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| The Golf Blog at Club Golf Network |
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| February, 2006 Golf Blog Entries: |
2/27/2006 10:53:51 AM
Would you spare 5 minutes a day to add 20 yards to your drive?
Now that Spring is starting to arrive around much of the country, it's a good time to address getting your body in shape for the blossoming golf season. If you aren't already doing some kind of daily fitness—be it going to the gym, walking, running or even just regular stretching—it's past time to get going on it!!! Stretching is not only one of the easiest things to do, it also carries the most benefit for the golfer.
People drive to the course, get out of their cars, walk to the tee and tee off without any kind of warm up at all. That's a surefire recipe for a poor start and possible injury. Try to get to the course at least 30 minutes prior to your tee time and hit a at least a small bucket of balls before playing. If you don't have time for that, here's a simple and easy recommendation: Before teeing off, take out your pitching wedge and make 20 full practice swings with it. (If you're already in good shape, use two clubs instead of one.) Start slow and gradually work your way up to full-power swings. It takes less than two minutes to do, and will get your body primed to play and improve your drive off the first tee.
Increasing your flexibility by regular stretching is one of the best ways to improve your game and add overall length to your shots. Did you know that just by stretching your torso for a few minutes each day, you'll improve your shoulder turn on your backswing? And improving the shoulder turn is the key to adding distance to your drives. Did you know that tight hamstrings (the backs of your legs) can result in either a straightened back leg on the backswing or cause the dreaded lateral hip slide? To stretch your hamstrings, sit on the ground with your legs straight out in front of you and reach for your toes to stretch the hams. (Think of it as touching your toes while sitting down.) Never bounce or go fast, stay slow and hold for about ten seconds. Repeat five times and you're done!
The important thing to remember is that stretching not only gets your body ready to play, it is an easy way to tone your body's "golfing muscles." We all want to play better, and taking a few minutes to stretch before a round is an easy way to improve your play for the day.
2/26/2006 4:19:30 PM
Watch Bubba Watson try to win the Chrysler Classic of Tucson tonight! USA Network is airing tape-delayed coverage tonight at 7pm ET.
Davis Love III is currently three down against Geoff Ogilvy with six to go in today's World Golf Championships final round.
2/25/2006 9:19:54 PM
Davis Love III held on to his lead to close out today's afternoon/evening match with Zach Johnson, and will be playing the 36-hole final tomorrow agains Geoff Ogilvy (not to be confused with Joe Ogilvie, who unfortunately missed the cut in Tucson yesterday.)
Despite his previous performances this week, the new and improved (read 25 pounds lighter) Tom Lehman was unable to continue his streak, finally bowing to Aussie Ogilvy 4 and 3. Tom's great showing this week did, however, move him a long way towards playing his way onto this year's Ryder Cup Team, which he is captaining.
Tomorrow's 36-hole final starts at 10:30am ET on ESPN, with the final 18 (or so) being televised on ABC at 2:30pm ET.
Bubba Watson is sitting pretty in second, and will be paired with third-round leader Duffy Waldorf for tomorrow's final round of the Chyrsler Classic of Tucson. Unfortunately, televised coverage of tomorrow's play isn't being carried by anyone, so we'll have to monitor PGATour.com for up-to-the-minute scoring.
Michelle Wie shot a 6-under 66 today to finish solo third at -13 for the tourney, after Meena Lee defeated Seon Hwa Lee in a three hole playoff. Natalie Gulbis came oh-so-close to being in the playoff, but an errant shot on eighteen had her finishing fourth. Suffice it to say, the LPGA has as much fire and action as the PGA these days, especially when these ladies are in the field!
2/24/2006 10:51:10 PM
One of the reasons golf is such a great sport is the personal responsibility involved in playing the game. Take today's ousting of several of the world's top players in the WGC match play event. Tiger, Vijay and Phil all lost to lesser-ranked players. Yet, to a man, when asked how they lost to their underdog opponents, they all replied "I got beat today." No no blaming the course, the fans or other players—just the admission that even the best in the world are human. In a world (or maybe it's just the U.S.) where finger-pointing and blaming others, where the sense of entitlement and "deservedness" reigns, it's refreshing to see personal honor and dignity displayed. Golf is the only sport I know of where players can, and in fact are expected to, call penalties on themselves. There are no refs to protest to or throw tantrums at, no flags are thrown. In golf, if you decide to cheat, you are only cheating yourself. And if you get caught, your punishment is shame.
