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Who has the Honour?

Who has the Honour? That seems like a simple question: We all know that it’s the lowest score – but when you’re playing with handicaps, is it the lowest gross score, or lowest net score?

We were just asked that question, and thought it was good enough to share the answer with everyone.

The answer can be found in the Rules of Golf – Rule 10, specifically:

In Match Play the honour goes to whomever won the hole. If you’re playing with handicaps, then it’s based on net score. If you’re playing without, then it’s based on gross score.

In Stroke/Medal Play the honor always goes to the lowest gross score, even when you’re playing with handicaps.

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They’re even better than you thought

Kip HenleyUnderstanding how good the pros really are is best illustrated by the story of Kip Henley

All Kip Henley ever wanted was to be a tour player. His obsession began at age 5 when his mother, who worked folding boxes at the Arnold Palmer company in Chattanooga, provided her young son with a cut-off set of Arnold Palmer signature clubs.

Kip gave up his amateur status in 1982, trying tour school. No one tried harder and got less out of it than ol’ Kipper,” he said. “I paid a fortune in Q-School fees for probably 12 years.” After running out of funds, he turned to the life of a club pro and became a Class A PGA professional.

He has maintained his Class A standing with the PGA of America for years. Over the past 5 years, he made the transition to caddying for Tour Pro Brian Gay (that’s Kip in the white jumpsuit with Brian at the Masters) . Kipy Henley Caddy In fact, Kip picked up $100,000 a couple of years ago when Gay won the FedEx/St. Jude Classic in Memphis.

Last fall, for reasons he still doesn’t understand, Kip Henley played in and won the Tennessee PGA Section championship, “even though I hadn’t broken par all year.” Talk about the blind squirrel finding a nut. “I shot 10 under for 54 holes,” Henley said. “Like I said, a miracle. I stood on the 16th hole in the final round and made birdie on 16, 17 and 18, with my hands shaking.” Continue reading “They’re even better than you thought”

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North Korea has its first ever golf tournament

This April North Korea held it’s first ever amateur golf tournament (for foreigners only). The organizers were swamped with applications from Korea, Japan, and the US. Over 200 golfers applied for 30 spots in the tournament.

The tournament was be held at the Pyongyang Golf Complex (18-hole par 72), the only course in the country open to North Koreans. British businessman Richard Shears was one of the players. He writes about his experience:

When the day came for the golf tournament, fortified by a breakfast of pickled cabbage and sauteed pork, we set out in groups for the first tee. There, we were amazed to find we’d been provided with a number of attractive young Korean women dressed in formal blue and white uniforms who would serve as our caddies.

The fairways were like light rough and extremely narrow. By the end of the day, I had been left way down the field – in spite of the attempts by my caddy, Miss Nim, to suggest in her very limited English what club I should use on each hole.
And as I missed each easy putt, she smiled sweetly and clapped politely.
Continue reading “North Korea has its first ever golf tournament”

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Golf Dreams in the Slums of Mumbai

If you are looking for a little inspiration, watch the video below which tells unique story of caddie Anil Mane and his dream to someday become a pro golfer. Narrated by his sponsor, venture capitalist Ashish Kacholia, the video captures the dichotomy between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ in modern India. A putter made from rebar? Amazing.

If you liked the documentary, you’ll enjoy this photo essay of golfers in the mumbai slums by Tomasz Gudzowaty, which served as the inspiration for the video. Our thanks to our friends at 72strokes.com for turning us on to this video.

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Great Swings: Ben Hogan

Any swing series wouldn’t be “great” without a tribute to Ben Hogan.

Hogan is credited with the modern swing, and is most recognized as having been the greatest ball striker ever to have played golf . His swing introducing both technical precision and athletic prowess, and is summarized in his book Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf, one of the most widely read golf tutorial ever written.

 

 

What does being the best ball striker ever actually mean? It means that in one of his more famous tournaments he hit 139 out of 141 with good to perfect execution. He had such mastery over his swing that many people began looking for his “secret”. One major theory had to do with his right knee – and how it was used to keep his swing “automatic”. This was something Hogan stressed in his book and lessons – including the video above.

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Great Swings: Seve Ballesteros

We’ve received a lot of feedback from our members about adding in more content to help improve their games. We’ll be doing just that, starting with a series of posts that highlight the swings of great professional golfers.

We’ll be starting out with a golfer who the London Times said “brought passion and risk to golf” and whom a fellow pga tour pro described as “playing golf shots I don’t even see in my dreams” – the late Seve Ballesteros.

