Val Castro was a long time UCLA Intramural Department employee who
exemplified the important values of hard work, friendship, kindness and
positive life outlook. His sudden passing from cancer in 2007 united the
alumni whose lives he touched to organize the Val Castro Memorial Golf
Tournament, scheduled for Friday, May 29 at Coyote Hills Golf Course in
Fullerton California. Heralded as one of the premier golf courses in Southern
California, Coyote Hills will provide the backdrop for this fun-filled day of
golf. Following the round, golfers will be treated to a complimentary lunch
banquet and silent auction, with proceeds from the auction benefiting the
Castro Family and UCLA Recreation Intramural Sports Student Development.

If you plan to register or want to sponsor a UCLA student to golf, please click here and you will be forwarded to the Collegiate Golf Alliance where you can sign up:

Or, to simply make a donation, please make checks payable to “UCLA Golf Club” & mail to:

UCLA Recreation, Attn: Julian Mintz
2131 John Wooden Center
Los Angeles, CA 90095

It goes without saying that proper nutrition is important for all of us. But, if you are serious about shaving valuable strokes off your scorecard, you need to make some tough decisions on seeing your diet through. If you travel for golf, or play in frequent tournaments, it is important not to fall into the trap of ‘settling’ for fast food or a quick bag of chips or chocolate bar. Make a commitment to use some or all of the following tips and your energy will reach new heights in your next round. • Avoid caffeine and alcohol. Both of these are diuretics and cause fluid loss. They also both affect performance. Coffee can over stimulate your mind or your muscles, making your performance uncontrolled. Excessive consumption of alcohol severely affects your coordination.

• Avoid large amounts of food in the two hours leading up to tee time. Food in your digestive system diverts blood away from your brain and muscles, affecting concentration and physical performance. A meal two to three hours before play is preferred.

• Don’t skip meals. Golfers need that slow and steady release of energy to see them through difficult or long hours of play. Smaller meals are better to help increase metabolism.

• Eat 5 to 6 small meals throughout the day. This gives your body the nutrition it needs to last.

• Drink lots of water. Think in terms of 8 to 10 glasses each day. Continue throughout your round to stay hydrated especially during the summer months.

• Combine carbohydrates, proteins and fats at each meal. This aides in overall digestion and ensures you are getting the proper nutrients.

• Bring a snack or bag lunch. Beverage carts are not known for healthy choices, so don’t put yourself in a position to feel forced to rely on them.

• Avoid high processed foods or sugar based foods. They tend to raise blood sugar levels quickly and, then, drop rapidly causing fatigue.

• Stick with the basics. Don’t try new foods just before you play. Stick with what you know your body responds well to.

• Keep it simple. There is no need to make elaborate meals or go to great extent in preparation. A piece of fruit and bag of nuts will go a long way in replenishing energy when you need it.

As a golfer, especially if you are of a championship caliber, it is essential to have a wide variety of complex carbohydrates to maintain your energy through an 18-hole match or a 72-hole tournament.

Mentally your brain needs to stay conditioned to tell your body what to do, not to mention calculating distances, swing strength and maintaining focus. Follow these 10 tips and watch your scorecard drop to new lows.

There are plenty of young women golfers following Sorenstam’s lead, realizing that women can also excel in what used to be known as a man’s sport. Players like Michelle Wie, Brittany Lang, Paula Creamer and Morgan Pressel are all beginning to make a name for themselves. Creamer, a 2005 high school graduate, had already earned more than half a million dollars this year alone by the time she took her diploma.

Many of these young women are coming up through the ranks of LPGA-USGA Girls Golf, a developmental junior golf program designed to not only teach girls the game of golf, but also life values such as patience, respect, perseverance and honesty. These girls are also learning to lead a physically-fit lifestyle. More than 4,500 girls ages 7-17 participate at 181 sites nationwide.

This is an exciting time for women’s golf and an opportunity for young players to make their mark in history.

When I was first married I would get frustrated about my husband’s sheer excitement about golf as each spring turned to summer. I would give him a hard time about buying a membership to a local golf club and I would even try guilting him out of playing as often as I could. I didn’t realize until many years later just how important it was for me to let my husband enjoy his times of golf with other men. I’ve come to realize that my husbands life at work is busy and stressful and that playing golf is one of his favorite ways to relax and to enjoy time with his guy friends. I am no longer threatened that he isn’t dying to get home at the end of each day. Instead, I see that golf is not the enemy of our family but actually a friend since it allows our husband and father to come home relaxed and refreshed and ready to pour more into our family.

