WIFE:
Would you sleep with her in our bed?
HUSBAND:
Where else would we sleep?
WIFE:
Would you let her drive my car?
HUSBAND:
Probably, it is almost new.
WIFE:
Would you replace my pictures with hers?
HUSBAND: That would seem like the proper thing to do.
WIFE
Would she use my golf clubs?
HUSBAND:
No, she’s left-handed.
WIFE:
Silence -
HUSBAND:
‘Oh dear.. *****’
hehe..
Golfnow – Discount Online Tee Times
I’m a little late on posting these and I apologize for that..
As a quick refresher, I’ve been taking golf lessons from a local golf pro named Brendon Elliott. If you haven’t been following along, you can catch up by clicking on the posts below.
Orlando Golf Lessons Week 1
Orlando Golf Lessons Week 2
Weeks three and four focus on chipping and pitching. Not much worthy of note occurred during week three, Brendon spent the time taking video and pictures of my swing from all angles.
For Pitching, we used this sweet new VJ Singh mat he picked up at the PGA Merchandise Show. When I was at the show, I tried the mat and hated it, but I’ve since begun singing a different tune, that thing is sweet!
Week four we discussed the outcome of the previous weeks evaluation. To keep it short, we decided to start from scratch…
Chipping
“Minimum air time, maximum ground time”
The easiest way to describe a proper chip is to treat the shot as if you were putting with a lofted club.
Rest the club head behind the ball with the club face aimed where your shot is intended.
Elevate the grip four inches and move it forward four inches. This will cause your hands to be forward in your stance.
You want to take a narrow stance that is slightly open with the ball a little behind the center of your stance.
The weight dispersion should be 60/40 with most of the weight on the lead foot.
Because of the position of the club, you’re going to “grip down” on the club and because the club rests more in your palms, you can choose either a standard grip or a putting grip.
It is said that using a putting grip is preferred because it allows minimal wrist action which will lead to more consistant shots.
The swing is very similar to a putting stroke except it involves a slight turning of the shoulders. The swing speed should only be as fast as the rotation allows. It’s very important to keep your wrists silent throughout the entire motion. Keeping the wrists quiet ensures the club head trails the hands into impact.
There are two main elements to any chip, carry and roll.
Carry is the amount of arc in the shot. As a general rule, the larger the arc, the greater the carry distance. The length of the arc is determined by the distance the club head moves back and through. So a larger swing will correlate into a larger arc leading to greater carrying distance.
Roll is the distance the ball…….rolls… The amount of roll to a chip is determined by the amount of loft the club has. As the loft of the club increases, the distance the ball rolls decreases.
Now this isn’t a perfect science, but here’s what I’ve been told about chip shots. Regardless of where you are in relation to the green or pin, you always want to land your chip three feet (one pace) onto the green and let it roll the rest of the way.
To determine the club to use (this is where it gets tricky and i’m still working on this), you need to understand that every club has a carry:roll ratio. See below.
PW 1:1
9i 1:2
8i 1:3
7i 1:4
6i 1:5
Ok, so check this out. you’ll want to divide the number of paces your ball is from your “spot” (three paces onto the green) into the number of paces your spot is from the pin. For an example, lets say your ball is four paces from the “spot” and the pin is eight paces from the “spot.” You want to divide eight by four. So your ratio is 1:2 and you’ll want to use a 9i for the shot.
Hopefully, this isn’t totally confusing…
I haven’t quite perfected the technique myself, but I’ve been practicing since the last lesson and I feel ALOT more comfortable with chipping than I did before. The comfort has led to confidience and I no longer dread the shanks from three feet away like I used to.
As always, I thank the almighty Brendon for imparting such techniques on such a pitiful golfer as myself.
I’d love any feedback you guys have on this, I’ve found it very helpful!
-Dave
I had the opportunity to speak with Brian Allman from SweetSpotGolf.
They’re a very cool, new club manufacturing company with an emphasis on fun and some big things in the works.
Check it out.
For Immediate Release
Sweet Spot Golf partners with Womens National Golf School
Golf club manufacturer and nationally recognized women’s golf academy join forces to bring a new direction in golf – bringing FUN to the game as part of the solution.
Los Angeles, Calif. (February 23, 2009) – Custom golf club design and manufacturing start-up Sweet Spot Golf announced at this weekend’s EWGA’s Annual Conference a partnership with one of the largest and most well-respected teaching academies in the US, National Golf Schools. Sweet Spot Golf’s high performance, custom crafted clubs are superior in quality and fashion forward clubs are a unique offering in the golf industry and women golfers are taking notice. National Golf Schools is launching their Womens National Golf School making the partnership with Sweet Spot a perfect match for the two companies to join forces and promote golf products and instruction to women, one of the sports fast growing segments.
