Just when you think Society is bad enough...

Opened up the front page of Yahoo! just a minute ago, and I saw a headline that caught my eye. It said "Swiss voters approve pioneering legal heroin program." I assumed that there was some sort of catch; but upon further review, it's true.

68% of voters approved a program that gives addicts government-authorized heroin. At the same time, they struck down a proposal to legalize marijuana. Now, I'm not advocating marijuana should be legal anywhere, but I don't understand how an entire country can approve legalizing a drug that kills millions of people each year, and at the same time illegalize a drug that causes zero deaths. How can people be so stupid?

The heroin program is supposed to reduce crime and improve the daily lives of addicts while making them healthier. It only improves their daily lives cuz they get their fix whenever they want. I don't see any possible way that this would make addicts healthier. It just puts them on track to overdosing even faster. Let's wait and see how long it takes for heroin deaths in their country to sky-rocket.

And of course it reduces crime, that's such a cop out. That's like legalizing terrorism so we don't have to fight terrorists anymore. Making something legal doesn't mean it's going to fix all the problems we were having with it. This is government trying to sweep its' heroin problem under the rug when they should be enforcing strict laws to stop the use of heroin. Even our own country is slowly making marijuana penalties smaller and smaller. Depending on the amount someone is caught with, the person could get off with a small ticket. The way I see it, you are in possession of something illegal, shouldn't you be in jail? I don't care how small the amount is, it's illegal, it's your problem you have it, now you suffer the consequences. Yet for some reason the goverment is deciding to reduce the consequences while they sit back and advocate that drugs are bad. I don't know about you, but I'm getting mixed signals here...

Further down in the article, they talk to a citizen who voted in favor of this program. This guy is a probably one of those addicts who can now get his fix legally. He said, "I think it's very important to help these people, but not to facilitate the using of drugs. You can just see in the Netherlands how it's going. People just go there to smoke." So by admitting that these people need help, he acknowledges that they have a problem. What is the problem? Heroin. So the solution is...? Give them more heroin.... PERFECT! Why didn't I think of that??? And isn't legalizing heroin "facilitating the using of drugs?" What a joke. And to make things even funnier, he brought up the Netherlands, aka Amsterdam, and their smoking problem. Well congrats Mr. Heroin Addict, you helped make sure that people don't come in to smoke Marijuana, but now everyone will come to your country just to do some heroin.

Am I the only person who thinks this is outrageous?

Full Swing Lesson

After Rules class today, I went in for my first full-swing lesson from Brian Hughes. I asked him to save some of the videos onto my flash drive so I could study them here at home and show people what I'm working on. The first video is a Target Line view of my original swing. My shoulders and feet should be pointing to the same spot parallel left of my intended target. My shoulders are pointed to the right of the my feet, so that is why I play a push draw. Push draws start out right of the target and turn right to left back towards the target. This is the most popular ball flight amongst the Pros. Also, my knees aren't flexed enough, and my lower body doesn't turn as much as it should because of this lack of knee flex.

In this video, it's the same swing as the first video, just from the Face-On view. This one is really evident of where my mistakes are coming from. I'm leaning wayyyy too far behind the ball, and that causes my hips to move laterally instead around my body. So the first thing Brian had me correct was that lean away from the ball.

This is so much better now that Brian put me in the right position. I'm a lot more "on top of the ball" instead of being so far behind it. Also, it put my hips in a much better position to turn around my body and produce more power (insert Tim Allen grunt here). Also, by getting more on top of the ball, it allowed my shoulders to return to parallel with my feet, causing me to swing on a much more square path. Another thing he had me work on was making a full turn through the ball. Before, I was basically quitting on the shot once I hit the ball, and that made my finish very up-right with the clubface open. So in these two videos he's having me focus on turning all the way through to the finish, and that allowed me to make a full turn and close the clubface, making it easier for me to move the ball from right to left.

This is the Target Line view of the previous swing. You can see my shoulders are parallel with my feet, and I'm making a much fuller turn through the ball and to the finish.

Short Game Skills Evaluation #2

Today was the first day of the second Short Game Skills Evaluation. We had the lag putting, short putting, and chipping portions today, just like the first time we went through this. My partner Petey and I decided to change things up and do the putting portion first (we did the chipping first last time). So we started at the lag putting circle. 2 Attempts at 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 ft putts, and they have to be inside a 9 ft. circle or else you lose 1 pt. My first putt from 20 ft was one revolution short of going in, so it was a good start. The second putt from 20 ft went in. So a VERY good start. First putt from 30 ft was again one revolution short of going in. The second putt DID go in. So I made 2 and missed the other 2 by 2 revolutions. The rest were all inside 3 ft. So I completely dominated the lag putting. Then we moved on to the left to right and right to left breaking short putts (see awesome illustrations further down in the blog for reference). I made a bunch of putts, and you only get points if you make them. So once we moved on to the chipping portion, I already had 35 pts for the evaluation (I ended up with 57 TOTAL in the first evaluation). The chipping was awesome as well. I made 2 chips from 30 ft and put the other 3 inside the circle. On the 60 ft chip, I put all 5 inside the circle. So when the first half of the evaluation was all said and done today, I walked away with 50 pts. Yes, you read correctly, 50 pts. My partner Petey was the winner of the semester-long Order of Merit race, he had 400 pts or something around that. I only had 76 for the semester. He ended up with 34 pts after today's eval, so I was pretty happy I just smoked the best golfer in the school this semester. After the evaluation, we had to high-tail it back to school in time for fundamentals class, and I was the last one to make it back into class, and when I sat down everyone asked how many points I got at the evaluation. I said 50, and the room just went silent. Pretty much everyyone said in unison "FIFTY??" The second highest total was 39. HAHA. So I enjoyed that moment in the sun. So the week we get back from Thanksgiving will be the bunker and pitch shots portion of the evaluation, and that's the part that I did the best the first time, so I'm looking forward to improving on my score from last time.

I have a lesson tomorrow morning after Rules class, and then we have the priviledge of going to a presentation from one of Golf Digest's Top 100 teachers. I guess he's been trying to come to the school for a while but he usually comes into town on weekends and the school doesn't want him in here on weekends, so he made it down here on a Friday so we can listen. It's voluntary, but I can't imagine why people wouldn't wanna go and listen to what he has to say. I signed up today, and the list of people going is so small. So I'm excited to attend that.

