Sports, Entertainment, and Smack

Round 2 Scratch Match Play

2010-07-14T09:17:00.007-04:00

Had a hell of a match yesterday.

Not feeling a big huge post, so just a quick run down.

I was playing Matt N from our club. He's a 3 handicapper who plays on the weekdays with a bunch of guys who are all over the map. Probably the most laid back guy on the planet. Great putter, seems to have a million different types of shots in his bag, and overall great player.

I knew I was in for a tough one. Steve mentioned to me before the round that I would handle him easily, but i quickly corrected him saying it wasn't going to be easy. Matt talks A LOT and is so carefree it throws you off a bit.

Anyways, here goes.

#1 - Matt was down the right hand side in the fairway, I bailed out of my tee shot and was deep into the trees on the right. We both have to hit low runners. Matt was short, I was way left behind the traps. Matt got up and down, I hit a horrible makable par putt. Matt 1 Up.

#2 - Matt had 180 to the green came up short. I was right behind a large tree/bush up the right side at 150. I hit a great running 5 iron that ran out about 100 yards a finished 8 feet from the cup. Matt missed his par putt. All Square.

#3 - Decent drives by both. Matt got to the front of the green playing to a back left pin. I got mine to about 10 feet. Matt just missed par putt, Harris 1 up.

#4 - We both ended up Par. Harris 1 up.

#5 - I would find myself directly behind a small tree on the right hand side. Had no shot at all. I made bogey, Matt made par, All square.

#6 - Both made nice pars, All square.

#7 - Matt came up just short and right of the green. I was about 15 feet for birdie. Matt couldn't make the up and down, I made the 2 putt par. Harris 1 up.

#8 - Matt was down the middle about 240 out from the green. He laid up. I was 240 out just barely right of the traps. I had a line to the pin so I hit rescue, it rolled just past the hole and settled at the back of the green to a middle pin. I would make a nice birdie to Matt's Par. Harris 2 Up.

#9 - I would miss a 4 footer for par to finish the front 9 1 Up.

I Started to gain some momentum on the back.

#10 - My birdie on 10 was good for the hole - Harris 2 up

#11 - I made a crappy par and Matt missed his par putt - Harris 3 up.

#12 - playing from the short tees, we both made par, I should have made a birdie putt, Harris 3 up

#13 - Of course, I put mine in the trees on the left scared to death of the right. Had a chance to win the hole with a par putt but couldn't putt today, so saw off the hole. Harris 3 up.

#14 - I hit an awful 7 iron to the green, ended up in the trap on the right. Matt was centre of the green. Awful shot out of the bunker. Easy par for Matt and the hole. Harris 2 up.

#15 - Both of us had to punch out from the trees on the left to about 200 yards out. Both of us got the green from there with makable birdie putts. Neither of us hit them, Harris 2 up.

#16 - Thought I could birdie this hole to win the match. After we both laid up to about 60 yards. I would stick one about 12 feet for birdie. Matt was just off the green. He would get up and in. I rammed my birdie putt about 3 feet past the hole. At least i gave it a chance. Would make the slick come back to stay 2 up.

#17 - Thinking I would have the advantage on this hole with the black tees back around 235 (Matt only plays the blue tees which are around 200 every time) I was disappointed to find the tee up at the blue marker. Matt up first would pure a rescue to about 8 feet for birdie. I pulled my 5 iron into the bunker on the left. Made a great out to about 4 feet for par. Matt literally stopped his birdie putt on the edge of the cup. I had 4 feet for the win. I saw it was breaking slightly to the left. I went straight at the hole, just missed. Harris Up 1.

I hate the 18th hole. I can't drive on it. there is no worse scenario for me than to take a match to the 18th hole. There is out of bounds to the right and not much room for someone like me who has a wicked fade off the tee.

#18 - Matt pures one down the centre (this guy is so steady). I think about hitting rescue but change to driver at last second. Get on the tee and hit as quickly as I possibly can to avoid thinking about my ball going on the highway. I hit a screamer at the trees on the left and it just barely misses them and lands in the middle of the fairway about 120 out. Matt had 16 and hit his worst shot of the day to about 15 yards short right. I put PW in my hand to hit to the back pin. Keep repeating in my head "middle of the green, middle of the green". I hit a decent wedge that I pull just a little and miss the middle of the green, however I found myself with an amazing shot leaving about 8 feet for birdie pin high. I laugh with Steve about the "miss". Matt had a chance to chip in and ran it by the hole about 10 feet just into the fringe. He would make the par putt from there leave me with a 2 putt for the win. I hit another awful putt (putting is awful I'm worried about it) but was good enough for the gimmie and the win.

Great match. Shouldn't have got to where it did, but regardless I won the match. On to the next round. Not sure who I play, but glad to be through to the next round. Up next is my Langley second round match on Sunday against arch nemesis Charlie. Last year I took pleasure in destroying him 5 and 4. This year I have to give him 2 shots, but I think I'll pull it off. Should be another good match, we will see.

Getting GOOOOOOD again.

2010-06-28T09:37:00.002-04:00

This weekend was a success on the course. After an almost 2 week layoff since the marathon golf trip, i was ready to get back out there.

Saturday was spent with Cal and Thane. This was a pretty boring round. Basically spent the time talking with cal about the trip, selling him on the amazing experience of playing minimalist golf. Anyways, got a round the course pretty easily. A few hiccups here and there, but came out with a 76. 37 on the first 9 (played back first), 39 on the second 9. Swing felt good. The greens were awful due to them being punched earlier in the week, but over all good. round.

Sunday was my first match for the Langley Cup match play tournament. I was playing Gary P a long time playing partner that is known for being a solid player. I would have my work cut out for me on this one.

Started well with a par and win the first hole. Things got a little out of control from here. Standing at my second shot on the second hole i told Steve and Ryan that I was going to jump out to a 3 or 4 stroke lead by the 6th hole, I was just feeling good today. I'd do my best to make that come true by making birdie on 2 to go 2 up. Lost the third with a bogey, 1 up. Halved the 4th. I'd make a great birdie on 5 to go 2 up. Birdie 7 to go 3 up. Birdie 8 to go 4 up. Tied 9. I shot a 33 (my all time low for 9 holes) and was 4 up. Gary was in shock i think after shooting 37 and finding himself in such a hole.

On 10 i was pin high in 2, but screwed up around the green and made a par and only tied the hole. Think this through my rhythm off as i went down hill from here. tied 11 with pars. 12 we tied again with bogeys. Gary should have been taking holes from me here. And I'm losing my strokes to stay under par for the first time in 3 years. 13 was a mess. i would go into the left trap green side and shlubbed it out, schlubbed one on the green, and made a long put for 5. gary won the hole. I'm 3 up and 1 under for the round. 14 i over hit the green with a 7 iron. couldn't get up and down, gary did and I'm 2 up and even on the round. On 15 after driving into the 6th fairway I finally hit a solid shot again after what seemed like an eternity. I was able to get on GIR and 2 putted for a par. Gary had a 4 footer for par and some how the ball went in the hole and popped out. Felt awful, but it happens. I'd take the hole and go back up 3. I believed that I could just par the next 3 holes and win the match obviously at 3 up with 3 to play, make gary birdie. 16 I hit 3 safe shots to get to the green and below the hole. Lagged a makable birdie putt up to the 4 or 6 inches. Gary missed his long birdie putt and conceded the hole to me. Game over, 3 and 2.

I was reeling a bit for those 3 holes. Struggled to gain my composure which is weird cause I really like match play and don't tend to get to nervous. Oh well, happy to be through to next round. Looking forward to playing my scratch bracket this month as I had a bye through the first round. I have a feeling the scratch bracket is gong to take over as the most desirable trophy at the club. Time will tell. I for one would prefer winning that one, but then again I would prefer to win any tournament.

Best Golf Trip Ever?

2010-06-21T09:18:00.003-04:00

Warning: grammer and spelling may be horrible. No time to edit.

You better believe it. Sorry to my boys who attended the Arizona golf trip of 2007, but for golfing purposes, this last trip to tiny Holyoke Colorado and Mullen Nebraska was by far the best trip I've ever been on. Getting a chance to play Ballyneal and Sand Hills was amazing. I don't have the ability, or time, to do a full crazy write up of the courses. That is best left to Jim C at wegoblogger #31 which is linked in my sidebar for Ballyneal, and Check on Matt B at Now on the Tee in a few days when he posts some of the 700+ pictures he took of sand hills and does one of those crazy long posts over the course of 3 weeks.

I'll sum it all up right here. BEST GOLF COURSE EVER IS SAND HILLS. Sorry Jim if you're reading this, but it just was. Don't get me wrong, I loved every second I spent at ballyneal, loved the course, and would love to get back one day and play in different conditions, but Sand Hills was something on another level. Ballyneal would be the very best top course outside of Sand Hills.

AS for the golf, I actually played rather well for the 11 rounds over 4 days, which was almost to much golf but not really.

Matches between matt and I went 36 holes each day and we played for dinner each time. As some may know, and as Matt would point out to anyone listening, our last golf vacation didn't go so well for me. I ended up buying dinner every single night. This trip, I was determined to make a change.

The first day didn't go so well. Maybe due to about 3 hours of sleep, or the excitement of where I was, I couldn't put it together. Matt would win the first day of golf I think by a few holes. He was treated to a steak dinner and drinks.

The second day would prove to be the best of all in match play terms. After a much better sleep and a solid breakfast I was set to challenge my nemesis once again. Today we would be paired up with Matt S, a member at Ballyneal and participant in the group of 14 or so we had on the trip, and our caddies. Mine on the day was a kid named Andy who had been looping there for 3 years and was a welcome change from the guy i had a day earlier on his first ever loop. That turned out interesting have 2 guys go around the course for the first time ever, talk about the blind leading the blind.

Anyways, back to THE match. Things would go ok for the first few holes. Lots of trash talking, lots a great shots. Both Matt's were getting in on it against me and my caddy and by the 7th hole I had enough. I was i believe 1 down to Matt B and decided I would open my mouth, "I'll take on both you guys no problem." Oh shit, did I just say that? Im going to have to back this up. Next thing I know we are walking down the 7th fairway and I'm playing against 2 guys straight up. I've got my work cut out for me.

We played a lot of golf so I can't really remember the whole round. I do remember the last few holes. Going into 15 I would find myself 1 down. Matt B was on the green, I was just right of the green, and Matt S was in some junk. After our second shots, I was about 35 feet away and matt S was just in front of me by about 5 feet. Matt B had about 6 feet for par. Matt S went to line his putt up but changed his mind and used some gamesmanship to mess with my head and picked up in an effort to avoid showing me a line. Smart move you sly fox. Everyone including myself found this to be awesome with even some high fives between the Matts. I'd end up missing the putt and falling behind by 2 with 3 to play.

16 a long par 5 was reachable all week for me. I'd get up to the easier Green side bunker this time and give myself a makable birdie putt from about 9 feet, but it wasn't meant to be. Luckily Matt was putting like it was his first time ever to play golf and easily missed his birdie putt. 2 down 2 to play.

17 was a long par 4 dead into a violent wind. I found myself about 220 out and looking at a sucker pin tucked behind one of the ugliest bunkers you've ever seen. I went at it anyways. I hit my 2 iron rescue but skipped it off the mound about 10 feet in front of me, it would shoot way up in the air and I lost sight of it. My caddy said it landed up near the green but wasn't sure where it ended up. As we all climbed up to the green one ball was about 6 inches from the cup. YUP, it was the titliest 2 with an Orange dot. Tap in, 1 down with 1 to play.

This was only a 18 hole match, so a tie would be considered a victory against 2 guys. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. I would have a 15 footer for birdie that would have given me the tie, but it couldn't make it and ended up losing 10 a piece to the Matts. great round none the less. More importantly, I was even with Matt B on the 36 hole match.

Again, unsure of the details of the whole match. Lets jump ahead to the most important part and the drama part, the 15th. I'm standing on the 15th tee down 3 with 4 to play. I tell Andy (he was sticking this marathon out with me) i need 2 birdies in the next 3 holes to have a chance at this. We played a little forward on 15 and I hit an ok shot on the green but left myself 40 feet for birdie. Matt would chip on the green and have a makable (for most people, not matt since he couldn't putt worth shit at this point of the trip) par putt from about 6 feet. I read mine about 6 inches outside the cup. Stroked a perfect putt and it drops for a birdie and I'm 2 down.

Back to the long 16. I would find myself about 210 out after the drive. Matt and our other playing partner Andrew would layup. I didn't have that luxury, I blasted on towards the green. It was looking perfect in the air but came up a little short and went into the treacherous front bunker. This brought out a fist pump and and "AWESOME" from matt as he was in there earlier in the day an knew how brutal is was. To his dismay, I would get up to the bunker and play it perfectly to 3 feet. Of course Matt missed his 7 footer for birdie leaving me a chance. Of course I put mine in, 1 down 2 to play.

17 wasn't playing as tough as the wind dies down for the afternoon round. I was in the exact same spot as I was early in the day and hit a weak 4 iron that came up short. Luckily Matt was hacking it along the right hand side through the Yucca but found the green on his 4th and had a 4 footer for bogey. I didn't hit the best chip and left myself about 25 feet for par. I'd end up draining my putt just before I walked up blowing out the flames on my putter to emphasize the ridiculousness that I just through down on matt the last 3 holes. All square heading into 18.

Our tee shots on 18 would be side by side with Matt hitting his approach first. I'm not sure what went wrong, I'm assuming the pressure just got to him, but matt shanked it slightly to a tough lie just off the left of the green. I smoothed yet another 8 iron to about 10 feet claiming "It's over" before the ball even landed. An uneventful end saw me missing the birdie putt by about 3 inches, and matt blowing his 5 footer for par for me to take the match 1 up. Andy and I attempted the awkward Tiger/Steve high five, shook Matts hand and walked off with my 2 over 73 and victory. Sweet, sweet victory.

Ridiculous match. Most fun I've ever had on the course. Couldn't have been a better day.

After that we for some reason decided to walk another 18 holes to make it 54 on the day. That was cool yet a mistake. I was in some severe pain 3.5 hours later. I won't be doing that again.

That's it for now. Maybe I'll do something on Sand Hills, but for now I'll leave you with this was the best golf ever for 4 days.

4 days to go.

2010-06-06T12:43:00.002-04:00

This weekend was a bit of a bust for golf.

Friday i opted not to play so that I could get some work done around the house before it rained all weekend. I needed to mulch my gardens in the back yard before it flooded in the rain. Just in case you're interested, which you shouldn't be, i got it all down and it looks awesome. Especially now that it's all under water after a ridiculous amount of rain last night.

Saturday we played really early, 6:30Am. Maybe a little to early. I struggled a bit through the first few holes. Couldn't really get anything going on the front 9. Would make 2 doubles and shoot 42 with a birdie. Ya, that bad.

The front wasn't to much better but i grinded in an attempt to have a respectable score. Had it going for a bit. Birdie on 15 helped me keep it at even. Got through 16 and 17 with a par. 18 was a mess. I would end up with double on the hole to shoot 80 overall.

Haven't been scoring well lately. I'm not to concerned. I think I'm getting to a point where I found my squash game towards the end of the season. I seem to play a little better when something is on the line. Like a tournament. Not sure why this is. Maybe cause I'm concentrating more while in a tournament, or qualifying. Maybe I'm to tired playing so early in the morning. I don't know. Maybe its all made up. Who knows. But my game is there. I can play i just have to fix a few things. Obviously the range would help, but i don't go enough.

I'm 4 days away from what might be the best golf trip I ever go on. Actually that's not true, I'm sure I will go on some ridiculous golf trips through out my life, but this one will be pretty special. I'll be playing Ballyneal and Sandhills Golf Club. They are in Colorado and Nebraska. I can't freaking wait. It's been a long few months waiting for this trip and the next 4 days are going to be unbearably slow. But this time Friday morning I will be in to my first of 10+ rounds over 5 days at 2 of the best courses in the world. I can't wait.

Better Results

2010-05-31T07:25:00.002-04:00

Another weekend of perfect golf weather, and I didn't waste a day.

Friday i got out for 9 holes after work with Steve and a fellow member. The golf this day was relaxing and enjoyable. I just kind of smacked the ball around. tried some things, of course none of them worked. Think i was somewhere in the 39 or 40 range. Nothing to write home about. Was just great weather and nice to be out on the course after a ridiculously horrible day and week of work.

Saturday was again perfect for playing golf. I got out to the course early to hit some balls before teeing off. I figured I would fix my swing 20 minutes before my round. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time. I was on the verge of figuring it out but didn't. The round started out well. Actually, my whole group was great off the start with Matt, Cal, Wes, and myself. We were tearing up the front 9. As a group we birdied 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 (eagle). For the back it started off much the same. 3 birdies on 10, 2 on 11, and the wheels came off. I was 1 over after the birdies on 10 and 11. I doubled 12 and from there I was awful. Finished the round at 82 or 83. Not a great score by any means. Left very miserable for the rest of the day and drowned my sorrows in Bud Light.

Sunday was the second Men's Tour event of the year at Thundering Waters. I hate this course. Think it's a joke, with horrible conditioning, way to tough on some holes, and over all just didn't enjoy it last time I played. This time, I still thought the course was bad, but it wasn't as horrible. They did cut out 2 great holes to start and made the course about 1000 yards shorter all said and done. They added a couple par 3's I think and made some par 4's around 300 yards, shorten some of the par 5's. This course has potential, but it's just not going to happen. The greens were ok overall. Not very fast, not to slow. Pretty smooth for the most part. There is some ridiculous green complexes which I actually find kind of fun. Makes for some interesting chip shots.

On this day of golf I actually got to the range in the morning and had plenty of time to work on my swing. Good thing I did. I actually fixed it this time. It always goes back to some small stuff you forget from the year before. I seem to forget the same thing every year. Stand up taller, narrow stance, smooth swing. I figured out these 3 keys and kept them going through my head. Ball started flying straight with nice trajectory. Driver was flying perfect. I got the fix. So i left for the course.

I played much better in this one than the last and my last few rounds. I was aggressive all day hitting driver on every hole. My chipping was great. Putting was about a 7 out of 10. Iron play was good. If i could control my nerves I would have been better, but shot 77. This put me in a tie for 11th. Pretty good and I'm not totally disappointed. I for sure left 3 strokes on the course with some sloppy putting from 3 feet. I made a double on last par 3 16th by being over aggressive, not going to beat myself up over that. The putting was my downfall and something I need to continue to work on. I haven't been nervous in a tourny in a while. Think i was this time because i was only 2 over after 14 holes. I was feeling great.

Some small mistakes cost me in the end. My buddy Ryan actually was the last 76 to come, he was in the last group of the day, and he pushed me out of my first ever top 10 on tour. I guess I will have to play better at the next one.

Solid weather again sunday, I had a great playing group of guys. Bad news at the end of the round as at least 10 cars got broken into by some losers who thinks its cool to do things like that. I feel awful especially for Matt as he lost his whole set of clubs, and a camera with pics of his son on it. Jerks.

Playing a lot of golf lately. Hopefully it will be some good golf now that I got a swing back. Need some practice time, will get on that this week. The countdown to Ballyneal and Sand Hills is 10 days. I can't freaking wait.

I need to hit the Gym.

2010-05-25T10:19:00.003-04:00

Just made it through a pretty decent long weekend if I do say so myself. Actually, a well deserved one as my week of work leading up to it was absolute hell. Just glad it's over.

I was maybe a little ambisious this weekend, attempting to get in 4 rounds over 4 days. Well I guess it's not that hard on paper, but didn't turn out exactly how I thought it would.

Friday was a perfect day to get out after work. Working on gettting Ryan and Steve to come out regularly, so far looks good, but not this week. Anyways, I have a great time playing with those guys. This week we were joined by the club pro Drew which was actually great. It was the first time the head pro from my course came out to play with me. He's a phenominal putter aside from have an all around great game. I actually played my best round of the weekend on friday. shot 41 on the front and then turned around and posted a 35 on the back to shoot 76. Ya, could have been lower with a better front, but I was happy with it. Made some great shots. On 11 I dunked a lob shot from about 15 yards off the back of the green for a birdie. Chipped in from the fringe on 12. On 16 I found myself 245 out right beside ryan. I tell him to make sure he hits a good layup cause I'm going for the green. He said no way it gets there. I ended up killing one perfectly at the pin and it landed about 6 or 8 feet away. I left the putt on the edge for eagle, still a great birdie. Ended up with a bogey on 18. Good times.

Saturday started off well enough, but I had to quit after 9 to go to work. I had people working that day and I felt bad being on the course while they are working. So i left and went back to the office. My attempt at being a good boss.

Sunday was a perfect day for golf again. We had phenominal weather friday, sunday and monday. I found myself to be a little tired sunday morning. Ended up dragging my ass around the course struggling to make good swings. Shot low 80's. Can't remember exact score, very unremembarable round.

Monday was more of the same except I was even more tired. Late nights early morning weren't agreeing with me this weekend. I schlepped my fat ass around the course again with little to no effort as I had nothing left in the tank. Shot 86 with a bunch of holes not even finished.

Not my best scoring, but definitly a great weekend none the less.

I'm a little worried about my conditioning. I got so tired playing only 18 holes a day. I'm going away with Matt for the most ridiculous golf trip ever in 2.5 weeks and we are slotted play a minimum of 36 holes a day. Probably expected to play at least 45 or 54, all WALKING. I walk every time I play but i've never walked 36 in a day. So i have to get some training in the gym or something. I think i need to stengthen my legs back to where they were a few weeks ago. The golf has killed my squash game so I've lost a good amount of endurance and put on some weight i lost. Not happy with my condition right now.

I've got a short amount of time, but i'm closer than most and will get in decent enough shape for the heavy amount of golf.

OK, let the mocking and ridicule begin. I'm ready for it and deserve it.

My 2 friends?????

2010-05-06T14:37:00.004-04:00

So i've got these 2 guys that I'm friends with. No reason to hide it, its Matt and Cal and they think there funny, but really they are a bunch of JERKS.

Cal being his usual prankster self gets this bright idea to make me feel like a loser and hurt my feelings by just being mean.

Long story short, Matt and Cal got a chance to play Hamilton Golf and Country Club next tuesday (top 3 course in canada) and thought it would be funny to pretend that they were arranging to go in front of me just to make me feel even worse.

HAHAHAH, real funny eh? As funny as Cal seemed to think it was I didn't find it amusing.

So how about this Cal, I HOPE YOU GET A BIG FREAKING THUNDER AND LIGHTNING RAIN STORM ON TUESDAY. and not the kind where it rains hard for like 10 mins and stops. NO,NO, i want to see a 5 hour, rain like you need to build an arc to survive, rain storm that leaves you driving home at 40 KMH cause you can't see the road due to so much rain. But I only want it to start raining just as you put your tee in the ground on the first hole.

And don't you get all upset that I wish such horrible weather on you. You should have just told me you were playing it and rubbed it in my face rather than pull that crap. Like I did with St. George and Magna, and all the courses I play that you don't.

Matt, I wish only the best for you. If there was some way for it to rain only causing cal to miss the round I would hope for that, but as I'm sure you realize that just won't be possible at this time. I'm sorry you have to be included in his misfortune.

Great weekend of Golf

2010-05-05T08:40:00.003-04:00

Yes, it was great, but my play was horrible.

This past weekend was a doozy on the course. With perfect weather all weekend I was able to squeeze out 4 rounds of golf. Yes, it's nice to have no kids and a wonderful wife who doesn't care how much golf I play just yet.

