We had a Srixon ball fitting day at the club on Tuesday in which many members came along to utilise the services of the technical representative from Srixon.
After hitting half a dozen shots in the studio with the ball they usually use and looking at the results of carry, spin, trajectory and efficiency on the launch monitor, they then hit drives with a recommended Srixon ball. The main element dictating the choice was the speed they managed to get the ball launching at – each of the Srixon options is engineered to suit a particular speed. The most popular balls on the day were the AD333 Tour which is suited to 80 – 100 mph swings requiring more short game control, and the Soft Feel which is suited to 70 – 80 mph swings needing straighter shots and more distance.
One of the participants was the newly crowned Seniors Club Champion, John Murdoch, who won with a nett 64 on Sunday making him the first winner of this new title. Well done John.
Srixon have an amazing deal on at the moment – buy 3 dozen balls with either a logo or lettering on them and receive a 4th dozen FREE OF CHARGE PLUS there is no set-up charge for the logo! Other promotions have involved simply lettering on the ball but Srixon will put any logo on as well. This applies to every ball in the range – Distance, Soft Feel, AD333, AD333 Tour, Z-Star, Z-Star XV. The promotion is on until the end of June so get your company logo or personalised message to us and we can get a proof back from Srixon for you.
Thanks to Anthony Dell for running the Tuesday social while I was away. Ian Carlton won with 23 points last week which is the best score so far this year. This week the scoring was tougher with 19 points being the winning score, which I witnessed playing with Daz ‘oh look I’ve holed another 30 footer’ Poole.
Daz Poole 19 £15
Nigel Metcalfe 18 £12
Matt Wilkes 17 £10
Kevin Hunt 17 £8
Steve Witton 16 £6
Gary Murphy 16 £5
The Stewart Staples Wonky Wedge has a new leader, Neil Johnson scored 17 points using it this week.
Next week's Tuesday Social is slightly different. You can bring a guest to play 9 holes FREE OF CHARGE as part of National Golf Month and they can play in the event to win a special guests prize. They just have to pay the usual £2 entry fee but the green fee is FREE. PLUS instead of tee off being from 3-6pm, the social golf will run all day next Tuesday so if you would like to play the other 9 holes your guest would just need to pay a 9 holes £10 green fee. The format is 7/8ths handicap played off your relevant tees, stableford and all the money gets paid out in shop vouchers.
The golf course looks greener than before I went to Sawgrass but the growth on the greens is still slow for the time of year due to the colder temperatures. Andy said they mowed the greens on Monday and didn’t even fill a bucket with the cuttings. Our greens are the same speed as Sawgrass though and it was strange coming back and not having to read the grain on them.
Out in Florida the bermuda grass is so strong that the direction that the grass is growing has a huge effect on the ball. When putting against the direction of the grass, it appears a darker green and you can hear the ball scuffing against the grain and the putts can be really slow, even downhill. When putting with the direction of the grass, they look lighter green and the ball will roll out much more. A putt into the grain might go 10 feet and the same strength putt down grain might go twice as far!
Where it gets tricky is when you have a left to right putt because of the slope and the grain is going the opposite way and you have to convince yourself it’s going to turn uphill, or when you have a putt that’s really slow uphill into the grain and then gets over a ridge and goes downhill and down grain to finish.
The other way to tell is to look at the hole because by 11am the direction shows up at the hole-side. You can see the grass growing away from the edge – it looks as if lots of people have caught the cup whilst putting the flag back and damaged the hole but it’s the grass pulling away from it. You know it’s not caused by golfers with flagsticks as each group has a Forecaddie – a caddie who runs ahead to find your balls and get you round the course quicker (although it still took us 6 hours for one round!). We had the same Forecaddie, Scottie, each of the three rounds as he asked if he could join us again. Sawgrass is a public course even thought it’s $400 green fee and anyone can play and he said lots of people try to play off the back tees at 7,500 yards. We were quite honoured as he was working there part time, his main job currently and for the past 6 years has been as caddie for PGA Tour player Billy Mayfair and before that, Rocco Mediate. He’s hoping for a ‘life-changing’ bag next as he knows Jim Furyk, who lives at Sawgrass, and whose long time caddie, ‘Fluff McGowan’, is retiring next year and they’ve spoken about Scottie taking over. With caddies on tour getting up to 10% of the winnings and a wage as well, Jim could have a poor year for him and still earn his caddie a fortune. Fingers crossed for him.
While on the topic of Sawgrass, take a look at the pictures here that show their Hall of Fame.
The winner of that year's championship leaves behind a club to be put on display, along with a plaque that commemorates their win. . This stretches from the present day as far back as the 70's and has some of the greats like Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino on show.
A really nice commemoration to some of golf's great players. It's also interesting to see just how much some of the clubs have been worn out!
Those of you using Game Golf could see that I took a 9 on the last hole at King & Bear Golf Club, designed by Nickalus and Palmer. Part of the reason was that I hooked my tee shot on the par 5 into the trees which was designated as a hazard. I went in through a gap and found my ball 8 feet into the trees, picked it up and turned round to go back through the gap and there was a snake curled up with it’s head sticking up exactly where I’d just stepped! Not a nice realisation to have nearly stepped on a snake in your shorts and not a good day to wear white shorts either as I found a different route out the trees!! Probably harmless I thought but talking to Scottie the next day it turned out to be a pygmy rattlesnake, not with strong enough venom to kill an adult but enough to put me out for a couple of days! That was a close one.
Mother Nature made up for it though as we played the 4th at Sawgrass whilst Bald eagles were continuously flying overhead - what a spectacle for us and the turtles.
