Coach Bob’s Blog

I finally got to play Renditions and WOW what a treat that was! This course is in pristine condition with super fairways and smooth greens. The fact that it combines 18 of the greatest golf holes in the world from courses that have held one or more of the four majors (five if you count the Championship) only makes the round more spectacular. You get to play replicas of holes you’ve seen on TV and always wondered how difficult it could be. While all the details are not exact (the slope of the fairway on Amen Corner #13 or the size of TPC Sawgrass #17 green), it doesn’t take much imagination to feel like you are playing the same courses. After all, you still have to carry Ray’s creek to a postage stamp island green, and avoid the church pews on Oakmont #3. Overall, this was a very enjoyable, but still challenging round.

About at real as it gets, unless you are in Augusta!

In addition to great golf, the facility and staff are professional and service-oriented. The restaurant also serves a good chicken sandwich!

This is a great course to play with your buddies and you camera. And with a weekday rate of just $59, cart and range balls included, it’s hard to say no. For more information, click over to the Renditions web site, which is also very well done…..

http://www2.cybergolf.com/landscape/courses/layout9.asp?id=127&page=2036

Playing from the lumber.

ENJOY YOUR ROUND!

After playing just a few of the sinister holes at the Gauntlet, I wondered what old Pete was smoking when he carved this sadistic route out of the Virginia countryside.  All ‘awards’ aside, this course starts and finishes as one of the strangest 18 holes I’ve played in 50 years. For example, when was the last time you had to tee off with an 8 iron or LESS one a par 5? Really? Number five, a dogleg left across the marsh, uphill to a well-guarded green, only resembles a dogleg after the dog’s been hit by a car!

I must confess, I did not have my ‘A’ game when I played and the course was new to me, but even the best player has to given the occasional ‘bail out’ option. Not here. Not only are the greens mostly elevated and bunkered, but my ball rarely found a flat spot in the fairway…..if it even stayed in the fairway at all. The super told me that they’ve been without rain for a while, the fairways are hard. No kidding. My best drive was about 290, down hill, after it hit a tree in the left rough……

Bottom line….beginners need not waste your money. Avid golfers, bring your ‘A’ game and you still may be in tears before the turn. And for you ‘scratch’ golfers, leave the driver home, since these fairways are tight and run like lightning.

On a lighter note, all the staff and employees are service-oriented, polite and ready to help. Greens fees are reasonable and include cart and range balls. The greens and aprons are in great shape, albeit a bit slow. Finally, we made it around in less than four hours.

As always, if you have any comments or would like to share your adventure at the Gauntlet, please leave your comments.

 Gauntlet #18: Dogleg uphill right to an elevated 3-tier green, about 60 feet front to back.

Next week, Renditions!

Bob,

Are you familiar with different GPS like SkyCaddie SGX Golf GPS or any other? If so, which one would you recommend?

Thank you,
Jane C.

Jane:

I don’t have a preference for one vendor over the other, since all of them are about as accurate as the others. The first decision is between laser rangefinder and GPS mapping. Bushnell and Nikon make about the best ($$$) rangefinders with which you can find accurate distance between any two points. GPS mappers are now found as stand alone devices or as apps for your smart phone. They provide a visual of the hole being played with distances to certain points, including the front, center and back of the green.

The caution here is to make sure you are aware of any subscriptions attached for maps and updates from the vendor. There are some out there that are self contained with 20,000+ courses right out of the box.

Another critical consideration is making sure the device is legal for competitions. Most competitions that allow rangefinders of any type do not allow slope calculations, so beware.

I would always stick to the predominant names in any sector, SkyCaddy and Calloway being a couple that make the cut in the GPS realm. You can always find reviews online or in the golf magazines, as well.

Hope this was of some help to you.

Regards,

Bob Vitti

USGTF Instructor

Book Review

The Official Rules of Bad Golf

Henry Beard

Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. 2006

At first, I wasn’t sure what to think about this book. A book that touts itself as ‘the book that makes cheating legal’ doesn’t exactly synch up with my lifelong view of golf (or life, for that matter). But then I saw that it was published and sold as a ‘humor’ book. Now that makes all the difference, doesn’t it?