Friday afternoon after a ridiculously stressful week of work I called up Preston to make my first trip of the year to Heron Point in Ancaster. I love that course and try to play every so often. Easy enough as Preston is a member of Club Link and always willing to play in the afternoons. The course was in phenomenal shape. The greens were better than I've seen in past years, the whole course was firm, and the fescue was starting to grow in. I started off making a bogey on the first hole. Followed it up with a par on the second and a Birdie on the tough par 3 third. The wind was howling dead into us on the long 600 yard par 5 4th and I had a little trouble around the green making bogey. I'd bogey the 6th as well to be 2 over on the 7th tee. We then got held up behind a really slow group. So we jumped to the 12th tee and planned to play through 18, start on 10, play 11, 12 and go back to 7 and finish the 18 holes. Turned out to be a good plan as we didn't see another group and finished our 18 holes. Unfortunately the change in order and increased pace kind of got to me and I would end up dropping a bunch of strokes. I couldn't concentrate. Made a 4 double bogeys on the round. That sucked. Ended the 18 shooting a 81. Very disappointed. But was a perfect day on the course, had some good playing partners and got to hang out with Preston.

Saturday was normal day at the club. Thought I would pick up my game on the home course. Wasn't meant to be. I was fine through the first 7 holes, but made a dumb mistake going for the 8th green from around 250 yards and lost my ball right. Took me a few holes to regain things, but couldn't sustain it. Shot 82 which is horrible for where i want to be. Nothing really seemed to work well but nothing was that bad. Still not how i wanted to play.

Sunday was the first Mens tour event of the season. Playing Peninsula Lakes a usual. And as usual I stunk up the joint. I seemed to always play poorly in this event on this course. Things looked to be going pretty well in the early holes. I managed to scramble and grind my way to a 4 over after a birdie on the 12th hole. Things got ugly on the 13th. I would end up with a double bogey on 13, double bogey on 14, and TRIPLE bogey on 15. Horrible, truly horrible. I'm super pissed right now at 11 over par. So i picked up a beer on the way to the 16th hole. Proving i didn't care anymore and finished the last 3 holes even. Made a crap par on the 16th par 5 after being on the back fringe in 2. Ya, 560 yards in 2 shots and 15 feet in 3 (got to work on short game). Made a boring bogey on the short par 3 17th with a crappy putt (got to work on short game). Made my second birdie of the day on 18. My putting is a problem. But only from 4 feet in, which is embarrassing for my level of golf. I gave up at least 3 strokes to missed putts inside 4 feet.

Monday I took a day off work to play the GAO Better ball qualifier with Matt. This year we headed out to Scarborough Golf and Country club. As you know I'm horrible at the reviews. I will say this about the course, one of the best I've ever been on. Seriously. Amazing, beautiful, perfect course. Matt will do a write up about it, but it was simply a perfect course. I'm going to say it's definitely in my top 5 played and I'm considering it for the top 3. Will definitely do what I have to to get out there again. I don't feel as though I played as well as I could have again this year. And again we missed out from the alternate qualifier (which usually always plays in the main event) by 1 stroke. Worst of it is we had to card a freaking TRIPLE bogey on the 5th hole par 3. Short story, we both hit horrible drives, I lost mine right, Matt lost his left. I dropped and fucked up on the green and 3 putted for a 6 as Matt watched with smoke coming out of his ears. Even worse, we were 2 under up to this hole after I made EAGLE on the opening hole. We grinded away but it just wasn't meant to be. My putting is the biggest issue. I have to work on my putting to have any success this year.

Great weekend none the less. Played in short 3 of 4 days on May 1st, should have been all 4 days. This week looks nice, I hope to get out after work a few days and work on my putting. i have to be dedicated to practicing my putting and short game this year. If i do, i will achieve a lot of the goals I set for myself, most importantly, Top 3 in club championships and beat Matt every round this summer. But he got me at Scarborough, so will have to start that one over again.

OK, so i'm not so goooooood.

2009-09-21T09:26:00.002-04:00

Played my one round for the weekend this saturday. Played horribly. Got that feeling that I usually get towards the end of the year that I'm just about done for the season.

I went out and really hacked the ball around for something like 86 or 84. I put 86 in the computer for handicap so I'll go with that.

In the process of shooting such an awful score I got abosulty killed by Matt in a match after talking some shit on the second tee. He would go on to kill me 8 and 7 for the hole round, and I pressed on the 10th hole and lost that one pretty badly too. Not even sure what the score was in that one.

So usually around this time of the year I play one awful round (see this one) due to not caring one bit about playing. This is usually my time to exit for the season. The course is in phenomenal shape especially for this time of the year. So good, it's probably the best it's been all year. This may keep m playing 1 or 2 more times, but starting to doubt it. It starting to get cold in the nights and early morning. I've played a lot lately, and I think I'm just losing interest for the season. I usually regret this decision around November each year as I wish I was still playing golf then, but leaning towards enough for the year. Unless I can get some afternoon rounds or invites to other courses I'll probably pack it in.

It was good while it lasted. Will finish the year as a 3 handicap for the first time. Had a good year on tour. Got to the finals of the Langley cup. Made a cut at the Club Championships and finished 8th. All in all, a succesful year and definitly something to build on next year.

I think I'm Goooooood

2009-09-16T07:40:00.002-04:00

Yesterday afternoon I had to take some suppliers out golfing. Didn't really feel like playing but dragged myself out to the course after work. Of course it wasn't very hard to get out there.

One of the guys that came out was a younger guy who actually plays golf and was able to play the blacks with me so that also helped for the round.

I'd end up playing well. Here's a few highlights. The course was super firm so everything was going a lot further then normal and the greens were firm and quick. Thought the course was in phenomenal shape.

After double bogey on 2, I would get to about 18 feet for birdie on 3 and drain it to get back to 1 over.

Number 8 I would drive it about 8 yards through the fairway. I hit a 7 iron to about 4 feet for eagle. Stupidly enough I barely hit the putt and left it on the lip. Settled for birdie to get to 2 over.

Would bogey holes 12 and 13. double 17. and then birdie 18 for a 38 - 39 - 77.

Handicap dropped down a little more to a 2.4. Not sure what I need to get the index down to so I can be a 2, but think I'm going to play it out for a bit and see if I can do it.

Just have to actually get up this saturday. Sundays are out, but I'll be out for Saturday and any others I can pick up. Weather is decent right now, so got to get some more rounds in. Also, need to get some more rounds to add to my total count. Matt predicted 35 rounds for the year, I'm just above that now and don't want it to look like I barely got as many as he thought.

Great weekend ends on a sour note

2009-09-08T07:49:00.002-04:00

This past long weekend was shaping up to be a great one.

Friday I got out after work for a round of golf with my buddies preston and andy. I returned for the first time this year to Heron Point. Course was in phenominal shape, which made it even harder then usual. I struggled a little on holes 3 through 6 but managed to hack it around from there for an 81. Should have been a little better, but good enough.

Saturday I caught a bit of the Canadian Tour at our home course and then headed back out to Acton to play with Preston and Andy again at Blue Springs, another club link course. This course is pretty hard from the back tees at a 137 slope. Very tight everything. You can't spray the ball here or else you are in big trouble. Fortunatly, thats just what I did, spray the ball like crazy off the tee. I would end up shooting an 84. Preston tore it up and shot an 77. I like this course, great challenge.

Sunday I was lucky enough to pick up another round out at Whirlpool with Steve, Ryan, and Mike. I'd end up playing really well out there. With 4 birdies on the day and some solid play I was able to post a 74 from the golds out there. In process I helped Steve and I take $20 from ryan and mike.

Monday was looking to be a great day as well. Playig at St. Catharines the day after the Canadian Tour event. The course was in ridiculous shape and set up for the tourny still. 6 inches of rough around the greens, very quick greens, every thing was perfect out there. Cal and I decided to play our Langley final. It was a pretty cool match. We would go back and forth all round long. I believe we tied maybe 3 or 4 holes over the course of the match. Short version. I was leading by 1 on the 18th hole. I hit a shacky drive that left me 220 out and under some trees. I got a 5 iron to about 5 yards short of the green. Cal would find the same spot at me just on the other side of the fariway. All i needed was an up and down for the win. I didn't hit a very good chip and found myself with about 12 feet for par. Cal had maybe 8. I left mine an inch from the hole. Cal ended up draining his to tie the match up. We played 18 over again as a playoff. This time I would bomb a drive almost to the cart path leaving myself 120 yards out. Cal was way left behind some trees. Cal would hit a great shot to about 6 feet for birdie from here. Fortunatly, i followed him putting it about 6 inches infront of him. Cal goes first and lips out the birdie putt. I did the exact same thing, still tied. We then played the first hole as a second playoff. I put mine on in 2 with about 20 feet to the pin. Cal was a little right and short of the green and had about a 10 foot chip. I just barely missed my putt rolling by 3 or 4 feet. Cal chipped out and almost drained it for the win. This is where is got sour. I lined my easy putt up, 4 feet (at most) up hill straight in, and I pushed it right missing the putt. Cal tapped in his 8 incher for the win.

I blew it. On a 4 foot putt. I was devestated. Couldn't even sleep last night thinking about it. So many chances to win. 15 I missed an easy birdie putt that could have given me an extra hole up. 17 I duffed my tee shot about half way up the hole befor leaving my approach way short making a bogey. Could have made either putt on 18. Absolutly should have made the putt on the 20th hole. But of course Cal could have done a hundred things that would have given him the win. So could of should of would of. I lost he won, simple as that.

Hopefully next year I can get back in the finals.

All said, the golf season was a good one. I improved my game by dropping from a 5 handicapp to a 3. Made the cut on the mens tour, and reached my first finals of the Langley cup. Would rather have won the Langley but got to look at the positives.

Congrats out to Cal for winning his second cup in 3 years. At least I lost to the match play master.

Success

2009-08-31T08:09:00.002-04:00

Lately my game has been pretty good to say the least. I've posted 2 rounds of 72 in the last 2 weeks, and had a plethora of rounds in the 70's. Had good results in tournaments pretty much all year, and have dropped my handicap to a 3 (2.7) which is all great stuff. This weekend I was hoping to improve on this season by having a good day in the final mens tour event.

I had played Whirlpool earlier in the week and knew it would be a tough event due to the condition of the course. It's always more difficult to putt on shaggy greensm atleast for me. Unfortunatly nothing spectacular happened sat so no need for a big run down of the round. I really couldn't get much going. Started out par, double, par. Wasn't worried cause I thought I could get it back on the next 2 par 5's down wind. But I didn't get anything back with 2 bad approach shots on my second into the greens and made 2 pars. I'd give up another stroke on long par 6 after 3 putting. Then I'd lose a ball off the tee on 8 to make double and finish at 41 on the front. Not good enough.

The back 9 wasn't any better. I'd start out good with 2 pars before making a bogey on 12. Again, poor second into the par 5 13th and couldn't get up and down for a birdie, let along a par and bogey the hole. Made a good up and down on the 14th for par. 15 was a mess. I hit a big drive but pushed my second way right into the trees. Instead of punching out safe I hit an awful shot the went off a tree and behind me into the junk. Punched out but went to far and had another bad angle. Couldn't get up and down for a double and made a triple 8. It's now over. Par on 16 and 17. And then missed a putt on 18 for par to shoot 42. Awful 83 to finish somewhere in the 20's I think.

So had a bad finish. Although I can say that I finished 25 over all for the year and I am now exempt for the first time next year. This was my goal for the year and I'm happy to say I acheived it. Got a top 10 finish in there at GRand Niagara and was under 80 for 4 of the 6 rounds. A littel disapointed I didn't play better in the last event, but you win some you lose some.

Sunday was a cold but decent day at the home course. Played with Matt, Cal, and Ryan. Course was in phenominal shape leading up to the Canadian Tour championships this week. Rough was thick and deep and the greens were amazing. Kudos to Steve and the team for getting it in such amazing shape.

I played well again sunday. Proabably a mistake cause it's scaring Cal from playing me for the Langley. Had a double bogey on the 16th (played the back 9 first) and shot 40 on the first 9. PLayed better on the back shooting a 37 to finish at 77. Solid round happy with that. Had I played Cal today I would have beat him 3 and 2, but that doesn't mean shit. I've seen Cal play horrible one day and then play the langley match the next day and kill it so means nothing. Just looked at it for fun while eating breakfast.

Still think every thing is going well with the game and swing. Could slow my tempo down a little o be more consistent, will work on that. Otherwise, just got to keep playing. Getting tough cause football is only 2 weeks away.

Proud Chevy Owner

2009-08-27T12:08:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I picked up a new 2010 Chevy Equinox. It is awesome.

I did a guest blog over on Faces Of GM just to say how much I like it.

If you're in the market for a CUV you must check out this one.

Check out my post over there and make sure to mention it to everyone so they see.

Faces of GM
http://www.facesofgm.com/
http://www.facesofgm.com/

Ya, still don't know how to link on a blog, so copy and paste. Do it, NOW.

Edit: Ok, now I know and now it's linked. So click on it.

Bold? definitly

2009-08-26T07:33:00.001-04:00

So i made a statement that I would finish in the top 5 on Saturday. I may have gotten a little ahead of myself. Played Whirlpool last night and it wasn't pretty.

The course was in decent shape. I was playing with the head grounds keeper since we worked together out there a few years ago and always try to get a round in. He was explaining to me how little help the Parks Commission has provided him to maintain that course. It's a shame what they are doing. He's got 5 people to look after the whole course. Absolutely ridiculous. when I worked out there there was at least 12 or 15 of us and it still wasn't enough.

So he's done as good a job as he can. It sucks cause he cares so much about the course looking good and they just won't let him do it properly.

The greens were a little bumpy, but that was probably cause it was so late in the day that we played. Tee decks are a little scruffy, but they don't have enough guys or time to cut it. Not his fault.

None of this really mattered cause I still played like shit. I think I shot somewhere around 86. Big highlight of the night was on the first 2 par 5's. The first one I killed a drive to about 190 yards out, put it on in 2 and then proceeded to 3 whack for a par from about 15 feet. The next par 5 I was 200 out after my drive, hit a decent rescue to the green. Was off the back to a front pin, i would skull it past the hole and off the green, barely chip back on the green, miss the putt for a bogey. The rest of the round was a waste of time from here.

Oh well, at least it wasn't the tournament and I won't effect my handicap.

My game has changed

2009-08-24T07:24:00.003-04:00

I had a moment on the golf course this weekend. I firmly believe that my game has changed in an extremely positive way. I've found a new confidence along with my swing over the last few rounds. I'll explain later.

Saturday was an ok round by my new standards. Got up early to play with Cal and Matt after one of the most amazing concerts I've ever seen. My cousin was awesome enough to take me to see Pearl Jam in Toronto for the first time ever. It was amazing. They played basically a greatest hits concert and I've only once or twice seen a band play so passionately and with so much energy, it was amazing. I was a little tired sat morning and kind of limped through the first 14 holes to 5 over. Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to improve on it when the lighting rolled in and we had to walk off the course. I'd post a 78 cause we played over 13 holes, so I guess I kind of shot a 78.

Sunday I had invited some sudo family members, brother in laws step moms sister and husband Ralph and Annemarie. These 2 are great golfing partners that I have had the pleasure to play with twice before at Magna Golf Course with Cathy, and once at their home course last year Westmont. All day Saturday I was checking the weather and it was calling for rain and thunder storms so was a little worried we wouldn't get it in. Fortunately, the rain held off completely and actually the skies opened up to a some what sunny day and was perfect. Both my guests are good golfers who can hold there own. Ralph was in a major car accident a few years ago but still finds a way to play even tho he can't bend his right wrist. I'd be playing from the blues today with Ralph for the first time this year. Turned out to be a great round. I'd start by going par, par, par, on the first 3 holes. Ralph followed me by going par, par, bogey on the first 3. So after the 3rd hole we decided to play a match for the round, I decided to give him a shot a hole. So starting on the 4th I'm 2 down. This is how the rest of the round went.

4th hole I hit a bad shot to the right of the green, made a bad chip and couldn't make the putt for a bogey. down 3. Then I got it going a little. 5th I was on the green in 2 with an 7 footer for birdie, just missed took a par, 1 over.

6 I would bomb one down the wrong fairway, down 13, and had to come back over the trees, left myself 10 feet for birdie but missed and settled for par, still 1 over.

7 I left a long birdie putt around 30 feet, missed and made par.

8 i got to about 210 out, went for the green in 2, but was a little right near the rope tow. Hit a decent lob to about 10 feet and made the putt for birdie. even on the day.

9 i would be about 175 out after my drive, hit a 6 iron short of the green and couldn't get up and down for the par, bogey to shoot 37.

10th I would hit a drive to about 200 yards even. Hit a 5 iron perfectly to about 4 feet, drained the putt for my first eagle of the year, 1 under.

11 I would attempt to drive the green since I had about 290 yards from the blue. Over swung a little and found myself under the trees just left of the green. I'd make a bad chip from a side of the hill here and had to settle for par after sculling it to the other side of the green.

12 I was just left of the green, chipped up and made the putt for par.

13 I hit my drive up the left hand side and through the fairway. Had no shot so kind of punched out with a 7 iron. Couldn't get up and down for the par settled for bogey, even on the day.

14 I gave myself a shot at another birdie from about 10 feet, came up short settled for par.

15 I blasted a drive down the right hand side. Had about 240 left to the hole. Unfortunately I pushed my rescue a little right and was just below the green. Good lob shot left my self 6 feet for birdie, missed the putt again, still even.

16 was routine. Got to the fringe on the right in 3 with about 15 feet for birdie. Lipped this one out, settle for par again.

17 I came up short and right of the green. Decent chip to about 5 feet, made the putt for par.

18 I was determined to birdie 18 for a under par round. Blasted a drive to about 145 out. But mishit my 8 iron and came up short of the green. Hit a bad lob shot to about 8 feet for par. Fortunately I made a great stroke on the putt and drained it for a par to shoot 72, again, twice in 1 week. Awesome. From the blues, but still great.

I also beat Ralph on this last putt to win the match so that was cool. Never had so much trouble winning a match while shooting 72. Still good times.

So what did I learn shooting this 72? My mindset on the course has changed. I was attacking 72 or lower. I wasn't playing nervous waiting for myself to screw up a good round. I was going after the flag stick. I wanted to be under par so bad. I used to think to much and be afraid something bad was going to happen, think about bad shots in the past. Not any more. I just wanted to go low. I had no fear and I was even a little disappointed I shot 72. Not upset, but knew i could have been under. Going to continue this. I got mens tour on Saturday, final event. Going to play well there. In fact, I'm going to be in the top 5 at this tournament. Bold? maybe. But I will be in that top 5 after the round is over.

Then it's on to Cal, maybe. If this guy gets the balls to play me right now I'm going to play him and win my first Langley cup. But right now he knows I'm to hot on the course for him to play and he's trying to push it into September when my game usually deteriorates due to football season. Not going to happen this year. I'm going to keep playing and stay focused on golf till he man ups and plays me.

Handicap is down to a 2.6 (3). That awesome, think I might be lower then Matt for the first time ever?

I'll say it for you guys, I'm GOOOOOOOOOD.

Langley Match - semis

2009-08-18T07:31:00.003-04:00

If you read my post yesterday you would know that I played my semi match last night against Brian B. So after spending a day at work in the 42 degree heat I headed to the golf club around 3 to spend another 4 hours on the course in 42 degree heat. Yes I thought I should mention how freaking hot it was yesterday. This was going to be a tough match. Brian kicked my ass 2 years ago and has been playing well I think. Atleast he shot a 69 last week although it was from the blues, it's still a 69. I knew I had to play well.

I would get out to the range to warm up a little. After hitting balls for about 10 mins and with only 4 or 5 balls left to hit with the driver I figured something out. I stood up right a little on my drive and all of a sudden I was hitting dead straight bombs. This was so revolutionary to me at the time I stepped back kind of laughed to myself and just knew I was going to hit it well today. Awesome. On to the putting green to get the stroke going and I'm off.

Going to give a hole by hole for this round as it was legendary, at least in my mind. It's long, but needs to be out there.

#1 - I'd push my tee shot a little right due to nerves but nothing crazy. Brian was dead center of fairway. I'd go up and over the trees and make a routine par, as did Brian. Even.

#2 - Both of us bomb it down the middle. Brian hits the ball long every time. I came up short of the green, Brian was about 15 feet for birdie. I chipped up to about 4 feet and made the putt for par. Brian would barely miss the birdie. Even.

#3 - Both of us hit our drives way right towards the bunkers. I would find myself in between the bunkers, Brian was in them. we would both hit the green from there. Brian left his putt about 5 feet short. I went past the hole 4 feet. Brian up first and missed his par putt. I would drain mine to draw first blood, 1 Up.

#4 - I'd hit a nice little 4 iron on the par 3 into the wind and actually end up about 5 feet above the hole. Brian had about a 25 footer from the left of the green. He hit a great putt that just barely missed the hole, I gave it to him. I tapped mine in for the birdie, 2 Up and I'm 1 under.

Feeling good at this point. Playing well out of the gates, just got to keep it going. Stay focused.

#5 - I hit a decent drive up the right hand side to 190 out. Brian demolished a ball to be 150 out into the wind but was left and behind some trees. I hit a rescue left but pin high. Brian hit an amazing shot to about 15 feet for birdie. As i got to my ball i found that it was buried in the rough and on a slight downhill. I opened the club face on my 56 degree wedge and took a big swing, popped up and landed softly on the green and lipped out for birdie. Brian would miss his putt but made par. still 2 up and 1 under for the round.

#6 - I would absolutely kill a drive on 6 that left me with 230 left to the hole. Brian was about 15 or 20 yards behind me and knew I was going for it, so he did to. He would end up slight right of the bunkers near green. I went for it and used to MUCH club and found myself in the second bunker on the right to a front pin. Tough lie in the bunker, but I got it out to the fringe. I would almost chip this in but settled for par. Brian couldn't make the birdie put from off the green. 2 up.

#7 - Didn't play the wind well on the par 3 7th. I would hit a 6 iron that landed past the pin and stopped on the back fringe. Brian was in close again about 12 feet out. My chip was perfect from the back and I left myself about 4 feet. After brian missed the putt for birdie, I tapped mine in. Still 2 up.

At this point Brian makes a crack about how every hole I'm making these up and downs. I was doing a great job of it.

#8 - I'm getting my stroke on this hole. Not going to lose the hole. I hit m first bad drive here and found myself right of the fairway but far enough I didn't have any trouble with the trees. Brian was dead center of the fairway. I would layup to the bottom of the hill. Here's were I think Brian made a mistake. He laid up. It was down wind but he had the length to get there and no point in laying up after I did. From the bottom of the hill I hit a PW from 110 (strong wind) to about 4 feet. Brian pushed it a little right and was 20 feet for birdie. He missed. I gave him the par putt. This is my hole, but I think in my head just leave it close enough if you miss to be a gimmie. So from 4 feet above the hole, down hill, i lag it up to an inch and take the hole. 3 up, still 1 under.

#9 - I hit a horrendous drive that pegs a tree and drops about 280 yards from the hole and in some rough. Brian kills one up the left hand side and gets in the small trap. I would get aggressive here and try a rescue, duffed it about 20 yards forward. Tried a 4 iron from 230, pushed it way right hit a tree and was on the driving range where everyone hits from. Brian was on the green in 2. Not sure if I played this right, but picked it up as ground under repair and came back towards the hole and dropped on other side of cart path. Not sure if I was to hit from where it was on the range deck, go back towards the practice green and hit over the range to the hole, all of us couldn't figure it out. I hit a nice little 60 degree wedge from here and actually lipped it out, but Brian made the par and took his first hole. 2 up.

I would shoot 36 on the front. Great score. Feeling great. Up in the match. Ready for the back.

#10 - Both would drive down the middle. I hit a rescue through the green in to the rough. Brian was a little short with an easy chip. He putt his about 6 feet for birdie. I skulled mine across the green, then chipped up and tried to make it but just missed, gimmie par. Brian lipped out the birdie putt. Still 2 Up.

This was a gift. I even said it to myself on the way to the 11th. Think this is wear things turned. If he made it, I'm a little nervous. But I think it got in his head to.

#11 - Brian pissed hit a driver on the short par 4, ended up right but about 30 yards away. I hit rescue, just sticking to my game, to about 110 yards. I'm up first, hit a perfect 52 degree to about 3 feet. Brian hit a nice shot as well that gave him about 8 feet for birdie. He would miss. I made mine. I'm up 3 and back to one under.

