The Common Golfer

At what point does golf get too expensive?  Oobgolf.com had a post today titled How Much Is Too Much For Golf? and it got me thinking.  At what point does a high greens fee become outright extortion?

Is $495 too much to play Pebble Beach, arguably the most beautiful golf course in the world?  Many people will argue that price shouldn’t matter when it comes to a “once in a lifetime” experience like Pebble Beach.  But I disagree.  While I understand that maintaining a golf course isn’t cheap, greens fees at renowned golf courses have officially become ridiculous.

To get to this conclusion, let’s start with what we know.  Here in Columbus, Ohio (one of the larger cities in the country) your average public greens fee is $40-$50.  Obviously, at those prices you aren’t getting a world-class golf course; keeping a golf course immaculate isn’t cheap.  That being said…the price of maintaining a Pebble Beach doesn’t equate to an additional $450!

Please don’t misunderstand me – I’m typically not one to complain about costs and I don’t expect to pay $100 to play Pebble Beach.  And for all my bitching, apparently I’m still willing to pay the ransom these courses charge because earlier this year my wife and I went to play Pinehurst #2.  Playing Pinehurst is the first time I’ve shelled out hundreds of dollars for a round of golf, and at the end of my round I found myself feeling confused.

On the one hand, I now have the memories of playing one of the most historic golf courses in American golf history.  I even played from the tips to get the “US Open experience.”  The problem is, after spending that much money for a round of golf, I pretty much expected to experience 4.5 hours of heaven on earth.  And while I will say it’s my fondest memory so far in 15 years of golfing, I still felt somewhat disappointed afterwards.  Why is my ball sitting on a dry patch – for $400 can’t they get grass to grow here?  Why do I have a thin lie in this bunker – does my $400 no go towards the sand budget?

So my question is – unless you’re wealthy, is it even possible for a round of golf to live up to the expectations you have after paying so much?

All of this being said, sadly I would still pay $495 to play Pebble Beach (if I can ever convince the wife to take another “luxury golf vacation).  So maybe the reason these courses charge so much, is that despite our bitching, in the end we’ll still pay whatever they ask.

According to a recent patent approved for TaylorMade, the future in golf club adjustability is in the shaft of the club.  Personally, I view most of the available clubs that are adjustable to be a marketing ploy and nothing else.  I can’t envision a scenario where a player, good or bad, would need to adjust the face of their driver.

If you’re a weekend golfer like I am, you need to work on mastering the one driver you have – not 12 different drivers you can potentially have.  Weekend golfers adjusting their clubs on the fly is just asking for trouble.  And on the other end of the spectrum, if you’re a professional golfer (or really good amateur) then you’re getting your swing analyzed and having clubs custom built.  Either way, there’s no need to adjust the face of your driver.  And now the prospect of adjustable shaft stiffness seems even sillier.  Can you think of a scenario where you would need this?

Regardless, thank you to the IP Golf Guy for the details.  The patent is titled “Golf Club Shafts Having Selectable-Stiffness Tip Regions, and Golf Clubs Comprising Same” and if this sort of thing interests you, here are some excerpts: Read the rest of this entry »

Congratulations to Phil Mickelson, who shot an amazing 65 to win the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club.  But make no bones about it, Mickelson is not a fan of the playoffs format, saying something to the effect of:

“Let me see if I get this straight.  I shoot 65 and beat Tiger, he gets $10 million, and I only get $1 million?  No, I’m just kidding…”

What’s crazy to me is how no one is making a bigger deal about this.  I’m paraphrasing Mickelson’s comments on NBC after winning, because nobody has the actual comment on their sites!  The only comments I was able to find were something a little bit calmer that I’m assuming Mickelson said later at the press conference, where he basically says he’s happy to have a scenario where he and Tiger both win money.

