Hybrid Golf Clubs

I started playing golf seriously about 5 years ago. Over the past several years I played around with those mens golf clubs that my wife had bought me. I only went to the driving range a few times throughout an average golf season. Well this past year I might have gone to the driving range about thirty to forty times. I have actually developed a pretty good swing actually. I felt the awkwardness of the golf swing had finally been accepted by my body. It is such a different movement than most other sports and such a slow movement too. Oh well, maybe it was just the effect of my new hybrid gold clubs. I played on a course about 5 times during the season which is the most I have ever played throughout any season.

By the way I live in Ontario, Canada. Our season isn’t very long. So it seems by the time I started to progress noticeably the snow started to fall and the golf clubs got stored away. I miss that moment of peace just me and my hybrid golf clubs. Smelling the fresh grass and feeling the warmth of the sun on my face. And I miss going out with some of my buddies for a couple of hours. Chatting and hitting the ball around, talking about what is new in our lives. It would be just us and the golf clubs and a beautiful day, all of the worries far, far, away.

So just what is it about golf that attracts so many men? What posses them to get up at six in the morning to hit a white ball around? One thing about golf is it is more than just lugging around a set of mens golf clubs and hitting a ball from time to time. It has a lot to do with spending the day with your buddies. Most sports there are too many things going on to be able to interact with each other, but with golf you can. Golf is a slow paced sport so there is plenty of time to talk while you are waiting or walking to the next tee. With golf most of the time you are standing waiting with your golf clubs. Or walking to the next hole dragging your golf clubs with you everywhere you go. Definitely with golf you are getting some good exercise to go with the good conversation.

A lot of men would complain about their wives being mad at them for playing golf. I guess the wives don’t like the money spent on hybrid golf clubs, the green fees, or even the many hours that are spent playing it. But recently there have been quite a noticeable amount of women taking up the sport. Will the men be happy with this new change? For that, we will have to wait and see.

Increase Core Stability – More efficient movement creates more efficient power. Golfers maintain an athletic posture over long periods of time and require both trunk and core stabilization and endurance. By increasing your strength and endurance in the core region of your body, you provide both a solid base of support for rotation in addition to the proper transfer of power throughout the body.

Vary your Planes of Motion during Exercise – A golf fitness program will have varying planes of motion as part of your weekly strength routine. Planes of movement include front to back motions, left to right and rotational exercises. Some good examples include multi-directional lunges and medicine ball wood chops.

Still there are very few people who can claim to have had their games improved by a golf instruction video. So here are three tips to help you ensure that you reap maximum fruits from every golf instruction video that you ever get to watch.

1) Watch the golf instruction video several times

Some people watch golf instruction videos to try and get a single Magic formula that will revolutionize their game. They do not realize that the valuable nuggets in these videos are hidden in the many small things you need to do which add up to a great improvement in your game. This is why it is very important to watch the video several times. At least twice.

2) Get webcam shots of yourself playing and compare your posture and positioning to what you see in the golf instruction video

It may not be very easy to tell what is wrong with your golf swing for example or how to correct it without taking a very close look at your game.

The best way to do this is to get somebody else to take webcam shots of you on the course as you play. When you watch these alongside the golf instruction videos, it will be very easy for you to tell where your problem areas are and what you need to do to correct them.

3) Do golf-specific exercises to condition your body and muscles

Thirdly you will need your body and the relevant muscles to co-operate with our mind as you try to implement what you have seen on the golf instruction video.

One of the most effective ways of doing this is by getting involved in a golf-specific exercise program to tone and strengthen all the ‘golf muscles’ in your body. This way, they’ll be nothing to stop you from reaping maximum benefits from every golf instruction video you watch.

From the last article, you are now at the minus one month point. So far you have rallied the troops, picked the dates, selected the lodging and golf courses and are in the final preparation stage. You will soon see your friends smiling faces at the airport baggage claim. The final preps and smoothly running the whole show are child’s play. The tough part was getting your bunch of friends to buy the tickets to enjoy the event. Here are a few things you will want to do before the scream of the aircraft’s tires on the tarmac.
1. Transportation. The limiting factor is arrival and departure from the airport due to clubs AND suitcases. If you can just barely stuff everyone in the vehicles at this point, the rest of the week is gravy. From your experience, you know that when you pack up four guys to go golfing locally, you will entirely fill the trunk of a full sized car. With that in mind, you should plan on a full sized car for every three people. We use one minivan/SUV augmented with cars for our adventures. Just make sure you allow for the limiting case.

You need to arrange these rental vehicles ahead of time, but you can only drive one yourself. Here is the minus one-month mandatory. When you figure out your vehicle requirements, contact the group to arrange among them and you who will contact and rent the remaining vehicles. There will probably be some in your group that have existing discounts and can score a great rate. Hash this one out via email.