#12 - I hit a perfect 6 iron to the front pin left myself about 12 feet for birdie. Brian way over hit the green into the back bunker on the right. He would have some trouble getting out and took 2 swings. I lagged my putt up to the hole made par. I'm 4 up.

#13 - I bomb a drive down the middle to about 125 yards. Ya, thats how well I was playing. Didn't even flirt with the big tree on the left. Brian would hit a ball that looked like OB, but when we got up there he would find it around the corner. He didn't hit the best shot, left himself about 25 for birdie. I also hit it short and was almost beside him for a long birdie putt. I go first and hit this perfect putt. About 5 feet from the hole i say "OH OH Brian sorry about this" and it stops about 1 inch from the cup. We were all laughing. Brian missed his and I gave it to him. 4 Up 5 to go.

#14 - I hit a perfect 5 iron to about 8 feet right of the hole. Brian hit a 7 iron into the bunker on the left. I'm nervous all of a sudden, I can finish this right here. Brian over hit his sand shot and was about 25 feet for par. He actually almost made this putt, but left himself about 4 feet and I gave it to him. 2 putt for the win Harris. I went for the birdie and knocked it by about 3 feet. Idiot. But i tapped in the 3 footer and that was that. Won the match 5 & 4. Awesome, I'm so freaking happy right now. Usually this is where I would kind of just relax and limp in, but I was actually 1 under to this point.

#15 - Hit a big drive, followed by a weak 7 iron right. Hit a 9 iron up over the tree, 2 putt for par.

#16 - hit a huge hook that ended up in the long grass way right. It was sitting up in the grass but behind a tree with no shot. I just randomly swing a 4 iron at it and it was great almost getting down the hill. Hit a 9 iron from about 140 went right, made the up and down for par.

Still 1 under

#17 - Hit a 4 iron that bounced off the side of the hill and rolled just behind the green to a back pin. Made the up and down again for par.

#18 - I'm 1 under on the 18th. I thought I was Even to here and just wanted to make par to shoot 72. I hit a big drive, but it's fading right. Think it's in bounds. Get up to where we though it was can't find it. Then Brian finds it buried in some long rough near the fence. Couldn't do anything but punch out. need to get up and down from 20 yards. Hit an aggressive 60 degree out of the thick rough and just barely bounced past the hole but off the green. I needed to chip in. Hit a girly chip and had to settle for a bogey. I was upset cause i thought I just scored a 73. Then we added up the card and I was 72. I was still pissed cause I didn't realize i had a chance at under par. Oh well. Awesome day all around. My second best score ever, maybe my best ever from the blacks, can't remember if i broke par from the blues or blacks. And I'm in my first ever langley cup finals.

It's nice having some good results in golf. Now on to the match play master Cal. That will be awesome playing him.

I'm sick of writing.

Decent Weekend in Golf

2009-08-17T08:18:00.002-04:00

So St. Catharines finally had full weekend of good weather which resulted in some good golf.

Started out Saturday playing with Cal, Gary and a guest. I didn't play very well. But i did get to watch the semi final match between Gary and Cal. Happy to say Cal took it home pretty easily 5 and 4. Cal is gooooooooood. I play my semi final match tonight. I'm hoping to play well enough to win, would love to face off against cal for the championship. But going to be a very difficult match tonight. Got my ass kicked by Brian last year in the tourny, so I know how good he can play.

Yesterday was the 5th mens tour event at Lockness Links. I like this course. I've always played well there and had some really good thoughts about the tourny heading in.

Had a later tee time of 1:42 so was predicting slow play along with some extreme heat. Fortunatly, neither scenario really materialized. The pace was decent at worst, and there was a strong enough breeze blowing over the course to keep the temp down. all in all, good playing conditions.

I'd start off a little shaky pushing my PW from 140 a little left of the green and then missing a 8 foot par putt to start 1 over. Made a nice par on the long par 3. After going for the green in 2 on the third par 5, I was in a tought bunker right of the green. Actually made a great out here to abut 4 feet and made the putt for birdie. Even. Next hole I'd have my usual hickup on the green and missed a short putt followed by a missed tap in for a double bogey. 2 over.

Short par 3 I miss hit as I usually do on this hole and found myself in the front bunker. Again, made a great out to about 4 feet and saved par. I'd go on to make 3 more bogeys and found myself sitting on the 9th tee 5 over. Not happy.

Considered at tough par 5, I was determined to birdie or eagle the 9th hole. I was reaching par 5s in 2 all day. Hit a perfect drive up the left hand side that caught the downhill and roled to about 200 yards out. With the wind and front pin I determined I had about 175 to the hole. Hit a perfect 6 iron after watching 3 others go for it in 2 and come up almost to short. Mine was perfect, took a small bounce and left me with 8 feet for eagle. Standing over the putt I said to myself I'd rather 3 putt this then leave it short. I left it short. But still made the birdie putt to make the turn 4 over.

10th hole I hit a nice approach shot from about 100 yards to 5 feet and made the birdie, 3 over.

11th, i had a tough lie on my second and over the hit the green a little and couldn't get up and down for par. back to 4 over.

Gave one away on the very tough 12th par 3, 5 over.

Almost chipped in on 13 for birdie, settled for a tap in par.

Par 5 14th I would go for it in 2 again and came up pin high but left of the green. Couldn't leave it close enough for a decent birdie putt. Had 20 feet for birdie and left it 1 inch from the cup. Still 5 over.

15 is another tough par 3. I was a little scared of the water and was well left of the green. Couldn't hit the tricky flop shot well enough, and ended up with another bogey.

16 and 17 i would go on to par. Should have birdied the 300 yard for 4 16th, but missed a 5 footer. This happened a few times on the day where I missed easy birdie putts.

18th I would smash a drive to about 200 yards out. Determined it was again 175 yards to the front pin. Hit a perfect 6 iron that actually bounced over the green leaving me an extremely difficult up and down for birdie. Having to chip over this hump in front of the pin and down a severe slope while leaving it close enough for a birdie putt. I would have to land it on top of this hill covered in rough, barely bounce it through and have it roll to the hole. I hit the shot to land in the rough, and it just barely did trickle through, I thought it was staying up there, and rolled about 8 feet past the hole. I'd make the putt for my 4th birdie on the day to finish 5 over 77.

I thought this was golden. Untill I came inside an realized the whole field played pretty well. With over 20 guys in the 70's I'd find myself in a tie for 13th. Will not a bad result and my best score on tour so far, I was slightly dissapointed to not find myself in the top 10. Figured I was a lock after the first 4 events scores. Oh well, still good results and keeps me in the exempt zone, maybe even a little more comfortably. Next event is in 2 weeks at Whirlpool Golf course. I love this course. Worked there for 4 years when I was in university and have played the course 100's of times. Going to try and get out there next saturday for a little refresher and looking forward o playing well out there. Since I've last played it my game has really improved, I'm longer, better putting, better short game, smarter, I think i can really do some damage out there. Couldn't sleep last night thinking about the shots I will hit. i know a lot of the little secrets outs there like it's my home course, so should be a good day. I'd love to go low out there and get a top 5 or something like that. Setting the goal high out there.

Check back for results of tonight match. Going to be a good one.

Golf was so so

2009-08-10T08:03:00.002-04:00

The weekend after club championships seems to be a quite one. I played both saturday and sunday, both days with only a threesome out of all the guys we usually play with. The course seemed empty. I guess club championships mean the end for most.

Saturday was a lack luster event with Cal and Terry. I still feel my game is much improved and getting better. I shot an 80 that felt like a 90. I used to shoot around 83 to 85 and feel that was a horrible day, now it's 80. I got off to a horrible start of making bogeys and that just proved to much to come back from. It's all about concentration. It's much more difficult for me to put the effort in to fighting back from a bad start in a casual round saturday morning then it is in a tournament. Highlight of the day was on 13, my worst hole, I of course hit the large trees up the left hand side, pitched out to about 90 yards. On the tough pin tucked right on the left hand side on top of the slope i hit an easy little 56 degree wedge that landed about 4 feet to the left of the pin and then spun hard right and right in the cup for a birdie. First time I've ever done that and it was sweet. Almost did it again on 8 but came about 1 foot to the right for a kick in birdie.

Sunday was a lot of the same as saturday. Again only 3 of us out there. Our buddy Steve and a newbe named Matt. Got off to the same typical start going 4 over on the first 4 holes. Would get a stroke back but still finished the front 5 over. Went on to birdie the 10th, but didn't do much after that. Kind of stumbled in on the last 2 holes going bogey double to shoot 80 again.

Oh well. Next weekend is the 5th mens tour event at Lockness links. I like that course and loking forward to playing well there. Then monday night I'm playing my semifinal langly match. Should be a good weekend.

Good, but should have been better.

2009-08-04T10:15:00.003-04:00

This past weekend was the best tourny weekend of the year in golf, the Club Championships. Why such a great weekend? First off, it's the bragging rights tourny for the club to truly test yourself against the others at your level. As well, it's the most fun cause everyone had a good time on the course and follows it up with and even better time on the patio discussing the rounds over many beers. All in all, it always delivers.

This year was almost another lost cause for me. The first day was a tough windy afternoon round. was feeling good about this weekend leading up after playing so well the previous weeks. My swing felt great and my putting was actually good for once the last few rounds. However, most of this failed me on day one. I struggled to hit the ball consistently and my chipping was horendous causing me to have to make long par putts all day. Unfortunatly, I didn't make a lot of the long par putts and struggled to an 82. Lucky for me, every one had a rough day on the course. The wind combined with very tough pin positions made for some unusally high scores. My 82 was good enough for 9th place out of 22 and within the cut line of top 12 and ties. I was only 4 strokes out of second place, first place is impossible as long as Kray (defending champ for as long as I can remember) is in the field. So i went home determined to rest up and return sunday with a much better score.

With an early tee time of 7:45AM sunday I was feeling better playing at a normal time. Unfortunatly we were struck with even tougher conditions sunday. Along with quick greens, tough pins, and a strong wind, it rained for a period of time during the round. We played about 4 holes in the rain and I stuggled on these ones. I had basically the same problems as saturday and stumbled to another 82. I was devistated. Waiting for all the players to come in I'm watching the board and starting to realize that I am on the bubble for making the cut, my only real goal for the weekend. Just as the last group is about to come in the horn blows and lighting moves in and players walk off the course. I consult with the club pro and he informs me that 163 would be the cut, I was 164. Totally drained from this news I open up an umbrella and make the walk home in the rain pissed as pissed can be that I blew another championship weekend.

About an hour or so later I get a text message from Matt. "You made the cut, top 12 and ties." I was shocked. I actually made it, the 13th player in and in a tie for 12th. I had some mixed feeling here cause I was so down on myself for not playing better, but that quickly changed as I perked up happy to play in the final day for the second time in 5 years.

I'm so far back from anything truly meaningful in the tourny, so my only goal was to move up to the top 10 and just have fun.

I showed up for the third round about an hour early and hit the range to see if I could work out my swing. All i needed to do was slow it down a little and I knew it would fall in place. after sculling a few on the range I was able to settle in and get the tempo were I needed it. As soon as I got it, I walked off the range, wanted to keep that thought. Worked on my putting for the rest of the time.

I'd start te round were I left off on sunday, making bogeys. I'd bogey the first 5 holes, par 6, and then bogey 7. 6 over after the first 7. I blew my chance to do anything at all and I'm playing just as bad.

Then, something clicked. Not sure what it was but it did. I found my tempo again. I started hitting perfect shots again. I'd par the last 2 holes of the front to shoot 42. Then on to the back. Everything still felt great. I open up par, par, and then hit a gourgous 5 iron to about 8 feet on 12 and drained the putt for birdie. 1 under. 13 I of course almost hit the large tree of the left scared of going out of bounds right and fund myself under a small pine tree. Punch out, came up short of the pin and missed the putt to make a bogey. 14 i would make a nive up and down for par. 15 I had a great chance at birdie after being about 10 yards short of the green in 2 on the par 5. Made a bad decision here to bump and run the ball up to the green and it skidded by the hole about 20 feet, should have hit a lob shot. 2 putted for par. 16 I was way right off the tee and had a long lay up shot. Hit a perfect rescue to about 65 yards. Kept the ball below the hole about 15 feet, and drained the long putt for birdie, back to 1 under. I got a great kick off the side of the hill on the par 3 17th that rolled up to about 8 feet for birdie. Unfortunatly, I missed the putt by an inch and tapped in for par. 18th i managed to keep it in the fairway and not on the highway (3 of 3 this weekend was a championship all in it's self for me). Couldn't decide what club to hit in from 145 yards into the wind. I wanted to hit 7 iron but didn't want to hit it over into the crowd so I went with an 8 iron and hit the green but was at the front with a back pin. Didn't hit the best first putt, came up well short about 10 feet. A littel nervous, i lined the putt up and holed it centre cup for a par and 1 under 35 on the back. Awesome, played the last 11 holes 1 under and shot a 77.

Turns out I'd post the 3rd best score of the day (2 at 75, first and second place finishers) and move up the standings 5 spots to a tie for 8th overall. WOW. finally played well and got rewarded for it. The ups and downs of the weekend were crazy and it all ended well. I made a cut and placed in the top 10, my highest finish ever which is great. Still, I should have played better the first 2 days. There was no reason for poor play. I wasn't nervous, I've played well enough in enough tournaments to be over that, I just didn't have the stuff the first 2 days. Really it all came down to my tempo. Once I settled back in and didn't force things I started playing well.

All in all a good weekend. Already looking forward to next years tourny. Now got to practice a bit and make sure I play well on the 16th at Lockness Links for the mens tour, and I still have to play my semi-final match for the langly cup. Should be a good month of golf. If i can make the finals for Langly that would be great to have a shot at winning it all. And I got 2 more tour events to play and stay within the cut line for next year. Going to be a big month of golf.

Total Domination

2009-07-27T08:01:00.003-04:00

Had a great golf weekend playing saturday and sunday for the first time in over a month. Felt great to wake up to days in a row and get a full 18 in. However, this one was a little better then most.

Saturday left a lot to be desired. Cal and I played just the 2 of us and both dragged our asses around the course with very poor results. I would shoot 43 on the front and 40 on the back for a 83. Just couldn't do anything right. This was concerning since I had my quarterfinal Langly match sunday morning. Oh well. I'd spend the rest of the day drinking wine and vodka with my wondreful wife and got pretty wasted. Had a few bottles with her sister and brother in law, and then went out later for the best lobster sandwich in the world with my cousin and his wife. Don't really remember walking home but apparently some funny shit went down that sarah filled me in on the next day. I thought I almost fell off this bridge downtown (wasn't even close), refused to wear shoes walking home.

Woke up sunday morning still a little fuzzy but ready to play none the less. I grabbed a cart so that I could make it the full 18 with out collapsing. I'll admit what happened next was a surprise to me in the condition I was in. One other thing to mention about my opponent is he is pretty much my golf nemesis. Used to play with the guy on a fairly reagular basis untill one year in the club championships he accused me of cheating and that pretty much ended it. Haven't played with the guy in 2 years, probably won't again. I really wanted to win this match.

Starting on the 10th hole I was up first and hit a crappy little drive just trying to stay in bounds after hitting the houses saturday morning. I'd end up getting to the green in 3 and draining a 12 footer for birdie to his par to start 1 Up.

Second hole I was a litte right about 10 feet off the fairway 110 yards out. Charlie was on the green in 2 about 20 feet away. I hit a perfect gap wedge that took a great hop towards the hole ringed off the stick and stopped about 3 feet away. Charlie would 3 putt and I missed my short birdie putt, but still 2 Up.

Third Hole Charlie and I both hit the green and 2 putted for par, 2 Up.

4th hole, #13 my worst hole, I would actually hit a good drive and find myself in the fairway. Hit a nice shot into the green. Charlie was short of the green for his third but made a great chip to about 2 feet. I would make a nice 2 putt and charlie drained his par putt, still 2 UP.

Then the clinic begun.

5th hole I hit a horrible 7 iron about 20 yards short of the green. However, Charlie blocked his left into a bunker. I chipped up to about 12 feet and drained the putt after charlie missed his. 3 Up.

6th hole Charlie was a little all over the place and was 50 yards short of the green hitting 4, I was alrady on about 25 feet away for birdie. He would over hit his chip, scuff one barely onto the green and looking at a long bogey putt. Didn't matter, I drained mine for birdie to go 4 UP and 2 under for the day.

7th hole we both hit decent drives. I came up short of the green on my third, charlie was on, i hit a poor chip and 2 putted, charlie 2 putted for par, 3 Up and 1 under.

8th hole we both came up a little short of the green chipping from same spot. Neither of us could make the up and down, still 3 Up and now Even for the day.

9th, 18th hole, I hit a great drive that found the fairway which is rare for me. Charlie would be a little shorter then me and then missed the green short and to the right. I hit a sweet 7 iron into the wind to about 15 feet. Charlie chipped up and was about 15 feet away for par and drained a great putt. What was even better was I came over top of him and drained my birdie putt to go 4 Up and 1 under for the first 9 holes.

At this point, I knew in my head it was over. I was blowing this lead on the usual front 9 that I find much easier then the back.

10th hole we both bogey to stay 4 Up.

11th hole I made an awful chip and made bogey to Charlies par to go down to 3 Up.

12 hole I hit an awful drive, over hit the green slightly with a 7 iron from 175 down wind. Charlie was in the exact same spot as me but on the fringe I was in rough about 50 feet from the cup. I'd go first. Caught a little to much of the ball on my chip and I'm watching it roll fast downhill, but right at the cup. It's either off the green or in the cup. Lucky for me, this was my day and it rolled right in the cup for a birdie. Charlie wouldn't come close, I'm 4 Up again.

13th hole I would pull some more horse shoes out of my ass. Hit a fade right at a tree about 20 yards off the tee box somehow the ball slips right through it without even touching a leaf curls around and I've got a 15 foot birdie putt. Charlie pulled his left and couldn't make the up and down, I 2 putted for par and I'm 5 Up with 5 to go.

It's over.

14th hole I hit an easy drive down the right hand side. Charlie was in a little trouble but no big deal. We both got up to the green, nothing exciting here. He missed his par putt giving me 2 strokes to make it from about 8 feet. I missed the par putt but left it an inch away and the match was over. 5&4.

Pure domination. Never even gave him a chance, I was playing to good and so determined to beat this guy I wasn't caving. As I said, I knew it once I made the turn. Felt awesome to stick it to this guy. He may not have played as well as he could have, but I honestly don't think it would have mattered. I wasn't losing this match.

So i'm back in the semi finals of the langly cup. Last time I was hear was against one of the best players in the club and I lost on the 18th hole. This time I'm playing a friendly guy we used to play with Brian B. He's a good player and beat me last year pretty easily, but I wasn't playing as well then as I am now. Looking forward to playing him and hopefully reaching the finals for my first time.

Next weekend is club championships and I like where my game is at. No crazy thoughts of winning it, but I plan on playing well and making a cut. Will be working on my short game this week and then going out and doing my best.

Great Vacation = Great results, sort of

2009-07-24T08:10:00.003-04:00

I've just had 3 of the best weeks of my life. On June 28th I was lucky enough to marry the most amazing girl in the world. I then followed that up with 3 amazing weeks in Greece traveling around the mainland and islands. Everyone should find some time in their life to visit this country. The weather was amazing, didn't have a day under 32 degrees Celsius, and didn't see a cloud in the sky for 3 weeks. Amazing food, great beaches, crazy history, all around phenomenal vacation.

While a way I realized how much I missed golf. When the trip first started I emailed Matt to tell him I wasn't going to play in the niagara mens tour event the sunday after I returned. However, I changed my mind about a week before I came back and decided to play just so I could get back on the course.

After returning to St. Catharines around midnight on the saturday and a 7 hour time difference I was so tired I could hardly stand. Still wasn't going to stop me from enjoying a day on the course. I arrived at Twenty Valley, a course I've never played before, around 12:30 for the 4th leg of the tour. I would need a cart on this day, i just knew I wouldn't make the trek around the course.

Needless to say, my expectations were low for this day. I hit some balls before the round at my club and actually hit the ball really well, but you never know with this game. I'd start off on the first hole, a short par 5, getting to the green easily in 3 with a 10 foot birdie putt. I knocked it by a couple feet and walked up to tap it in. However the greens were really quick and I blasted it by the whole. Then I did it again, and then I barely got it in for a double bogey with a 4 putt. same bullshit I did on the first whole at St. Catharines. Maybe this would be a shit day. But then things clicked on the next whole. I would go on to hit some smooth shots every time I swung the club. Everything felt great. My tempo was perfect, I was steady over the ball, no fade in the flight, and the club selection was perfect. I'd go on to to par the next few holes, took 2 more bogies and then drained a 15 foot birdie putt on the 8th hole, but gave it back on the 9th after chunking a 6 iron off the tee. I got around the front 4 over for a 39. Pretty good.

The back wasn't much different. If it wasn't for the ridiculous 15th hole green I would have probably shot 1 or 2 over. The 15th green was just silly. I bombed a 2 iron rescue down the middle to about 150 yards. I was smoothing the rescue all day long on the short course. I was with the other guys in my groups drivers all day long. I would over hit the green slightly which I didn't think was a big deal, that was until I got up to the green. Picture a turtle shell with a pin right in the middle of it. I chipped up and it rolled down to the front of the green. Tried ot putt up to the whole and it rolled hard to the left, missed the next putt and finally got it in after that for a double bogey, to bad. The 16th long par 3 had me watching the first 3 guys go all over the place. Using 3 woods and rescue clubs they couldn't get the green. I decided to hit 4 iron. I hit a perfect laser at the pin but saw my ball bounce once short and get just caught up enough to stop about 3 feet from the green. Made the up and down and on to the 17th. The 17th was totally set up against my swing, as was most of the course. This is a course for a right handed player that hits a draw, I hit a fade, all the time. with trees lined tight up the left hand side I hit a perfect drive that just barely rises up over the trees and lands about 160 middle of the fairway. I'd come up a little short of the green trying to get tight to the pin. Couldn't make the birdie putt from just off the green but made a nice par. 18 is a weird hole. Guy in my group was explaining the dangers all around, Matt was telling me before the round how a guy hit 7 iron off the tee 2 years ago to be safe, so didn't really know what to do. After playing the hole, I should have just hit driver up the left and let my fade do the rest, but I opted for a safe rescue club I was hitting well all day. Got in good position from 250 out with a look at the green. Shot to the green was fly 250 with a false front green and the pin right at the front of the green. After a little internal debate I decided to go for it with a rescue. After swinging this club perfectly all day I eneded up over swinging and hitting a huge fade that ended up in a backyard beside the green and out of bounds. That's ok, I'm still pitching from about 50 yards to make an up and down for par. I would stroke a nice little gap wedge to about 10 feet behind the hole, thinking i'm in trouble with how fast this is gonna be. Luckly my putting was on today and I was able to roll it in for what I thought was an amazing par.

I'd finish the day with a 79 which was pretty remarkable considering the condition I was in. Left the course early in 6th place knowing it wasn't going to stand up. I'd end up with another 20th place finish. Not bad, still better then 95% of my results on the tour over the year, but could have been better. Oh well. I beat Matt, again, I think thats 2 out of 4 events I beat him. I beat Cal. And I managed to stay within my goal of the top 30 on tour for an exemption into next year. More importantly, I jumped back ahead of Cal in the standings and caught up to Matt with a chance to pass him in the next event.

Nice way to return to the course. Now this weekend I'm back to St. Cathairnes Club, got my second langly match of the year against and old foe, then club championships the following weekend. I like where my game is at right now. Swing feels great, chipping is good, and my putting has let me down to much. Still getting killed by the cup lips and inches here and there, but not letting it frustrate me out of a good round. Really want to win this sunday Langly, going to give it my all, be relaxed, and just keep the pressure on him. I think it's going to wet out there and that should give me a slight edge over the older short hitting man, but he's a proven veteran and I'm sure it won't be a cake walk or nothing for me.

