It's been awhile

Many things have happened in the past year and three months.  New job, responsibilities, travel schedule, and more books have been read than normal. Why did I not write?

For the past year excuses came out of me like water.  Procrastination snuck in everyday for a visit.   Was it that my skills seemed to be lacking? (I don't think I ever earned higher than a B- in English.) Never mind the fact that embarrassment kicked in every time someone pointed out that errors were everywhere. Who can blame the people that pointed this out?  No one.  The first post that was written said, hey people point out the mistakes. However, tonight when my sheep count got up to 1023. The ol' memory kicked in.

When I did write. satisfaction was felt every time a post was made.

When I did write. errors were noticed and corrections began.

When I did write, memories were shared and written down.

When I did write, my life was shared with others.

When I did write, my grammar skills were quite noticeable and embarrassing.

When I did write, someone actually took the time to read.

When I did write, a new passion was discovered.

What's that passion? Writing?  Yes, it's quite relaxing and at times the words that were being put down were interesting.

Moving forward it's my journey.  It's about my self improvement.  It's about a passion that has been a part of my life since my father gave me a light blue bag with a dog head cover for my first left handed club.
Moving forward, it's time to improve.

If no one ever reads.  Who cares.  If one person reads. I will think my wife.  If two people read well, we are on to something. 

Thanks John Daly

As I continue to build this blog and look for actual people to read about the average golf guy, I decided to take my recruiting efforts to Twitter.  Listening to the radio I hear a lot of people discussing Twitter and I thought that this could be a direction to find people who might actually read what I have to say, as a lot of them are looking to find people just like me.

I went to twitter to sign up and looked for the user name, averagegolfguy.   Low and behold it was available and I took the user name and started learning how to use the site.  I started by searching for golf to see all those who are twittering about golf.  There was no surprise on my end that there were thousands and thousands of people following golf and all golf events.

It was easy to follow someone because all I had to do was click the follow button and then I was following them.  Not difficult, I believe my dog could learn how to do this.  Then the search for all the pro golfers began, the announcers on the golf networks keep discussing how all these guys twitter..  I found Immelman, Cink, Ogilvy, Boo Weekly, McIlroy, and even Tigers head cover.  Then I came across the man that I first saw back at Crooked Stick back in 1991, John Daly.

I was with my now deceased friend Amy Evans as we went to watch the Saturday round of the PGA. I had purchased a ticket off my brothers girlfriends dad (confusing myself here), for $30.00 and later found out junior golfers could purchase tickets for $10.00.  I can remember Amy laughing at me when she purchased her ticket since she had told me that a day earlier at the golf course that juniors only had to pay $ 10.00.  I just wanted to make sure that I had a ticket and not wait until the last second (for those of you who really know me you know this to be true.) What if they had sold out, it was the PGA Championship.

After entering the grounds we decided to walk around the course when we found this guy on the golf course with a mullet and a swing that only came from the movies.  The name said Daly and I then  looked in my program to find this guy and he wasn't there, Amy asked a few people but, no one really knew who he was at the time.  Not having facebook, twitter, or anything back then I had to wait untill I got home that night to learn more about John Daly.  Amy and I followed him for awhile until, she decided that it was time to follow the popular players.  Little did we know that next day John Daly would no longer be the man from Arkansas that drove all night to be the third alternate to John Daly the 1991 PGA Champion and the average golfers favorite player.

Going to the PGA was an experience and one that I have never forgotten because of the time I had with Amy.  Who knew that in two years that she would pass from cancer and I would no longer get to play golf with her like I had so many times growing up and playing at the Kokomo Country Club.

One maybe wondering how did I get from Twitter to that story.  Well here it goes;  I found John Daly on Twitter last night and sent him a question "lovin the loud pants, who is your pick for the superbowl this year?"  I never thought in a million years John Daly would respond but he did.  John responded with " I hope my steelers do".  Then the conversation went on for just another tweet were we exchanged information on his new line of Loud Mouth Pants (by the way I am going to get me a few pairs of those pants for the course).  After, the conversation I was telling my wife what had happened and of course she questioned if it was the real John Daly. It was John Daly and honestly if it wasn't him I did not care. Thinking about the first time I saw John play golf only reminded me of a time in my life that I got to spend with a friend that I grew up on the golf course with.  The images that I remembered from that day will last a life time and sometimes it takes twittering with John Daly to remind me of that day.

Thanks John Daly for bringing back a memory of a day that is a day I will never forget. The tour needs more personalities like you out there.

Have a speedy recovery on that rib.