2. Entertainment. Unless you are going to the deserts in Arizona or get exceedingly lucky, you will have a rain day or two. You will also have a bunch of time at night after golf (after you have all told your lies). We suck that time up pretty effectively watching the golf channel, ESPN, playing cards, or watching videos. The latter is what you can address ahead of time. We have a guy that is pretty good at selecting movies to watch and we task him to bring them with him. Movies like “Gladiator”, “Miracle”, etc. are big. Some of your group may even have an adult video you may want to avail yourselves of. On severe rain days, we also have gone bowling (a real hoot), done the local movie theater, and toured the area.

3. Checklists. After about ten years of being asked twenty times per day where we were playing the next day, or when we had to leave, or what was for supper, or who stole my teddy bear, I finally started typing out these things. I make a copy of each and post sporadically throughout the house. I make individual laminated cards and hand to each golfer. Know what? It reduced the questions to half and now when asked, I say that I can’t remember, let me walk over to the frig and read it for you. Here are the things I prepare ahead of time.

- Listing of course, tee times, course contact number, and departure time. I base departure time on MapBlast directions and factor in a stop for ice for the coolers and if we will need to hit range balls.

- Listing of the menu for the evening meals. If this is your first time, keep the menu simple and make sure you have the recipes in hand. With any size group, you are going to have a chef or two and this won’t be a big deal.

- Multiple copies of the “order sheet” for sandwiches. For most of our noon meals between rounds, we dine on our self-prepared, gourmet sandwiches prepared the night before. As you saw from the previous articles, I solicit what the group wants and have that on the shopping list. What winds up being the least confusing way is to have some sheet for people to circle or fill in to specify what sandwiches they want for the next day. You rotate the preparers (two is best) every night and with that sheet, they manufacture the gourmet feast. (Don’t discount this! The sandwiches you make will be superior to anything short of the full meal at the course AND you will not have to wait on it if you are pressed for time between your rounds.)

- Biggy! We did not keep a record of our scores for our first few years. Big mistake. What great history we tossed out. Keep a record! I prepare a hard copy sheet to fill in as we go. It allows us to follow who is the overall stroke leader and gives us all ammo to use in negotiating the next day’s bets. I take this home and plant it permanently on our golf website .

- Expenses. I pay for everything with minor exceptions. That keeps it simple. I currently use a spreadsheet to administer this. It works great. I would provide this for you, but this article format doesn’t allow. Before that, I simply used pen and paper and got it to within a penny. My point is that from the minute you start your adventure, keep a tally of what you have spent! Streamline course check in by paying for everyone, buy all the food and drink, buy all the gas, etc. If someone pays for anything, log it in immediately. If you are religious in this, you will have no complaints, only praise.

4. Things nobody else will bring but you.

- Several decks of cards, poker chips
- Cribbage boards
- Screw driver and pliers (you never know)
- Pens, pencils and permanent markers (you will need all)
- Over the counter pain killers
- Band-Aids
- Game

5. Arrival. So here you have a rambunctious group of friends descending on the Mecca of golf. You have motored to the house your staying in and it is the mad dash to the best room to be found. NOT. To avoid any hard feelings between the lodger that got the queen bed and the lodger that got the twin bed, simply set up a quick draw out of the hat. For subsequent years, do the same, but use the seniority system. Once a person misses, he goes to the end of the list.

6. Once you have dumped your bags in the drawn rooms, it is time to go shopping. With the template I gave you in the last article, and with your modifications based on menu and orders, grab one or two volunteers and get what you need.

This is the conclusion of my recommendations on how you can have the best golf outing or outings you have ever had. Since I have folks coming to enjoy my preparations for 19 years should be testimony to you. At least give it a shot once. It won’t be perfect, but my guess is that it will be superior and more remembered than anything you can buy as a package. Go for it!

In our last article we got to the minus two months point of your schedule. You have researched and found the ideal location, picked out the perfect house, sent out the word to your pals, and settled on the dates. By this time, you should have a confirmed group, any of which would just as soon lose their right arm as miss the event.

Let’s lock in the rental house. You DO need to get this done as early as you can. If you are setting up your vacation during the off-season like I do, you are in the driver’s seat. Talk directly to the property manager and negotiate a better rate. Here is a summary of my discussion a few weeks ago. “Hey, Tiffany. Randall here. It’s that time again but our group is smaller. We really like the house at ….. but it is more than we need. We will be staying a full week. I figured the owner would rather have a bird in the hand and rent the house for a full week instead of taking the chance of renting it for just a couple days or not at all. We can afford $xxxx. I can pay you today.”