Stroke Play Championship

Yesterday and today was the Stroke Play Championship tournament, 36 holes over two days. Yesterday was a little on the chilly side, the temp never reached 60. I played a course called Wild Wing Golf Plantation, and I'd never played there before yesterday, so I didn't know what to expect. I played pretty bad starting out, played well through the middle, and played pretty bad at the end. I shot 89, but the leader only shot 82, so I still had a shot going into the second round today.

Today, I played Man O' War Golf Club, definitely one of my favorites in the rotation. It's the same course where I played my Match Play Qualifier back in September. So I said the tournament two weeks ago in the mini tropical storm was the hardest conditions I've played in, but today trumped that day. Today the temp never reached 50, and the wind howled and howled the entire day. When I left for the course, weather.com said it was 43 and it felt like 35. When I got home, weather.com said it was 41 and felt like 34. So I was freezing cold the entire round. Once again, I started out pretty bad, played decent through the middle, but played pretty well on the entire back nine. I was making most of my short putts, I even had a 15 foot birdie putt do a 360 degree lip out, I couldn't believe it when the ball came out. My short game was definitely the strongest part of my round. I shot 86, and my target score going into today's round was 85 because I thought with the conditions as bad as they were that an 85 would be right around the lowest of the day. I was wrong, someone shot an 80, but only a few others beat 85. So once all the scores came in, I ended up in 7th place, and I won 20 bucks. So I'm happy.

We have our second short game skills evaluation this week, and I'm looking to improve on my score from the first time. After seeing my short game do so well today, I'm expecting to do better. When I went bowling last Friday night, one of the kids who was with us is someone who I'd never talked to even though he's in my classes. He put his arm around me (partly because he was a little intoxicated) and said "Andrew, you and me, we're gonna be the valedictorians of our class." I guess he's overheard the teachers telling me my grades. I thought that was a pretty cool comment, and I must admit, after high school, I never thought I'd be valedictorian of anything, but if I keep my grades where they are right now, that would be pretty easy to do. I can't believe there's only 3 more weeks till the semester is over...

Golf Clinic #3

Today was the third installment of our golf clinics with the third-semester students at the driving range for golf fundamentals class. The focus was on our positions in our backswing. So they were looking at where the club was halfway back and at the top. I wasn't hitting the ball very well at the start of the clinic, and the student who I was paired with asked what my handicap was. I told him it was a 10 (in october it was 8.2, but in november it dropped to a 10, no biggie). So he tried giving me a few pointers to help me out, and then he had to leave early to go set up another clinic. There were some third semester students who didn't get paired with anyone because some of my class didn't show up, so another student stepped in to help me out. I met this kid when I came down here in July, so we just talked for a little bit about my swing. He asked me my handicap, and I told him it was 10, and the third semester student giving a lesson at the spot next to me stopped his lesson and came over to my area. He was like "You are not a 10 hdcp." I didn't know if he was joking, mad, serious or what, but I told him that I was indeed a 10. He said he'd been watching me swing the whole time and that I'm better than a 10 hdcp. He threw a ball at my feet and told me to hit it. So I had 2 third semester kids and another first semester kid standing behind me watching me hit this ball. I hit a beautiful high draw. The kid looked at me and again told me I'm not a 10 hdcp. He proceeded to tell me I'm sandbagging for gift cards, order of merit points, etc., but I kept telling him I'm really a 10 and that I'm not purposely bringing my handicap to such a poor level. His comments didn't make mad, on the contrary, it was a huge compliment to hear him tell me I'm a lot better than a 10 hdcp. So the two third semester kids told me to hit a ball at one of the targets. I lined up my shot and hit another perfect, high draw right at the target. Both third semester kids called over the two PGA pro's who were supervising the clinic. So now I have 5 people standing behind me watching me hit balls. The pros walked over, one of them is the same one who I played with earlier in the year, and the kids told them that I was a 10 hdcp and to watch me swing. I hit another flushed 6 iron right at the target again. The pro looked at me and was like "what's the problem?" So I told him that my miss has been to hit my shots a little thin. He had me hit another one, and he got a different view of my swing, and again, I hit a perfect shot. The third semester kids were just laughing in disbelief that I'm really a 10 hdcp. So the pro took note that my stance was a little wide, and that I have a little slide forward with my hips that could cause me to get ahead of the ball and hit it thin. So he had me put my feet together and hit some more shots to see if I could stay in balance. That worked, and then he had me take my normal stance and then move my feet a little closer together. So I hit some more shots and they all turned out really great. The pros walked off and I continued to talk with the two third semester kids. The one who started this whole fiasco told me he really enjoyed watching my swing. Again, that's a huge compliment. The kid who was actually supposed to be "teaching" me told me to schedule lessons with the pro who came over and gave me the pointers. All the third and fourth semester guys use him and he's supposed to be really helpful. So the clinic ended and I was walking back to my car and the kid who enjoyed watching me swing ran and caught up to me just to shake my hand and introduce himself. So even though my hdcp is a 10, I'm not in panic mode and worried about if I'm ever gonna get better. I know I have what it takes, it's just a matter of becoming consistent. I still have 3 more semesters to figure things out, and now I have another pro who knows my swing and I'll be getting some lessons from him in the future.

Gotta get this off my chest

I know you've heard just about as much as you can take about the Election. But since I have my own blog, I'm going to put in my two cents.

Disclaimer: These are the reasons for my decision not to vote. I am not trying to force these issues on any reader.

I've told everyone that asks me that I'm not voting this year. I've received much grief and criticism, but thankfully I'm stubborn and don't care what people think about what I say, believe or think. Just because we have the right to vote doesn't mean that we have to exercise that right. We have the right to bear arms yet I don't hear anyone yelling at me for not owning a gun. "Oh but our troops are fighting overseas so you can vote! You're a bad American!" Well guess what? They're also fighting for our right to own a firearm, our right to a fair and speedy trial. I'm not implying I don't support our troops in their efforts abroad, I do support them and I admire them for being able to put themselves in harms way for the good of our country, no matter where they are or the basis of why they're there.