In other golf news, Bubba Watson has changed drivers (keeping the Ping shaft) and it seems to be paying off. He shot back-to-back 67s to finish today's round in a tie for third at 10-under with Scott Gutschewski, Bob Tway, Jason Gore and Jerry Kelly. Duffy Waldorf holds first alone at -12, and Mark Wilson holds solo second.
Michelle Wie is tied with fellow teen phenom Morgan Pressel for ninth place going into tomorrow's final round of the Fields Open. The two will be paired and playing the round together; it has all the makings of a great rivalry in its formative stages.
2/23/2006 8:06:26 AM
9 and 8... Tiger opens up a can on Ames
It's not wise to provoke tigers... especially this Tiger. Stephen Ames had said something to the press, prior to the match, about Tiger not driving the ball well, and Tiger responded by shutting him out of the Accenture Match Play Championship in the first round. 9 and 8. The full story is on the World Golf Championships' site, here. I'm sure Tiger felt good at being able to take direct response to someone's comments, rather than it being just "the press." Give him a target, and he hits it.
ESPN and CBS are airing extensive coverage from 2-6pm ET of the WGC this weekend, with 10:30am - 6pm coverage split across the two channels on the weekend. The Golf Channel doing nightly updates on results.
2/21/2006 7:44:29 PM
First Women's World Golf Rankings Released Today
It's taken a couple years to come to fruition, but finally there's a worldwide ranking system for the women. It's no surprise that Annika Sorenstam came in at Number One, but due to the nature of the system Michelle Wie was a bit of a surprise coming in at Number Three. Paula Creamer holds the Number Two spot between them. Yahoo has the AP story here.
If Wie plays well at this week's inaugeral Fields Open in Hawaii, she could jump past Creamer to take the Number Two spot. The Golf Channel will be airing coverage starting at 6:30pm ET Thursday. I haven't been fortunate enough to catch Wie's play yet, but intend to watch her this week!
2/20/2006 9:32:26 AM
Rory Sabbatini held on to win the Nissan Open, defeating defending champion Adam Scott by one stroke. With only a few holes left to play, four players including Fred Couples and Adam Scott were tied at -12. The win was Rory's first since 2003, and he now sits atop the money list. PGATour.com's staff writers have a good breakdown of Rory's stats for the week here.
2/18/2006 11:32:58 PM
The forecasts were definitely wrong today! We had beautiful conditions for the Nissan Open today, with Rory Sabbatini using them to his full advantage to extend his lead to four shots going into Sunday. That's a definite way to sleep better Saturday night.
Tom Lehman wasn't able to get anything going today, shooting a one-under 70 to fall into a tie for eleventh with Lee Westwood and Nick Watney. Fred Couples had a stellar day though, finishing with a six-under 65 and jumping up the leaderboard from eleventh to share second with Craig Barlow heading into tomorrow's final round.
Big hitter J.B. Holmes managed a two-under 69 to pop up to 43rd place from 69th, but at 13 strokes behind the Rory, he'd need a miraculous day tomorrow to top the leaderboard. Jim Furyk and John Rollins also had spectacular days, shooting six- and seven-under to jump to 6th and 7th overall, respectively.
Sunday's round looks to have the makings of a great shootout, although given Rory's prowess of late, he's going to be tough to catch. Catch coverage of the final round on ABC starting at 3:30pm Eastern. (XM satellite radio broadcast begins at 1pm ET)
2/18/2006 12:47:21 PM
BRRRRRRRRRRRR! + A new first for Tiger
The plane landed at DIA at 10:23pm last night, and I disembarked only to be greeted by temperatures in the range of 15 below zero.
That's Fahrenheit, by the way.
When I left for Seattle on Wednesday, it was 60 degrees and sunny. Where is all this so-called global warming everyone's talking about? Not in Denver, that's for sure. Or most of the U.S., either.