Until next time everyone, please keep sending me my grammar errors as I keep improving but, I know I will never be perfect.

If you would like to see John Daly's loudmouth pants please visit www.johndaly.com

Golfnow.com

Over the last three years, I have used several different tee time websites and have learned that only a few will do what I need them to do. Golfnow.com continues to show me why they want my business.  This website now owned by the Golf Channel continues to improve the product while offering what everyone wants out there, tee time discounts while making the experience an easy one.

This past weekend a friend of mine and I decided that we wanted to play early on Sunday morning.  It was Labor day weekend and every golfer deserves to play at least one time over the weekend. The decision was made that we wanted to play around 7:00 a.m. in hopes of having the rest of the day to play. It was Saturday afternoon when the decision was made so this would make it more difficult. 

I went on ezlinks.com and could not find a tee time that met our expectations.  After realizing that ezlinks.com could not meet my needs I then went to my trustworthy golfnow.com and was quite pleased to find that there were a few courses to choose from. The course that we chose was Pheasant Run in St. Charles, IL (I won't speak on Pheasant Run just yet as that is for another day) and our tee time was at 6:56 a.m.  Yes, folks it was that early and honestly I wasn't thinking too much at that time. I just agreed with Chris that getting done early would give us time with our loved ones for the remainder of the day. 

What I love about the site is a 75 year old that has never used a computer could probably figure out their website.  You point, click, and pick.  For instance I just visited the site to look for courses for a round of golf this friday.  I will not be playing however, there is always that glimmer of hope that a customer will ask me to take them to play golf and being that nice sales rep that I am, well you get the deal. So I visit golfnow.com to find out what is available on friday for me to play here are a few courses that I found for this friday;

White Tail Ridge: 7:06 a.m. for 39.00 a 17% savings
Fox Run 7:20 a.m. for 35.00 a 32% savings
Eagle Ridge "The General" 8:10 a.m. for $100.00 a 35% savings

Now "The General" is in Galena however, this course is a treat and worth the drive.

So what are the downfalls of pre-buying your tee times?

1. The reservation is non-refundable however, some of the golf courses allow you to pay on site and if a reservation needs to be cancelled you can talk to the golf course. 

2. If it rains you do have to seek approval from the golf course.  After the golf course determines that lightning may strike you or the course is just flooded, you will be refunded your money.

3. You can't always find the course that you want to play for cheap. Golfnow.com is constantly adding courses and why not suggest to you golf pro about getting on the site.  I have mentioned to other courses, and if they don't they don't, if they do then great I get my discount and the luxury of playing their course cheaper the next time.

4. The time that you would like to play is not always there. 

5. Your locked in and can not change your time or your course. 

Here are some of the positive aspects of purchasing your tee time online at golfnow.com

1. CHEAPER PRICE

2. Your locked into playing and your wife, husband, significant other comes up with plans then tough shit you have already made a tee time and you can't lose your money.

3. The ability to pay what a course is actually worth.  Hey we live in a city that over charges for anything they can and that includes golf. 

4.  Playing a course that you may have never played if you did not come on the site.  There are over 150 courses in the area ranging from over priced goat ranches to PGA T=ment courses.  Chicago has all types of courses and this site is a way to find that one you may have never found.

5. In my case this past Sunday, I saved $25.00.  That is a dozen balls, a few beers, or whatever you want it to be.

6. The one thing that golfnow.com allows you to that the others decided that they wouldn't allow is same day bookings.  How many times have you decided at the last second to go play? Two things I look for when finding a course the same day; price and tee time.  Without those two there is no average guy out there golfing.

I highly reccomend golfnow.com and I will continue to use it the future. 

If you know of anyother sites let me know I will check them out.  I have seen most of them and will talk about them later however, my experiences with golfnow.com have always been above par.

Thanks again and help me with those errors.

Why don't you just play from the right tees

Why is it that almost every golfer feels that they must play the back tees at every golf course they play.  Recently, I have played with different golfers that shoot over 100 and have handicaps over 30 and they have decided that playing the back tees will help them with their game.  I will be the first of many to tell you it only hurts your game therefore, giving you a higher handicap.

Let's look at Thunderhawk Golf Club as an example.  They happen to have four different sets of tees.  They are the following;

Black Tees: 7031

Brass Tees: 6631

Silver Tees: 6124

Auburn Tees: 5046

This is quite the range if you are looking at the different tee boxes.  Thunderhawk offers course ratings for men and women under the Silver Tees and Women Only for the Auburn Tees.

Now let's look at a hole as an example. I will use a guy that has a 5 handicap and a guy who has a 25 handicap.

