Kenny B

I like it! Nice looking course too. Too bad it's a short season up there.

Glad you could get out. Hope you have a few more opportunities before it really gets cold! Over the years I have met a lot of Canadian snowbirds in Arizona and Palm Springs during January. Just curious about your round... You shot better on the back nine. Do you think you played better because you were with other people, therefore maybe a little more focused? When I play as a single, I am usually in "practice mode". I am working on certain shot and really don't pay that much attention to the score (if I keep score at all). When playing a game with friends or even when I hook up with strangers, I am not in practice mode anymore. I am certainly more focused on the shot at hand and feel the consequences of a poor shot a little more. After all, I don't want to look bad! I was wondering if that was your case, or maybe the back nine is just easier.

Good luck! That sounds like our winter temps here in SE Washington state. Supposed to be 25 degrees C and sunny here for the next 10 days. So what do I do? Go to Phoenix where it is supposed to be 34C! Oh well, it's for golf. Guess I'll suffer.

Yes, I low that Phoenix this time of year is not the best. It was a matter of timing before my wife's surgery. Last golf outing for her this year! We normally go someplace warm in January or February. I have checked a few courses. Some overseeded last month, some doing it now, some doing it later in the month. There are some courses that I wanted to play but they are closed or have cart path only. Guess I will have to wait until next trip. I am playing the Padre course at the Camelback Resort. I have played it before, but that was many years ago. Thought I would give it try again and snagged a $45 rate! We will play the Vistal golf course on South Mountain. That used to be the Thunderbird course years ago before they sold it, and one of my favorites. They don't overseed. Not the best looking in the winter because of the dormant Bermuda (sort of looks like home), but we found it challenging, fun, and inexpensive. The staff is very friendly too. I don't like to make too many advance reservations because if we sometimes take a day off. So, we will look at some courses when we get there. If anyone has any suggestions...??

Sounds like a great round under those conditions. Nice job snagging the $40 round too. I am sure they studied the green fee that they could reasonably get with captive people who pay hundreds of $$ a day for the family at DisneyWorld. You can easily drop $100 inside DW after you pay admission!

Sounds like the swing is coming around. Don't rush it. When making a swing change, it takes awhile to ingrain the new habits. Spend enough time learning the habits until it feels natural. Otherwise under pressure situations, the tendency is to revert to old comfortable habits, which can be bad in competition. Good luck and keep us posted. Oh to be young again!

Thanks Sp0rtsfan86! I'll post the courses I play. Hope the courses are not too bad after the 2 inches of rain they had this weekend. How did you fare weather wise? I have never been to Yuma, but played quite a bit in Palm Springs.

Saturday, my wife and I drove up the Columbia River to a nice community golf course that we play once or twice a year. Great conditions and the people are very friendly. We managed to snag a tee time at 1:30pm just after their tournament ended for $21 each and it included a cart! I shot 6 over 78. I started with 2 pars then a string of 5 bogeys and 2 more pars to finish out the fist nine. I was starting to get a little heated because for those 5 straight bogey holes, my was only 1 over (she fell apart after that). I had one 3-putt bogey on the back nine (mis-read the break), but I had 6 par saves. Two of those were sandys (one was an inch from the hole and the other was a foot). Sadly, there were no birdies. This was the day after I received my 46 & 50 SCOR wedges, and they are amazing. However, I think I have to re-look at my distance between my i20 9-iron and the 46 SCOR. The SCOR 46 seems to be longer than the i20 PW. I will spend some time after work this week when the course is empty checking the gaps.

Good for you! Nice round. When I travel, that is what I like to do, play different courses. If I have time and find a course that I particularly like, I may play it several times, but will throw in a new course in between. I'm headed to Phoenix in 10 days, and plan to play a few courses that I liked last time, but looking for a few new ones too.

It's been beautiful here in the Pacific Northwest the past few weeks. Yesterday was 89 and sunny (dry, not humid) with a slight breeze. My wife and I played the semi-private country club in town, and I shot 75 with a double and a triple bogey. It's a fairly short course but has lots of trees. Easily the best round I have ever played on that course. The course was almost empty. The morning men's club was just making the turn when we teed off at 10am, and there was a threesome about 3 holes behind us. That was it! I had never seen it so empty. I suspect it was because of NFL football, and the Seahawks were playing Denver in Seattle at 1pm. I love Sunday golf in the fall.

I don't go through long periods where I don't feel like playing, but I do have days where I wonder if I am really having fun. If it is not fun, then it becomes the same thing as a job you don't like. "Why do I get up and do this?" So, you have to redefine what it is about gold that is fun. I used to go out and play by myself, and while that was OK some of the time, it doesn't last for me. I like to play casual rounds with my wife (remember, I did meet her on the golf course) and friends that I have played with for years. Sometimes we are competitive; sometimes we aren't. It's just whatever we feel like doing. However, I can't play a competitive round when everyone is telling stories or just chit chatting, so I just enjoy the company and being outdoors. Personally, I think you have to do that once in a while.