Fortunately, the Tour is playing the Nissan Open today. ABC is airing three hours of coverage starting at 3pm Eastern. Rori Sabbatini shot 6-under yesterday to take the lead. A much fitter Tom Lehman (who's dropped 25 pounds!) is currently tied with Trevor Immelman for second, three shots back. After making the cut, Tiger Woods has withdrawn due to illness. Apparently, several players are battling the flu this week—hopefully they'll return to full health soon.
We are in the process of updating our course search functionality, and adding a new Pro Shop section for discounts and deals on a wide range of golf products. Check back soon for more info...
2/14/2006 12:21:15 PM
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 Review for Playstation2 by EA Sports
As I'm sure our east-coast friends will appreciate, another day of ungolfable weather led to frustration, so I went out and bought this game to help take my mind off the weather and feed my need for golf.
After launching the game, I selected the Play Now function and played a round at Pebble Beach as Tiger. After figuring out how the controls worked, I found that playing as his character made the difficult course seem easy enough to shoot a couple under par. Then I tried playing my own character, to quite the opposite effect.
The game let's you customize almost everything about your character - the standard skin tone, muscle tone, body shape, hair, and clothes options, as well as swing shape, stance and a variety of other golf-specific options. After setting my guy up, it was time to play!
One of the issues I have with golf games is that I'm fairly long with my clubs which, when coupled with the default game settings often makes picking a club a difficult exercise. That held true with this game, and I quickly got frustrated with only being able to hit drives 240 yards. However, as I progressed through the variety of challenges and game modes, I was able to up my stats and eventually got to comparable yardages from my real game.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006
offers a huge selection of courses and game types to play. You can play the Tour events, have skills challenges, choose from skins/Stableford/match play events, as well as the option to travel back in time and play in several historic eras - a nice touch. I've completed the historic era challenges and matches, and even bested Old Tom Morris at St. Andrews with a 65. I think I'll get to play Palmer, Nicklaus, Hogan, Snead and other recent greats in the next era, which I'm looking forward to.
EA has produced a great game, with good replay value and a ton of options. Definitely a must-get for the gamers out there.
2/12/2006 10:22:10 PM
Arron Oberholser enjoyed a peaceful walk up the 18th at Pebble Beach as he coasted to a five-shot victory over Rory Sabbatini... Mike Weir had a terrible 6-over day to fall back to fourth. Weir went OB on the second, and was five shots behind by the close of the third. It was a great personal victory for Oberholser, after going into the final round two years ago at Pebble, only to watch Vijay Singh walk away from him to the win.
Family of a friend, Joe Ogilvie, played solidly through the week to finish tied for fourteenth - go Joe!!
The Tour picks up again Thursday at Riviera for the Nissan Open. USA Network is airing coverage Thursday at noon Eastern and Friday at 3pm Eastern, with ABC airing coverage on the weekend starting at 3pm Eastern Saturday and 3:30pm Eastern Sunday.
2/11/2006 9:51:45 PM
Saturday at Pebble Beach! What a historically great day for watching golf. The weather returned to warm sunshine after Friday's bitter cold and fog, and Monterrey beamed its beauty through the air.
Arron Oberholser and Mike Weir share the lead at -17, six shots ahead of third. Fan favorite Bill Murray was changing hats on nearly every hole, laughing it up with the crowds as he and longtime playing partner Scott Simpson shot 19 under to miss the Sunday cut, by one shot. Murray did have an ace in the amateur shootout a few days before, so hopefully that alleviated some of the disappointment. The PGA Tour's site has a great story on Murray's day here
2/10/2006 10:10:29 PM
The weather is cooperating, for a delightful change, at Pebble Beach this week, with Luke Donald taking and holding the lead at one under—after holing out for eagle from 96 yards and maintianing the lead at 10-under (matching Mickelson's course record 62) to hold a one-shot lead over Mike Weir heading into Friday's round.
The weather at Pebble was/is as close to perfect as memory permits... full recap of today's round is available at the pgatour.com website at pgatour.com
In other news, look for us at the Denver Golf Expo this weekend!
2/7/2006 11:05:29 AM
This week is the fan-favorite AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, where historically big hitters have finished quite well. Fans also enjoy the star gazing, and Bill Murray always has some prank up his sleeve. A few years back he stopped by an ice cream cart on one of the fairways, pulled out a three-foot long salmon and tossed it into the gallery!