"If you don't vote, you have no room to complain." I want to punch everyone in the face who has ever told me that. Why should Obama supporters get to complain when Obama starts turning our country on the path towards socialism? Why should McCain supporters get to complain when he digs the country an even deeper economic hole? Why shouldn't those who stood against these candidates get to complain? Politics is such a dirty, corrupt monster and I'm sick of hearing about all the lobbyists and "pork-belly earmarks" and scandals going on in Washington. Neither of the candidates will change the corruption.

"Vote for the lesser of two evils." Why vote for any evil? How can someone willingly vote for an "evil?" The two-party system is dead, and we as a country need to do something about it. Supporting a candidate who you feel is going to hurt this country is not the answer.

There's a lot of talk from Obama about our national debt being doubled since Bush took office. Has anyone taken into account that Bush had a war to fund? I don't remember Bill Clinton having wars to fund to take money away from the taxpayers. I know there was a little thing in the Balkans but that's nothing compared to what's going on in Afghanistan. Say what you will about how we shouldn't even be in Iraq so funding that was wrong, but going into Iraq was the right move, weapons of mass destruction or not. So shut up already Barack! Let's see how much money you spend when you let the terrorists attack our country again, because I don't hear you preaching about what you'll do about protecting our country. Ok, I think I'm done venting about this laughing-stock of an election.

Tournament in the Wind and Rain

Today we had our own mini tropical storm blow through just in time to have to play tournament golf. It was windy, and it was pouring rain. The temp was around 60, and the rain was coming down sideways. Definitely the hardest conditions I've had to play in yet, but I somehow persevered and tied for 7th. Due to the conditions, everyone played only 9 holes. I shot 42, and the leader, in my tour, shot 39. Even though my putting was horrendous, I'm still happy with the way I played in such hard conditions, and I'm happy I got more prize money. I played with some pretty cool fourth semester kids who kept me laughing the entire time. One of them was this big burly southern kid with a big southern drawl, and he was having a horrible day playing. He hit his tee shot so bad on two occasions that they didn't even leave the tee box. It was that kind of day for him, but he was just laughing about it and making jokes about how bad he was, it was a good time. I think he kept me from getting too upset with the way I was putting, cuz we'd walk off the green and get to the next tee and he'd already have me laughing with something he said, so I never had time to get mad at myself. Here's hoping I win more prize money next week...

36-hole Tournament

Today was the second day of the Playing Abilities Test. It was 36 holes over 2 days, and we had to shoot 156 or better for the two days. My Tour was assigned the hardest course of our rotation, and the conditions didn't make it any easier. Monday was about 65 degrees and windy. Today was 55 degrees with a constant 30 mile an hour wind. So it was cold and brutal to play golf in. I played pretty bad in all facets of my game yesterday and shot 89. The lowest score was 79, so that's an indication how hard it was to play. So after Day 1 I was in 20th out of 35 golfers. Today was just not fun to play in. Most of the holes were either straight into the wind or straight across the wind, never downwind. I focused on keeping the ball low so it would penetrate through the wind, and I was able to do that for the most part. My putting was good at the start, but it deteriorated as the round went on. I shot 85 for a two-day total of 174. The lowest score today was only 83, so I played one of the best rounds. So the final standings for the tournament have me in a tie for 9th. I passed 11 people today, so I'm pretty happy about that. I played with 3 kids who are in their fourth semester here at school, and they were all really cool to play with. One of them didn't say a word to me until our 15th hole. It was a 150 yd par 3 over water with the wind straight into our face. The first 3 guys hit their shots and they were all short of the green, and I stepped up and just hit a smooth 7 iron low enough to get through the wind and it landed on the middle part of the green. I picked up my tee and as I was walking off the tee box the kid who hadn't said anything to me said "You're gonna be really good when you graduate." I was so shocked he even said anything to me I just kinda stumbled and said thanks. But I'm really stoked about all the compliments I'm getting about my swing/golf game from everyone. So even though I'm not playing my best golf, I'm confident that things will start clicking. So even though today was extremely cold and windy, my group had a blast playing with each other. My riding partner was always complimenting me on my shots or the putts that I made. Most of the people I play with act like you don't exist and don't acknowledge a good shot or putt. So today was fun despite the conditions. Next week is just the standard 18 hole stroke play tournament, 1st place here I come.

I didn't get anything less than a 96 on all 6 mid-terms, so my grades are awesome, FYI.

Wow...

So today was the first tournament in our newly organized Tours. I was really excited to be playing with better competition compared to the other tournaments when I was in the lower Tour. So the best way to summarize my first 9 holes is with two words: Murphy's Law. Whatever could have gone wrong DID go wrong. My first 4 scores were 8-7-6-5. That's a grand total of 9 over par through 4 holes. Not good. The dumb kid who I was riding with kept trying to help me out and calm me down, even though I never lost my temper or hinted that I was going to, and I really wanted to punch him in the face. I never acknowledged anything he said to me regarding my game. I found out after the round that he got Disqualified, not sure why, and he shot 80! I was satisfied with that information. So I shot 48 on the front nine, 12 over par. NOT GOOD. On the tenth tee there was a considerable wait and my playing partners all decided to go inside and get a snack. I stayed behind and gave myself a good verbal beat-down. And it worked. I birdied 3 of my last 6 holes, including 2 putts of 35 feet. I shot 38 on the back nine, with a nice double-bogey 6 on the 18th. So I shot 86. It's one of those rounds where you look back on it and think of what could have been. If I shoot 40 on the front, which isn't asking too much, I shoot 78 and win my Tour. If I don't double-bogey the 18th, I shoot 84 and win 30 dollars in gift cards. But alas, I did not do any of those things, but to my surprise, I tied for 8th, and won some money after all. My first prize money as a golfer!! A random side-note, one of the kids I played with told us on the first tee that he is taking the PGA Playing Abilities Test next Monday. It's the test all golf professionals have to take and pass, and it's extremely difficult. It's a 36 hole tournament, and you have to shoot a total of 15 strokes over par or better for the two days to complete it. It's like the Bar Exam, because hardly anyone passes it on the first attempt. Well, he carded a 15 on the first hole and shot 94. That made me feel a little better about my round... Next Monday we have the Golf Academy Playing Abilities Test. They do this each semester so we get a feel for what the real Playing Abilities Test will be like. I'm excited to see how I do when I actually have a score ceiling going into the round that will determine if I suceed or fail.