The 5 handicap will most likely take the challenge and play the Black tees, I would because I know I will be fine.  The gentleman with a 25 handicap should be playing the silver tees. 

Here are list of reasons;

1. Pace of Play

2. The 5 handicap drives the ball 270 yards on a regular basis. While the person with the 25 handicap will drive the ball around 200 to 240 yards. Yes, now and then you might hit it 260 and I say " Good for you".  Here is an example of the number one hole at the Thunderhawk Golf Club.
             Black Tees, 414 yards

             Silver Tees, 326 yards

The five handicap  will drive his ball in the fairway and his ball will have 145  yards to the pin.  The 25 handicap hits his ball 220 yards and now is 106 yards away from the pin.  If the 25 handicapper would have teed off from the Black tees he would now have 200 yards to the pin.  The 25 handicapper has a better chance of parring the hole from the silver tees than he does from the black tees. 

3. Confidence- if you play the right tees you will gain confidence on the golf course because your scores will drop.

4. Keeping everyone around you happy- playing the right tees keeps the foursome ecstatic because they are not waiting on the bad players. 

5. Your handicap will improve. Don't you want better scores?

There are many more reasons however, why dwell on them as you are getting the point as you need to play the correct tees.  If the USGA didn't feel that this was necessary then we would have one set of tees for everybody.  If I was to play with a PGA Tour player I would then play from another tee box.  This will help me have a better chance in beating them. 

Two weeks ago I had enough time to get 18 holes in at Indian Boundry (This is what I call a confidence booster course). The foursome in front of the two gentleman that I was playing with decided that they were going to play from the back tees.  None of them should have been playing from the Back tees.  They were slowing the golf course down and upsetting everyone around them.  Finally, after a call to the Pro Shop from one of the men that I was playing with pushed the golf course to get the ranger back on the course. The ranger then informed the players that they need to speed it up and play from the white tees. This was around hole 11. 

After the round, I asked one of the players how he played on the back.  His exact words were " I actually had my first birdie of the year today"  quickly my response was "Which hole?  " I believe it was hole 16" he said.  I said congratulations and moved on to put my bags in the back of the car.  Here is the funny part.  This hole measures 425 from the white tees and 470 yards from the blue tees.  This kid walked off bragging about a birdie and no one cared which tees he was playing from. A birdie is a birdie no matter how we look at it.

Here is my advice;

Play from the right tees and your scores will improve.

Until Later,

Trent

By the way I am always open to suggestion on my grammar.  I know it's bad.  However, it's improving and this helps.

Finding the right course for the right price

Many of us in Chicago are constantly searching on-line and trying to find where do I golf and how much is that course going to cost me? Is it a good course? How hard is it? How long does a round take there? Do they have a beer cart girl? etc....

I have lived in Chicago for 8 years going on 9 and remember the days when growing up I didn't pay because of the luxury I have had by having a family that belonged to the Kokomo Country Club in Kokomo, IN, I was on the HS golf team and played for a year at Huntington College in Huntington, IN. Golf was cheap and I loved life. Then I moved to Chicago.

Golf courses in Chicago are overpriced, slow, have golfers who do not understand that this is a gentlemans game, and the golf course just doesn't fit the bill. What I plan on doing with this blog is to start letting you know more about the courses in Chicago and how do they fit the average golfer, offer ways to help improve your game ( I am not going to offer swing lessons), who offers tee times, what does a course costs, where they offer discounts on-line, etc....

I will let you know where a guy who shoots a 110 should play to a guy that shoots 70 should play. Every course is different and offers something for everyone. There are golf courses that are confident boosters and courses that will set you back three years. Where are they and why do I think that.

I have played a lot of them in Chicago however, I have not played all of them yet. I have my favorites, my least favorites, and why the hell is this even a golf course.

In the near future a plan is put in place to offer a website with links to discount areas by golf course, links to the discount sites, and the best places to get fitted for golf clubs and putters. Yes, getting fitted for a putter. Everyone should get properly fitted for a putter. You spend a good majority of the time on the green so why would you just buy something off the shelf.

You could say this is just another blogger who golfs and you would be right however, what you don't understand is that I know more than most of you about the game. I do not know more than a pro or a top amateur however, I do know more about the game then the average golfer and that is what you are an average golfer.

Until next time,

Great swing and let me know where you find those deals,

Trent

By the way, my grammar is not the best and something I am working on. Therefore, that is why I am starting a blog. Feel free to send grammar corrections and I will be glad to change any and all errors that I make