While it J.B. Holmes isn't listed as entered, we'll get the chance to see if Bubba Watson can improve on his mediocre performance at the Sony Open. Camilo Villegas, Steve Bowditch and Robert Garrigus are among other top 10 drivers that are scheduled to play along with the usual suspects.
Coverage begins Thursday on USA, with CBS handling the weekend shows.
2/6/2006 8:23:26 AM
Super Sunday!! J.B. Holmes made the turn at one under, but by the time he left the 15th, he had a five shot lead and eventually won the tournament by seven strokes. He hit a 254 yard four iron pin high onto the penninsula-shaped 15th green, and made the twelve footer for eagle. When Ryan Palmer three putted to a triple bogey eight, Holmes got to experience the upside of a five-shot swing. There's something you don't see every day.
Of course, Holmes' play isn't something you see every day either... or at least it used to be that way. The new guard has arrived on tour, much in the way Tiger's debut made such an impact, the new generation is stepping it up another notch. Witness Bubba Watson's long bombs, and now J.B. Holmes is showing everyone the way.
And Holmes is straight, too. On Sunday, he only had five holes with drives less than 300 yards - and four of those were par threes. He walked to the 18th tee with a seven shot lead, with Ken Venturi's voice crackling in disbelief as he described Holmes' play. The tee shot on 18 plays over water, with a bunkered landing area. At 320 yards to clear the bunkers, most mortal players hit out to the right a bit, leaving an iron into the green. Not J.B. Holmes. He casually hits a screamingly straight drive over the water, over the bunkers, finally landing 34 yards past them... in the middle of the fairway. A wedge and two putts brought him home at 21 under, winning his fourth PGA tournament entry.
As McCord said, "This is a young man's game." And Tiger's getting older now (although he's still young enough to
beat Ernie Els to win the Dubai)... can't wait to see him go up against the new paradigm, and maybe taste a bit of the medicine he handed out ten years ago. ;)
2/4/2006 6:37:03 PM
What up, Holmes?? After J.J. Henry's disappointing one-under followup to yesterdays stellar 61, J.B. Holmes shot six-under to take the lead heading into Sunday. Holmes was an SEC champion and Walker Cup player who went through the entire Q-school to get his card and is putting it to great use in Scottsdale this week.
Notables Justin Leonard, David Toms, yellow-pants-wearing Columbian sensation Camilo Villegas, join Wilson, Verplank, Byrd and Lowery to round out the top ten heading in to tomorrows final round.
Nearly 170,000 attendees today alone, with tomorrow's numbers expected to break 180k - on SuperBowl Sunday, no less. (To put that in perspective, only about 68,000 will actually be attending Superbowl XL.) So settle in for an afternoon of televised competition—the FBR is scheduled to conclude when the Superbowl begins—you don't have to miss a moment!!
Oh, and as if that wasn't enough excitement for ya, Tiger shot his way back into a tie for the lead at the Dubai today as well... watch final round coverage at 7am ET tomorrow on The Golf Channel.
2/2/2006 5:55:48 AM
A couple great tournaments start today - the PGA Tour is playing the FBR Open at the TPC of Scottsdale, Arizona, and the PGA European Tour is playing the Dubai Desert Classic.
Phil Mickelson heads the field at the TPC of Scottsdale— the "Home of the Loudest Hole in Golf," the par three sixteenth. Every year Scottsdale sets the record for highest attendance with over 168,000 last year... 54,000 people showed up yesterday for the pro-am. If you haven't witnessed the crowds roar on the sixteenth, it's like watching golfers play in a stadium—20-30,000 people surround the green and cheer every shot. Coverage starts on USA Thursday/Friday 4pm ET; CBS has weekend coverage starting at 3pm ET.
After a 20-hour flight from San Diego to the Persian Gulf, Tiger is playing in Dubai this week, going for his third win as Ernie Els tries to defend. They'll be battling number three-ranked Retief Goosen, along with Colin Montgomerie, David Howell, Henrik Stenson and Darren Clarke on the Majlis Course, which has been stretched to 7,264 yards. The Golf Channel has live coverage at 9am ET, with replays in the evenings.
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