Back on the Course

2009-06-22T08:07:00.002-04:00

After a strenuous few weeks I was finally able to get back on the golf course relaxed and ready to enjoy golf again. It couldn't have come at a better time.

The last few weeks I've had so much going on. Last weekend was my bachelor party in Montreal. I did get one round in but I was so hungover from the night before it was pretty much a waste of time. I shot an 80 on an easy track my friend is a member at. This weekend I was moving to a new house on friday and saturday, but was lucky enough to have a lot of good people helping me move friday and saturday so I was able to get out sunday to the course. Beauty of my move is I am now less then a 5 minute walk to the golf club. It was awesome getting up making a coffee and walking 2 blocks to the course.

On to the golf.

As i've mentioned in past years our club has a match play tournament that lasts for the whole summer, the Langly Cup. This years got off to a late start but I played my first match yesterday. This wasn't the best time to play but was my only available date before the first round had to be played by. I will be in Greece for my honeymoon when that day comes and to busy otherwise to play any time. So we played yesterday, 5 days after the greens have been punched. Awful putting surface, but still semi playable. Oh well, it's still fair we both had to deal with it.

So I was lucky enough to draw one of the hottest players in our groups this year and a rookie sensation on the mens tour Brad B. He's a great golfer, very solid, controlled, and seems to always play well. I knew I was in for a tough one, and it turned out to be just that.

The front nine I was on fire. I was hitting everything I wanted to and just felt amazing. I would go down 1 on the 3rd hole after making a very poor 3 putt for bogey. Halved the 4th hole and then I turned it on. From 175 out on the 5th i hit a perfect 7 iron down wind to about 4 feet drained the putt for birde and I'm even. On 6 I made a routine par to brads bogey, 2 up. He got in a little trouble after going in the trap near the green. 7 we halved with pretty easy pars. 8 i was getting the one stroke I had for the round. I would end up making a routine par for birdie, brad just missed his birdie putt, I'm 3 up. On the 9th we both made bogey, I missed about a 7 footer for par which I should have made.

On to the back.

10th we both make par. On 11 I hit a nice hybrid down the middle, on in 2 and 10 feet away. I would 3 putt to Brads par and give one back. On 12 I over hit the green to the left, poor chip, and miss the putt for par, give another one back. I'm 1 up. 13 I go into full tilt after blasting my tee shot into the large trees on the left, of course. Got myself to the front of the green with a bout 18 feet for par, but couldn't make it and I'm back to even. I re-focus with the help of cal telling me to calm down. 14 Brad over hits and goes in a bunker to the left. I hit a great 7 iron to about 15 feet. Brad gets up and in for a par. I hit a great putt but left it 1 inch short and half the hole. On 15 brad would go in the water on his second shot and then got in some trouble right of the green, I made an easy par and I'm back to 1 up. 16 we both hit mediocre drives. I attempt an easy layup but push the ball left and lose it in the long stuff and just give Brad the hole. Back to even.

This is where it got good. Brad's up first on the 220 yrd par 3 17th. He comes up short of the green with the pin in the middle. I step up and make a super clutch shot to about 8 feet for birdie. Brad chipped up and left himself with about 7 feet for par. I'm up, I put a decent stroke on the ball but come up an inch short (see "Inches" post to realize my frustration with this) and take my par. Brad would go on to just barely miss his par putt, I'm up 1.

18 was going to be a good one. I'm awful off the tee on 18 with my fade usually ending up on the highway out of bounds. I swing very safely and hit this awful looking hook that barely misses the trees on te left and stops about 160 in the middle of the fairway. Brad easily goes down the middle ad is the same distance. He's up first. I'm sure he's thinking I got to make birdie. He takes the very aggressive line to the back left pin over the bunkers and hits it perfectly to about 15 feet giving himself a chance. I know I got to make par and make him make his putt. I take a little extra club and get it on the front of the green with about 25 feet, all I need to do is 2 putt. I'm up first. Thinking in my head just get it up near the hole lag it up no problem. I take my putt, and it's awful. I leave myself about 12 feet for par. I'm sure at this point Cal and Andy are thinking in their head what a pussy. So i'm left to watch Brad take his birdie putt. Fortunatly he missed it but he's in for par and I got a big putt. I line up my putt and think to myself just get this to the hole. If you miss it short I'm quiting the game. I line up the putt, take a practice swing and step up to attempt the putt. I put it right online to go in but as it makes it way to the hole I realize I didn't give it enough. Oh shit it's not getting there. The ball gets up to the hole basically stops on the edge and then somehow I got one extra half rotation and the ball drops in the hole for a par.

WOW. what a match it was. I probably didn't do it justice in the post but it was a great one. We'd both shoot 78 on a tough wet course and I was happy to take down a great golfer. I felt great playing this match. No nerves, even on the last putt, and just kept plugging a way even when I gave up those 3 strokes. Very happy with my play. Looking forward to next round.

So thats it for now. I'll be playing 2 rounds next weekend. Then marriage, and a 3 week holiday, and back just in time to get ready for club championships. Lets hope 3 weeks relaxing on a beech doesn't kill my game.

Inches

2009-06-08T08:00:00.003-04:00

This past weekend of golf didn't turn out how it should have.

Saturday was a good day on the course. I was able to make it around the track for my best score of the year so far, 75. Nothing interesting to talk about in regards to this round, it was a very boring 75. Made a good bogey on number 10 (started on the back) after hitting my tee shot out of bounds. From there I made 1 par after another and 1 birdie on the par 3 14th to shoot 37 on the front. The back was no different. I made a lot of pars and 2 bogeys. Swing was feeling great and I was ready for the next leg of the Niagara Mens tour on sunday.

I have to admit, I was a little to anxious to play this round. My home course, coming off my best finish in the previous event, and I played great the day before. Had all the confidence in the world. To bad it wasn't meant to be. I'd start off by hitting a perfect tee shot down the middle on 1 to about 120 yards. For some reason I hit the completely wrong club and fonud myself in the green side bunker. After a poor sand shot and a decent chip I left myself with 3 feet for bogey. I'd end up 3 putting from hear for a 7 and some shaky knees. Luckily, I had about 20 mins to wait on the second tee to forget about it, and I did. I'd end up making a par on the second and a bogey on the third. I settled from hear on out. On the 4th I hit a gorgous 6 iron to 5 feet (I'd end up winning closest to the hole) but missed the easy birdie putt. No worries, I'm just trying to make pars right now. I'd go on to par 5, 6, 7, bogey 8, and made a nice par on 9. However, I was still really frustrated. All day I was leaving birdie putts and par putts about an inch from the hole. In total I left 9 putts or chips 1 to 2 inchs away from the cup for birdie or par. I expressed my frustration of this many times.

So the back nine. I'd start off the 10th sure I'm going to make bogey, but got a little loose around the green and made a bogey. I'm pissed. I used wrong club again on the 11th and found myself in the bunker but left myself a very makable par putt, of course lipped out. 12, I hit another gorgous 5 iron to about 3 feet and actually made the putt for birdie. 13 I struggled off the tee as usual, but almost still made a great par, lipping out from about 12 feet. 14, after going in bunker off the tee, I would lip out a 8 footer for par. 15 I was determined for a birdie. I was on the fringe about 25 feet away for birdie, convinced myself I was chipping this one in. Perfect chip, of course, stoped 1 inch short on the fastest green St. Catharines has been in a long time. 16, I'm making birdie. With a nice approach shot from 100 yards, I left 6 feet from just above the hole and to the right. Any one who has played at St. Catharines would swear this putt is going o break hard left. I read the putt straight but couldn't believe it so i aimed 2 inches right of the hole, I was wrong, ball stopped 2 inches right of the hole, still shocked this was straight. 17, after a solid chip to 4 feet, I lipped out the par putt. 18 I actually found the fairway, hit a nice 7 iron just through the green but followed up with a phenominal chip with a 4 foot par putt, lipped it out. I then proceded to let everyone know that was watching how that was happening all day to me.

I'd end up 41, 41, for an 82. Was ok with it considering i had a triple to start, but I still should have been better. I should have easily been 80, and honestly, I think I could have been 78 if it wasn't for about 6 inches in total of the span of 6800 yards.

Oh well. Atleast I'm showing signs of playing well in tournaments. Not sure how I will fair the rest of the season, I'm about to go on a 1.5 month layoff due to getting married and honeymoons. I guess we'll see.

Golf was awful this weekend

2009-06-01T08:02:00.002-04:00

Coming off a very high note early in the season, I completely sucked this weekend. So this will be a short post.

Saturday I was feeling ok early in the round with my swing. I finished up the front 9 with a 39. The back wasn't so good. I ended up shooting a 44 with a lot of bad strokes to shoot 83. Was very unhappy with that considering my play from a week before. Highlight of the day was my second shot on the 13th hole. My nemesis tee shot gave me something I've never seen before. THis hole kills me. I either fade it way right and out of bounds or I compensate to much and hit 1 of the 100 trees of the left hand side. Today was no different. I hit a tree at the end of the tee blocks square on and ended up bouncing backwards towards the tee deck. Except it went a little right and ended up beside the 12th green. I hit my second shot from the same distance as my first. Awful.

Sunday was even worse. I got off to a a bod morning right from the start. Woke up late, didn't get to hit any balls. Forgot my golf shoes. And was tired as hell. The first 2 holes I scrambled for 2 great pars and then the wheels started to fall off. A few bogey's and few double bogeys and I found myself at 43 after the first 9. The wind was ridiculous yesterday so I can put a little blame on that, but my swing was even more ridiculous. The back 9 was even worse. I'd make a bogey on 10, par 11 and 12 and then it went way downhill. I'd walk off the hole on 13, hit the trees up the left and lost it. Made a bogey on 14. 15 was awful. I drove it way left over by the 13th green, hit something to 210 out on 15 and then blasted the ball over the 4th hole and on the the highway, walk off again. 16, walked off the hole after the tee shot went in the long grass. 17 i would finish with a bogey. 18, went left for a change, pitched out over the trees, made a double. So i think i shot something like 90 on this awful sunday morning.

So back the drawing board, again. Just like every year. Have to get something together for this weekends tour event. Guess I'll be at the club practicing this week.

Popped my cherry

2009-05-25T07:40:00.002-04:00

It's early monday morning and I could hardly sleep thinking about getting this post out. This past weekend was my best weekend for golf for the season. So heres the quick recap.

Saturday I woke up early to get to the range before my 7:30 tee time. Didn't go crazy on the range but got warmed up at least. I thougt it would help my game but after starting 3 over on the first 2 holes I thought it may have been a waste. Then something clicked in my swing. I stood a little more upright, slowed the swing way down, and actually started seeing some results. All of a sudden i was hitting lasers at the pins. No fade, nothing, just straight percise shots. I couldn't believe it, one good swing after another. Felt great. After starting 3 over on the first 2, I started parring every hole. I would par 4 and 5, bogey 6, and then didn't see another bogey till the 17th hole. Ended up shooting a 78, breaking 80 for the first time this year, and felt great heading into the second event for the Niagara Mens tour.

Sunday I woke early to have breakfast with Sarah in preparation for the tour event at Grand Niagara. I've played there many times over the last few years. Course it pretty wide open. I'd say the majority of difficulty in the course is the greens and the green side bunkers. Lots of crazy undulation on the greens, multpile tiers, and very large. They look quick but were actually pretty slow. Seemed like everyone thought that yesterday.

Anyways, I started off better then I could ask for. I hit a gorgeous drive down the middle to about 159 yards, then proceeded to hit a 8 iron to 2 inches for a tap in birdie. No better feeling for me to start. With my nerves in check for now, I would go on to actually continue playing well. I would par the next hole, find a little trouble on the 3rd to make bogey. Not to interested in breaking the whole round down. I kept things in check on the front and was able to card a 39 after a solid par on the 9th. I'm feeling great right now. Playing my best golf on tour in 3 years and ready for the back.

10th hole is a little scary for some with water all the way up the left hand side. Luckly I don't hit left due to permanent fade. I would find myself a little to far right, but made a great shot to the back of the green and a 2 putt for par. I bogey the 11th after a poor putt for birdie up to the second tier left me 6 feet short, and then i would leave that one short. All day long. The greens were so slow and I just refused to adjust. I left a lot of birdies on the course if I had just got the ball to the hole.

The 12th hole is a very tough par 3. With the pin tucked way in the back right corner I would hit an awful 4 iron short and right of the green, and thankfully the huge green side bunker. Made a great flop shot to about 10 feet and drained the putt for par. After this the wheels fell off a litte. I would make 3 bogeys in a row from here. The first sucked cause I only made bogey due to a rushed second putt from a foot for par. Second was poor club choice on a short par 3, although I almost made a nice putt for par. And the third was on a longer par 5 that I was sure I was going to birdie. I made another mistake here by stepping on the tee and changing what I was doing for the previous 14 holes. I swung a way with the driver instead of smoothing it up the middle, went for the big cut over the corner of the dog leg and found myself in the bunker.

I was able to compose myself for the last 3 holes. Althought I limped in due to nerves, I was able to par the last 3 to shoot a 40 on the back and 79 for the round. First off, I was very happy to have broken 80 for the first time on tour in 3 years. Felt like a victory to me, it's been my minimum goal for every tourny. I was close to the first group, so I posted my score and decided to have a beer and see how I finish. A few groups come in, scores were high, I'm sitting in the top 10. Can't leave now, so i stick around a little longer. Long story short, all the groups come in, 1 guy in the last group (tour champ every year) comes in with a 76, pushing me to 10th overall. My first ever top 10 in a tour event. Amazing for me. I don't believe I've even finsihed in the top 30 in the past. So i've popped my cherry, I broke 80 and I got a top 10. I'm sure Cal would be happy here since he doesn't believe in setting goals, but not me. Next goal, top 5. And of course, my usual goal of actually qualifiying for the next year is still in place. This should help, but I'll need to continue playing well for that to happen.

Not So Good

2009-05-19T08:22:00.002-04:00

I played 2 rounds of 18 this past long weekend and 2 rounds of nine (friday and sunday). All rounds sucked big time except for the friday 9.

My game feels like it's in shambles. Cal made the perfect statement of my game yesterday. Standing on the 4th tee he said "Harry, you're looking good today, all set up for a good 7 or 8 holes. That exactly what happened. Played to a 2 over first 8 and then unraveled on the 9th taking a double bogey. Ended up totally blowing the back 9 to shot an 85.

4, i mean 5 handicapers shouldn't be shouldn't be shooting 85's. Guess that's why my handicapp has gone up from a 4 to a 5 and probably approaching 6 with the way I'm playing.

Just can't stay consistent. Driver is on and off all round. My chipping has been pretty good for the most part. Putting is inconsistent, and my irons are leaving a lot to be desired.

Hopefully I can pull it all together for this weekends tour event.

I guess we will see.

No Golf

2009-05-11T11:59:00.000-04:00

This past weekend I was asked to skip golf for the weekend to spend time with my family in Windsor for Mothers day. Not a problem, especially for my great mom. Happy Mother's day.

So unfortunately, there is no new post here at S, E, and Smack, but you can take a look over at Menu Maniac for a special guest post by yours truly.

Here's the website so you can check it out -

http://menumaniac.blogspot.com/
http://menumaniac.blogspot.com/
http://menumaniac.blogspot.com/

One day i will figure out how to link in a blog.

Actually probably not, I don't care enough.

Stupid Trees on the Golf Course.

2009-05-06T09:23:00.002-04:00

This past sunday was the Niagara Men's Tour spring qualifier. I've played on this tour 2 years now with little success other then qualifing last year.

This year I was determined to qualify again and improve my play in events to hopefully qualify for the following season by actually finishing in the top 35 for the season.

For the past few years Penninsula Lakes in fonthill Ont has been the first tour event and qualifier. I've been playing this course for many years with success outside of the tournaments. Not sure what it is, but the course feels good to me and I'm always confident of my abilities on that course. This sunday was no diffierent.

I started out on the toughest hole on the golf course and my nemisis for many years. Hole 1 on the quarry course is a longer par 4 with a large lake up the whole right side of the hole. Things on the right aren't usually a problem for me since I hit a natural fade, but for some reason I always seem to find that water on this hole. Regardless of this, I decide I'm going to just step up, aim to the middle of the water, and hit as good a driver as possible. This is when I knew my round was going to be different. i ended up hitting a perfect drive that soared over the edge of the water landing about 130 yards away in the best possible spot for this hole. I would hit a great PW to about 3 feet of the cup and drain the putt for birdie. Still haven't made a par on this hole, but I'm off and feeling great.

I would go on to par the next hole. However on the third I would hit a great drive, followed by a short iron to about 10 feet. I then proceded to 4 whack the green for a double. Was pissed, but held my composure with thoughts of only being 1 over. I would go on to par the next 4 holes with solid iron shots into the greens and good putts. It wasn't till the 8th hole that I felt some heat.

Up to this point I was feeling great. I honestly was having one of those days were you know your going to shoot a great score. I got ahead of myself, might be something to consider for future tournys. Off the 8th tee I hit a perfect deep drive. Chosing to layup from about 230 yards, i attempt to hit a soft 7 iron but swung way to lazy and ended up shanking it about 70 yards to the right. No problem still an easy PW into the green. However I would over swing this cause I should have used a 9 iron and found myself green side righ undre an evergreen. I would get under there and try to punch it out but missed and hit the ball about 2 feet forward. Stepped up again and hit it about 1 foot forward, still under the tree. The next one would get out but I was still about 20 feet from the pin and still chipping. Hit an awful chip, missed a 10 footer, and tapped in for a 9. I'm devestated.

From here, I was just playing to qualify. At first I thought I had a good chance to finish well and earn some good points for the season.

Starting on the 10th I made a nice par, follwed by a bogey on the toughest par 3 on the course. Stayed on track from here. Made another good par on the easy par 5 after hitting my drive right and behind a tree. Iwould chip out from there to 225. Down wind I hit a nice 5 iron to about 15 feet from the pin but just off the green. Bogey on the next hole, then par on Matts nemisis par 3. would find some trouble on the tough 15th green after a poor chip and make bogey.

16 is a decent par 5. However i actually went left on the drive and found myself on a steep hill with no view of the hole. I just swung a way and actually recovered to about 150 yards from the green. I ended up pushing my approach shot to the right but left with an easy chip. My nerves got the best of me and I stubbed it leaving myself about 15 feet for par. Missed it and took another bogey.

17 I hit a nice shot into the short but tough par 3 to give myself about 12 feet for birdie. The ball hit a divot I didn't fix on the way to the hole and came up short even though it was online. Happy to walk off with a par. So i'm sitting 10 over (Par 71) on the 18th and thinking I'm on the cut line right now. Need a birdie or par on 18 to make sure I make it.

My drive was a little right and found a bunker. I hit a nice 6 iron out of it to about 90 yards from the pin with an easy gap wedge shot to secure my spot on the tour. I was hitting great approach shots all day (except 8) but ended up shanking the ball about 15 yards straight right. From here I usedmy 60 degree wedge and gave myself about 15 feet for par. I would hit an awful putt about 4 feet past the hole, missed the come back putt and made a double to shoot 83. Super pissed right now cause I know I just blew making the cut.

Fortunatly, I got lucky. 83 was right on the cut line and I had made the tour. PLus I tied Matt and beat Cal (shot 84). BUt that sucks. I was supposed to shoot much better and felt I could have done much better. But oh well. I made the tour and i live to fight another day. Cal even made it after the commitee decided to include the guys who shot 84. So thats cool we are all on te tour this year. I would be cool if we get to play with each other at some point, but it usually doesn't work out like that.

I'm looking forward to the tour this year. All the courses on tour are ones I'm very familiar with and none of them are dog tracks like Riverview we played last year or sawmill or what ever other shit courses they pick. Next event is Grand Niagara, I like that course, and should play well. Then St. Catharines (home course), Lockness links (again, I like this course, played a lot and well there) and Whirlpool Golf course. I worked here for 4 years during university and love that course, I know it as well as I know St. Catharines and have a lot of confidence playing there. I think it's going to be good season.

Darn Work

2009-04-28T08:13:00.002-04:00

This past weekend was maybe one of the best weather wise so far this year. However, it didn't turn out to be the best golfing one.

Saturday was gorgeous outside, except for a super hard wind on the course. I got out early with Matt, Cal, and Andy and it turned out to be a decent day. Under extremely difficult conditions I was able to slash around the course fairly well. That was until I got to the last 3 holes of the day. I blew it on 16 hitting my layup shot somewhere in the woods and made a bogey after a string of pars, and then on 18 I blasted 2 balls over the highway and took a double bogey X. Didn't even play the hole. Somehow I shot an 82, I think. Not bad, think Matt was in the 90's and Cal was 82, so can't complain to much.

Sunday wasn't a very good day. I was actually playing well for the front 9. However on about the 6th hole I got an email on my blackberry and unfortunately had to quit after 9 to tend to some work stuff. Double the 9th hole to shot 40 and left for the office.

Monday was the better ball tourny that Matt and i have played in the last few years. We have been some what close to making the cut each year, but this year we were determined to make it. I must say we both played extremely well. That is for 16 holes. We played 17 and 18 in some of the strongest winds I've ever played in and it just totally through us off. We were even going into 17. Both of us hit monster drives down the centre. With the wind howling I hit a gap wedge from 132 yards but chunked it into the water about 40 yards in front of me. Matt hit a decent approach to about 20 feet and proceded to 3 putt. 18 was a 176 yard par 3. Into the fierce wind, I was hitting 4 iron hybrid. I blasted mine way past to an impossible place. Matt also hit an awful loosey shot and was unable to make an up and down for par. So we shot 2 over. We deserved better. I personally missed 3 easy birdy putts on the front nine and matt maybe missed 2, but also made ou only birdie on a tough par 3. If it wasn't for my double double finish I would have shot a 76 and I think Matt was 74 or something close to that. Oh well. The course was great and the weather was even better. Hopefully I played well enough to earn another chance with Matt next year.

This weekend is the Niagara Mens Tour qualifier. So got to be on my game sunday. I think there is roughly 14 spots available and looks to be a good field this year. I'll just do my best and hopefully make it. AS long as work doesn't get in the way again.

Awesome new blog

2009-04-21T11:26:00.000-04:00

My sister started a new blog (her second attempt) and hit the nail on the head with this one.

Its called Menu Maniac - http://menumaniac.blogspot.com/

She writes about all the great food she cooks and cool restaurants she visits around Ontario, mostly Windsor.

If you need a quick idea for a meal or just looking for some great food reviews check it out. It's worth it. She makes cooking great food very easy.

http://menumaniac.blogspot.com/
http://menumaniac.blogspot.com/

Familiar places

2009-04-21T07:31:00.002-04:00

I've been playing squash now for roughly 2 years. I'd say I've made some good progress over that time to improve my game and work towards playing at a higher level. Yet I find myself at the same place every tournament. As you may know I was playing in the club championships last week. Things went the same as always. I lost my first match, so I move to the consolation round. No big deal, playing level B so not upset. Then I lose again, and I'm back in to the stupid losers of the losers bracket. And of course I lose that match and I find myself up against my buddy Tim playing for the losers of the losers of the losers. Thats right, I was slated to play for the title of being the second worst player in the division. The very first tournament that I played in lat year I came second in the division, D division. Since then I've moved up and can't win a freaking game. To be honest, over the course of I think 4 tournaments, I haven't won a game. This isn't like golf, it's not nerves. This past tournament I don't even think I was over matched or played poorly. I just don't seem to win tournament matches. I'm going to get much better at squash. I've got one more league season before the summer. Everyone stops playing in the summer. I plan on working on my game this summer during the week. I wan't to finish the league strong this spring, and come back next year and dominate. I'll get in much better shape, and work on my game. It's a slow process I'm willing to wait for. Must get better at squash.