I don’t have a problem with Phil’s comments…but hopefully word gets back to Tim Finchem.  Yesterday’s outcome may have been a “dream scenario” for the PGA Tour with Tiger and Phil both winning at the same time, but it says a lot when neither of your champions is enthused with the playoff system at all!

Yesterday’s final round was exciting to watch, and it was great to see golf’s two biggest stars in the limelight.  Everything seemed to “work itself out.”  But much like the BCS for college football, if the format isn’t changed, one of these years we’re going to end up with a disaster (like Heath Slocum winning the playoffs that he has no business even being a part of in the first place).

Next time you buy some “gently used” golf balls at your local pro shop, stop and ask yourself “how many people had to die in order for me to save a few dollars?”

On September 19, 75-year Jerry Gunderson drowned while diving for lost golf balls in South Florida. “I don’t know why he did it; it’s high risk, but he just loved it,” said his wife, Judith Gunderson. “He always said that’s the way he would go.”  What makes it even crazier that a man would drown in a pond while diving for golf balls is the fact that his son died 27 years ago doing the same thing.  Let me repeat that – his son drowned diving for golf balls 27 years ago!

You would think that after losing a son to drowning, that it would be hard to even go swimming (let alone scuba diving).  Gunderson started diving in 1953, and reselling golf balls helped him to open a chain of seven golf supply stores called International Golf.  Golf ball divers across the country won’t reveal how much money they make, because it’s a competitive business.  Who knew?  A typical golf store will have contracts with multiple “freelance divers,” and some rumors say a diver can make over $100,000/year!  Maybe I need to consider changing careers.

Above all else, it’s tragic that a man has lost his life.  And I am in no way trying to make light of the situation.  But to me, this is a remarkable story giving a glimpse in to an industry that I never even realized was in existence!  So next time you dip in to a barrel of used golf balls – remember Jerry Gunderson.

I wanted to share this video that won an EA Sports contest to promote Tiger Woods Golf 2010.  Paul Lowey produced this video (which is actually really funny) for almost no money…and won $50,000!

Wait…what?

Titleist Australia is actually having a contest to win a round of golf with Adam Scott.  Now before everyone quits reading this article and clicks on the link to enter, I have some bad news:  you have to live in Australia.  But unless you’re a single woman (because let’s face it, he is easy on the eyes), who is really interested in this?  I’m not.  What’s next…win a round of golf with Ian Baker-Finch?  I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but if I’m going to play in a pro-am, I’d like to play with a pro that isn’t going to shoot in the 80’s like I will!

I do feel bad for Scott.  This time last year, he was the #3 player in the world.  Now he’s in a year-long slump of epic proportions.  Maybe their having this contest to find someone for Scott to play against for a day that he can actually beat.

I hope Scott can bounce back from this slump…it was fun to watch him play next year.  My advice is to take some time off during the offseason.  Surf every morning.  Make love to Kate Hudson every night.  Then come back refreshed in 2010, ready to kick some ass!

Throughout the incredible history of golf, no one person has encapsulated the title of “the common golfer” as much as Bobby Jones.  Born Robert Tyre Jones Jr. in 1902, Bobby was immediately a natural talent at golf, learning to golf at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club (site of this week’s Tour Championship) and winning his first tournament at age 6.  He then went on to leave an impressive mark on the game of golf, that still can be felt today.

After winning his first competitive tournament at 6 years old, Jones went on at 9-yrs old to defeat a 16-yr old to win the junior title at East Lake.  He early successes continued as a junior, and earned him the nickname the “new kid from Dixie.”  He also set a record that still stands today, as the youngest person to ever qualify for the US Amateur at 14 years old. Read the rest of this entry »

No amount of gambling can propel golf’s popularity.  Talk has recently been popping up around the golfosphere about golf’s lack of gambling compared to the NFL, which is both more popular than golf and has much more gambling across the country.  Waggle Room and Geoff Shackelford are both asking if more gambling on golf will increase its popularity.  I love golf more than any sport, but I don’t think anything will magically make it more popular than sports like football.