This is a compilation of 62 fully illustrated but mostly insane interpretations of and additions to the Official Rules of Golf (USGA and R&A). While it does not attempt to re-invent each of the rules in order, it certainly does mimic the incredibly confusing English found in the official rules quite adroitly. A primary reason that the game of golf is so difficult is that the rules are so, well, open to interpretation (surely, you didn’t think getting the clubface square at impact made the game difficult?). The author, Henry Beard of National Lampoon fame superbly implements the same inane and pompous verbosity that has led to the addition, over time, of Decisions on the Rules of Golf as its own official volume which interprets the rules based upon real experiences over time. Beard does a wonderful job of making sure the nebulous is fully explained in muddled terms and further clarified with confusing illustrations.

For example, Rule 33 Unnecessary Rough, includes the following: “Any irregular and uneven ground having ruts, pits, and furrows, or expanses of excessively tall, deep, or dense grass, or clumps of thick stubble is deemed to constitute and improper playing condition, and a ball coming to rest therein may be kicked without penalty (free kick) to the nearest playable lie under the following circumstances:”. It goes on to elucidate the reader on the five conditions under which the rule can be implemented………

And the entire book is just like this……….holy ad nauseam, Batman!

While I managed to swallow this volume in small bites before bed over several nights, I must sadly admit, that the humor part pretty much escaped me. While some of the rule titles are fairly intriguing, such as “Temporary Insanity” and “Cruel and Unusual Hazards”, the monotonous flow of verbal tofu that follows in the text served a superb sleep aid. Furthermore, it occurred to me that on more than one occasion I had seen golfers following these rules long before Beard published them. Art imitates life? You know it to be true in this wonderful game of golf!

Once again, I must factor in my fifty years in the game, and my unique sense of humor (get in, execute, get out) when reviewing a humor book such as this. Overall, I give The Official Rules of Bad Golf 6 out of 10. While Beard did a fine job of farcically regurgitating the sometimes ludicrous wording of the official rules, one can only eat so much spinach tofu at one sitting. But, hey, my wife got it off the sale rack, so no harm, no foul (well, maybe a bit foul).

Book Review

The Little Book of Indoor Golf Games

Author: Adrian Winter

Sourcebooks, 2010

One of my offspring was kind enough to get me this book for Christmas. If I were to judge a book by its cover, I would assume that the book would reveal 18 exciting games reminiscent of “Mouse Trap” for golf (Go ahead, google it. I’ll wait.) . However, I would have been wrong. This book is all about putting, pure and simple.

The author has collected a nice assortment of putting challenges for both individual and team competition to sharpen putting skills while away from the golf course. Most games are set up using upside-down tees, set as a slalom course, a minefield, a soccer field, while a few games use playing cards and dollar bills as targets. Each game is well explained with rules, rewards and penalties, and complete illustrations.

Each game is designed to improve both your line and distance, while minimizing the boredom that can besiege the typical putting practice session. I’ve used some of these games in teaching the kids the basics, but I appreciate having some new ones to put into practice. The final game (Ultimate Challenge) requires the ball to leave the carpet up a narrow ruler into a cup. Mastering that one will take a while. I have only one caution: setting up tees on many carpets is near impossible, so you may have to improvise for your environment.

So, while you won’t get any help in setting up your office golf course where you have to chip the ball off the copier, down the hall, through the break room and into the gap between the printer and the desk, this little book gives great ideas on ways to energize your flat stick practice.

Overall, I give this book 8 out of 10. It is well organized, clearly written and creative. I’m not sure it deserves the hard cover or the attendant $10.99 price. It would be just as good in a $4.95 paperback version. I would also have liked to see at least a couple more of “three dimensional” challenges, if you get my drift.

Coach Bob’s Book Review

Mental Rules for Teaching Golf
Gregg M. Steinberg, Ph.D.
ISBN 1-931249-22-9
Copyright 2003

If you are still searching for that perfect stocking stuffer for your golf buddy, this just may be the ticket. In this easy-to-read, medium format hardcover Steinberg does a great job of collating 61 of the most critical and interesting rules for improving your mental game in a single volume. While many books of this type suffer from doctoral thesis over-analysis, Steinberg hits the mark for the average golfer by slicing the mental game into easily digestible pieces, seasoned with vivid examples that relate directly to golfers of all abilities.