I missed out on some great golf this weeend. Saturday was a fantastic day here in the area. was 20 degrees at one point, sun was shinning, great day. Unfortunatly saturday wasn't the best day for me personally. I showed up late for golf due to some outside issues, and attemted to play. However my cell phone and issues wouldn't let it be, so I ended up sorting of playing 9 holes. Was on my phone for atleast 1.5 hours of the 2 hours. So walked off after 9. Found out the next day was playing with a board member of the club. It's against the rules to have your shirt untucked and to be on a cell phone at all. Really put on a show for that guy.

Sunday was better. The weather wasn't nearly as good, but still better then what we've dealt with all year. I struggled.....hard. I'm having some serious difficulties off the tee so far this year. Mostly with my driver. Just can't get a good swing down. So i sprayed the ball all over the front 9. Shot 43 on the front with 1 birdie and 1 par.

The back wasn't much better. Birdie on the 10th, bogey on the 11th. Hit a beautiful 4 iron in to the wind on the tough par 3 12th to about 15 feet, but just missed the putt (still a good par). Blasted a drive dead into the woods on 13 and made double bogey. Made a decent par on 14. 15 I drive the ball way right and short. The frustration really starts to kick in and i toss my club a good 20 yards. Get to my ball, behind a tree and i get it up the hole but behind another tree. Punch out down the fairway to about 80 yards. Then i finally hit a good shot to about 8 feet, and made the putt, ugly par. 16 I hit a great tee shot, rescue club driver still sucks, and another rescue from 250 that goes ust through the green. Would duff the chip and miss the birdie putt for a par. Can't remember the last time I hit to prefect shots in a row on that hole and I waste it with a par. 17 I hit way left behind some trees but had a line to the hole. Made a good chip and long 15 footer for par. 18 i actually hit my first good drive. Hit a 9 iron from 150 just short of the green. Chip was decent to about 4 feet. Got an extra $2 on the line with this putt. Matt makes some jerk comment about not missing, and I miss. Oh well, the round was shit anyways. I ended up shooting 82. Apparently that wasn't so bad. Matt was something like 89 and Cal (Cal's the one whos gooooood now) was 82 as well.

Better get the game in better shape this weekend. Got the mens better ball tourny with matt on monday. we will see.

Update time

2009-04-14T08:50:00.002-04:00

Been a little behind with my posts after coming strong out of the gates. Don't worry, I plan on getting back on track right now.

This past weekend I had big plans to play 3 rounds of golf and watch 4 rounds of the Masters. Not going to give a big review of the Masters, you can go all over the place to see that, but I will say it was a freakin awesome tourny. Would have loved to see Phil or Tiger come back for the win, but I like Angel and was happy to see him win. Also decided with Matt that we will start a tradition of playing anywhere Angel wins. Already did Oakmont, my turn to get us on Augusta. Little stumped on how I'm going to pull that off.

Anyways, back to what you come here for. Played golf this weekend, but not enough. Weather was sunny but freezing cold. On friday Cal and I got off early enough and managed to get in 18. Didn't play very well. I struggled with my driver all day pretty much changing my swing every time i teed it up. Going to have to stop doing that soon so I don't blow every round. Need to get to a range. My iron play was much better and I feel as though my short game is in a good place. Putting is difficult on the shaggy greens right now, but still decent enough. If i can get my driver back, even if it's back to the consistent fade, I think i can start playing better again.

Saturday we tried to get out again. We made it 3 holes and I declared it to cold to continue and we played back to club house 16, 17, 18. The sun was out again, but the wind was brutal and just not worth it. I was thinking more about how cold I was and how miserable it was making me rather then actually trying to hit good shots. Waste of time, so we left.

No golf on sunday due to everyone celebrating some holiday. Even my Jewish brother Cal was doing it, so no golf.

This week is the squash club championships. I'm proud to say that I have moved from playing in the D division just last year to the B division. Big step up in a short period of time. Had my first match last night. I've had a rough couple of weeks at work and have really cut down my squash time. Most of the time I was either to tired or just not in the right frame of mind to play. Was a big mistake to let up on my game the last 2 weeks. Was playing poorly in the league play, even monday where i dominated all season, and even played a few other matches were I just wasn't myself.

Last night was different. I was in a totally different mindset, actually looking foward to playing and was ready to go. Felt great stepping on the court. I was playing a guy I've never played before but have seen at the club and knew I was in for a tough match. Unfortunatly I wasn't able to really keep up endurance wise and lost the match 3-0. The score didn't really reflect how well I played, but I can't deny I got my ass kicked. If i was in better shape, like i was only 2 weeks ago, I would have put up a much better fight. Not sure I could have won the match, but I should have won 1 or 2 games. Oh well, still goo experience to be playing a this level. I've got a shot at the consolation now, which isn't so bad since it's B division. Next game is wednesday night. I'll be looking forward to it.

This weekend has a chance of being warm and sunny, so hopefully I'll get back on the track and shot some lower scored this weekend.

Our luck ran out

2009-04-04T09:44:00.002-04:00

It's saturday morning and I'm working instead of playing golf. After a short run of saturday golf in march, the first saturday in april has brought cold shitty rain and has forced us to take a day off golf. I guess it was a little much to think we may be playing every weekend from here on out.

Last weekends golf didn't go as well as the first round. I found myself to be Matt for the day and blew it big time with a high 80 score while Matt and Call shot somewhere in the mid to low 70's. Whats up with that? Well, so far they are good and I'm not...yet.

Biggest problem so far is my approach shots to the green. I seem to be over clubbing huge. Can't remember exactly but last time I probably hit 5 or 6 shots into the green that soared over, bounced off a cart path, and sent me to the next tee with a "double bogey" otherwise known as an X.

What could be causing this? Does being in better shape make me hit the ball further? I'm using the same clubs I would have used last year. How can I be hitting the ball further then I was mid season last year in the second round of the year? Maybe i'm just flat out over swinging? Not sure what happened, but not a big deal to fix.

The swing in generla feels good for so early in the year. Once the weather gets a little better I'll have to get to the range and work out some kinks.

Lets hope for an improvement in weather for tomorrow. would be nice to play again.

Perfection

2009-03-26T08:13:00.002-04:00

Last night I finished off my best season of squash so far.

As mentioned in my last post I've taken great strides in squash to improve my game over the winter. Finally, I have a sense of satisfaction for a lot of hard work. I guess it wasn't exactly hard work, but it was a lot of playing, practicing and lessons to get to this point. What is that point? I finished off my Monday night league undefeated. That's right, 10-0. This was my first time going a whole season without a loss, and will move me up to the top rank for Mondays. A very nice accomplishment for myself.

I will be looking to improve further. Mondays are actually the "easier" night for my league. Monday is no push over, but for some reason there seems to be more competition in the thursday night league. Not sure exactly why. A lot of the same people play monday as thursday, but for some reason I didn't play as well on thursday. I actually went 7-3 in my thursday night league. Pretty good, but I lost atleast 2 out of those 3 that I should have won. I went through a 3 week period where I played like absolute shit. How'd i turn it around? I played 4 days in a row one weekend with my buddy Tim who is consistently 1 level a head of me. I lost all 4 matches to him 5-0, but learned a lot. Just hitting nice solid lengths for 4 days really gave me an advantage. My backhand became such a smooth stroke that I've really jumped a head of my level. Everyone has a good forhand, but I've developed a great backhand, even my coach thinks it's better then my forhand. So that was the big improvement i made. I can hammer it to my opponents backhand all game long and dominate by keeping it on that side of the court.

So next season starts towards the end of april. I'll be playing in the 1 spot (out of 6) on mondays, and will stay at the 4 spot (out of 4) on thursdays. Hopefully I can hang with the guys at 1, I know there is some real good players at that level. But I really want to move up on thursday. If I can get to the number 2 seed on thursday by this time next year, I will have moved into the A division, something my coach said would take my 5 or 6 years. I'm on year 2. I'm gooooooood!!!!

Why the new post?

2009-03-23T08:08:00.002-04:00

I know I've let down all the S, E, and S fans out there. I'll offer an excuse, but I know it won't satisfy the hunger you've had for a post since some time last year. I had such an awful finish to the golf season last year that I was sick of writing about my failure. However, I apologize for the lapse in content and will be back on the scene for the foreseeable future.

So why the return?

Well, this past weekend, March 21st 2009, I finally had the pleasure of returning to the golf course for my first round of the year. No not in Arizona, or Florida, or somewhere warm, but right here in cold as balls Canada. Our course opened up last Thursday and with that news nothing was stoping us from getting on the track first thing saturday morning. Matt, Call and I met up for breakfast at 9:30, I actually didn't get there till about 9:50 after waking up with a hangover drinking away my disappointment in the Sabres the night before. After some quick eggs (which sucked cause the omellets are getting smaller by the day) we bundled up and teed it up around 11:00Am.

It was pretty cold at first when we started, but after a few holes I was down to just a sweater and feeling good.

How'd I play?

I'd say pretty good considering it was the first time since September 08. Started off with a smooth 5 iron to get things rolling. Remarkable imporvement over last years first shot of the year when i released my driver further then the ball went.Would go on to double bogey the hole. However things improved from there on out. Ended the front nine 5 over. 41 was pretty good for the first round. Expecially considering Cal was 3 over and Matt was 6 or 7 over.

Back nine was slightly better. After a string of pars on the first 3 holes I'd bogey 14. Chunked my 3rd shot on 15 but rolled in a 20 footer for par. Got into some trouble on 16 and ended up with a double bogey. parred 17 with a nice little chip from the rough to about a foot. On 18 I hit a great drive down the left hand side of the fairway. Came up a little short with a 6 iron from 175. I was probably little optimistic and tried to hit a flop shot from about 10 yards from the pin but wasn't aggresive enough and came up short, chip and putt for a bogey and solid 81. Pretty good for my first round out, especially considering I could have easily been in the 70's with 1 or 2 better decisions.

The highlight of the day, beating Matt. But not just beating matt, actually pwned (No idea what that means, Cal used it) matt. Think he was something like 15 or 16 over. Not sure cause he didn't even finish the last hole after hitting a tree and losing his ball off the tee then walking up the fairway talking on is cell phone while we finished. Call was in the 70's, but he's good so was expected.

All in all it was a phenminal day being on the course again. Just felt right in so many ways. Can't stop thinking about getting out again next weekend. Conditions were great for march. Dry as a bone thanks to some great work by our grounds crew last fall installing new drainage. Greens were acceptably cut, puttable but slow. Really no complaints at all on the course. Walked off with dry pants.

a quick update on the rest of my life.

Squash - playing 4 or 5 times a week.Getting much better. Have moved up from the D division to B division. I'd say in golf terms, I'm playing at a 10 or 12 handicapp, wouldplay the A division in the club championships. I love squash. Has definitly become my addiction for the winters.

And in even more exciting news, I got engaged this past winter to the most amazing girl in the whole world. Getting married this summer and then off to Greece for 3 weeks. Can't wait.

Going to be back at the blog for the time being. Check back for more updates from the greatest glove cleaner in the world.

www.seapark.ca

Best Glove Cleaner in the World

2008-11-07T09:29:00.003-05:00

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Westmount Golf and Country Club

2008-09-25T13:13:00.003-04:00

I haven't been playing much golf this month, as I tend to do when football season comes around, but this past weekend I had one of the best golf weekends of the year.

I played a quick 9 holes friday night at St. Catharines as a warm up. Saturday I played with my buddy preston at a very nice club link course calle Blue Springs.

But sunday was the real deal.

As mentioned in my Magna post, i played golf with Anne Marie and Ralph who are member out at Westmount Golf and Country Club. I got an email late thursday asking if I could make it out, and without a hesitation I accepted. I'll say this, if I had pulled some crap about not wanting to play due to football, I would have felt like the biggest idiot ever.

Westmount is a top ranked course in canada. Top 15. Designed by Stanley Thompson, and is located in Kitchener, Ont. I had never heard of the course, I'm not up on these lists like Matt, but how could i pass up such a highly ranked course and a round of golf with such great people.

I showed up at 9:15 or so for a 10:00 tee time. Set in the middle of the city like St. Catharines golf club, you pull in through a small sub division. The club house was very nice, yet old, with tradition. For those that have played East Aurora, it was the exact same as that club house. Main building with the pro shop off to the side, even the circle in front, patio looking over the 18th hole, actually now that I think of it, even the colour and architecture was the same. Very nice place to be.

I started off hitting some balls with Ralph. I was striking them clean and could feel a good round coming on.

Putting green was perfect. They were running very quick for the time of the year. Could only imagine how awesome they would be mid July.

From the first tee I was in disbelief at how gorgeous this course was. Huge old mature trees. Perfectly manicured fairways and rough, the tee decks were nice and flat (pretty much the only spot on the course where you got a flat lie), just perfect. I could tell it was going to be a great day.

The first hole showed what you were looking at all day. Rolling fairways, again, never standing on flat ground off the tee. This is probably one of the most under rated tests of a golf course, but probably the hardest thing to manage.

I'm not great at the hole by hole guy. A few things I found were the greens were much larger then other stanly thompson courses I've played. Yet much more difficult. Lots of undulation, made for some difficult putts. A lot of elevated greens, uphill fariways and long carries off the tees. I played the back tees, 6900 yards, plenty long enough. Thick rough. The trees made for some very difficult shots. There was no going over these trees anywhere on the course, so lots of punch outs or tricky low hookers to get aronud them. A lot of holes had dog legs or small turns along the fairway. Quite a few blind shots, so with a little knowledge of the course I could have scored better.

Really hard to explain how nice this place really was. Very comparable to St. Georges, I actually think if Westmount was located in Toronto like St. Georges, it would be ranked the same or much higher. Its that whole Toronto Elitist thing.

The weather was perfect, my playing partners were fantastic, and I had a great day. I played really well to start. Shot 39 on the front, but couldn't really hold it on the back. Ended up going 5 over on the last 4 holes and shot 82.

All in all this was a phenominal day, on yet another amazing golf course. I like the fact that I've played so many great courses that it makes my top 5 harder and harder. But here goes.

1. Oakmont
2. St. Georges/Westmount
3. Magna Golf Club
4. Conservatory at the Ginn Resort
5. Heron Point

Sorry, just can't bump one of those yet, so going to have to make my top 5, 6 courses.

Magna Golf Club

2008-08-26T08:06:00.002-04:00

On saturday I had the chance to play one of the most private clubs in Ontario, Magna Golf Club. My sisters mother in law invited me out there to play with her sister and brother in law. I have to say, I'm extremely lucky to have gotten out there, it was an amazing day so I'll give you a recap.

Upon arriving you first have to check in with security who then directs you to the club house and calls ahead to let them know you are coming. As you pull up to the bag drop one guy opens the car door for you while another grabs your clubs. Your car is then valet to the parking lot as you are directed to your locker. Just a side note, the parking lot at this place is ridiculous. Something like 5 ferraris, 10 porches, maybe 6 or 7 of that top of the line mercedes, a hundred lexus'. I had my mothers STS and I was almost embarresed to have it in the parking lot.

Anyways, on to the locker room. The nicest I have ever seen. All the lockers are oak doors, with a digital keypad lock. Inside the locker room you can make yourself some toast, cereal, coffes, whatever, amazing facilities.

The club house in all was the most amazing I've ever seen. Hard to explain how nice it was. Beautiful patios looking over the 18th hole. Huge. Not sure what else to say.

After taking a quick walk around inside I headed out to the carts to grab my clubs and hit the range. "Good Morning Mr. Nepon" from the guys outside, "Your clubs are on this cart over here." First time I've been a guest somewhere and they treat you just like a member.

Everything at Magna is top notch. Even the golf carts had leather steering wheels, cooler full of bottled water, yardage guides, very nice divot tool given out (at our club this divot tool would cost you $15), 2 small towels for personal use and one extra that they wet and place on the back of the cart so you can clean your clubs and balls.

The range was just another added bonus for the day. Just like everything else, its gets better and better. Set up of the range was normal practice stations, with the little Nike golf bags filled with balls, some muskoka chairs to relax in, and and attendant to basically do everything for you. He would bring your clubs from the cart to the hitting area and back. Dumped some balls for me, and after you finish hitting a club he would come over and clean it for you. Also, every practice ball was a Nike 1 platinum ball. So sweet to actually warm up with real golf balls, and the best ones in the line of Nike balls. After I finished hitting a few balls, I headed to the practice green.

Last year at Oakmont I stepped on the green, dropped few balls, and watched as they rolled about 20 feet away from me. Almost the same thing happened here, except only about 8 feet roll. The green were absolutly perfect. I would estimate rolling around a 12 or 13. So i worked on my putting a for a little while and waited for the rest of my group to show up.

I had decided I would play the black tees even though everyone else was playing the forward tees. The 2 women played the most forward ones, and the other guy, Ralph, played the second up tees. Ralph was a good golfer, but last year was in a head on collision on the 401, so hasn't really gained back all his movement, but you can tell he can play, just needs to recover still. My tees were 7300 yards, 75.4/141. Before teeing off I thought aout playing up one tee, but couldn't resist playing the back tees. Turned out to be a great decision.

No hole by hole here, but the course was amazing. Played long but fair. If I wasn't hitting my driver well it would have been a nightmare, but luckly I figured it out the previous week and was bombing drives all day long. I'm pretty sure I didn't hit a 9, 8, 7 iron all day, and maybe 1 or 2 6 irons. Every hole was driver - 4/5 iron. I was on point all day with my irons so didn't find to much trouble. There was a lot of elevation changes out there. Seemed to be hitting to a raised green on every hole. The bunkers were enourmous and deep. I got into a few green side ones and you can't see the pin or green from the green side bunkers. Took quite the effort to raise the ball up enough to get on the green. The greens were absolutly perfect. Ones of those courses where you hit the putt and it goes exactly where you hit it. Rolled a few long birdie putts jus over the edge, unfortunatly, I didn't make any birdies on the day. Greens were so fast and so big that is was difficult to get close. I did have about 3 "easy" birdie putts I should have made, but just didn't convert. Fairways were perfectly manicured, the tee decks were perfectly flat, no divots, nothing out of place.

I ended up making 3 double bogeys to shot 85. Made a double on the 18th, bogey on the 17th, and bogey on the 15th. The course was long ad very tough, but I played better then I scored. I really felt I could have broke 80, but oh well. Still a great day.

I loved this course. Wish i could play everyday. I told Matt and Cal that this course was nicer then St. Georges, but that might be an over statement. The clubhouse and service absolutly was. The course was just behind it, to different to compare. St. Georges is old timer course, tight, mature, where as Magna is new, wide open fairways, huge greens. For locals you could campare St. Catharines golf club to Legends.

I'll be heading out to another top course in Canada soon enough. Ralph and his wife who played with happened to be members at Westmont in kitchener ONt. I had never heard of the course, apparently it's ranked in the top 15 in Canada. They have asked me to come out and play there soon, so I geuss I'll be adding to my top 100 list soon enough.

Phenominal day on a phenominal course. Really looking foward to getting back on the track.

Here is my top courses played list updated.

1. Oakmont (going to be tough to knock this one off the top spot)
2. St. Georges
3. Magna
4. Conservatory at the Ginn Resort
5. Heron Point

Oh ya, and I've never seen so many hot chicks working at a golf course. Even the grounds crew had 2 hot 20 year olds filling divots on the practice range. I told the kid on the range he's got the best job ever, I'd rather work there then go to club every saturday night.

Score Golf List

2008-08-22T07:31:00.003-04:00

My buddy Matt put up some post about the courses he's played on the Score Golf Top 100 courses, he's played way more then me on the list, and I thought I would break it down a little.

Only reason I looked at the list cause I wanted to see where Magna Golf course was on the list. I finally got an invite out to this highly private course in Aurora, Ontario from my sisters mother in law. It ranks 56th on the list, I thought it was higher, but doesn't matter, the course has a great reputation and should be amazing. I don't know to much about it, but I do know that you get a caddy and from my experience at Oakmont having a caddy, it makes the round 100 times better. Here is the link in case you want to check it out. www.magnagolf.com

Matts played 17 courses on the list, he doesn't feel thats enough. I don't really care how many I've played, but I counted anyways, and I've only played 9. I've got one up on matt. He hasn't played any course in the top 15. I've played 2 of the top 3 courses, so take that Matt. Played St. Georges last year for my Birthday, shot 79. I also played Hamilton Golf and Country Club many years ago, but I guess that one doesn't really count since I played it when I was 18.

The rest of my list is pretty much the same as Matt's. Glen Abbey, Deer Ridge, Wooden Sticks, Essex Golf and Country Club, Heron Pointe, Lookout, and Bond Head. I have to say Deer Ridge is probably the nicest of all of them. My father had a membership there for a few years and I would go and play maybe once a year with him out there, Matt came one time with us, phenominal course. Glen Abbey is ranked to high for what it is. Wooden sticks is a surprise it's on the list, but was a lot of fun to play. Lookout is a great old track, always a good round. Bond Head has no buisness being on the list. Essex is awesome.

Then there is good old Heron Pointe, my second home course. I've played that one maybe 40 times over the last 5 years cause my buddy Preston is a member there. I love that course but hate it. So difficult cause there is no rough out there, only high, thick, Fescue. I hate fescue. I guess I take Heron for granted cause I play it so much, but pretty cool that I play regularly on one of the top 50 courses in Canada. If for some reason I ever move closer to Hamilton, or a club link course opens in Niagara, I would definitly get a membership and play Heron weekly.

Didn't have much to say on the whole topin anyways. Just wanted to mention I was heading out to Magna tomorrow. I'll have a post on monday telling you all about. Going to be a great day.

For the Fans

2008-08-18T07:48:00.003-04:00

Haven't posted in a long time. Mostly due to laziness and lack of interest in posting about the same thing over and over again.

Now I have good reason to give a little something back. My golf game has been pretty good over the last month or so. Been shooting consistently in the 70's, but nothing lower then a 77. Which has atleast gotten me down to a 4 handicapp. Yesterday, something great happened. I did everything right with my swing for a full round and came in low.

Realizing that all i needed to do was be more still during swing, I started hitting everything perfect. Drove the ball better then I have all year. No fade, just big bombs straight down the fairway all day.

Put together a great round of 73. Funny thing is, it could have been in the 60's. I had to longer birdie putts that I put right on line but left inches from the cup, and on 2 of the last 3 holes I missed birdie putts from 4 and 6 feet. So at the very least I should have been 71.

Oh well. The handicapp is down to a 3.5. Need to get to a 3 to win some money from Cal. 2 seems way out of reach at this point.

All good things come to an end

2008-07-14T09:01:00.002-04:00

Played golf this weekend, whats new?

Saturday played ok. Ended up shooting 79. Happy that I broke 80, but could have been a better score. I missed atleast 4 birdie putts from 8 feet or closer. My putting had been pretty good lately, just slightly off.

On sunday I had committed myself to sleep through my tee time due to absolutly no sleep saturday or sunday night. But decided at the very last minute to make my way to the club. Got to the tee at 7:30, started at 7:37. Had absolutly no energy and could barely stay awake and ended up shooting in the high 80's, maybe shot 90 something. I walked in after 15 holes. Just useless for me to even swing the club by that point. Should have stayed in bed.

Wanted to send a shout out to my boy Matty B. Guy is playing out of his mind right now. Beat the club champ in the langly matches yesterday, and is giving scrath a good scare right now. Kind of shocked he's playing so well right now considering it's still July. Usually he holds back this ridiculous play for September. But i think he's figured out the secret. Matt has stopped playing with Cal and I. I don't play golf in september and thats when he plays best, so I guess he's decided that he would stop play with us early this year and he's found out that helps. So good luck with the rest of the year matt, see you next april.

Thought I was back

2008-07-08T08:36:00.002-04:00

This weekend didn't go so well, especially since I should have been on vacation with my family in a beautiful B.C. cottage on the lake.

Saturday it all seemed good. I went out to St. Catharines and played a good round shooting 78 which helped bring the handicapp down a little more. Was feeling a great swing, short game was good, putting was o.k., and I was driving the ball well.

