Tags: tournament, scramble, foursome, divot, Talons Cove, putting, birdies, eagles
On Friday night, I received a call from Gasper. His son (who was supposed to be in our foursome) cracked his ribs in football practice, and was withdrawing from the tournament. I scrambled to find a replacement, and fortunately, my brother-in-law, Matt's brother, Chad, was available.

We arrived at Talons Cove Golf Club in Saratoga Springs just after 7 am. We hit range balls for a while, and then I attended the golf clinic. I got some great tips on grip, alignment, posture and standing on the balls of your feet. I was glad that the clinic had nothing to do with swing, and everything to do with giving yourself the chance to make good contact with the ball.

We were the first to tee off on the 8th tee, a par 3. Neither Gasper or I made the green, both of us coming up short, but Matt and Chad gave us decent positions to choose from on the green, but we couldn't get the putt to drop, and walked off the 8th green with a par.

The 9th hole is a par 5, and we were excited to record our first birdie, or even an eagle, but after coming up short on our second shot, and leaving ourselves with a 15 foot putt for birdie, which we missed, we settled for par again.

On the 10th hole, we finally made birdie. We faced a 12 foot putt, which I lined up and drained. My putting game was clutch from that range for a good portion of the day, which is more than can be said about the rest of my game.

For the next five holes, we birdied every other hole, bringing us to -3 as we walked off the 18th. It wasn't quite where we wanted to be, but we were having a blast, enjoying a fairly mild day on a course that was the most pristine that I have experienced. The fairways were immaculate, and there was hardly a divot on the course. When I see a course that is in a condition that good, I'm more inclined to make sure that I replace my divots and even seed them. If you're looking for a great lakeside course, Talons Cove is where it's at.

One through seven yielded the same results as the back nine, and when we turned in our card, we were at -6. If I had shot a 66 by myself, I would be exstatic, but with four of us together, we knew it wasn't going to be enough. The winning team brought in a score of 61 for -11. If we had sunk more of our putts, we would have taken home the trophy for a second year in a row, but luckily, golf isn't all about winning, as I would have given up a long time ago if that were the case.

Tags: putting, practice, tournament, scramble

It's Monday, and I decided to pull out the putter and putt into a cup from varying distances at the office. This is something that I have always liked to do. In fact, if it wasn't for those little putt-into-a-mug games that they have at little fairs, I may not have picked up golf at this point in my life. I used to try every single putting game that I could, and I would usually walk away with a prize. But those were straight, usually flat, putts from about 10 feet. No one told me that I'd have putts that would have to do a loop around the back of the green before finding the hole.

The putt-into-a-mug games caught my interest, but were a poor preparation for real-life putting. On my first round, I didn't have anything less than a 3-putt. I have improved gradually, and though I'm nowhere near the putter that I'd like to be, I'm confident in my ability to sink short putts, and get long putts close. Wanting to hone my long-range putting skills, I set a cup against the wall of my row, and hit balls ranging from 20 feet up to 40 feet. At first, I noticed that I was missing right nearly every time. I found that the reason I was doing this was that I did not have my dominant eye positioned over the ball correctly. After that, most of my putts were on line, but finding the right speed for that distance is tricky. If any of my putts hit the wall with power to produce more than a small tap sound, I would start my count to ten over. Eventually, I was able to get 10 in a row to the cup, or the wall with no more than a tap sound. Tomorrow during lunch, I'm going down to the putting green at Sleepy Ridge, which has a great little 9 hole putting green on which to test every type of putt. I'll let you know how it goes. Until then, I'm getting excited, and my confidence is building. Back-to-back, here I come!

Tags: practice, champion, tournament, NBS, no backswing swing
I decided that today was the perfect day to hit a few buckets of balls, or as they call it at my club, "The Vijay." The Vijay is nearly large enough for me to sit in when empty, and on several occasions, I have simply found a quarter Vijay left over from a golfer that decided that it was too many balls for him (it's approximately 300 balls). I wanted to hit that many balls because I was testing out a new swing that I read about in GOLF Magazine, called the No Backswing Swing (NBS). The NBS is supposed to eliminate 70% of swing errors by eliminating all of the errors caused by an improper takeaway.

Calling it a no backswing swing is sort of a falacy, as there is a backswing, it is simply divided into two parts. Step 1 is to address the ball as normal, and then in step 2, bring the club back until your left arm is parallel to the ground, and your club shaft is aiming down the target line (which is how your backswing would normally look at that point in your takeaway).  Now, I don't have my magazine with me right now, so correct me if I'm mistaken in the name. Step 3 is called the Pump, and it is like a mini-backswing from the step 2 position. In step 3, make sure that you bring your shoulder a full 90 degrees, and then start your downswing. The NBS is supposed to help eliminate pulls and help you hit it straighter. And I'm pleasantly surprised with the results that I had.

It took a lot of balls for me to get it, but after probably 3/4 of a regular size bucket of balls, I was hitting straighter, longer and more consistently. I'm not perfect, but I've always had a terrible slice off the tee, and have resorted to using a 3 Wood instead of a driver for quite some time. But after hitting lots and lots of balls with my driver using the NBS, I feel a lot more confident. The biggest thing for me was that I discovered that I had been cocking my wrists too early all this time, and the NBS is going to help me correct that problem.

One thing that I failed to mention about the NBS set-up is to make sure that your weight shifts and stays over your spine. This adds a lot of power. If you haven't been keeping your spine centered with your weight shift, this is going to take some getting used to, and you may have a sore lower back for a while (but who wouldn't after hitting 300 balls with a driver). But I am hitting further and straighter; but most importantly, with more confidence. Next Saturday, the whole company is going to see that I have come to keep my title, not pass it on!