“We feel strongly that women golfers have not been given the attention they deserve and our intention in partnering with an academy owned and operated by Northern Florida’s PGA Teacher of the year Pat Livingston’s, is to finally give this consumer more of what they want; the game of golf on their own terms and if that means doing things differently to make the game more fun, so be it” said Brian Allman President of Sweet Spot Golf.
Our line of women’s products not only performs as well as any other in the marketplace but they also bring a sense of style and design that allows the golfer to feel like the game has come to them and not the other way around. When looking for a partner with a similar philosophy, Pat came to mind immediately.
The National Golf School Philosophy is to take each person and use what they have to their greatest advantage. “You will never hear a ‘one method fits all’ mentality from our staff of Professionals,” said owner and award winning PGA instructor Pat Livingston. “Learning is best done in a fun, respectful environment and that describes our school perfectly. Combined now with Sweet Spot Golf’s products assist students in bringing out the best in their game. They feel more in control, not just physically, but also because their equipment better reflects their personal style. We are going to have a lot of fun working with Sweet Spot and because of that our students are going to benefit, they’ll have move fun too, which is what it’s all about!”
Mr. Livingston further commented, “Sweet Spot Golf has designed and engineered a unique, well crafted and evenly weighted putter. It’s built with quality and their unique Precision Positioning System allows us to better teach golfers to find their target line and sink putts with style.” Sweet Spot’s new Black and Pink clubs are available in Putters, a 13-degree Driver as well as a Hybrid in three different loft degrees (19, 22 and 25). The women’s line is expected to have a variety of colors available by the summer of 2009.
Additionally, Sweet Spot Golf’s Pink line is a proud sponsor of the National Breast Cancer Foundation. “Women who have seen and tried the stylish Pink clubs have embraced them with enthusiasm because they know that playing with these products means more than just owning a quality golf club” says Sweet Spot Partner and club designer Chuck Parise, “They say ‘I support finding a cure for Breast Cancer.’ It is the Power of Pink!”
Sweet Spot Golf launched the sale of the Pink line of clubs on their website www.sweetspotgolfclubs.com and is currently looking for retail outlets to sell their products. Additionally, they will now be available for purchase at the Womens National Golf School.
If you ask me, that’s a pretty powerful endorsement to Sweet Spot Golf.
When I was talking to Brian, I asked the more obvious question “How do you plan on competing with other club manufacturers” and his response was “We’re not competing with them, only a fool would try, we’re just offering something different.”
Different is pretty accurate I think, whenever you decide to start using Sweet Spot Golf Clubs, you no longer use a putter, you begin wielding an Ax.
Besides the Ax, they also offer drivers and hybrids, both with the Sweet Spot unique design and fashion forward look.
Check them out, the website makes for some entertaining reading
-Dave
Announced March 19th over at annikablog.com…
Guess her and Mike were making up for lost time!
Side note, they were married January over at Lake Nona and once again yours truly was not given an invite.. What the heck??? That’s the second time I’ve been burned by Lake Nona, first Tavistock and now this.. Or I guess chronologically it was this and THEN Tavistock..
Congrats Annika, as a two time offender of the whole “having a kid” thing, you have my condolences..
HA!
Any guesses at the sex of the child? I’m saying boy.
-Dave
Found this article over at Golfworld and wanted to share it. It’s pretty entertaining.
The worst phrase a caddy can hear??
“I Think it’s time for us to make a change…”
-Dave
Congratulations to this years victor, Lake Nona!Not only did they beat the Tiger lead Islesworth, they crushed them 17-13!
This year the Tavistock Cup was held at Lake Nona and Graeme McDowell won the Payne Stewart Salvar Award with an amazing -6 (66) on Day two. The award comes with a very nice $300,000 bonus.
This is Lake Nona’s second victory since the tournaments inception. The first victory was in 2007. They tied in 2005 after a three hole sudden death duel.
This years participants in the 2009 Tavistock Cup include captain Mark O’Meara, Robert
Allenby, Stuart Appleby, Daniel Chopra, Darren Clarke, John Cook, J.B. Holmes,
Charles Howell III, Nick O’Hern and Tiger Woods for Team Isleworth.
Team Lake Nona participants include captain Ernie Els, Ben Curtis, Chris DiMarco, Retief
Goosen, Trevor Immelman, Graeme McDowell, Mark McNulty, Ian Poulter, Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson.