To be honest, I’m too lazy to look up the actual numbers…but billions of dollars are gambled each year on the NFL, and a lot of that money is directly related to fantasy football.  But even before fantasy football took off across the country, football had a much larger following than golf.  I look at gambling as a side effect, not a cause, of football’s popularity.  Conversely, you can attribute a lot of golf’s recent rise in popularity thanks to the star power of Tiger Woods.  Proof that a sport can grow without the help of gambling.

Unfortunately, I don’t see a way that golf can surpass football in popularity, because not everybody “gets” golf.  The only people who follow golf, are the people who are actively involved with golf.  Golf fans are typically actual golfers, whereas a huge portion of football fans are not football players (like me).  For whatever reason, football has become our “national past-time.”  A good example is Ohio State football.  Every football Saturday, not only do 105,000 fans come to watch the Buckeyes play football, for another 100,000+ come to Ohio State’s campus just to tailgate.  They don’t come because they’ve got money riding on the game; they come because they love college football.  The sad fact is that a golf tournament will never sell 100,000 tickets.

The best way to help grow golf’s popularity is to pass it on.  If you tell someone you watched golf on television, you usually get  a weird look.  But if you can get that same person to go to a driving range with you, they may just start to fall in love with golf just like you did originally.  Golf is a game that needs to be experienced, before it can be enjoyed.  And as golfers, do we really want golf to become any more popular than it already is?  The last thing I want is more hackers crowding up the golf course on the weekend!

Sitting nervously by the window, I switch back and forth between looking up at the sky and looking at the radar on the weather channel.  Is it going to rain all day?  Maybe things will clear up soon – there looks like a “window” in the radar to the west. Nothing can ruin an avid golfer’s weekend more, than waking up in the morning to bleak skies and the sound of raindrops.  I myself am a huge golf fan, but tend to only get out on the weekends.  Not only does getting rained out put a damper on my weekend (what else am I supposed to do for fun?), but it also makes it really hard to keep any “momentum” going from week to week.

We’ve actually been pretty fortunate this golf season, in Central Ohio; it’s mid-September and this is the first weekend that it has rained a lot.  But what do people do in traditionally rainy regions of the world?  For example, is golf not as popular in Seattle, Washington compared to Dallas, Texas?  For the casual weekend golfer in a rainy area (or a golfer that only has time on the weekend), I suppose your two options are to only play a few times per year or to learn to love golfing in the rain.  We should all be so lucky to live in year-round warm climates!

So what’s the solution?  Why hasn’t science/technology progressed yet to the point where we can control the weather?!  Unfortunately, I can’t think of any better ideas.  If faced with the dilemma, what is your approach?  Would you learn to “embrace” playing in the pouring rain, or get used to golfing less frequently?

What is A Black Flamingo…some sort of super hero?  If so – the Black Flamingo has been unmasked!  Her secret identity is Michelle Wie.  Actually, this isn’t really breaking news.  Wie’s blog has been up for awhile now, and that’s not the point of this post.

Am I the only one who’s disappointed in Wie’s blog?  Far be it from me to tell Michelle what she’s allowed to blog about, but when I first heard that she had a blog I was excited.  Other than the golfers on Twitter, we don’t get many personal glimpses in to the lives of professional golfers.  It was exciting to think that Michelle would be blogging about life on the LPGA.  Unfortunately, that has not been the case so far!

A Black Flamingo has basically been a place for Wie to have her own personal fashion show, posting pictures of her in various outfits and other fashion related posts.  Maybe I’m being unfair.  Wie should be able to blog about whatever she wants, and maybe this is an outlet that helps her to escape from overly oppressive parents and the pressure of all the expectations that people have of her.  And if I ever need to know how to “bedazzle” a pair of women’s heels, I now know where to find that information.

I will say that it’s great to see her playing better as of late, and I think if she ever gets over the “hump” of winning her first tour victory, that many more victories will follow.