Have a great time! Looking forward to your stories.

I love this retriever! I won one at a golf tournament, but it's the short one. Very handy to fit in a bag pocket when I travel. I have had it for 4 years with no problems, but I am thinking about getting the longer one if it still fits in the pocket. I saw one in a golf store (yes, we still have one open in my area), but it was very heavy; probably thicker metal to compensate for the longer length. Will still consider it though.

My wife and I played Saturday in a company tournament with one of my old bosses and his wife. We had no chance but it was fun anyway. Finished middle of the pack in a "shamble". A shamble is where all team members tee off and the best lie of the four tee shots is selected (minimum of 3 drives per players). All players move their balls to the best lie. From this point, the hole is played out at as individual stroke play, with all members of the team playing their own ball into the hole. Score is 2 balls from 2 separate players, 1 gross and 1 net, per hole. Players use their full handicap for the net score. The winning team is the team with the lowest total score of gross and net balls for all holes (par is 144). My boss (18 HCP) finally got his third drive used with 2 holes to go. He was so worried that he couldn't hit one straight!

Went to Spokane, WA on Sunday and played a course that I had never played before. It was pretty wet from irrigation and I am not used to hitting off wet ground, plus no roll-out so longer shots into the green. Shot 87 which was not bad considering I had a 9 on the par 4 18th. Ugh!

Nope! I'm sure she would love to do it. He was the one that tormented her the most when they were kids.

It's amazing that the little things like that really make a big difference in our lives. It would be too cool to hit off the porch onto a green any time I wanted. If I did that now, I would hit my brother-in-law's house (the brother she hated the most; and a 7 HCP)

Actually, it was her idea. We met on the golf course (she's a 19 HCP). Her dad was a scratch golfer and club champion at 3 different clubs in Spokane/Coeur d'Alene area. She had 5 older brothers and an older sister; all played golf. We had both been married before so the big wedding was not really considered. We had about 100 people attend and about half played golf that day. Good memories, indeed!

Sorry rev, my mistake. I meant GOLF! Before we got married, my wife and I met this jazz pianist and his uncle on a golf course in Spokane back in 2005. Had a great time and we kept in touch and played with him in Seattle the next year. He said he had recently got a minister's license in Wa state, and performed a marriage ceremony for some friends of his (when asked to do it, he actually thought they were asking him to play the piano!) Well, we were thinking about getting married the next year, so we asked him if he would do our wedding. He agreed; we had the ceremony on the first tee of our golf course, said "I do" and turned around and teed off. We rented the course for the day; had carts for everyone; had cupcakes with green frosting and a small chocolate golf ball on top of each one instead of a wedding cake; and of course a bartender serving drinks. Had a great time!!

No... no I wasn't. It was a tougher than usual course for me, but I also didn't hit my driver all that well and the putts just weren't there to make up for it. Oh well, next time. Which is a short trip to Spokane tomorrow for a 3-day weekend. Playing with a jazz musician from Seattle who perform our wedding ceremony; not the music, the actual ceremony!

Congratulations! I still remember my first 89... my last was a week ago.

Rev is right. There will be low scores to go with the high ones. I seem to have a problem with the end of June. It started many years ago when the annual meeting that I went to (alternating east coast/west coast) started having a golf tournament the day before the meeting started. This was in July. So in June my swing started looking like Tin Cup's on the range at the US Open! When I got to the tournament, everything was fine and I was fine the rest of the year, until the next June. I don't go to the meeting anymore, but it happened again this last June. It seems that when you think about it a lot, bad things happen. I play best when I am not trying to fix something, but just go out and have fun. Really focus on the good things when they happen, and ignore the bad. Know you are going to hit a good shot; don't hope you will. Golf is a mind game as well as a skills game. And remember... the mind doesn't do negatives. When you think: "Don't go to the right." (because there is a hazard there), all your mind hears is "go right". Guess where the ball is going? Let us know how the weekend goes.

Sorry, I hope it is not catching. I see from your list of equipment that we have similar irons and wedges. I bag i20s 5-GW, also purple dot, and the SCOR 54 and 58. So far, I am doing OK so I would rule out the equipment as the problem. Best of luck on the recovery!

I traveled to Salem, OR this last weekend to visit family. I played the Salem Golf Club; not a long course but lots of trees and tight fairways. I usually play it about once a year. The greens were very quick, just as I like them. I shot 81 with two doubles; one out-of-bounds on a par 5 (really bad swing) and the other in a pond. I made every putt from less than 5 feet and 8 putts that ranged from 5-15 feet; no 3-putts. I had never broken 85 there before.

Absolutely awesome! Great job. I love it when there is a good cause to play for.