The only question I have is, why the illustrious Orlando Golf Blogger was not invited???
-Dave
For those who might have missed it, Natalie Gulbis is on this season’s Celebrity Apprentice 2. She’s playing for the Boys and Girls Club of America. She has a strong affinity for the club, one of her long term goals is to open up a boys a girls club of her own. Now, I’ve never been a fan of any reality type shows, but when I heard that Natalie was going to be on the show, I had no choice but to check it out.
Last Sunday, March 15th, 2009, was the third episode and third victory for the womens team. The challenge was to sell wedding dresses and the project manager for the mens team was Tom Green, who showed up late and hung over on the day of the event… Dennis Rodman failed to show at all… With opponents like this, it’s no surprise the women are laying the smack down!
Week two was a good episode, each team had to create a costumed super hero for Zappos.com to represent their commitment to customer service. Although they had models at their disposal, Joan Rivers chose Natalie Gulbis as the model for the outfit. She looked uncomfortable during the presentation but did her team proud.
She’s not one of those “talking heads” that get like 90% of the camera time, which reflects a lot about her character and professionalism, but at the same time, I wish we’d get to see more of her. But I’m sure that will change whenever she gets assigned project manager.
She’s writing the Natalie Gulbis Celebrity Apprentice Blog over at lpga.com. The blog is about her perceptions and experiences while on the show.
Sooo, good luck Natalie Gulbis!
-Dave
I received an email about this new golf game and I thought was pretty interesting. It’s called the Golf Caveman Game.
It’s a simple game, very similar to the old Nintendo game Duck Hunt. The biggest difference is that instead of a gun you’re shooting targets with a caveman’s golf club and balls.
By the way, I currently hold the 2nd place position within the top 10 with a rocking score of 8200 points
Rock Bottom Golf is a discount golf e-tailer and although I’ve never done business with them personally, I’ve heard more than once they’ve some great deals.
I can only speculate that their primary motivation behind creating this game is to drive traffic to their business and I applaud their alternate approach.
I’d be very interested to hear what impact this game has on their bottom line.
What do you guys think? I can definitely see this bringing more repeat traffic to their site but will the traffic convert? If so, at what percent? I’d be willing to guess around 5% of the traffic to the game will visit the site.
If I find out any more info, I’ll pass it along (with permission of course)
-Dave
I’m sure you’ve all heard about these guys and if not, get out from underneath the rock you’ve been living under!
Eyeline Golf makes products to help us hackers improve our putting game. Well, not only us hackers, last year 245 touring pros picked up EyeLine Golf equipment.
As you know, one of my resolutions this year is to improve my short game and I’ve been taking lessons with the great Brendon Elliott.
He’s the one who turned me on to these guys and I’ve since picked up the EyeLine Putting Plane Alignment System and the EyeLine Pendulum Putting Rod.
The Putting Plane System is used by 47 touring pros. As the name might imply, the putting plane has a mirrored surface with a black line down the center. This is the line that you align your eyes to, for the correct putting posture, distance from the ball, and swing path.
It also has two adjustable rails, remember as a kid, when you and your family used to go bowling together and they had those bumpers up so you would never throw a gutter ball? Well these rails have a similar function. they train your body to follow a correct swing path and create a smooth, natural, open to close stroke.
I use this at home, on my high-speed-low-drag Target brand putting green! I’ve also had my my “next-tiger-woods” son, Aiden, practice his putting using it. His putts were better than mine, but I attribute it to his lower center of gravity….
The Pendulum Putting Rod is currently being used by 112 touring pros and was recently featured in a GolfWeek Article. Here is the most important excerpt:
“After seeing Charles Howell III working with the EyeLine device, Mike Weir decided to pick one up, and promptly opened the tourney with 21 putts and a round of 61. Also using one: Masters Champion Trevor Immelman.”
If that’s not a testament to the effectiveness of this device, nothing is…
The creator of the Pendulum Putting Rod is a man named Brian Lackey, who works at the Johnny Warren Golf Academy and was named the 2008 Tennessee Teacher of the Year.
The Pendulum Putting Rod creates a connection between the putter and the pivot point of a great stroke, the sternum. The benefits of using the Pendulum Rod are:
I’ve been using these for about a month now and combined with Brendon Elliotts teachings, I’ve knocked off an average of six strokes from my putting. Tell me that is not awesome! It’s no 21 strokes like Mr. Charles Howell III, but, I’m not going to complain about it..
If you’ve picked one up or are planning to do so, I’d like to hear how it’s affected your game.
-Dave
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