Quick Update

Mid-terms have come and gone. Some were easier than others, but even the hardest wasn't too difficult. After all, it is a golf school :) The grading site the school uses has been encountering some problems this week so I don't know the exact grades yet, but hopefully it gets straightened out soon. I'd like to know where I stand.

I do, however, know how I did on the Short Game Skills Evaluation. I talked about this at the beginning of the semester as the only thing that brings everyone's grades down. Last Thursday was the Lag putting, Short putting, and chipping portion. We had 2 attempts at 20 foot putts, 30 ft, 40 ft, 50 ft, and 60 ft and the object was to get the ball within 6 ft of the hole or you lost 1 pt. The teacher had this portion set up on a downhill right to left part of the green, and I made an illustration of how it was setup below. If you made the putt, you got 3 pts, if you were inside the closest cirle, you got 2 pts, if you were inside the second closest circle you got 1 pt, and if you were inside the outter-most circle you got 0 pts. I got 12 pts total on this portion.

Once we finished the lag putting, my partner Pete and I moved on to the short putting challenge. We had 2 attempts at 3 footers, 6 footers, 9 footers, 12 footers, and 15 footers breaking both left to right and right to left. An illustration of this setup is below. For each putt we made, we received 2 pts, and if we missed we got 0 pts. This was the portion of the evaluation where it was a great chance to make up some pts you didn't get in other parts of the evalauation. I made 7 total and got 14 pts.

The chipping portion was on a seperate green out on the course, so once we finished the putting portions, we had to hike across the course to this unused green to start the chipping. I won't waste a drawing on this part, I know you're bummed cuz I'm such a great artist, but it was setup like the Lag Putting in terms of the circles around the hole. There were 2 holes setup on the green, one for the 60 foot chip and one of the 30 foot chip. The setup couldn't have played more into my favor because the green sloped back to front, which meant we were chipping straight uphill, which makes it easier to judge the speed once the ball got rolling, and my chipping style is to keep the ball low, and use a club that allows me to make the ball check, or spin, once it hits the green and then allow it release towards the hole. So I used my 9 iron on the 60 footer and put 4 of the 5 attempts inside 3 ft. Then on the 30 footer I used the 9 iron again and put all 5 inside 3 ft. 2 attempts hit the hole and came back out. So I dominated the chipping.

Yesterday was the second and final day of the Skills Evaluation. It consisted of bunker shots and pitch shots. I arrived early enough to get a feel for the sand we were going to play out of, and based on my past experience in this practice bunker, I knew it was going to be difficult to spin the ball because the sand is just powder. And to make things harder, the teacher set it up so the hole was 6 ft off the green on the near side to us in the bunker. There's a short area of rough, maybe 2 ft, a foot of fringe, then it's 6ft to the hole, so that meant you either landed the ball in the rough and take your chances on it chasing through and trickling on to the green, or take the high route and land it on the fringe and hope it lands softly and doesn't roll too far. We had 10 attempts in the bunker, and I decided I was going to take the high route. The first shot was our choice to use as practice or not. If we hit a good shot, we could take the pts and then the practice option was gone. But if we had a poor shot outside the 6 ft circle, we could consider it a practice and then the next shots would count towards the 10 attempts. Trying to hit the high shots is risky, so I took advantage of the practice option and just tried to hit a miracle spinning gem. As the ball took off like a bat out of hell and a considerable distance into the driving range, I realized I'm not Tiger Woods, so I adjusted my approach and decided to just barely get it out of the bunker and hope it would roll onto the green. In the end, I hit 4 inside 3 ft, and 3 inside 6 ft, with the final 3 outside the circle. I was satisfied with my efforts.

Then we had the same hike to the other unused green out on the course for the pitching portion. It was about 90 ft, and on the exact same line as the chipping portion from the week before. I just took out a wedge, put it in the back of my stance, and hit low chasers up the hill and inside the circle. I hit 7 inside 3 ft, 2 inside 6 ft, and 1 outside 6 ft. I was extremely happy with my efforts here. My two week total for the Short Game Skills Evaluation was 57 pts. The only score in the class that was higher was 63. That doesn't mean I got an A or anything, the teacher will have the grade scales for us next week in class. We do this same thing again for the final, and if we improve our score, he'll take that higher score along with 5 bonus points for the official Evaluation grade. If it's lower, he'll keep the higher one. So I'm happy with how I performed, and if I do better next time, great, but if I don't, I'm not worried.

Match Play

Lost my match today 2&1. Not happy. 2&1 means I was 2 holes down with 1 hole left to play. I was hitting the ball pretty crappy with my irons, so I was constantly scrambling for par, although if my putter hadn't been working, it would have been over after 9 holes. I made 10 of 10 putts inside 12 feet, and probably 8 of those were for par to halve the holes. It could have been worse, but it should have been better.

Also, our first official USGA handicaps were calculated, and mine is 8.9. When we played with the pro that first week, he put me at a 12 hdcp based on what he saw that day, but I knew I was better than that, I just had to work hard to prove it. So with the score cards I turned in throughout September, my hdcp was adjusted to 8.9. That was good enough to move me up 2 Tours to the Golden Bear Tour. I was in the Palmetto Tour, the 8th out of 10 Tours, and now I'm in the 6th out of 10. I know I'm better than an 8.9, so now I have to keep posting lower scores to keep moving up. No golf next week cuz of Mid-Terms, so I'll just keep working on the short game.

Match Play Qualifier

Yesterday was the biggest tournament of the semester so far, and one that I really wanted to do well. The top 16 players from each Tour qualify for the Match Play Tournament, and the winners of the Tournament get a free round at the World Tour golf course (definitely the nicest course in the area, it's 18 holes of replicas of famous golf holes around the world, they have Amen Corner from Augusta, 1 and 18 from St. Andrews, I really wanna play there) 70 dollars in gift cards to the golf merchandise store, and Order of Merit Points. I played a course called Man O' War. It's a difficult course. There's island greens, lots of water all down the fairways and in the landing areas, and deep bunkers. I decided going in that I wasn't going to focus on the tendinitis in the left arm, I was just going to focus on each and every shot and hopefully qualify. I ended up shooting 85 and that was good enough for 14th of the 16 that qualified. I'm assuming I'll play the kid who was 3rd, and I think I can beat him. He's in my classes, and he just got promoted to our Tour from the crappy Tour below mine, and I think his 78 he shot yesterday was a fluke. So I'm confident I can advance past him. Once I signed my scorecard and walked out to my car to load my bag in the trunk, I realized how bad my elbow and wrist hurt. So I'm happy I got through the qualifying, and now I'm going to play again today with 3 kids from class who wanted to play with me, and then I'll take some rest from golf like I did last week.