Somehow, all this was thrown out the window in another very poor showing on the Mens tour. Out at another shitty course called Rockway Glen I totally blew it and shot a horrendous 88. Second hole in I took a triple bogey, and bogey on the 3rd par 3. Then I thought I got things under control making a few pars in a row untill i made a bogey on the 8th, and then 4 putted the 9th to make a 7. Can't remember where else i screwed up but I shot a 45 on the front. Awful. Then I thought I could be respectable on the back, but that didn't happen either. I bogey the 17th hole to be at 4 over and then made a 6 on the 18th par 3 to shoot 43. Totally fucking shit. The greens were shit and difficult to read. I couldn't get the speed all day, left almost every putt short. My driver totally failed me. That pretty much where i lost everything. Driving and putting. Irons were ok, but with such a bad putting display I totally sucked.

There is 2 more events. One course I feel very confident I can play well at. The other, not so much. I guess I'll deal with that when it come along. I pissed that I've played so poorly now twice in a row. Another year wasted on tour.

2 is back in play

2008-07-01T07:41:00.002-04:00

Since I'm stuck at work today on Canada Day while the guys are enjoying a perfect morning of golf, I figured I'd get my post in earlier this week.

I was away all day yesterday and apparently missed some amazing golf by the best golfer on the planet Matty B. Not sure what happened other then he shot a 69 at a very tough course in the area, and could have possibly got a hole in one. Unfortunatly matts a huge loser and feels the need to write "parts" of a blog posts and we will have to wait a few days to find out. Well, people who read his blog will wait, i'll just find out later from Cal.

So back to me.

Got another 3 rounds in this weekend. I've been playing a lot. Played the first 18 with my cousin in atleast a year and were joined by our buddy Melly. Melly is another fantasy football fanatic and part of Jamie and I's big FF pool, so this round was a lot more about football, and golf on the side. Got off to a rocky start with a triple on the first, a bogey on the second, and a double on the third hole. Got it going after that a little and finished the round with an 81. From the blues this was pretty shit. But was almost half in the bag so not to bad all in all. Just an enjoyable round.

Saturday was another story. As I said in my previous post, I finally found the fix in my game. I had proclaimed this a few time earlier this year, but now I've actually done. I battled through the toughest most frustrating period of golf and have found the answer.

This was a weird morning for golf. Apparently I had slept through some ridiculous thunder storm about an hour before we teed off. Cal called me a questioned wether or not I was even coming, having no idea about the rain I told him I was running a little late but would be there for sure. Good thing we showed up, cause no one else did. We played saturday morning at 7:45 with not a single person in site. Ended up playing in 3 hours and 15 mins. What a freaking awesome morning. We played a friendly match for breakfast, which I'm sure Cal thought was in the bag for him. However, the fix worked. I took the guy to school while shooting a freaking 77. Finally, I'm playing again. The irons were smooth, I was driving the ball well, short game was phenominal, and I finally enjoy the game of golf again. Couldn't wait for sunday morning golf.

Saturday afternoon I had some friends I do business with in from out of town. starting around 4 in the afternoon things got crazy. Headed down to Port Dalhousie (summer patio bar area) for some coronas. Then met up for dinner, and back to port. Things went downhill from there. Won't go into to much detail, just this. The night resulted in about 1 hour of sleep before meeting Cal again for golf at 7:30. I show up barely able to stand and bracing myself for a shit round I begin dragging myself through the front 9.

Amazingly enough, I played great. My long game was o.k, but my short game was freakinhg amazing. I made so many up and down. I'm not sure I even hit one green in regulation. I just couldn't miss. I couldn't miss a putt within 10 feet. It was insane, I could hardly stay awake, but I made everything in site. If i wasn't chipping to a gimmie, I was draining the put no matter where it was from. It was increadible.

So i'm standing on the 7th tee, 2 over par, and I tell Cal I'm quitting after 9. Just couldn't take it anymore. But then I make a great par on 7. so on the 8th I say I'm going to double the next 2 so i have an excuse to quit. But I drive my ball deep into the wind to 200 yards out and go for the green in 2. In the bunker, made a crappy out, but made the 2 putt for par. Big drive on 9, came up way short, got way aggressive on the 75 footer for birdie, but rolled in the 10 footer for par. 2 over, I'm grabbing a cart and finishing this one. I keep the fire going. Par on 10, 11, 12, 13. Bogey on 14. Par on 15, 16, 17, made a 15 footer for par on 17th called it in the hole about a foot away. 18 I'm looking at 3 over and scared of going on the highway thanks to Cal telling me I would. I aim way down the left side of the hole and bomb a monster to 140 yards out. Little nervous now that I have a chance to put down my low for the year. I pushed my 8 iron a little a came up in the bunker, oh well, I've been making these up and downs all day. I kind of babied the bunker shot and left myself about 12 feet right to left for par. Hit the putt exactly were I thought it had to go, but didn't get much break and tapped in for my 4th bogey of the day to shoot 76. Still super happy about that.

I endured a lot of shit from my 2 friends for about a month now. Just go read they're last few blog posts and you'll get a sense of how bad it's been. I embarresed myself at the last Niagara Mens tour event. I've shot more rounds in the 90s this year then I have in the last 4 years. I actually almost gave up the game 2 weeks ago and some how managed to control myself from breaking every club in my bag. Now though, now, it's fucking on. I'm back mother fuckers (sorry for the language mom). I'm coming after you Cal, I'm coming after Matt (even though I think he may be a 1 now, which means I'm not going to touch him, lol), I'm getting to a 2. I'm going on vaca this week so won't be playing for a week, but I'll be on it the day I come back. I can't wait to light this game up.

Could the Search Be Over?

2008-06-23T10:08:00.002-04:00

Haven't posted in a few weeks due to the horrible downturn in my golf game. It's been probably one of the most frustrating times for me. I hit a wall a few weeks ago and instead of seeing improvements and a drop in my handicapp, i've gone backwards. But I think I may have found the missing piece this past weekend.

I was set all week to take the weekend off to clear my head of negative thoughts, but couldn't resist. So instead of taking it off, I played 3 times. Friday I called up Ryan to get a lesson after work. I had the lesson and then went out for 18 with Ryan, Mike, and Rick (all staff at the club). What i quickly worked on with Ryan was some easy fixes. First off I was swinging with a "reverse C" in my swing. Pretty much dipping my right shoulder on the follow through which was leaving my club open and making it nearly impossible to get the club head back around properly. So now I'm concentrating on pushing my shoulder through quicker and up. Also, on my follow through I was coming to the top of my swing and arching hard back, shooting my chest up to the sky. This was putting a massive strain on my lower back, I've been having som serious trouble with my lower back for awhile. Last week was probably the worst. I was instructed by the doc to take a full week off of everything to let it heal slightly. No squash, baseball, or golf. So anyways, Ryan saw this and now has my finishing standing more upright. This did wonders for my back. 3 days of golf and I can already feel the difference in my back. Still a little sore, but no were near as bad as it's been for the last 2 years or so. Hopefully with the strain gone I will start feeling better. So these 2 little changes have brought some great things to my swing. I'm hitting much more consistent with irons and rescues. Better accuracy, length, and my confidence is coming back.

Quick recap of weekend of golf.

Friday was pretty good. Played better. Shot 81 with a bogey on 17 and 18.

Saturday I thought I was going to play better, bu didn't. Challenged Matt and Bernie to matches on the first hole. Was down 4 to matt on the 10th, so I pressed, and lost both. Pressed Bernie on the 13th hole, and lost that one too. Played awful. shot 87. Bad thoughts got back in my head. Came out saturday night with my buddy preston and cousin Jamie for another 9 holes. Probably wasn't a good idea to play another 9. My back was in severe pain and I had developed a blister on the inside of my palm in the webbing of the thumb. Skin off, bad scene. Couldn't swing the club at all. Between the pain in my back and the harrendous pain in my hand, it was a complete waste of time. I had a Langley match to play sunday morning and the condition of my hand really worried me. When I got home it was throbbing. It actually swelled up on the blister and I had to ice it all night. I was shocked in the morning when I took my first couple of swings and couldn't even feel it. Not sure how it happened, but it healed enough over night.

Sunday was my first Langly match against Rick B, guy I've known for a few years, he was playing at a 7, i'm a 6 so i gave him one on the 8th hole. Side note, it's a joke that he gets a shot on this par 5. It's probably the easiest hole on the course. Started off well. Went Par, Par on the first 2 match even. I drained a ridiculous birdie putt on 3 from about 25 feet to go up 1. Gave it back on the 4th. Halfed the 5th. I took the 6th, but again gave it back on the 7th par 3. Rick made a great chip on 8th to get within a foot for par net birdie. I just missed my 8 footer for birdie, he's 1 up. 9th hole I bomb one down the left side and leave myself 145 yards to the pin. Rick blast one way left to the 10th tee. But I brain farted and duffed my second, third, and 4th shots, and 2 putted for 6. Rick made a 5 and a lost the hole. down 2 making the turn. shot 40 on the front with a double on the 9th. My swing was so good, i was playing really well, but so was Rick.

10th hole, I was just in front of the green in 2. Rick got caught behind some trees and conceded the hole before we even putted. 1 down. 11 I was just beside the green in 2, rick had a 7 footer for birdie. I duffed my chip just barely on the green, but made a great putt from 15 feet for par, rick missed the birde, still 1 down. I chunked my tee shot on the par 3 12th in the junk, made a 5, lost the hole. Bombed a drive up the left hand side on 13, hit a beautiful 9 iron to the back pin about 5 feet (lipped out the putt for birde) but one the hole, back to 1 down. Made a nice up and down on 14 to keep it at 1. 15 I knew I needed a birdie to win the hole. Had a chip from about 25 feet, rolled it over the edge. we both had 5 foot par putts, I made mine first, but he followed up with his. Going into 16 1 down. Both to the bottom of the hill in 2. I was trying to be aggresive to the back pin and went just over the green (very hard chip, green sloped hard back to front). Rick put a sweet shot to about 6 feet for birdie, but breaks right to left. I made a great chip to a foot, unfortunatly, rick made a great putt. Down 2, 2 holes to play. 17th is 230 yards down wind. Rick has to hit driver, but babies it and smashes it into the trees just of the tee and left. Gets stuck in there, and is on the green in 3 with a 25 footer for bogey. I was 5 iron to the front left of the green, made a nice chip to about 4 feet, he conceded. 1 down going into 18. I absolutly bomb a drive up and over the trees on the left (first time in bounds on this hole in weeks) just short of the road. Rick chunks his second from the middle of the fairway left and about 30 yards short. Do I have a chance? I hit a poor 52 degree wedge just infront of the green. Rick is on in 3 with a 15 footer for par. I lipped out my chip for birdie and leave about a foot for par. Rick missed his par putt, all I have to do is tap in to extend the match. Wasn't nervous, no trouble with the putt, very slight break left to right, just going to firm it right through the break and go onto the next hole. Unfortunatly, I firmed it right through the break and pulled it slightly rolling it just over the edge. Couldn't believe it. So i lost 1 down. Positive was I shot a 79 and didn't beat myself, got beat by someone playing just aswell as me, he also shot 79. So basically I lost it on that bullshit stroke hole, well actually thats lying to myself. I lost it on my blowing a 1 foot putt on the 18th green. I guess it's on to next year.

Regardless, the game might be taking a turn for the better. My have finally found a fix for the swing. Squash is finally done for the summer, so I'll get out and practice and see if I can't start getting back on track to be a 2. Don't laugh Matt and Cal.

Getting sick of these posts.

2008-06-10T08:00:00.002-04:00

This weekend I had another event for the Niagara Mens tour. Lets just say things went horribly wrong.

Playing this piece of shit course called Riverview Golf Club, for the first time ever, I found myself at the bottom of the stnadings for the day. I played horribly the whole round with not a single bright spot on the card. I made a lot of double boogies, a couple triples, and no one single birdie. I haven't made a birdie all freakin year on the tour. I had a chance on the first hole after hitting the green in 2, but ended up 4 putting for a bogey. I would go on to par the next 4 holes. There were these small little water hazards all over the front 9 marked by red/white sticks. I hit into water a few times without even realizing it was there. This makes me think I don't pay enough attention to what I'm doing. I tried to say it was difficult playing on shit courses, but my dad quickly put that excuse to rest. Everyone else had to play on it so whats the difference. He's right. I just suck.

My challenge bet for the year is now taking a turn for the worse. After 27 rounds this year I should be playing much better then I am now. But I'm not. It's either cause I'm trying to hard or cause I just flat out suck. My jerk friends are riding me about it and taking a lot of joy in the fact that I am playing like shit. I've got 2 more weeks of squash and then I'll have more time to practice and work on my game. Still got a month and a half to get ready for club championships and the next tour event. I'll be away with the family in July and miss an event, but the next one is at Lockness Links in welland and is one of my all time favourite courses. I've played a hundred times out there and never really played bad. The first year on the tour I played great out there except for the last 3 holes when I blew up cause of nerves. Won't happen this time around.

I'll also mention in the post I beat Denise again last night. 3-0. Didn't talk shit. But did prove that when it all comes down to it, I'm one fantastic guy. Even with my shit talking and I'll kick your ass attitude towards Denise, she still wants me. Proven last night by asking me for golf lessons. Don't think my girlfriend would be to happy with me doing that so I'll have to pass, but it just proves how cool I am, and that ED knows nothing about chicks.

Close Call

2008-06-05T09:04:00.002-04:00

Last night I kicked a chicks ass in squash, again. I had another match against Denise, the third time in the last little while. Of course I beat her again, but it was a close call.

she fucking hates it when I beat her. She's so nice to me anytime I see her around the club untill she actually plays me. Might be cause I talk shit to her each time we play.

So she showed up a little late last night, so i dig at her. "Thought you weren't showing cause you knew you were getting beat again?" Her smile quickly vanished on that one. So we begin the match. For some reason, a lot of people at the club want me to lose to these girls. With a few people watching and cheering on denise I begin the domination. I jump out quickly to a 2 game lead. I guess I kind of lost focus in the third game. Ended up losing 2 in a row and started to get a little worried.

5 game went the distance. I jumped on it and was up 6-0 when i hit this sweet little drop shot. She calls tin and I'm blown away. I look to the pro-denise crowd for a ruling, of course they say it was down. I couldn't believe it. I was so pissed. Through me off my game and the next thing I know, I'm down 7-6. I regroup, bear down, and managed to take the next 3 points and win the match, but it was a scare. she was so pissed. Saying she made all these mistakes and missed serves. Not sure what she's talking about, i question her, "You didn't miss that many, maybe 3?" She claims that she missed like 12 serves in the 5th game alone and should have ended it quickly. I really pissed her off when I started laughing at this statement. She figures she will get e next time, we will find out on Monday. I have to play her again, atleast it's another W for me, i believe I'm on the bubble for the playoffs.

Atleast I played well some of the time

2008-06-02T08:02:00.002-04:00

Pretty close to another shitty weekend. Woke up saturday morning to heavy rain trying to decide if I was going to play in the rain, again, or not. I made a quick call to the proshop to find out if anyone was playing. Of course, Matt was the only person out getting ready to tee off. Already 10 mins late for my tee time, I tell Jeff to let Matt know I'm on my way and to wait. Luckly as soon as I got there the rain stopped. Turned out to be perfect for golf.

This was my last chance to qualify for the Langly cup. Would have liked to have done it early in the month rather then the last day, but nothing I could do about that. Started off a little crappy going bogey, double bogey on the first 2 holes. But from there I turned it on. Swing starting flowing, I was making great up and downs, and my putting was maybe the best it's been all year. Finished the last 7 holes of the front 1 under to shot a very solid 38.

On the back I seemed to have become maybe a little to comfortable with the way I was playing. Didn't think I could ever say that. I maybe didn't think enough about it each shot and was a little lazy on a few swings and putts. I ended up making bogey on all 3 par 3's and also made a bogey on 18 to shot 40. 78 is still my best score out at St. Catharines this year, and with a net 72 I'm definitly in the Langly which is great, so still a good day.

Sunday was a different story. I played horrible on the front 9. Couldn't putt, couldn't drive the ball, couldn't really do anything. I ended up shooting 47. Made the turn and quickly double bogied the first hole. Then started to play well. Finished the last 8 holes even par with one birdie and a bogey. Shot 85. Horrible. However I won my first 2 skins of the year with a birdie on number 3, and a par on 7. So can't all wasn't lost on the day. I also lost a match to Cal, was 5 down with 8 to go and lost 2 down on the 17th hole. So I tried, but failed with a stubbed chip on the 17th which gave him him the match.

Next sunday is another Niagara Mens tour event. Playing some shit course called Riverview. I'm sure I played it maybe 15 years ago and it was shit then, doubt it is much better now. I'm also playing with some of the best guys on the tour, one of them wins the whole thing every year, so as Matt said, I better bring my A game. Should be to hard, thats the only game I got.

Movie Review

2008-05-29T08:55:00.001-04:00

I saw the new Indiana Jones movies last night.

Go see Iron Man.

Little Revenge

2008-05-27T09:24:00.002-04:00

As golf season continues on Squash is coming to an end for myself. I've got a few more games left in the spring leagues and then I'll be gearing down to just 1 night a week for the summer league to focus on golf. You can tell at the club that just about everyone has chosen to ditch the club and maybe spend sometime doing something outside.

Last night a had a rematch with Mary Jane. Some of my reagular readers may remember her as the girl that beat me a while back. Well I didn't forget either and I made sure I got back at her. Again she stepped on the court and started wailing away at the ball. Over and over agian, she's just pounding the ball at the wall, running up and hitting drop shots to her self, really putting the effort into her warm up. Ridiculous if you ask me. I was practically falling asleep inbetween hitting a few shots amongst her madness.

Anyways, she warms up for about 10 mins and finally says she's good to go. I won the toss and begun the clinic. No way this chick was beating me again, especially after I recently lost to a girl in bowling. If i lost to a girl at something again I'm not sure I'd be able to handle it. I started off with a normal serve but wasn't getting anywhere with it so changed up to a lob sreve to the back corners, which turned out to be a great idea. With no answer to my serve I was quickly ringing up the points and before I knew it I was up 2 games, both won with sweet drop serves that she totally whiffed at.

3rd game I got up 8-6, but she came back and beat me 10-8. In the 4th game I fell behind 6-4 but got serious and battled back to win 10-8. I hadn't played in a little while, had someone not show up 2 weeks ago and was on a bye week last week. However, I played pretty well. Made a lot of good digs, and my drop shot was still on point.

I havent' been doing to well in the leagues so far this spring. Not playing enough now that it's golf season and stop taking leassons cause it was taking up golf time. I'll play tuesday nights over the summer to stay in shape for the fall, but thats about it for squash for the time being.

Up, Down, and Up again

2008-05-26T08:52:00.002-04:00

Couldn't think of a better title to the post to describe my golf game this weekend.

It started off on Friday when I took off a little early from work to play with my buddy Preston out at Heron Point. We used to play all the time on fridays but now that we've both become a little more busy at work this has become a rare day for us. Luckly the weather was great for the first time this year and we got off around 3:00. I started off bogey, par, bogey and then caught fire. I made a birdie on the first 650 yard par 5. After a crappy rescue on the short par 4 5th, I hit a great 4 iron 210 up hill to the right side of the green and made the up and down for par. Followed up with a great 3rd shot PW into the par 5 6th to about 1 foot for a tap in birdie to get back to even. Bogey on the 7th, but followed with a birdie on the 170 yard downhill par 3 8th after hitting a 3/4 6 iron to about 5 feet. Unfortunatly I pushed my driver on 9 (first bad drive of the day) and had to try and fade a ball around a big tree on the right side of the fairway. Only problem was it didn't fade and I ended up losing a ball and making a double, ala Matt, but shooting a very good 38. I kept it going for a bit on the back untill the 14th hole. I mis clubed on my approach cause I let bd thoughts get in my head. I was worried about flying the green and losing my ball in the woods so i hit it short instead into this awful bunker. Didn't get out on the first try, over hit the green on the second, duffed the chip onto the green, missed the putt, and made a triple. parred the next hole, but doubled the easy 140 yard par 3 16th when i found the bunker again. Made a good par on the long par 5 17th, and a good par on 18 barely missing my 20 footer for birdie to shoot 79. The way I've been playing till now made this a great score from the tips out there. Solid day.

Saturday was a downer day. Maybe due to being tired or something I played horribly. Couldn't hit the ball. Driver was awful, irons were awful, short game was bad, and my putting was o.k. Only problem was even though my putting was on, i was constantly taking +10 footers for par instead of birdie so couldn't score. Shot an 86 that should of been worse. Left the course on saturday very unhappy with my game.

Sunday was the second event of the Niagara Mens tour at Grand Niagara. As previously posted I made a bold prediction of shooting under 80 for my first time on the tour. Thanks to a great tip from Cal and Bernie on saturday I was feeling great coming off the range. Both suggested I narrow my stance, perticularly on my drive. Basically as soon as I did this my swing was amazing. Such a simple change and I was hitting everything dead straight with ease. There was a 1.5 hour delay due to booking issues with the course so I had plenty of time to prepare. Not going to go into huge details cause it was kind of boring round, but i played great. Started off well going par, par on the first 2 holes. Missed a 4 footer for birdie on the first hole. made 3 bogeys in a row next after missing short par putts on each. Got back on track untill the 8th where i made a double after chipping out of trouble, and a bogey on 9 after missing another short par putt. The putter really failed me yesterday. Irons and driver were maybe the best i've been all year, but putter was awful. Made the turn at 6 over but feeling good enough to go 36 on the back. Had a tough chip from behind the green on 10 after shortsiding myself. Duffed my first attempt but then chipped in for bogey. 11th which is the number 1 stroke hole, I hit a great drive to 150 out, 8 iron to the hole which landed 2 inches from the cup and checked hard stopping about 1.5 feet from the cup. Of course, i missed the putt and then proceeded to get verbally abused by my group, but all in good fun. Made a great par on the tough par 3 12th, bogey on 13. Made another good par on 14. After a huge drive on 15 I had 230 left to the green. I hit a very nice 4 iron pin high just off the green, chipped to about 4 feet, and missed the birdie putt again. Just couldn't putt today. made par on 16 and I'm standing on the 17th 1 shot away from my goal. This is where I screwed up. I let some stupid blog post dictate my game when i was putting together one of my best round on tour ever. I hit a perfect drive to 270 yards out. Fully knowing I can't reach the green even with my 2 iron rescue I hit it anyways thinking I'll get it close and chip and putt for a birdie. So instead of hitting a safe 4 iron to 70 yards I go for the other club that will putt me 29 yards away and push it into trouble. I had to chip out again, got it to about 15 feet for a par putt and missed by 2 inches. Stupid. On 18 I hit a great drive to 140 yards. The pin was tucked in the bottom right hand corner of the green with a huge bunker covering the whole right side, and wide open green to the left. I bet you can guess what I did next. Of course, I went right at the pin and got punished for being greedy. Went in the bunker short side, impossible to leave it close cause I'm coming out of the trap with about 8 feet of green going away from me. I left it about 25 feet for par and missed the putt to finish bogey, bogey and shot 82. It's a shame this score could have easily been 80, and even worse that it totally could have been 77 had I made 3 of the 6 putts I had from inside 5 feet. But I still finished with my best score on a tour event, finished 20th (out of 60 i think), and most importantly beat Matt for the first time on tour. So needless to say I was extremely happy with my performance. I was actually very nervous for the whole round cause I was playing well but stayed commited on every shot, didn't let it bother me. Well, i guess it bothered me a little with my putting, especially from 1.5 feet for birdie, lol.

My game is improving. With the stance change I think it's going to get even better. My tournament play is getting better as seen with my improvement from one tourny to the next this year. Now if I could just put it all together this weekend I can get into the Langly Cup and start getting my handicapp down. I'm running out of time to be a 2.

What an awful long weekend

2008-05-20T13:59:00.002-04:00

So as the seasons seems to be coming and going a month later then years past, another May 24 long weekend passed with shit weather. saturday it rained, sunday it rained some more, and monday was really cold and windy. What a sweet weekend to play 3 rounds of golf. I guess I shouldn't complain, atleast anymore then I did all weekend, I was playing golf instead of sitting on the couch the whole day.