If you are a man, then I suggest you get to the nearest golf course and sign up for a summer pass. If you are a woman who has been hesitant to allow your man to golf, then change your mind and buy a summer pass for the guy you love. We all need times away from the stresses of home and work just to release some energy and to have fun. Golf is the perfect way for men (and some women) to do just that.

I think it is important that men take time to golf with other men at least one time per week. Obviously, if we have a man that wants to golf six out of every seven nights in the summer then there is probably an issue to talk about. Men cannot use golf as an excuse to never be home with their families, but it can be a great way for them to get away and to refresh themselves for the stresses of family life and for time in the office.

Men, grab a friend or two and get to a golf course soon. See how much fun you will have and how much stress you will release on the course . You’ll be so glad that you have the time to golf that when it comes time to go home you’ll have energy and desire to spend time with the family.

The result is that many of them ended up making purchases without first focusing on the specific weaknesses in their game that they want to correct. Others purchased golf swing training aids without the benefit of expert advice.

Many times the approach has been to get hold of the very latest golf swing training aids in the market, rather than trying to improve on personal physical limitations and finding the best training aids in the market to help one do that.
Whatever the image golf swing training aids have in the eyes of most golfers, the truth of the matter is that they work and can have a major impact on your golf game when approached correctly.

The right approach to golf swing training aids starts by not looking for any magical overnight remedies that will wipe out your weaknesses overnight. Instead you should focus on particular exercises and golf-conditioning programs that will improve on your physical limitations hampering your golf game.

If you then look for the particular golf swing training aids that will best help you achieve your current goal and objective, your chances of success with golf swing training aids that you purchase, dramatically improves.

Even if somebody suggests a certain golf swing training aid and assures you that it will eliminate a specific weakness evident in your game of golf, before purchasing it focus on the particular muscles in your body that need to be conditioned to eliminate or reduce on the problem. You can then see if the golf swing training aid recommended will help you achieve your goal.

Do not be afraid to ask for expert advice on golf swing training aids before you make your final decision. It quite often pays to do so.

Is today’s female golfer really that different? You need only look as far as statistics from previous years in combination with current levels of play to answer that question. In 1998, only 7 short years ago, Annika drove the ball 246 yards in average driving distance. Today, her average distance is 272 yards. Since undergoing a full scale assault on fitness with the help of a personal trainer, she has gained close to 30 yards in new found distance.

Is she the lone ranger in women’s golf or the wave of the future? Back in 1998, if an LPGA player drove the ball 250 yards, she was in the top 17 players in her field. Today, a player who drives the ball 250 yards won’t even place in the top 40. What accounts for these new performance standards and how can female golfers around the country prepare for high level competition?

Build a Foundation – Learning how to properly engage the core muscles provides a platform of stability and level of protection from injury. In order to keep your body from breaking down and affecting your golf swing, exercises aimed at restoring muscular balance should be a natural part of program design. As you continue to build foundational strength, you also improve your resistance to fatigue.

Progressive Resistance – Strength should be developed in a progressive manner. In order to get stronger one needs to progressively add resistance over time relative to previous workouts. Strength gains are made slowly, but consistently and you will see the difference in your game in no time. In the absence of progress with your program, you’re limiting your potential. Progression also involves varying your speeds of movement as your body becomes more adapted to each exercise.

Today’s female golfer knows that hard work creates results and translates to a better position in the playing field. If you are looking for ways to take yourself to the top of the leader board, then place the needs of your body at the top of your priority list to make a definitive difference in your game.

Glimpse into these greens hailed as the world’s five top golf courses, as compiled by Golf Magazine. Golfer or not, you will be enthralled and intrigued how these ultra expansive natural settings that seemingly stretch out to the sky in interesting meandering patterns and heights can be so ultra secluded from the public eye.

Pine Valley Golf Club

Located in Pine Valley, New Jersey USA, the Pine Valley Golf Club hits the number one spot. The golf course is reported to take up vast acres of greeneries, so vast that each golfer would feel a sense of isolation, not knowing that other golfers playing in other sections of the fairways feel the same.

Interestingly, Pine Valley is not new in receiving prestige and recognition in the sports world of golf. Records indicate this gold course was already at the number three spot in 1939 in a ranking by Golf Club atlas. In Golf Magazine’s biennial rankings, it has remained at the top since 1991.

But Pine Valley does not only boast of quantity in acres but the quality of the course as well. In fact, it is also considered to be one of the toughest courses. If you crave for challenge, privacy, and ultimate golfing experience, go Pine Valley.