Although the book is a bit of a review for me, I was happy to see many of the mental motivations I’ve used with my students over the years well represented. Among my favorite is “Go with Whom You Brought to the Dance,” which I’d shortened some time ago to “dance with the lady you brung.” The high school team especially likes this one. Furthermore, no golf instructor worth his longest drive can go a day without talking about confidence. This topic is also well addressed in this book as “Confidence is a Choice” and “Embrace the Challenge,” where Feinstein recalls the challenge of Sisyphus, pushing a rock up hill for all eternity, but accepting the chore not as adversity, but as challenge.

I would have been disappointed had Feinstein not addressed my favorite mental rule, my ‘raison d’être’ for playing this silly game in the first place: HAVE FUN! Rule 11 is entitled “Enjoy, Enjoy, Enjoy,” is supplemented by rule 47, “Whistle While You Work.” I couldn’t say it better myself: “Having a positive perspective even about the weather can also make you achieve great things when Mother Nature isn’t on your side.”

On the Coach Vitti scale, Mental Rules For Teaching Golf rates 9 out of 10. It is easy to read, can be read in pieces without losing continuity or meaning, contains excellent insight and examples from the real world of golf, and, at $12.95 list price, a great deal for the money. Your golf buddy will thank you for your “thoughtfulness!”

Three-putt: After finishing this review, I decided to locate a few outlets that carry the title. It appears it was re-published in 2009 with 65 rules (ISBN-10: 0832950297). It is available at Amazon and your local library. So much for my out-dated library!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hello again, fellow golfers. Now that we are into the final lap of summer 2010, we all deserve some time on the golf course. I know many of you have been out regularly this season, which is as it should be. For the rest of us, the season is far from over and it is time to grab the clubs and head on out!

I’ve been watching Phil Mickelson play Army golf at the Bridgestone. Can’t seem to find a fairway, but is still in the hunt. That says a lot about his short game. Of course, we can all take a page out of that book, since more than half of scoring is from inside 100 yards. So the next time you go out to practice, start over on the putting and chipping area and work your shortest shots. Once you step up to the range, continue to work your clubs from short to long. Resist the temptation to whip out the driver and swing for the fences! Think about it; the most you use a driver on the couse is about 14 tee shots? On the other hand, how many shots might you take with a 9 iron or wedge? Spread out your practice time to work all the clubs and all the distances.

The high school golf season has now begun, so my teaching schedule is a bit abbreviated. However, I’m still taking appointments for Fridays and Saturdays. So, give me a call and let’s get to work on your swing.

Just want to let everyone know that I will be scheduling lessons for July 29th and later over the next two weeks. In the interim, I’ll be busy with my daughter’s wedding!! Just give me a buzz if you want to schedule that far in advance. In the meantime, enjoy a nice clean golf joke (those are hard to come by!).

Jim is 90 years old. He’s played golf every day since his retirement 25 years ago. One day he arrives home looking downcast.  “That’s it”, he tells his wife. “I’m giving up golf. My eyesight has gotten so bad that once I’ve hit the ball I can’t see where it went.”

His wife sympathizes and makes him a cup of tea. As they sit down she says, “Why don’t you take my brother Danny with you and give it one more try.” “That’s no good”, sighs Arthur. “Your brother’s a hundred and three. He can’t help.” “He may be a hundred and three”, says the wife, “but his eyesight is perfect”.

So the next day Arthur heads off to the golf course with his brother-in-law Danny. He tees up, takes an almighty swing and squints down the fairway. He turns to the brother-in-law. “Did you see the ball?”

“Of course I did!” replied the brother-in-law.. “I have perfect eyesight.”

“Where did it go?” asks Jim.

“I don’t remember…”

Now that the temperatures are warmer, and summer has ‘officially’ started, I like to remind everyone that there’s plenty of fresh air and sunshine out at the Burke Lake golf course. The facility has 40 stations on its driving range, a putting and chipping area, an 18 hole par three course, and really great people to help you. For further info on this fine facility, please click over to:

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/burkelake/

I am currently scheduling lessons Thursday thru Sunday. If you would like to get back to working on your swing, just give me a call at 540 729 2411.

You can also get more info on EBGS classes at www.everybodygolf.com

Hope to see you soon!

Fellow Golfers:
In case you haven’t yet heard, I am now teaching at Burke Lake Park on 123. I am currently accepting appointments for Thurs, Fri and Sat afternoons and evenings.
Isn’t it about time you got back to working on your perfect swing?