I showed up to the course bright and early on saturday all ready to test drive my new swing changes. I could hardly sleep friday night thinking about how well I was going to play this weekend now that I could hit the ball again. Hard to day if I actually did play better this weekend. My scores wouldn't really say so, but how much the weather was to blame for my poor scores is debatable.

Saturday was a normal small group of myself, Cal, Bernie, and Gary. I got off to a rocky start taking three shots to get to the 150 yard marker on the first hole. So far the swing changes weren't working very well. Taking a triple on the first hole would make the day a trying one. I believe I was bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey, on the first 5 holes untill I decided to actually start playing. As i started to get in a groove and my swing was doing what it wa supposed to, i finished the round 1 over to shoot 80. we got rained on twice, once having to find shelter to avoid getting struck by lightning, and just played through the second time. I thought this was s decent round, good progress coming off last weekend with something to look forward to for the next 2 days. I played well enough to almost beat Bernie in a straight up match play. I was 4 down walking up the 9th fairway and managed to get it all the way back to 1 down standing on the 18th tee after birdie on the 17th. Only problem was I over swung for maybe the second time of the day and hit a big huge fade over the fence and out of bounds. Very disapointing after grinding so hard for 11 previous holes.

Sunday was a doomed day from the start. Waking up to cold and cloudy skies I pretty much knew we were in for a rainy day on the course. So i chose my group wisely making sure I would be able to play through it without my group quiting. Again, Bernie, Cal, and myself played, this time being joined by Jon. We cleared with Jon before hand that he would play through the rain. On the 11th hole the rain started coming down pretty hard. Of course I look over to see Gary and the rest of the group walking in as the rain stopped half way down the hole. Gary pulled the same shit on saturday so wasn't a big surprise. We continued on in hopes of the rain stopping, but it wasn't meant to be. Playing the whole back 9 in the rain sucked, and it was cold. Again, very difficult scoring conditions, and I was only able to shoot 83. Thinking this was just awful I realized everyone else i nthe group was just as high, even Bernie, so I guess it wasn't that bad. I had challenged Bernie again, this time getting it to 2 down standing on the 17th tee, but we both parred and bernie won again.

Monday was slightly sunny at times but super windy and freezing. With a triumphant return of the greatest golfer I know (Matt) to links it was a new day where I was sure I was going to post a decent score to secure my spot in the Langley Cup. Forcing everyone to play the black tees on this crappy day also probably secured my spot at the biggest asshole in the morning group, oh well. Started out pretty good untill the 5th hole where I made a triple bogey. I also made a double on the 18th (9th hole of the day) hitting O.B. again to shoot 41. Figured I would just par out the back and post a 77, but of course that wasn't meant to be either. The wind and cold proved to much for myself and I ended up shooting another 40 on the back. 81 isn't going to get me in the the Cup, so next saturday I'll have to play much better. Should be better weather so I'll have a shot.

All in all, the swing was drastically improved. Distance was back, I hit the ball well except for maybe 2 or 3 over swings, and I have to continue to concentrate on turning over my hands on the follow through and making sure to fully rotate my upper body through the ball with a nice finish. I am positive under better conditions I could have scored better, so I'm really looking forward to this weeks Niagara Mens tour event at Grand Niagara. I've played the course numerous times. Last year I broke 80 out there in a business round of golf, and I played it 2 years ago in a Tour event, so I'm very familiar with the course. I'll get out to the range once or twice this week, weather permitting, and take one more lesson from Ryan on thursday. This is going to be my best showing at a tour event. Mark it down. I WILL BREAK 80.

In other golf news, my quest for being a 2 still isn't going as planned. The lack of 70's in the handicapp report is seriously hurting my chances at this point. With only 2 scores out of maybe 20 rounds this year, I'm making this much more difficult then it should be. If only I was as good as the best golfer I know. I wanna be, I wanna be, I wanna be like Matt, like Matt, if I could be like Matt.

A Renewed Love

2008-05-14T09:47:00.002-04:00

After my awful showing on the weekend and a quick 10 minute fix on the range, I believe I have found what I was looking for in my golf swing. Ryan had given me a "fix" to work on for the week leading up to a full lesson thursday night and I love the direction it's going in.

Pretty much discovered that my issue is in my hands. I was coming through the ball and leaving my hands open all the way through the swing thus pushing the ball right and leaving the club open through my down swing. This was causing the vast majority of my frustration on the weekend, aswell as causing me to loose so much distane.

So the quick fix he asked me to work on was basically trying to hook the ball on purpose. I'm setting up to the target and then pulling my back foot behind my front (almost like I'm setting up for a draw) and then coming through with the club with a hook swing mostly concentrating on turning over my hands on contact. I hit the range last night with this in my head and actually fund I was hitting the ball better then ever. Perfect ball flight and actually gaining some distance.

I was feeling comfortable with it, so I joined up with our buddy Mike for a quick 9. I got out on the course and it was a whole new world. I get these feelings every so often where I'm so excited about how good my swing is feeling that I just want to play golf all the time to get it down. I was hitting the ball 100 times better then the weekend. I actually even gained some yardage on my clubs. I was hitting 7 irons about 175-180 and back to hittin PW 150. The positive on this was it was a controlled swing, not my over swing from a last year. I was taking nice smooth well tempoed (don't think thats a word) swings and flying the ball perfectly with a slight draw even. So huge progress in only a few days.

I talked to ryan after the round just to see where he was going with this and I'm looking forward to seeing the results. I'd prefer to be a little more square to my target, which I believe I will be, and I need a little more work and understanding on how to use this with my driver. I know it won't be that much different then a swing with my irons, but i do know it will be drastically improved.

So my love of the game is back, not that it really went anywhere, and I'm really looking forward to playing this weekend and trying out the improvements. I could already feel the better contact and see the results even though I haven't got to where I will be after thursday. So check back tuesday to read all about my great weekend of golf.

Weekend of horrible golf

2008-05-12T07:24:00.003-04:00

EDIT: add greatest birdie I ever made.

I played golf twice this weekend. Shot 82 both times and wanted to break every club in my bag. I can't remember the last time I was so frustrated with my game. I'm not sure I made solid contact with my irons more then a handful of times. Probably the most frustrating thing is Matt is hitting his drivers and irons longer then me now. I try not to let him know, but it's driving me nuts so I'm over swinging trying to chase him and it's cause me to be even worse. I know i've lost something in my swing cause I'm having to up club almost 2 clubs to get certain distances. My short game is actually pretty good. Very confident in my chipping and putting could be better but is still o.k.

I had a quick fix lesson with ryan right after my round, and have some things I have to practice before my lesson on thursday. Should be better next week.

The one positive of the whole weekend, which I forgot to mention due to the ridiculous high level of frustration I experienced on the course, was the most amazing birdie I have ever made playing golf. On #15 at St. Catharines measuring I think 565 I was realing after 5 straight boogies (lol) and decided to bomb away on the par 5 to try for birdie. Of course over swinging I completely blow my drive and duck hook it hard left about 75 yards off the fairway into a fairway bunker on the left side of the 6th hole. From the bunker I attempted to hit my 3 iron rescue only to lift my head and get it out maybe 30 yards. Still playing from the 6th hole rough and behind a tree with 260 yards to the green I hit possibly the best 2 Iron rescue I have ever hit with a slight fade around the tree and fly it to the green where it landed softly and rolled about 15 feet past the hole. I made a perfect stroke on the putt and rolled it in for the craziest birdie ever and even won the skin for the hole. So there is some good shots in my bag, just need to find more of them.

Did I really just do that?

2008-05-08T08:54:00.002-04:00

On tuesday I headed up north (actually just a little north of tornoto) the The Club at Bond Head to play in the Ontario Mid-Am qualifier. This being my first time playing and my first season truly teasting myself in competitive golf I wasn't expecting much other then gaining the experience for fututre tournys.

This can play as a long difficult course will over 7000 yards and a high rating over 140, but they had moved the tees up and cut the yardage down to match the other site where people were qualifiying. So we played at a 131 slope at about 6400 yards. The course had some big changes in elevation thoughout the course but the real challenge was on the green. Lots of undulation and a lot of the pins were either on the crest of a mound or justin the middle of the mound, can't remember and easy pin out there.

Started off a little nervous on the first hole leaving my birdie putt way short and missing the par putt to make boogie. Still nervous on the second hole missed a 2 footer for boogie making a double. Calmed down a little on the par 3 third hole when i drained a 30 footer for par. Took a big sigh of relief after that one. But couldn't put thing together making boogie on the next 3 holes. Thats when things got crazy. On the 7th hole par 5 I swing away with my driver and blast a big bomb down the middle of the fairway. Another guy in my group does the same and ends up right near me. This guy had to the be the most annoying person in the world talking the whole freaking time in my ear. Wish i didn't ride in the same cart as him. We get up to our ball play up the hole and when I get to the green and mark my ball i look down and realize it wasn't my ball. I had played the wrong ball. At first I look back to where i chipped up to the green just thinking I played the wrong ball, no big deal I go back find mine and continue. While I'm looking around the fucking guy who has been yaking in my ear all day takes a ball out of his pocket and sees my green dot on it. FUCK. I couldn't believe it we played each others ball after we teed off. At first this guy tries to say that all we do is switch back balls and chip again onto the green. But after some more swearing from me I tell him we have to go all the way back to our second shot and replay the hole with a 2 stroke penalty. I was so pissed and so embarresed at the same time. There was a group waiting to hit to the green, and a group that had just teed off. so we had to go back behind 2 groups and push them off to the side while we replayed the hole. From 350 yards out i put all my anger in to a rescue club and knock it to 100 yards out. Then i step up to the easy pitch shot and duff that followed by a lot of bad words very loudly while all these people watch. I eventually got up and down for a boogie plus 2 strokes and all of a sudden I'm 9 over after 7 holes. Pissed beyond belief I just start pounding the ball from here on out. No matter how short or how long the hole I just hit the ball as far as i could in the general direction of the green. What i found was not one single missed drive from there. Everyone almost 300 yards and dead down the middle. So i started to play well. I went 4 over for the rest of the round and really should have been maybe 2 over the rest of the round cause I took 1 or 2 chances I normally wouldn't have which cost me.

I went 46 on the front and 40 on the back to shoot a 86 which was atleast 8 strokes off the cut. I finshed T-53 out of 60 people. Not the results I was looking for, but atleast I didn't finish last.

Wet but good weekend

2008-05-05T07:41:00.002-04:00

Big weekend for myself on the links. I started on saturday with the Niagara Mens Tour qualifier. Going in I knew it wasn't going to be to difficult to make the cut. Due to low demand this year, they made it so you broke 90 during the qualifier and your in. Out at Penn Lakes with that type of wiggle room I wasn't worried in the least.

So just as I'm about to tee off the rain starts. I had a grabbed a cart in the attempt to stay slightly dry, but that proved to be useless. It rained so much and at times so hard that there was no avoiding being soaked to the bone. It wasn't nearly as bad as the Mens Betterball with Matt where it was 3 or 4 degrees, atleast on saturday it was in the high teens which made being wet for 4.5 hours bearable. I also purchased a rain jacket the night before which helped a lot.

Not going to do the hole by hole recap. My round went o.k. I started off making a lot of boogies. But the key here was I kept my cool. I was only making boogies, no doubles or worse, and I was only making boogies cause of lipouts. The greens were also running surprisingly firm and fast for the conditions. So i didn't get angry. I was hitting the ball well other then a few misclubed shots. So i just kept grinding. Telling myself it will come.

I made the turn shooting a 7 over 42. The main thing was i could have been worse. The back nine went much better. I started making pars. It was crazy that I was playing better on the back cause it rained ever harder on the back 9. With the rain coming down sideways I made a par on 5 holes in a row. By this point I had totally given up on keeping my hands dry, went through every glove I had in my bag, had worked through 5 towels that were now to wet to bother with, but some how was making great shots and pars. I ended up booging the par three 17th to go into 18 4 over for the back when suddenly the rain stopped. First hole of the day with no rain. A short par 5 downwind. I blast a drive to about 210 yards from the pin. Played a nice little 4 iron to the left of the green which took a great bounce hard right and gave me an eagle putt from about 20 feet. I lagged it up and made the short birdie (only one of the day for me) and posted an 81. I was extremely happy with that under the conditions we played.

After playing I found out they were just letting everyone in who showed up. So wasn't that big a deal I made the cut. I took some pride in the fact that I finished 4th for the day. The low was 73, then a 77 and 78, and me. I think 4 or 5 guys didn't break 90, but they made the cut anyways.

So i played the first event on sunday of the Mens tour. Didn't play aswell as I wanted to. I basically had 2 bad holes. Took a 6 on the first par 3 cause I missed the green way short and right, had to chip around a tree, then on to the green. Then I missed my putt and stupidly akwardly tried to tap in for the double and missed a 3 incher. And on the back the nine I played a short 400 yard par 4 horribly and made a 7. So i through away 6 easy strokes and shot an 84. Obviously the old saying of could have been blah blah blah come to mind, but that shit won't work for me anymore. I have to stay focused for 18 holes, not 16.

The positive aspect i am taking from this weekend is that I was very comfortable playing. Not nearly as nervous as years passed and pushed through some rough holes, didn't get down on myself or frustrated. I missed a 2 footer on the first hole for par, and then that awful 6 on the second. Usually I would have just blown up but i cooled off on the way to the nest tee and made a solid par. Hopefully it's nice this weekend and I can get out to St. Catharines for a few relaxing rounds. Already played more tournys then I did all last year. Plus I need to start positing some rounds in the 70's like a true 2er would.

Golf Vaca

2008-05-01T13:00:00.002-04:00

Last week i was fortunate enough to take 3 days off work for a quick golf vacation in Palm Coast, florida. Matt and I made the trip down to Ginn Hammock Beach Resort home to the Ocean course by Jack Nicklaus, and The Conservatory by Tom Watson. Everything on site from the condo we rented to the golf courses were top notch. For the price we paid I truly feel we got over on Bobby Ginn, especially with the amount of golf we played.

Our accomdiations were great. We each had our own room, with private bathrooms. There was a full kitchen, dinning area, and living area with a 42 inch plasma, and plasma in each room with Dishnetwork t.v. in the main room. I caught up on all my MTV and thank god for ESPN Sportscentre, i can't stand seeing hockey every other clip as TSN or The SCore does. Needless to say the condo we had was perfect.

On to the golf. The Ocean course was in my mind the lesser of the 2 if you had to chose. It was something like 7300 yards from the tips and I think around 147 slope. The course in general left something to be desired cause it was pretty bland. I should say it was way nicer then a lot of courses I've played, just compared to the other it wasn't as visually pleasing. The playablilty of the course was another story. As matt would try to convince me of, it was a shot makers course. You could chose how risky you wanted to be by using different lines down the holes. There was water on almost every hole and not very many bunkers. Also most of the fairways were very large. Some noteable holes were the par 8th. The par 4 9th was an incredible hole. I believe it was 460 yards or so with a raised green. Each day I was driver and then atleast a 4 iron, except for the first day we played which was in 50 mph winds and I was driver, rescue, pw to get to the green. The back was a little better, and it did have 4 phenomenal closing holes. Called the "Bear Claw" you start on a long par 4 that played into the wind every day and had a raised green that added maybe 25 yards to the shot. The 16th was a short par 4 that turned almost 90 degrees on the second shot to a very small green. The 17th par 3 was a tricky shot cause it played into the wind every time but for some reason the yardage didn't change. On the first day we both played the hole by clubbing up to account for the wind and found our balls soaring way over the green and out of bounds. The next few times we played the yardage as if no wind and ended up pin high eash time. Really weird hole, can't explain why it did that. The 18th par 4 was another great finishing hole. With a huge bunker right in the landing area up the right hand side, and the ocean all the way up the left, long to the tune of 450 i think, and a slightly raised green protected by bunkers and out of bounds, it proved to be quite the challenge. All in all, the course was actually very nice. The greens were some of the best I've ever played on. Perfect true putts, and very quick, and very firm. A joy to putt on, unless your matt and it just highlighted his poor short putting, just ask him about his 4 foot and in putt making abilities.

The Conservatory course was a completley differnet experience. This course really blew my mind, and is possibly my most favourite course I've played. Watson and Ginn obviously went the extra mile to make sure this course was a memorable experience. Starting with the club house (Ocean didn't even have one) which had the feeling of being in an atrium, with all glass ceiling and marble floors (doubt it was marble, but wouldn't put it past Bobby). I would describe this club house as the palace from te movie Coming to America. The course was the true gem. Measuring 7700 yards from the tips and 155 slope it provided a challenge comparable to Oakmont. Bunkers and waste bunkers everywhere you look. The greens had insane undulation (not sure thats a word) and would punish you if you weren't on the correct tier. Every hole was satisfying to the eye. One of the course your step on each tee and say "wow, what a golf hole." I truly enjoyed playing this course 10 times as much as the ocean.

Enough about the courses cause I'm sure Matt will post the most ridiculous posts in the world that push the brink of being to long to read and go into detail that no one but English dave and himself care about. So i'll tell you about how we played.

First bet was for the king size room. I lost it in a coin flip but quickly thought I would bet it on the round of golf. Well it backfired. Playing in 50 mph winds after 8 hours of travlling and flying caused me to shoot a shitty round of 94 from the gold tees at Ocean. Mat was 87 and sleeping comfortably in a king size bed.

Next day we teed it up at the conservatory on the back tees at 7700 yards to start maybe the best day of golf I have ever had. I didn't shoot well from the backs, it was just way to long. Driver-rescue every hole and you still had to make a up and down on almost every hole. I believe I shot 94, but matt played well and was something like 85, though he would go onto to whine about that score for hours no matter how much a reminded him how difficult the course played. We then attempted to go play the Ocean course for the second 18 but found out we would be waiting to long to get on, so headed back to conservatory. This turned out to be the best thing to happen to us. We went back to Conservatory and got right on and played form 2 tee decks up at 6800 yards with a 142 slope. Still very challenging. I also decided to start drinking at this point. After a short rain delay (maybe 20 mins) we were on the course and noth of us were playing well. As each beer went down I started to improve, i think i'm on to something here. All said in done, I lost the 36 hole match badly to Matt, i think something like 8 and 7, but shot an 83 to matts 80. Of course, still not low enough for matt so i listened to him whine about it for another hour or so. Towards the end of the second round i mention to matt I would be up for playing a few more holes. Turns out we played another 18 to make it 54 on the day. Unbelievable, 54 in one day, and our last round only took us 2 hours and 20 mins cause we were the only ones on the course. As i pounded more beers it even seemed like i was gaining energy and some how shot making ability. I ended shooting my best round of the week half in the bag of 77 while matt shot 79, and i went into the next 36 hole math 1 up.

The next day we moved on to the Ocean course but had a late tee time of 12pm. We were paired up with an older guy (had to be 50 or so, so really only old to me, only a couple years older then matt) named Gord from jacksonville. We were playing the back tees this day and he joined us there which was fine. I think i shot in the mid 80's that day, gord was drinking up a storm so i joined in, didn't quite have the same effects on my game as the day before. Upon finishing we tried to get in another 18 but both kind of burned out and left at 27. Still a pretty good day. However lost yet another match to Matt.

Saturday was back to the Consrevatory. I loved that course. We played from the gold tees there which were 7300 or 7400 yards and played at a 151 slope. Today was going to be my day to beat matt. And i actually played pretty good this day. I got a little help off in the start cause matt was feaking out about missing multiple 2 to 4 footers and went crazy on the first 5 holes, but then he got his irons and driver going which helped with his mental part of the putting and we started deuling. Next thing I know, we are finishing the round and we both shoot well (can't remember scores) and he's up 1 going into the last round of the trip which we were playing at Ocean. This caused the only rift of the trip cause I had no desire to go play he Ocean course again, but Matt needed to add to his already taken 100 pictures and get more pictures of the ocean course, so we headed over there. I can't really complain about this round cause I ended up playing really well. Started off the front nine 39, but matt was playing really well and shot 36 which was really good considering how tough the course was, of course he complained about that score aswell cause he started out the round birdie, birdie. We made the turn and I believe i was something like 3 or 4 down. i kept fighting still. It seemed like everytime i got one stroke back, i gave it right back to him, and then we got to the 15th hole and i was down 4. I started to fight for my life here. Taking 15, 16, and 17 and standing on the tee 1 down with one hole to play. Unfortunatly I pressed myself a little to hard and hit the first bad drive of the round and into the huge bunker on the right. Luckly, Matt topped his to the left up against the out of bounds line. He still had a shot and came up just short of the green. I hit a 4 iron from the bunker as far as I could and found myself 20 yards right of the green and behind a trap. Knowing I had to make the best up and down of my life to tie Matt, I duffed my chip and made a boogie. Along with matts boogie we tied the hole and I lost again. 0-4 for the week sucked. But atleast I posted another good score of 78 on a very difficult course. Not much i could do, matt was playing really well (although you wouldn't know it from all the cursing and leg slapping) and shot a 77, should have been 73 but he blew up on the last 4 holes.

All in all, it was a perfect quick, cheap, golf vacation. We had an unlimited golf package, which we surely abused. Each round at these places was something like $140 american, we made that up in one day. I can defintly say I will return one day to the Ginn facility.

I feel complete again

2008-04-22T09:13:00.002-04:00

After a long, cold, snowy winter the golf season is finally here and I took full advantage ofit this weekend.

Started off on friday when I took off work early to meet Preston and some friends out at Rattlesnake in milton for my first 18 of the year. Have to say, this is probably the first year that I was in shorts for the first round of the year. side note, wow I'm using "first" a lot so far. Weather was like mid july in the 20's without a cloud in the sky, couldn't ask for better conditions. The course was in awful shape, typical for a clublink course. No need for putting out there cause ther greens were so bumpy and covered in divots still from last year. Not sure why i even go out there. Not a huge fan of the course, and it's only really a slight step above a public course as far as conditioning. But it's still a decent track. Can't complain about the round. I shot an 83, with 4 double boogies. Aside from those 4 holes I played well. Hit a lot of good drives and my iron play was pretty good. Lost most of my strokes around the green, short game was awful.

Saturday morning I got out with Matt and Cal early in the morning back at St. Catharines. I have to say this round was one of my most satisfying rounds I have ever played. I shot a 79. It's not my top score ever or anything, but how i got to 79 was what made it such a good ronud. I started off poorly on the front with 1 birdie on number 6 and shot 41 on the front. I made the turn and went boogie, boogie, boogie, boogie for the first 4 holes. Usually I would have just kept falling and giving up. But this time I took a few deep breaths and got into a grind mode. On 15 I hit a decent drive down the left, 6 iron layup, and a nice wedge to about 3 feet for a birdie. Made a nice par on 16, hit an amazing rescue cluvb 222 yards on 17 to about 8 feet but missed the putt. On 18 I hit my drive onto the side of a bunker so I had a difficult uphill lie hitting to a back left pin location. I struck maybe my best 8 iron ever to about 8 feet this time making the birdie putt to go 2 under for the last 5 holes and shot a 79. I was ecstatic with this cause I batteled back for the first time instead of giving up and blowing my round. Great day for me.

Sunday was another beautiful day on the course. The weather was just perfect all weekend. Played with the normal sunday groupings. Getting sick of playing with these guys cause there old getting old and want to play the blues everytime there is the slightest chance of there not being the most perfect conditions out on the course. It's not 85 degrees, play the blues, it rained 3 days ago, play the blues, the sun is at a point in the sky where is shines on the club house from a 60 degree angle, play the blues. What bothered me the most was just 24 hours before Cal, Matt, Bernie and myself all said we don't care what they play we are playing the blacks. I get there in the morning and the first group on the tee, Bernie inclucded, are getting ready to tee off from the blues. Ok, so i declare I'm out of the skins for the day cause I'm not playing the blues. Of course this becomes a big deal with everyone, but after a little complaining they move back to the blacks. This causes everyone to blame me, i'm sure Andy, Gary, and Joe complained about me the whole round, even though Cal Matt and Bernie wanted the samething I did. Oh well, i'm still not playing the blues this year. It's a waste of a round as far as I'm concerned. Anyways, onto the golf. I played awful on the front, just couldn't put it together. Shot a 46. I did again keep my composure. I shot a 37 on the back to shot 83.