We had our first quiz in the Rules class last Friday, and boy was it a doozy. Here's a link to a rules quiz exactly like what I'll be taking through this class. Try the 10 question basic, it's a different language. http://www.usga.org/playing/rules/rules_quizzes.html
I got 4 out of 10 right, and that was the class average. Once everyone finished, Lew explained that this would be the easiest quiz we take all year, and because we've never experienced a Rules quiz, he would take how many we got right and add it on to our next quiz. So it was extra credit, thankfully. But he said the more quizzes we do on that site I posted, the better prepared we'll be. So I'll do a few of those each day. I got an e-mail from the Academics Counselor today during class and it turns out my Business teacher is letting me get that transfer credit I've been trying for. John e-mailed me a syllabus from the class I took at ICC last spring, and the counselor said it wasn't good enough, but he let the Business teacher decide, and he thought it was comparable to the class I was in right now. That means no more 7am class!!!!!!!! That is such a relief. Now I can watch the finale of Highway 18 and the premiere of Big Break 10 on Golf Channel tonight! Normally I'm in bed before those shows start, but now I don't have class till 11 tomorrow!!!! Ahhhh how sweet it is.

The Lesson/Rules of Golf Class

We've been in school for 4 weeks now, but each Friday that we've gone to our Rules class, our teacher has been gone. His name is Lew Gach, and he's one of the top Rules Officials in the entire world. He's been gone on Friday's because he officiates professional tournaments. So this week he was actually here to teach. He's even cooler than the other pro's on staff. He has officiated over 300 PGA Tour, Nationwide Tour, Hooters Tour, Buy.com Tour and Nike Tour events in his career. He's walked inside the ropes with all the top players, including Tiger. At the start of class, he gave us a run-down on his credentials, and one of the smart-alec kids in my class pulled out his rule book and interjected "What's rule 26-2?" Lew didn't miss a beat, and he spit out the entire rule word for word. There's 34 or 38 rules in the Rules of Golf book, and they're all a special golf lingo, and he recited it exactly how it was in the book. We were all shocked. The rest of the class consisted of us asking him what the ruling would be for all sorts of circumstances we've been in. He knew the answer to every single one of them. He had a pretty cool story about an encounter with Lee Trevino he had in 1979. Lew was in charge of the scorer's tent at a Tour tournament, so when the players walk off the 18th green, they go to the scorers tent and make sure their scores are correct and they turn their score cards into the officials. On the 13th hole, Trevino's ball plugged, landed in its own divot, and Trevino wouldn't touch his ball until a rules official came over to tell him what to do. For a Tour pro, that's a pretty common issue, so normally, no one calls for the rules official. At the end of the round in the scorers tent, Trevino's playing partner asked him why he called for the official, cuz he knew what to do. Trevino responded "It's not my job to know the rules, it's HIS!" and he pointed directly at Lew. Lew cooly responded "Not today Mr. Trevino. I'm just here to make sure you added your scores correctly." I thought that was pretty cool. And Adam, I don't know if you know who Slugger White is, he's the Rules official we see on TV whenever a player calls for a ruling, but Lew is on the same level as Slugger, which is as high as it gets for a rules guru. So by the time I graduate, I will have learned from the best person available to teach us the rules of golf.

After that class, I had my lesson with the pro. The lessons are conducted in the indoor simulators that we have, there's 2 simulators in the room with the smaller putting green, and the third simulator is connected to the massive putting green in the other building. My lesson was on the smaller putting green, and luckily for me, the Ryder Cup was on during our lesson, so we both looked up to watch whenever we heard a big roar on TV. This is the same pro that worked at Valhalla in the 1980's (Valhalla is the course where the Ryder Cup is being played right now) so he was really interested in what was going on, but he didn't let it get in the way of my lesson. He really switched me around in what I was doing, and I think it'll help my putting out considerably. One problem I've seen with some of the pro's is that they make you feel kind of dumb for doing some of the things that you do in your golf swing, but this guy didn't do that. He showed me some things that I was doing that made me pretty upset with myself, but he didn't care, he just wanted me to know that what he was showing me will fix those problems. So I'll hit the putting green tonight once the Ryder Cup coverage is over, and hopefully I'll be more comfortable with my putting in time for the tournament on Monday. This tournament will be stroke-play, but next week is our match-play qualifier, and I really want to qualify for that because match-play is pretty awesome. I wanna get in there and feel the pressure you can put on your opponent and feel the pressure my opponent puts on me.

Tournament Numero Uno

The moment I had been anticipating since December when I decided to go here finally came on Monday: my first tournament. My tour was playing at Indian Wells, Myrtle Beach's "Golf Course of the Year" in 2004. It's the same course I played 3 weeks ago for my first open play round. I was so nervous on the first tee. I was playing with a 4th semester student and two first semester students. They all went first and no one hit a good shot, so that made me even more nervous for some reason. I stepped up and hit the best shot of my life, considering the circumstances, a perfect 3 wood right down the center of the fairway. I was left with 105 yds to the green and I hit a wedge on the green and 2 putted for par. Once I made that par my nerves calmed down considerably, so from that point on it was me against the course. The format was not the regular stroke play, it's a format called Stableford. Instead of making par or making birdie or bogey, you get points based on what score you made. Par is worth 2 pts, birdie's 3 pts, eagles 4 pts, and bogeys 1 pt. Anything worse than a bogey was 0 pts. To make things even wierder for a tournament, we had to play 6 holes from the blue (hardest) tees, 6 holes from the white (average) tees, and 6 holes from the red (ladies) tees. It was some golf holiday so they wanted us to play Red White and Blue tees in honor of that. Logically, I played all four of the par 5's (the longest holes) from the red (ladies) tees. That made them considerably shorter, and it paid off because I birdied 3 of the 4 par 5's and bogeyed the other, so that's 10 pts on those 4 holes alone. I hit the ball really well but once again struggled around the greens. I only ended up with 21 pts while the winner of my tour had 35, second place had 28, so that kid was too good for this tour anyway, so I wasn't too dissapointed about finishing 14 pts behind first. My 21 pts was good enough for a tie for 15th place out of 35 guys. I'm not too dissapointed, because it was my very first tournament, but I should have done better, and this next tournament on Monday will be different, trust me.