Cypress Point Club

Cypress Point, the number two choice, is the most beautiful course. Located in Pebble Beach, California USA, it is positioned in a piece of land that meets the blue waters of the beach.

This 18-hole golf course has bunkers that have been strategically and fascinatingly built such that there is a seamless connection between what’s natural and man-made. Hole No. 16, specifically, continues to captivate golf lovers, having been acclaimed as the ultimate one-shotter in existence.

St. Andrews Golf Club

The world’s number three golf course located in St. Andrews Fife, Scotland is the number in Europe, and the oldest in the world. Europe’s quaint setting, which gives off a more relaxed and laidback ambiance so compatible with the nature of this sport, makes this region truly a golfer’s paradise.

The world first experienced golf in Scotland, right here in St. Andrews, as early as the 12th century. It received a royal patronage in 1854. Now, it is considered as the world’s oldest surviving “royal” golf club.

St. Andrews is not really that striking in appearance to new golfers. Its appeal grows as you familiarize yourself with its landscapes, reinforcing the fact that knowledge of course management is a key in golf strategy games.

Augusta National Golf Club

The number four is located in Augusta, Georgia USA. Each of Augusta’s 18 holes has been named after a flower that has come to be associated with it. During grand tournaments, these flowers are in full bloom thereby creating a colorful and festive natural backdrop as you begin those back swings.

But more importantly, Augusta has been characterized with broad fairways, exciting elevation changes, and slick greens that will pose real challenge to skilled golfers.

Shinnecock Hills Golf Club

Golf course number five is located in Southhampton, New York USA. It was originally a 12-hole course remodeled into 18-hole layout in 1895. Its impressive layout features undulating greens and bunkers backdropped with tree canopies, shrubs as well as ponds.

This peek into the world’s best five can be overwhelming. A walk into their greens, a swing into their air, and a golf game follow-through through their fairways, bunkers, and other intriguing nooks and spots will definitely sum up into a par that, in terms of experience, is victory itself.

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.

So many of the best golfers in the game are real big dorks right? I mean you can totally see why to, they have never had to do anything in life but play a game and they have been spoon fed by their mommies since day one. They don’t know what real life is about and that some people have had to work hard for not a lot of money and not everyone gets to have world class golf instruction from day one. They really are pretty ignorant and this, it is my contention, is what makes them among the biggest dorks that there is. So if these sorts of people are wearing a certain attire, that would make golf apparel pretty bad wouldn’t it?

I mean really, who wears black and white shoes anymore except out on the links? Who wears dress shorts with shoes and socks? Only golfers really and it is right in line with the rest of the golf apparel scene. There is no sensible reason other than these guys wake up in the morning and have their clothes laid out for them by there mommies, or wives which are really no better, and they put them on without even thinking. Why should they have to think, they make more money than the rest of us and so if wearing dorky clothes is what they must do than that is what they must do.

Now the real question is why doesn’t the general public see this problem and boycott all golf apparel until it becomes cool? Why do we put up with the fashion mishaps that we get by trusting a bunch of lily butts and their mommies for the clothes that we wear on the golf course? I am here to institute a new dress code that allows things like t shirts and sweat pants out on the course so that the rest of us can feel comfortable when we golf rather than all uptight, from being in clothes that make us real dorks.

It is exactly the same in the golfing game. Those amateur golfers who are ignoring the great changes that we have witnessed in the golfing game in recent times have run into lots of difficulties and many of them no longer enjoy playing the game they way they used to, not too long ago. Some have even altogether given up the golfing game.
Many of these frustrated golfers have failed to see the tremendous changes in the golfing game that have ended up affecting them.

One of them is the change in the way golfers are training and preparing themselves for major tourneys and games. Actually the golfing game has always been considered a leisure activity where one need not even break into a sweat, let alone exercise.

However this thinking and approach has changed completely in recent years. Most professional golfers these days schedule regular golf exercises into their daily routine. Numerous amateur golfers have done the same and the result is that even the physical appearance of major players of the golfing game has changed. They are getting more and more physically fit.

When you compete with players of the golfing game who are involved in a golf-specific exercising program, the going can get very tough, because the level of their game is bound to be much higher than yours.

And contrary to what many people think, these exercises as not so rigorous. My program has included senior citizens of upto 80 years old who have no problem in adapting to the exercises. And in the end the golf exercises have had a tremendously positive impact on their golfing game.