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A check of my busy schedule Posted: Monday February 03, 2003 2:51 PM
One golfer's to-do list for 2003: 1. Get to southern Oregon and play Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes, probably the most significant new courses built in the last 20 years. One writer who visited called them the best sister tandem in the country. Better than Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill? Hey, that's what he said. Pacific Dunes, the second course built, reportedly is even better and more scenic than Bandon Dunes. Yes, Oregon is pretty much the end of a dead-end street in North America, but the idea is to get to Bandon Dunes before it turns into Myrtle Beach in another decade or so. 2. Speaking of Myrtle Beach, there are 100-plus golf courses in that area and I've played, like, five. What's wrong with this picture? 3. Upgrade to a new driver and probably fairway woods. The annual PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando this year featured a new wrinkle: a demo day, at which I was able to try out an assortment of new clubs on a sprawling, 360-degree range at Orange County National Golf Course, an impressive public facility. The new drivers (combined with the new generation of golf balls) clearly are longer than ever. If you haven't bought a new driver in two years, it's time to put a dent in your checking account -- you can probably buy yourself another 10 or 15 yards. For a complete rundown of this year's hot drivers, check out our report from the merchandise show in Sports Illustrated's Golf Plus this week. In the meantime, here are some new big guns you definitely want to consider: Titleist 983K, Ping Si3, Taylor Made R500 series, Callaway Great Big Bertha II, Cobra 380 and La Jolla 400. 4. Look into a job in golf-course design. It can't be that hard, apparently. I just read about the Highland 18 Golf Course in St. Paul, Minn. Its owners are installing a large fairway bunker on No. 15 in the shape of Snoopy, Charlie Brown's faithful dog in the Peanuts comic strip. Now, the Twin Cities already were goofy for Peanuts because the late Charles Schulz is a St. Paul native. When I visited the area for last summer's PGA Championship, the the area was dotted with various Lucy statues. It was some kind of civic promotion. Anyway, a Snoopy-shaped bunker makes sense if you're flying over the course in a helicopter. Otherwise, it's probably just another gimmick. This sounds suspiciously like some of the late Desmond Muirhead's wacky designs: shark-teeth- and mermaid-shaped bunkers. Save that stuff for the miniature-golf course, please. 5. Consistently spend more time on the putting and chipping green at my home course, which SI's Rick Reilly dubbed Taco Bell Country Club because the club's logo (an apple between two hills) bears a resemblance to Taco Bell's logo. If you can keep the ball in play at all, golf is all about the short game. The importance of putting is obvious. Chipping is even more important because that's what gets (or doesn't get) you inside the 6-foot zone where you actually have a chance to make some putts. Chipping is boring and somewhat tedious, but it's the easiest way to cut strokes off your score. 6. Take a few lessons from a pro who's a good teacher and can relate to my game. I wasted most of last summer fighting an off-balance swing. During a lesson in October at the Golf Dome in Pittsburgh (part of Island Sports Center), my teacher noticed I was straightening my right leg on the backswing, which caused four other flaws. I knew it didn't feel right, but I wasn't able to pinpoint the cause, just the symptoms. 7. Courses I'd like another round at (and realistically could get on): We-Ko-Pa in Scottsdale, Ariz.; TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course; Brown Deer Park in Milwaukee; Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif.; Chaska Town Course in Chaska, Minn. 8. Visit a certified clubfitter to make sure I have the right clubs and see if upgrading to a premium high-tech shaft might improve my game. (I bet many of us are using clubs that are poorly suited to our swings.) 9. Play at least one of the nominees for world's worst course that readers supplied to this column over the last two months. Nothing like bad golf to get back to the roots of the game. And, also, the clubhouse bar. MailbagWhen selecting equipment, what level of importance do pros put on shaft vs. clubhead? Is it a 50/50 relationship? How much attention should we hacks place on shaft choice when looking for new irons and drivers? Is there any real difference from one steel shaft to another?
Tour pros, confident fellows that they are, figure that if they've got the right shaft, they can hit pretty much any clubhead. I'd say it's more like 80/20 favoring the shaft. Us hacks, however, should place a lot more attention on shafts when looking for clubs. My recent trip to the PGA Merchandise Show reaffirmed that. At the Aldila station, there were a number of drivers with different shafts. Aldila has a shaft called The One that comes in Low Launch, Mid Launch and High Launch, and the performance of each was markedly different. I don't think steel shafts vary that much, but I'd suggest you talk to an expert clubmaker. Take a look at the Professional Clubmakers Society (www.proclubmakers.org). You should be able to get some expert advice there. I really do not understand the backlash against Annika Sorenstam's announcement that she's considering a start in a PGA Tour event. This issue has nothing to do with private club memberships and Martha Burke (with whom I completely disagree), and nothing whatsoever to do with men being allowed to play on the LPGA Tour (Vic, buddy, your My Shot sounded more than a little pathetic.) It has everything to do with Sorenstam wanting to test her mettle against the best competition in the world. Period. If she can compete against the best in the world, then why should she be denied the chance just because she is a woman? Can she compete? Who knows, but I'm not gonna tell her she can't try.
I couldn't agree more, Crowebar. Free Annika! What's your opinion on long putters? To me, they don't produce a true golf stroke. I think they should be banned. And using them for a ball drop? Please.
Long putters are still a crutch for those who can't otherwise make a 3-footer. It's a little late to ban them, Al. They've been used for, what, at least 15 years? Banning them now would result in costly lawsuits that the USGA probably wouldn't win. That horse, along with Elvis, already left the barn, buddy. I agree that long putters should not be used for a ball drop. The USGA, if it's not going to limit the length of golf clubs, should at least limit the length of a club that can be used for a drop. A guy wrote in last week bragging on his Callaway Steelhead III 7-wood and saying that he was getting flack from his buddies. I have an Adams 7-wood and love it! He asked if any so-called "real" men played a 9-wood. Vijay Singh had a Callaway Steelhead 9-wood in his bag when he won the Players Championship and the Phoenix Open. With his record, I'd say he's a real man, in golf terms. What can you tell us about his use of the 9-wood?
I can't tell you much about Vijay's 9-wood, but for the average golfer, it's a no-brainer. A 9-wood is easy to hit, it goes high and is easy to stop. No doubt that's why Vijay likes it. Even as hard as he hits a ball, it's tougher than ever to stop a 3-iron on a really firm PGA Tour green. And in thick rough, a 3-iron is very difficult to hit well. When is the Titleist 983 driver going to be offered to the public, and what will be the retail price?
The 983 driver will be available in April. It comes in two models, the 983K (like the one Ernie Els uses) and the 983E, which has a slightly lower trajectory. I tried them both in Orlando at a Titleist outing last month, and I liked the K better. With new drivers having deeper faces, tour players are going to higher lofts on their clubs. Els' driver has 9.5-degrees loft. So if he's hitting a 9.5, the rest of us hacks may want to consider going to 10 or 11 degrees. Titleist's suggested retail price for the club is $500, but as everyone knows, clubs usually sell for less than the MSRP. Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle writes for the magazine's Golf Plus section and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.
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