Today, my Short Game class and my Golf Fundamentals class met at the home golf course for what they consider "lab." I consider it practice/fun, but that's neither here nor there. For Short Game, we partnered up and we each hit 10 foot putts and the other person had to check the fundamentals of our stroke, setup, alignment, all that good stuff. The teacher went around to all of the groups to offer his advice based on what he saw with our stroke. Once we finished that, he had us all hit the same 20 footer for 10 extra credit points. So, one by one we all attempted the same putt. Only 1 kid made it, and we moved on to a 60 foot lag putt for the same 10 extra credit pts. The teacher went first and left it 5 ft from the hole, so he said whoever gets inside of mine gets 10 pts, no matter how many people do it. I think 5 or 6 people got those pts, I was unsuccessful at both putts, but I don't really care. So that was fun.

Once Short Game was over, we proceeded to the opposite end of the driving range where a whole bunch of third semester students were waiting for us. We were paired up with one of the third semester guys and we started hitting balls. The point of that was so that they could start getting used to giving strangers lessons. They had a checklist of things to do with each of us so they can see what grips we try and how it affects our ball flight. I was paired with a pretty cool kid from Minnesota. He had me hit a few balls with my normal grip, and I hit 3 perfect shots. So he had me strengthen and weaken my grip to see what happened, and it was wierd and different but it gave him a chance to work with me and suggest things that could help adjust to that change. I wasn't forced to keep any of the things he showed me in my normal swing, but for the duration of the lesson, we were supposed to just try whatever they told us to do. So we worked through the suggested things to try in like 10 minutes so he had me keep hitting balls cuz he really liked my swing. After a while, he had me hitting huge hooks and huge slices to see if I could. He had me aiming at a car in the distance and curve it at the yardage markers, it was a lot fun. I actually gave him some pointers because he hits the ball a lot higher than I do, so he asked me how I hit the ball as low as I do. I got a lot of possitive feedback from him about my swing, so I walked away very happy with the class. We'll have 4 more of those "labs" throughout the semester. I can't wait.

I have my first professional lesson tomorrow at 11, and I'm really excited. It's with the same pro that I played with last week. He told me to schedule a lesson with him so we could start working on my putting, and that's exactly what I plan on doing tomorrow. Lower scores, here I come!

My first Hurricane (ok fine, my first Tropical Storm, big deal)

While living here in paradise has its perks, it also has its downsides. Exhibit A: Tropical Storm Hanna. Whenever I turned on the TV and stopped on either the local channels or the weather channel, all I was hearing about was Hurricane Hanna, Hurricane Ike, and Tropical Storm Josephine making there way to the southeastern US coast. So I was keeping a close eye on all three storms as the week went on. On Wednesday, the academy decided to cancel Friday's classes in preparation for Hanna. That was pretty sweet, but it ended up kinda sucking because the weather wasn't good enough to hit the driving range, and the outter bands of the storm didn't get here until about 9 that night. So I was just waiting around for the big storm. By the time I passed out, probably around 11 (side note, I haven't been able to stay awake passed 11 the whole time I've been down here, hard to believe eh mom?), the winds were whipping and the rain was coming down sideways. So I had some nice background noise to help me sleep. Right around 3:30am, I was rudely awakened by Hanna and her 60 mile an hour winds howling through the complex. So I kinda sat there to see if my windows would shatter or not, and within about 10-20 minutes, the winds completely stopped. I learned later in the morning when I woke up, that Hanna made landfall at 3:45am IN Myrtle Beach. So the winds stopping signified the eye of the storm was right over us. And then another 20 minutes after the winds died, they picked right back up again stronger than before. That was a pretty cool moment when I realized I was in the eye of the storm. I always hear how the eye is NOT the spot to be in. But since it was only a Tropical Storm and not a, say, Category 5 HURRICANE, I was pretty stoked to have been right in the middle of the storm. So once Hanna passed on through, I turned my attention to Hurricane Ike. Luckily for me, Ike made a slight turn to the southwest and decided the pound the Bahamas again and head for the gulf. And Josephine was destroyed out at sea by wind shear, so it appears that all the hurricane excitement for me is done for now, but it was fun while it lasted.

On Tuesday, I played my first round of golf at a course called Indian Wells. It's definitely the nicest course on our 15 course rotation, and we were randomly assigned to the courses, so I was pretty fortunate to be playing the nicest. The three guys I played with were pretty cool guys. The guy I rode with had just moved down here the night before, and he's from Ann Arbor, MI. He's in my classes so we've been keeping in touch, which is nice. The other two guys were from Pittsburgh and Cleveland, and they weren't very good. I beat those two guys, but the guy I rode with beat me, even though I thought I beat him when we were done. He just has a really ugly swing, so it made me think that I was better, but he beat me by 9 strokes. I did not play well, but the greens and fairways have different grass than the midwest does, and it's a lot harder to play on. It's no excuse for me playing as poorly as I did, but it's something I'm going to have to get used to in order to bring my scores down to where I'm used to. Tomorrow, we play with one of our Pros at our home course Whispering Pines. Again, we were randomly assigned Pros to play with (we have 10 at the academy) and I was assigned with the coolest of the bunch, in my opinion. He's my golf fundamentals teacher, and having been in two of his classes already, he seems like he really knows his stuff and he should be fun to play with. I play again on Tuesday at River Oaks Plantation, not one of the nicest courses in our rotation, but it's definitely nicer than the courses back home, so I'm not complaining.

Back to School at Last!