The result of this little conversation was that she immediately lopped twenty percent off the advertised rate! You will never know until you ask. Shoot for about a thirty percent reduction and go from there. I slapped the deposit on my credit card and emailed the group. (Yes, I was looking for praise.) You can dust off the smaller details like arranging linens (if not provided in the rate) and final payment later.

Time to grab tee times. What I recommend is setting up early morning tee times for each day. You will have to get up earlier than you may like, but scheduling tee times around 8:00 to 8:30AM will accomplish several things, including:
- Being close to first off the box on rain or frost delays (allowing a second 18).
- Finishing your round early enough to grab a second 18 with lunch in between 18’s.
- Allowing easier to change to later tee times if desired rather than to move them earlier.

Over the Internet and by talking with local pros on the phone, you have come up the courses you want to play. As with the house, you DO need to get this done as early as you can so that you can get the tee times you want. When scheduling tee times, I prefer talking directly to the head pro. In general, you will find more flexibility on prices. Other bonuses like getting a second set of tee times while only paying for a replay fee are easier. The head honcho is also more likely to bend the rules to allow advanced tee times if you are beyond the time window normally allowed.

Granted, this may be your first time in the location you picked, but you can use about the same language as I do. I have just locked in our tee times for February. I associate myself with a golf course to let them know I am a “player” and the pros seem to be more deferential in talking with a “player”. Here is a summary of a standard call:

“Hey Bucky, Randall from Snee Farm here. It’s getting to be that time of the year again for our annual golf vacation. You have always treated us so well and given us such a great rate in the past. The guys love the challenge of your outstanding spread. I was just wondering if you fit us in again on February 23rd. We are looking to play 36 and would appreciate anything you could do for us.”

With that or something similar as an opener, I forecast that you WILL get a great rate from most of the courses. Don’t make a second set of tee times at this point unless you get them for just the replay fee. If you are playing during the on-season and want to play 36, you may have to make and pay for a guaranteed set of afternoon tee times. Some of the courses may have events already scheduled when you want to play that particular course. You may have to juggle this slightly and change already made tee times, so complete your tee time set up within a couple days.

Now you have your group, your house and your tee times. It is time to get down to real business. Now is the time to get the financial commitment. Send an email spelling out the accommodations and the tee times. Ask for your troops to send you at least half of what the final cost per man will be. Our total per man is normally around $900 for all the lodging, transportation, golf, food and beverages for the week.

Dining. In general we fix whatever breakfast we personally want, make sandwiches to eat between rounds, and fix our own gourmet supper (with loads of snacks to wreck our appetites during the entire day and night).  To support all this, you will need to know what the group wants and prepare a shopping list. This year, I used a free survey website and built a fill-in-the-blank survey for the troops.

You can use a site like that or ask the same questions in an email. With your shopping list built, you will either grab the goodies before the flights of the group arrive if you live locally, or have the troops assist on the way to your house.

You are now at the minus one month point of building the perfect golf vacation

In my last article, I gave an overview of how you can put together a terrific group golf vacation. In this article, I will go into much more detail concerning the organization and preparation. I have been setting up the ideal gathering for our group for 18 years. There are refinements every year and we think we have arrived at the optimum outing.

You will be driving this bus, so get the ball rolling. Do a little research and pick a location. This location should have plenty of vacation rental homes and a good selection of golf courses. You do not want to play the same course every day. You should be able to do most or all of your research online to find out about rental house and golf course specifics, including costs.

Get the word out to the troops. I like to send out a humorous email to introduce the event and then follow up with more emails and phone calls. I recommend you send out an email to everyone you think might be remotely interested about five months in advance. Some will not be able to make it due to family, work, interest, etc. You should hope to wind up with a group size around eight. Anywhere from six to twelve is great. Five people is the worst group size due to tee times. More than twelve is too hard to organize or find lodging in the same house.

Pick out a window of time. We usually grab the last week in February to get the northern gents out of the snow and still stay in the low rate season for the southern golf courses. As an example of an introductory email, you could send something like this:

"It has come to my attention via the minions who surround me and perform my every whim that there may be those among you desiring driving sleet, incomprehensible wind chill, unplayable lies, unreachable par 3′s, impossible odds, foot-wedging opponents, gross bending of the USGA rules, hairy greens, thick frost, lightening fast down-hillers, moguls, knee deep rough, more sand and water than water front property, Velcro removal during back swings, exploding coughs during precision chips, un-winnable stroke spreads complete with unyielding stroke givers and takers, 179-degree dog legs, and brutal rangers in leather and chains.

If this is the type of outing you’ve been dreaming about, keep dreaming. I can’t make it happen. But picture this:

• A luxurious house with a separate bed for everyone.
• 18 to 36 holes of golf per day on pristine courses.
• A gourmet meal every night.
• All the comforts, food and drink of home.
• Evening entertainment.
• Sensational camaraderie.