Seve joined the tour in 1974 at age 16, and won 91 tournaments (including 50 on the European Tour) over the next 33 years. He was known for his shot-making flair, with an expert sense of feel and extreme hand control that let him shape and finesse shots that amazed the crowd and his competitors.

 

 

A great summary of his swing style is found in his obituary that ran in the Economist magazine

Luck, said some. Miraculous said others, as they sighed at his soft blasts out of bunkers on to the green, or the fluid grace of his swing. Commentators talked of natural genius, as though he was still a seven-year old whacking a pebble with a homemade club on a beach in Cambria. His impoverished family put it down to destino. Such talk annoyed him. It was all hard graft and iron discipline: hitting a ball, alone, for hours. It started in boyhood, putting into tomato cans on a bumpy two-hole piece of field on his parents’ farm, or driving into a fishing net hung in the barn. He reckoned he had hit 1,000 balls a day. Because he had only one club, a 3-iron, he learned how to do everything with it: low, powerful shots, high soft-landing shots and impossible recovery shots out of long, tangled grass. He could improvise his way out of anything.

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The 25 Cent Putting Lesson

For those of you who follow our blog, one of our guest posters is Shawn Augustson, a student at the College of Golf and writes the blog Golf with Shawn and has shared with us some of his recent lessons.

One of our favorites of his recent articles is The 25 Cent Putting Lesson, a tip he learned while working with Class A LPGA Tour Professional Donna White. We’re reposted it for you below:


I made a little image so you can view this drill, it’s not to scale but gives you an idea of what I am talking about. Donna had me place a quarter on the green, and then I put my ball on top of the quarter (later on, I moved the quarter above the ball just as a reminder to look for it).
Improve your Putting
The red lines in the diagram are for distance. So If I bring my club back two positions, I then need to take it forward five positions on the follow through.

After impact with my ball I need to look for the quarter and hold the follow through position, not immediately look up for the ball. When I see the quarter, then I can turn my head slightly and use my eyes to watch the ball roll into the cup.

To get my rhythm, I slightly hover the club (not ground it) behind the ball and count one. My backswing is a count of two and my forward swing is a three count. So when I putt, in my head I am “One, Two, Three”.

Beginners will see marked improvements in their putting, and experienced golfers will recognize the important fundamentals in this lessons. We would expect everyone to benefit from putting it into practice.

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How do you compare to the best?

MyScorecard’s You versus the Pros performance report offers you the ability to compare your skill against your favorite PGA and LPGA professional.

But how good do you have to be to graduate from Q-School?

We’ve run the numbers for the 2010 PGA and LPGA tour season in terms of 3 of the most often tracked statistics: Driving Distance, Greens in Regulation, and Putting.

Driving Distance

Averaging 315+ yards per drive, Robert Garrigus is far and away the longest driver on the PGA tour, with Bubba Watson leading the rest of the pack. But do you have to be a 300+ yard driver to be on the Men’s Tour? Not quite so. The vast majority of PGA tour players drive between 280 and 300 yards – but you’d better be at least 275 or longer if you want to play on the tour.
Top and Average Driving Distance for PGA Tour Pros

Greens in Regulation (GIR)

In contrast to the Men’s tour, it is the LPGA pros that lead in GIR accuracy. Continue reading “How do you compare to the best?”

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Golf Around the World

One of our goals for 2011 is to bring you relevant and interesting posts about the handicap, improving your game, and the world of golf around you.

To start the year off, we are launching a new series Golf Around the World by our contributor M.S. Greene highlighting some of the more interesting courses you may not know about.

We’ll be producing a Scorecard as well – if you’ve played more than a quarter of these courses, you should consider yourself a true explorer of the golf world!

If you are an amateur golf blogger and have an interest in posting to our blog, send us an email with a link to your work. We’re always looking for posts that will help enlighten and entertain our members.

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Member Tournaments – Turkey Shoot Out

Thanksgiving Tournament
We’re glad to bring you another tournament created by the West Puget Sound Men’s Club, a club that uses MyScorecard to help make their rounds more enjoyable and fun. We appreciate their sharing their format with us.

In the turkey shoot out, each player will be allowed to “shoot” FOUR turkey holes as they occur on the course. Dead turkeys are replaced by a par score. Fire your shotgun shells early or save them for the end. You choose (some years the club plays that anything hire than a triple-bogey necessitates the use of a shotgun shell).

At the end, you will subtract a specific number of additional strokes (from chart below) and one-half stroke for every unused “shotgun shell”. (Higher handicappers will receive more after-round strokes to compensate for their reduced ammunition.). 1st and 2nd place receive a price. Continue reading “Member Tournaments – Turkey Shoot Out”