Not including this past spring semester, when I only took 2 classes, I'm finally back to school full-time. School started yesterday bright and early at 7am. That's 7am EASTERN time folks, so while all of you were comfortably sleeping, or tending to the many needs of new-born Ellie, I was sitting in the classroom. Fortunately for me, Wednesday's are the only days I start class at 7. Mondays start at 10 but only for an hour then it's tournament time in the afternoon. Tuesdays start at 8 and end at 10, then it's free golf in the afternoon. Wednesdays start at 7 and don't end until 1. Thursdays are packed, class from 8 until 3. Then Fridays class from 8 until 10. So having only been to my Wednesday and Thursday classes so far, here are my first impressions of the staff and classes:

My Attitude and Motivation Assessment teacher is crazy. She's straight out of Brooklyn, short, husky, and pretty cool. She talks at a hundred miles an hour, runs around the classroom and loves interacting with us students. Right at the start of class, she has us all stand up, close our eyes and wait for her to tell us it's ok to look. While standing there with our eyes closed, Eye of the Tiger comes on. She gives us the ok to look up and she's wearing a pink hoody with "Eye of the Tiger" written on the back, and she has children's sized boxing gloves on her tiny hands. She starts going in and out of the aisles punching all of us guys in the chest trying to get us the play along and spar with her. None of us knew what was going on so we basically just stood there and watched as she beat up every single one of us. She realized that no one really knew what the point of the demonstration was, so she laughed it off and put her costume away and let us sit down. (The music went on to the next song of the Rocky soundtrack, so I was quietly singing along.) She wrote on the board a question. The question was "Are you willing to put everything on the line to achieve your dreams?" Do we have the Eye of the Tiger? So basically she's going to be helping us build self-confidence in ourselves and help us take adversity and turn it into a positive experience so we can grow as people and as professionals. All in all, I think I'll enjoy the class.

Oh yeah, and I am also stuck with the biggest group of immature losers. In orientation, they had us grouped by last names. So I was in the A-D group, and I thought that was just for orientation, and that my classes would be a mixture of all the incoming first semester students. I was wrong. I am stuck with that same group of kids for the entire semester. These guys are anywhere from 18-35. In terms of maturity, I would much rather hang out with our sort-of-cousin Dalton, if that puts it into perspective for anyone. These guys are only there to party and hit the night clubs. So I'm pretty dissapointed to not have any friends in the classes, but I'll make friends on Mondays and Tuesdays when we are randomly paired with people to golf out on the course, where you get the true sense of someone's character.

This afternoon I had my first Short Game class. That teacher is pretty laid back. He's a self-proclaimed awesome touch/feel golfer. That means that he doesn't know a whole lot about the mechanics of the golf swing, he just does what feels right, and he gets the results he wants. Only a very select few golfers are like this, I am not one of those people. So having that natural touch or feel is a great advantage in the short game. The short game is considered anywhere from about 50 yds or closer to the green. So putting, chipping, green-side bunkers are all considered part of the short game. That is the part of the game of golf that makes or breaks you as a golfer. Anyone can get the ball close to the green, but the hard part is getting the ball in the hole as quickly as possible. So the teacher gave us the run-down on what to expect in his class. We'll only have 5 classroom days, while the other 10 are out on the course. At the mid-term and finals time, we will have a skills test. This is where most people lose ground on their grade. The class work is an easy A, but this test is hard. You have 10 tries for each type of shot. The shots include green-side bunker, chipping, pitching, and putting. For each of the non-putting shots, you must get the ball within 5ft of the hole or else you lose points. There will be circles of varying distances chalked on the green so we know how many points we get for each shot. If you hole the shot, it's 3 pts. If you're within 5 ft, it's 2 pts. If you're within 6-10 ft, it's 1 pt. If you're outside 10 ft you get 0 pts. So the pressure is on to be able to get the ball close to the hole. Then the putting test includes making 10 three footers, 10 six footers, and 10 eight footers. All of those putts will have left to right breakers, and right to left breakers. That is extremely hard to do. Then there's a lag putting test. You have putts of 30 ft, 40 ft, 50 ft, 60 ft, and 70 ft and you must get the ball within 5 ft on the attempt or else you get 0 pts. So I've decided I'm no longer going to the driving range, I am strictly going to the putting green and devoting my practice time to the short game. Without a solid short game, shooting low scores is extremely difficult, and getting an A in this class is impossible without maximum practice time.

My other classes are kinda boring. I have a business writing class, and that's basically English 101 but put into terms related to the golf industry. The teacher kept saying "Our writing markets our product along with ourselves as professionals." So that might get boring in a hurry. Golf Fundamentals should be pretty easy as well. The best golf pro on staff teaches that class, and he's really cool. Not a whole lot of studying in the classroom, just studying our ball flight when we play then using that information to find out what we're doing wrong in our golf swing.

I have my first open-play round on Tuesday at 1:30. I'm paired with 3 guys from the other parts of the alphabet, so I'll be meeting at least 3 new people. I'm playing at a course called Indian Wells, and it's considered the nicest course on our 15 course rotation. I think there are four groups on each course, so it's a random draw who plays where. Also, one of the golf pro's will be playing nine holes with us. This is so they can evaluate our skills so they can accurately place us in the appropriate Tour for tournaments. There are multiple Tours, and depending on what you shoot one week could change what Tour you play in the next week. So if I go out and shoot in the 70's, which I intend on doing, I should be placed in the Nationwide Tour, which is the second best Tour at the school. But if I shoot 85 the next week, I might drop a Tour or two, but that doesn't effect my grades or anything, they just want people of like skills in all of the Tours. Prizes are awarded to the top 7 or 8 from each Tour, so that's a nice incentive to play well. Also, the Tours are all of the students at the entire academy. I could be in the same tour as one of the fourth-semester guys, so that's cool that we'll be pitted against the veterans of the academy.

Well, I think that's everything about school for now. My apartment is fine, I can't get my mailbox open though.... hopefully I'll figure it out some time soon. No neighbors that are my age or that wanna talk. I walk by them on the way in and they just look at the ground and run passed me, so I just sit here in my apartment when I'm not in school or practicing. At least I have golf channel, though. Without it, I might be back at home by now. Not really, but I'd be bored out of my mind. Did I leave anything out? Just ask if I left something out and I'll fill ya in. Toodles.