I am looking at an arrival date of (date) and departure date of (date). We will be gathering in (city, state). For a group of eight of us, and assuming we average 27 holes per day, your cost should be around $XXX for the housing, food, drink, golf and rental cars. (Note: Our cost per man for food and drink for seven days was $160 in 2005.) Please reply before (date) by answering:

What is the percentage chance you can come for these dates? What is the percentage chance you could make other dates? What dates would you prefer? Other recommendations:"

You have now set the stage. For those you don’t hear back from, get on the phone and hash it out. Through all of your responses, you will come up with the consensus of length of vacation and dates through give and take.

Over the next four months you will be:

• Getting firm commitments from your group members
• Arriving at a firmer consensus on golf venue
• Receiving food and drink orders to allow you to make the shopping list
• Reserving the vacation house and rental cars
• Getting tee times

I like to periodically whet everyone’s appetite and keep the excitement level up. Setting up a website especially for your group is a great way to do this. An easy way for you to do this would be to get a free Blog set up for this purpose. I recommend blogger dot com or wordpress dot com.

Over the years, we have realized two key things about lodging. The first is that it makes a huge difference in camaraderie when the whole group stays under the same roof. The second is the value in everyone having a separate bed (you know how guys are). The only way to achieve this is to pick a location where there are a bunch of rental homes in order for you to pick one that allows this.

It may not seem to you like time is of the essence, but work schedules, vacation allotments, spousal plans, ticket costs, and your preparation needs demand that you DO get this ball rolling. Once you have sent your introductory email and done your phone calling, several of your planned guests will have trouble pulling the trigger. Work with them as you can, but I have found that you will need your firm group established two months ahead of time (give or take one guy or so.) A fine point for you: Ask for a nominal deposit from each of the troops.

Over time, I know that the cost of our vacation, outside of airfare, will be around $900. In one of my follow up emails, I simply ask the players to send around half of that to me. It emphasizes commitment.

In selecting the location of your rental home, consider the driving time to the golf courses you will be playing. We have found that twenty minutes travel time is great, thirty minutes is OK, but forty minutes is too long. The longer drives are certainly bearable, but if you are planning a winter vacation, you will have to have a fairly early tee time in the morning to allow lunch and another 18 in the afternoon. After telling tales late into the evening, beating the sun to the course, heading home and preparing the feast, it gets to be a long day.

This takes us to the minus-two-months time frame.

During the collision between the driver and the ball (which lasts for less than half a millisecond, 200 times faster than you can blink your eye), there’s an average force of 1,500 pounds being applied to the ball. This violent collision compresses the ball to about two-thirds of its diameter. The cover thickness is less than 3 percent of the size of the ball but doesn’t much influence the outcome of this collision.
Two-piece balls, which have been on the market for many years, will spin less and go a little farther off the driver than the soft, wound balata balls that were used on tour until five years ago. The hard-core two-piece ball will spin about the same as the wound ball off the wedge only if it has an extremely soft and relatively thick cover. But such a cover reduces the ball’s distance off the driver. The trick is to get a ball to spin less than a wound ball off the driver but the same as a wound ball off the wedge. A multi layer ball will do this because it has a soft core (for speed off the driver face) surrounded by a hard mantle and a thin soft cover. The mantle reduces spin off the driver, and the cover, too thin to influence driver launch conditions, is soft enough to significantly influence the spin off the wedge. The collision between the wedge and the soft cover, less violent and more oblique than with a driver, generates more spin. Thus, designers combined new materials with a better understanding of the synergy between ball and club to create a more efficient multi layer ball.

Could you please shed some light on how to determine the proper driver length and what the average driver length is on tour? Chuck Mooney, Davenport, Iowa.

The average length driver on the PGA Tour is 44 1/2 inches. For most golfers, I recommend no longer than 44 inches. This will give you more control than the longer driver. You will develop more confidence and make a better swing. On average this will give you more accurate and longer drives. You might not win bragging rights with an occasional testosterone-inspired long drive, but you will lose fewer balls and enjoy your game a lot more. Shaft length is important, but don’t forget to make sure you’re comfortable with the flex of the shaft. Remember: If you think the 44-inch driver is too short, how on earth are you going to use a 3-wood or your hybrids, which are a lot shorter?

Is there a published report that gives a true count of equipment used by PGA Tour pros? B.C., New Orleans

An organization called the Darrell Survey goes through every competitor’s bag on Thursday of every tournament to verify the pros are using the equipment they claim to be using or the manufacturers claim they’re using. It has conducted these surveys for about 60 years. The information is sold to the manufacturers, who use the counts for advertising purposes. The information is considered reliable–at least for the first day of the tournament. Players may change equipment after the tournament begins, potentially draining the winning putt with a club not reported on the survey.