Cardinals v. Brew Crew

Yesterday was my first time attending a St. Louis Cardinals game at their new stadium. I was really excited to finally be there, and it was a really good time, until the top of the 9th inning. With a 3-2 lead and 2 outs away from the victory, the Cardinals closer fittingly gave up a go-ahead 2 run homerun to none other than Ryan Braun, my so-called cousin. As much as I hate to see the Cardinals get beat, it was pretty cool to see the first Braun in the MLB to win the game. I wish I had more pics of the stadium, but the camera died after I took the first few... so here's some pics of the trip.

The view from our hotel window

The view of the hotel fountain. The arch is directly right and Busch Stadium directly left.

The view from our seats.

Another view from our seats

Left field seats

The Pictures I Promised...

These were in someone's backyard so I wanted a picture under them. Much nicer than Cali Palm Trees :)
A cool picture I took of the dunes
Dad being gangster without even knowing it.
Some of the millions of hotels and condos lining Ocean Blvd.

Close up on Dad

Saturday afternoon Dad and I cruised along Ocean Blvd. and got out right here. Here's Dad on the Beach

My new home. It's the one I'm pointing to on the bottom.

Day 2 in Myrtle Beach

Today was a good day in Beach Town. Dad and I got to sleep in a little bit and then we headed off to an iMax movie in 3D located in a place called Broadway at the Beach. It was about a guy and his daughter boating through the grand canyon. It had some really cool shots of the canyon and some cool stuff popping out at us. Robert Redford was narrating, so obviously it was very political and full of propaganda about global warming. Once we tuned him out, the movie was much more enjoyable. After the movie we walked around Broadway at the Beach. Basically, it's a culmination of a bunch of shops and rides and things to do all surrounding this big lake with ducks and huge fish in it. It is like Six Flags but without all the roller coasters. After walking around for a couple hours we went to a barbecue place called Big D's. My new landlord reccommended it, but it wasn't very good.

From there, we drove to the beach, which was about a 5 minute drive from my apartment :) We drove along Ocean Dr. for about 30 mins until we found a nice spot to park and we got out to take a look around. It was cooler than any beach in Malibu or Santa Monica (sorry Tamara, but it's true). There's hotels lining the beach for miles and miles and miles. Planes flying overhead with big advertisements on the back, people everywhere, it was just really cool. So we walked around for a while and took a few pictures and decided to head out. When we went to the iMax movie earlier, the ticket girl said we could come back and see another different show for only 5 dollars if we still had the tickets from the first show we saw, so we decided to go see another show. This one was about the deep sea creatures. It was realllllly cool. Sea turtles and coral and sharks were all popping out close enough to touch. If you ever have a chance to see a 3D iMax, do not pass it up. It is soooo cool. Once the iMax ended we hit up a few more shops and decided to call it a day. I know I said I wouldn't post again until Tuesday, but I didn't think this could wait. I'll post all the pics from this weekends festivities when I get home, I forgot to bring the USB cable....

The first trip to Myrtle Beach

Well folks, it's time for the baby bird to spread his wings and leave the nest. As you all know, I will be attending the San Diego Golf Academy in Myrtle Beach starting August 27. Dad and I drove 13 hours to find an apartment for me to live in and to tour the school. This morning we took a tour of the school. I think Dad said it best when Mom called him after we left the school. Mom asked how it went, Dad responded with "I'm quitting my job and I'm going to school here, too." Basically, it's all golf, all the time.

The school has 2 practice rooms, yes you read correctly, practice ROOMS, as in INDOORS with constant air conditioning, with big practice greens and state of the art swing analyzers. The first practice room we entered was 800 sq ft with a cool undulating practice green with tons of holes to putt to. On the other side of the room are 2 huge launch monitors. For the golf-impaired, a launch monitor uses lasers and cameras to tell the golfer how much sidespin, backspin, launch angle, face angle, distance the ball went, etc. I have never used a launch monitor before, and I wasn't expecting to when I came in for the visit, quite frankly. So one of the PGA professionals, also my future teacher, told me to step on up and take a few swings. I'm very shy and hesitant to look at myself on camera, not sure why, but I was pretty nervous when I stepped in. First shot was pretty close to a shank, and the teacher told me that with a big grin. So I was pretty shocked, and took another swing. Crushed it with a 6 iron. Dad claims the guy turned to him after I hit the ball and winked at him. One of the statistics on the launch monitor is called the "Smash Factor". That's a 1.50 scale that tells the golfer how solidly, or how much he smashed, the ball. The monitor read 1.49 after that shot. I felt pretty good about that one, but then he showed me my swing in slow motion. He found a few things right away that I need to fix. I noticed a few things that I didn't like, so I was relatively unhappy with the way I hit those shots. Even though I hit a good shot, I hit 5 really bad ones.

From that room, we went to the next practice room, which is 1,200 sq ft. This practice green was probably 3 times as big as the other one. And in the corner, my very own practice bunker! Indoors! My dream come true. Down the hallway from this room, was another, even cooler launch monitor. We walked in and found one of the PGA pros and another student having a contest. This monitor has a screen about 10 yds in front of the matt you hit off of. The screen can be programmed to bring up a bunch of different golf courses virtually. So you hit the ball into the screen and the computer program collects the information like how hard it hit the screen, where it hit the screen, etc to show you where the ball goes in real life on the virtual course. So this teacher and student were just playing the same par 3 over and over again and whoever was closest to the pin got a point. We walked in and I heard the score, 11-7. I couldn't believe it, this kid had a break in between classes, so he just found that teacher and started playing around. How cool is that? They were even talking trash. Last time I talked trash to a teacher I got detention...

The apartment I chose is located on a country club golf course called Arrowhead Country Club. I had to get a 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom unit because they leased their last 1 bedroom right before we walked in. It was only 30 dollars more, so I went ahead and took it. But if something happens and a 1 bedroom opens up in the future, I'm guaranteed first on the waiting list. I guess having a 2 bedroom leaves the possibility open for getting a roommate if I ever meet someone I could trust enough to live with. That would definitely help save some money. I have a couple pictures outside my future apartment and I will post them once I get home and get them uploaded. Dad and I are going to Broadway at the Beach tomorrow, which has all sorts of cool stuff to do all surrounding a cool lake, so we'll have some pictures from there as well. August 27 will be the official start of my dream coming true: getting better at golf while training for my career IN golf. Expect the next post on Tuesday or Wednesday.