I was hitting the ball nicely all weekend. Starting to really find my tempo which is helping to control my shots better and have confidence to hit the shot I want to hit. I also managed my club selection better. Opting for a 3/4 swing and clubing up one club from where I used to be and finding that control everyone tells me about. I found myself choosing the wrong club a few times and overswinging causing me to push it right, so hopefully I can get over that and blub myself better going forward.

Still a good start to the season. 79 in the handicapp index is a good start to getting down to a 2.

Strong Finish

2008-04-04T14:09:00.002-04:00

As mentioned earlier I had my squash league championships on wednesday. Just leaving a quick post on how I did.

I'm happy to say that I dominated Denise this time around for the D league championship. It was a quick and easy game. I took the first game I think 9-4, or something like that. All the work I've done on my return to serve and drop shots have really been paying off. Again my drop shot was deadly against her. To the point she got really pissed at me and says in the middle of game 2, "Are you going to hit drop shots all night or play some squash?" Normally, I would have been all over a comment like this but I held back due to gender. So instead of talking shit back and hitting drop shot over and over again, I turned my strategy and started hitting deep lengths into the corner on her backhand side. Over and over again. No matter where I was hitting from every single shot she took was from the backhand corner. Lets just say she needs some work on her defensive backhand returns. So i kept this up through the second and third game and just for good measure I finished off the last point to win 9-2 in the last game with a perfect drop shot. It was classic. I even knew as soon as I hit it she didn't have a chance cause she was cheating to the back corner, so i hit, turned my back to the ball before it even hit the wall and stuck my hand out to shake her hand, that really pissed her off. Regardless, I am the champion and I get to move up a division. So i should have some good games to tell you about in the near future.

I was also asked to play as a spare for someone elses league, this was the D2 league for wednesday nights (I played D4). So i played some guy I had never played before right after my match. First game I struggled hard. In about 5 minutes I lost 9-1. I then figured out his play. He served acording to where I stood in the box. So i backed up all the way to the wall so he would have to serve lightly and infront of me. I killed ever return he didn't have a chance. Also after the first game I figured out my serve and started killing him with that too. Next thing I know, its 9-4, 9-3, 9-1, and I'm a double champ.

Very good night of squash. It must have been the new raquet I got.

Whats going on

2008-04-02T10:49:00.003-04:00

Last weekend I had my second squash tournament. It was the club championships and again I was playing the D division. Since I'm still considered a beginner at the club I really had no choice on this, I would have prefered to play in the C division. However, it is what it is, and this is how it went.

My first match was on friday night. Of course, as usual, it was against and older gentleman. Not sure exactly how old, but he had gray hair and looked to be maybe 50? just a guess. Anyways, while warming up, this is where i size everyone up, it looked like it could be a decent match. The first game was a good one. I was a little nervous so that might have helped to keep it even. We battled back and forth for a little while. I was up in the game and he made a come back to take it to 8-8 and eventually I won the game 10-9. This is good, I haven't had a good match in a while. Then my serve started to work. I got in a vrey nice groove with the serve and the next thing I know I win the game 9-2. Took the next one 9-0, and my night is over. The guys that I'm playing against can't handle a certain type of serve, which I have been working on, and this proved it. Nice, i'm on to the semis.

Next match was against a guy I had played for my very first match months ago. He kicked my ass then. Not this time. I made sure I beat this guy just for my own head. If i lost to him I would have considered the last few months a bust with no imporvement. Again, my serve was on fire and he didn't have a chance. The games went 9-3, 9-1, 9-0. What a joke. Every point was the same as my last match. Basically my great serve, a defensive return from the other guy, then i just hit a easy drop shot that had no chance of being picked up. My serve would freeze the guy in the back corner and then i would just drop in the front opposite corner, no chance for him.

So i'm into my first finals. This match i knew would be a good one. I was playing someone I played in the last tourny I was in, and we had an amazing match last time. Both of us have imporved since so I was looking forward to this one. Now i'm playing a guy who was in his late 30;s maybe and actually athletic, finally the competition I'm looking for. I'll mention this was my second match in a day, never realized i would be so tired for the second one. We had a good match. Back and forth every game. Unfortunatly, I lost. I lost the first 2 games, won the third game, but couldn't pull out the 4th to take it to 5. Just didn't have the energy, and honestly, He out played this time. I was controlling the "T" the whole game, thats a good thing. Except my drop shot wasn't working for me so I couldn't take advantage of it. I resorted o hit long lengths to his back hand over and over again in an attempt to get him to make a mistake. Unfortunatly, his hbackhand was pretty good and he was making good defensive returns. I've spoken with my intrusctor about this. Next week we are going to work on volley drop shot. Had I been able to drop from the back or middle of the court I could have killed this guy, but i don't know how to do that very well yet. Of course I'll work on this and get good at it, but it will take some time. I will defintly need it cause I'm going to be moving up a division now that i can out play that division. So progress was made even though i finished second.

Tonight I play in another finals. My league that I was so excited about is finished tonight. I am playing the girl I beat for my first game, Denise, for the championship of the monday night d league. I never really mentioned this league cause it was to easy. I went 9-1 for the year, and lost 5 games including the one loss I had. Aside from my 2 mathces against the girls, every other one was a waste of time. I'll give an update tomorrow with how I do tonight.

The True Great White North

2008-03-10T11:35:00.004-04:00

Edit: After writting I realized it's a long one, so read at your own risk.

This past weekend my 2 buddies and I decided to get in the car and visit our friend in Montreal. However, upon starting the journey at 6:00PM last thursday I discovered we were actually heading further then Montreal, actually we were heading north of Quebec City. Since I usaully refuse to drive longer the 4 hours, or venture anywhere I have ot put more cloths on then where I left from, I had no idea how far Quebec City is. As it turns out, quebec city is a short 11 hour drive from St. Catharines, way above my allowable limits. Regardless of the long drive it was a good time, so here is the recap of my last 4 days.

Thursday was a rough one. I first started out the day driving to Oshawa and back for business. That sucked in it's own right. I got home from there around 2:30, hoped in the shower, packed a bag, ran to the ski shop to rent a board, and I was back on the road by 4:00pm. We had some miscommunication about where to meet in Hamilton, and didn't end up getting on the road officially till 6:00PM. I started off driving first, which lasted untill I got back to Oshawa. At that point I had enough and deffered the next 9 hours to Preston and Darnel. We went through 3 DVDs (first time I ever used the DVD player in my truck) and a few pit stops, and the next thing we know it's 4:00AM and we are at our destination of Stoneham, Quebec. Basically a small ski village in the middle of Quebec.

Friday we get up as early as possible, 10:00Am, and quickly get our gear together and head for the slopes. We didn't quite make it to the first chair lift as fast as we could. We figured a quick beer, Tremblay Lager which became a fixture for 2 days, was necessary before braving the cold conditions. It actually was 0 degrees and got up to about 8, but whatever you need to tell yourself to start drinking at 10:00 am was good for me. We finally hit the slopes and made about 2 runs, at which point we decided another Tremblay was necessary. Our friend brian was running a booth at the bottom of the hill selling Hats for this snowboard event that was going on, so we had an endless supply of free beer and food which helped pass the day. I think we got about 7 or 8 runs done for the day, and polished off about 4 or 5 beers each and ate a tonne of food. Slight buzz, little sore from the snowboarding, and full of food, good day. Our buddy Darnel took some pretty bad spills over the course of the day, so he bowed out early with a sore neck, we did one more run, and it was back to the condo for some "relaxing time". Some details won't be mentioned on this due to the readership of this blog.

After getting our shit together we headed to Qubec City for a nice dinner. We picked a great steakhouse called Chabon. We had a few bottles of wine, couple rye and gingers, and some great steaks, and got back to our chalet around 11:30. With little to no sleep, a day on the slopes, to much alchol, and I was passed out within 15 mins of return home. Solid Day.

The second day was a little slugish. We tried out best to get up, but didn't end up leaving the chalet untill around 12:00. We geared up and made our way over to the booth were Tock was working. However, our attempt to hit the slopes was impeaded by Tromblay once again. After a quick one, we left Tock to work and went to take a few runs. On the way up the chair lift we shifted gears. Instead of taking some runs, we opted out and skiied right back the the chalet. Chilled there for about and hour and half before returning to see Tock. He asked how the boarding was, we lied at first, but eventually clued him in. Preston and Darnel were pretty much done for the day, after 2 runs, so Tock and I left them and made a couple passes down the mountain. We returned back to the chalet a few hours later expecting to see Preston and Darnel sleeping or something, but there were no where to be find. No need to worry, about 1/2 hour later they showed up, completely hammered. I guess Mr. Tromblay convinced them to hang out at the mountain for a bit and the 3 of them for aquintainted. I could already tell this was going to a bad place. Tock and I had to do some catching up. We figured it would be all good, cause it was starting to snow like a bastard and we weren't going anywhere. So Tromblay and boss started flowing. Around 8:00 we stumbled over to some shitty reasturant at the bottom of the hill. With a few vodka redbulls for an appetizer we were feeling ambitous. We decided to check out the Jamming Jamboree. Unfortuntaly, due to the massive storm and all the athletes staying in Quebec City, the party left a little something to be desired. Ya, like a desire to pound more alchohol into our bodies. So after 2 or 3 hours and $200 spent on rye and gingers, we began out trek (500 yards, seemed like a mile) back to the condo.

I should mention a little about the condo here. We were staying on the third floor of this small complex. Maybe 20 feet off the ground. Upon arrival we had noticed how much snow there was and began the age old question of "Can you jump off here into the snow?" Well suprise, suprise, a couple tens of rye and gingers all of a sudden made it possible. With a little coaxing I had Preston and Darnel all strapped up in boots and snowpants. Of course, this turned into a typical pissing contest and the next thing I know the 3 of us are fully dressed and standing on the balcony. Before I knew it, Preston was over the rail and in the snow down below. I look at Darnel with a the look of, I aint doing that, he turns away, hopes the rail and he's down. Of course I'm not going to be the only one not to jump, so I take the plundge. Piece of cake. Funny thing, Darnel having sturggled to get out of the drift, was just laying there, so I took the oppurtunity to jump on him and give him a huge whitewash (rubbing as much snow as possible in the face) in 12 feet of snow, classic, basically baried him there. There was alteast 12 feet of snow, so it was a soft landing, but snow up to my armpits. The tough part was climbing out of there. Making our way through 12 feet of snow arond the building to get to the front door. We make are way thourgh, up the stairs to our front door which locked upon closing due to the keycard entry. I knock on te door, no answer. O.k. Tock was just taking a piss, he'd open it soon. I knock again, no answer. O.k. whats up? I knock once more, no answer. I then turn around and standing right behind me in order of jumpers, Preston, Darnel, and the surpise jumper Tock. I say "What are you doing out here?"" I jumped, wasn't going to be the only pussy." At this very moment, we all realized our key into the door was actually standing right behind, except the actual key to the door was on the other side sitting on the table. Thinking in the best possible mindframe of 20 rye and gingers, we come up with a plan to climb back up the balconies. For the record, I knew this wasn't possible but Preston is pretty determined on the sauce. So we tredge back through 12 feet of snow to attempt boosting Presto back up to the second balcony and then he would climb to the third. After a little talking, I was able to convince him it wasn't possible. So this is where it got tricky. The place we rented isn't a hotel, it's some guys condo who rents it out, probably living in Montreal. We are fucked. Are only option was to walk back over the the hill and hop something could be worked out. So we make our way back there and hit up the frint desk. Luckly for us, there was a spare key there and a horrible situation turned out not to bad. Nothing a few more pops and a boss couldn't fix.

Sunday moring we got back in the truck for another 11 hour drive, 3 hours of driving in a blizzard, and we were back home safe and sound. All in all, a great 4 days, tonnes of fun, and some good stories with the boys.

The post I never wanted to write

2008-02-26T07:29:00.002-05:00

I'm going to get it out there quick, like taking off a bandaid. I lost to a chick in squash last night. I lost to a chick bad. She beat me 3-0, i couldn't even get 1 game off her.

Such an ugly match.

Lets start with the breakdown of the chick. Upon meeting her before the match I couldn't help but wonder if it was a good or bad sign that her name was Mary-Jane. She had a killer fit body, great legs, but the teeth left a little something to desire. Actually, I think she had braces, with very small teeth and they looked yellow. That was a pretty big turnoff, so no worries on being distracted by playing a girl.

It was another case like the last girl that I played where she stepped on the court and just started firing on all cylinders while warming up. It's meaningless to me, but she steps in and is pounding the ball up and down the line. Theres no need for that, but I guess some people get of on it.

Not much to say about the actual match. She dominated me in the first game. The whole match was a blur, but I think she won the first game 9-5. Second game I was sure I would take, but she ended up coming from behind and beat me 9-7.

While getting a drink inbetween games, my instructor walked by and asked "Why you sweating so hard and she not?" I responded "Cause she's kicking my ass." Later on after the match I found him again and told him he was fired as my teacher.

The third game went a lot like the first 2, me getting my ass kicked. I think I lost again 9-6. We played one more game after that for the hell of it, and I ended up beating her 9-4. I guess she gave me that one so I wouldn't feel bad or something.

No excuses for this one, i flat out lost. However I know what I could have done differently and need to think about for my next game. First off I was really lazy for some reason. I was reacting late to the ball and wasn't concentrating properly for each point. Secondly, I let her dictate my game rather then playing my own. I wasn't hitting enough deep shots, and my drop shots were only so-so. I was playing to defensive the whole game and leaving myself open for a lot of winners. I made it very easy for her to do what ever she wanted.

Thats about all I have to say about this match. I was devestated afterwards. Even skipped out on my post match steam, which i love, cause I couldn't get over losing to a girl. First time in life for everything I guess.

Sometimes you just need to challenge yourself

2008-02-06T08:29:00.000-05:00

After finishing strong last year with my worst round of golf since i was a little kid (115 at Oakmont), actuall sorry, my worst round sine 2 years ago (108 at Thundering Waters), I decided to carry over the solid play into the new season. For whatever reason, i've decided to test my skills in the Ontario Mid-Am at Bond Head this may.

I recieved an email from Matt about playing in it, and after he (probably joking) asked me if i wanted to play in it, i said fuck it, i'm in. Didn't put to much thought into it, which could be god or bad.

The mid-am is for players with a handicapp as high as 8, so sitting at a 5.4 I figure to be the middle of the pack. Probably more near the back of the back since I doubt many 7's of 8's would think of trying to qualify for this tourny.

IF anything, it will be good experience for me. No, i don't think i will qualify. 81 was the qualifying score there last year and considering the talent I assume is in this tourny, the course must be tough. I eventually want to be good enough to compete in any tournament I enter and one of the biggest hurdles for me is the nerves of playing in a tournament. although I've played in more tournys over the last few years then ever before, and starting to feel comfortable, i'm still not quite there. BUt theres no other way to get over it then to keep playing them. So i will. And eventually I'll do well in some of them.

So heres my intense schedule for the start of the season.

April 28th, Mens Betterball a the Brantford Golf and CC. This one is a team game, Matt and I will test ourselves again after a strong showing last year at Bridgewater. I think we even surprised ourselves last year when Matt posted a 74 and I shot 79 to just miss the cut. Neither of us have played Brantford before so it will definitly be a bigger challenge.

May 3rd or 4th, Niagara Mens Tour Qualifier at Penn Lakes in Fonthill. Last year I completly bombed in this qualifier. I should have made the cut but with a few costly errors I mised by 2 or 3 strokes. I've played this course a 100 times and find it actually pretty easy. Again, the tourny nerves got to me last year. This year will be different....I hope.

May 6th, Ontario Mid-Am at the Club at Bond Head. Tought looking track with a 146 slope. Very traditional course, described as a Northern Ireland type of course. I haven't looked to much into the course, but I hear it's long and firm. I've wanted to play this course for a few years since it opened maybe 3 or 4 years ago, what better time then a major tournament. Oh ya, Matt has the hooks up and will be getting us on there for a few practice rounds for the best price ever, FREE.

What does all this mean? It means I basically have a month, if the weather cooperates, to get my game into July form when I was a 3.9. So i hope that groundhog either sees its shadow or doesn't, whatever ones means spring come sooner. At the very least I will get out and hit some balls as soon as possible. Some crappy range here in St. Kitts is open year round, as soon as the weather is slight warm enough I'll be out there working out the winter kinks. Unfortunatly I won't have the weke of Arizona golf I had last year, although that didn't help much either.

Something cool

2008-02-05T10:03:00.000-05:00

I just found this on my handicapp factor page. Kind of cool to see how my season went. Started at 5.0, fucked up a bit to start the season and went up above a 6, then worked out some stuff and played a lot more got down to a 3.9, and had my usual fall slump to settle at 5.4. Didn't even realize that I finished the year with a worse handicapp. Thought I improved it.

Regardless, thought this was cool.

Not as planned

2008-02-05T08:26:00.000-05:00

I was set to play my second match last night in my squash league, but things got screwed up. After a bye last week I was looking forward to getting back on the horse, but it wasn't meant to be.

Upon showing up for my match i was told that the guy i was playing wasn't showing up. So i was paired with an older gentleman (even older then matt) whos partner also didn't show up. Since we were in the same division, I assumed the match would count. The man i was playing had to be in his 50's atleast, and had a bad hip. On a side note, I'm a little pissed I'm playing guys like this. Something I'm going to take up with my instructor who totally under estimates my abilities.

We are warming up and I know what coming. I'm going to kill this guy. You almost feel bad playing people so much lower then your own level. What am I supposed to do? Its a league where you get points for winning, not sympathy. I just find it hard to embarress the guy, try to show some respect.

Th first game starts out. I'm playing at half my potential, which sucks. I basically could have put this guy away on every shot. He could barely move. Any drop shot I hit was ahuge challenge for him, and even if he got it, it was barely and he would basically lob it up for me to put it away everytime. IF it wasn't a drop shot, all i had to do was get him running to one side and then an easy put away down the line. So thats what I did. I won the first game 9-3, ho hum.

Second game was another blowout. 9-2.

and third game was a complete waste of time. 9-0.

We played another 2 games for fun after that, i let him win one of them. BUt he got a little cocky so i shut him out in the last game 9-0 again just to let him know whos boss.

After we finish and go to post the scores all of a sudden there was a technicality that basically got him out of the match. Since we weren't scheduled to play each other, he was given the option to count it as exibition. He claimed he wanted a shot at me when he could run. HE'S 90 YEARS OLD WITH A CRAPPY HIP. when or how is he going to run, and how could he possibly think he's going to beat me? I'm not saying i'm a master, but hes a fucking old man who could barely move. But some how he's going to train for a few weeks and gain back fluid movement in his practically replaced hip? I'll tell you right now. I'm taking it personally that this guy couldn't just accept he lost and thinks he can take me. Next time we play, he will not win a point. I'm going to teach that old man a lesson.

I also found out last night that I'm the "giant killer". Aparently Denise has been dominating this league for awhile and I'm the only person to beat her.

I prey on women and old men.

I got beat up

2008-01-22T07:51:00.000-05:00

Atleast I feel like i got beat up after my 5 game, hour long match last night. Oh ya, and it was against a girl.

I had my first league game last night in squash. I've been looking forward to this match cause it's the start of my quest for league dominance. However things started off a little rocky.

I played this girl named Denise. While i was walking up to my court to play last night I was sure I knew who i was playing. Lets just say, I looked at some girl who was hanging out by the squash courts and was sure she was playing me. This girly girl who looked like she was more concerned how her IPOD looked then how her squash game would be. I had the whole speech in my head I was going to give the squash pro telling him off for thinking i'm that shit at squash. But first things first, I'm going to kick this chicks ass.

I headed to my court to warm up and then the actual girl I was playing walked in. Not the one I thought I was playing. Just a side note, she was alright looking, i'll give her a 7. This one looked like she could play, and when she started warming up, i got a little nervous. Could i lose to a girl? Would this be the first time in my life I lost to girl? She starts hammering the ball up the wall, over, and over, with force. I mean I can't even get that speed and force, she's just firing it. Then the ball over to me to warm up. I try to pound it to show my shit, doesn't work. Clunk, off the rim, clunk off the neck, boom off the tin, "here you go", as i defer to the master. She wails away again, i think i'm in trouble here.

After watching this chick warm up and work the ball i think my best chance is to cut her warm up off and hope she's cold for the start so i can jump out to a good lead. "I'm ready when you are."

I got the first serve. After shaking some of the nerves off I start playing my game. And i find myself up 5-1. Then i hit my first wall. I can barely stand I'm so winded. She came storming back to make it 6-5, but i eventually battled to a 9-7 win to take the first game.

Tired as ever from giving everything i had, she took the next 2 games. I just had nothing in me. I tried my best to keep her running, and i was doing a pretty good job of it, but she just got to everything. She made just about all the shots she had to, and i could put her away. I had here behind me the whole game (standing behind me waiting for me to hit is the best position I can be in) back and forth from one corner to the other, but she was retunring everything. My drop shots weren't great last night, had they been better I would have had a better chance.

So for the 4th game I dug deep. I knew I had to. How could I loose to a girl.

I got off to another quick start. Jumped up to 6-1 Denise faught back a bit, but really I was to determined, and I took this game 9-5.

The final game was a great on. Again i jumped out to a 4-0 lead. But she came back and tied it up at 4. We played about 8 points with noone winning one untill I finally broke through and got to 6-4. But she won the next point, and was able to win 2 serves in a row to go up 7-6. I start to panik slightly in my head, oh shit, am I going to lose to a girl? (If you haven't noticed yet, I don't want to lose to a girl). We are almost an hour into this match at this point. I have barely anything left, My legs are shaking I'm so tired, i even thought and felt like I was going to puke I was so drained. When I say I got beat up, i feel like it today. My legs are sore, my shoulder and right arm are hurting, my back is killing me, haven't felt like this since the first time i played. Anyways, so she's up 7-6. I fight to get my serve back and managed to win 2 points to get up 8-7. She wins her serve back and I have no desire to let this go to 8-8 which resultsin playing win by 2 and possibly making this match even longer, i can't handle that. She served up a weak ass serve for some reason and i hit a gourgeous backhand down the line and she wiffs. I get the serve back and finished her off to win 9-7, 3-2 for the match.

Definitly one of the toughest matches I have played. The main thing is I came away with a win in my first league match, and i didn't lose to a girl.

Check back next week for my second game. I've got 8 matches, follow me to a championship.

The Skills Have Been Tested

2008-01-14T12:55:00.000-05:00

This weekend I had the first squash tournament of my young career. I've taken up squash and fallen in love. I've made it my personal goal to excel in squash. Most people would be happy to just play and probably just stay at whatever level they are at. After only a few months of squash, I came to the conclusion that mediocrity just won't do for me. I think I got this from golf. In golf I currently play with the best at the club and (some of the time) compete with them, if not work to compete with them. Wether it's tournaments or sunday golf, all I won't to do is be better then all the guys I play with. The same has happened with Squash.

The squash leagues at White Oaks is set up in 4 divisions, and each team has 6 levels of players on it. 1 through 6, A, B, C, and D leagues. Unfortunatly, squash is much more difficult then I thought, and I find myself in the D division, at a level 3. I started in october at a level 5, so I am improving. Obviously my ultimate goal is to be A -1, but for now I'm just shooting for C division and I'll move on from there.

So the tourny.

Started off on friday night. I was to face another D lister and I honestly thought I would breeze right through the match. Unfortunatly, my opponent had a crazy forhand serve that I struggled with. He would hit the ball with a lot of speed and low, so it came screaching to the back corner everytime low and hard to the the one place i struggle on the court, backhand return. Last tuesday at my lesson I worked on this return for the whole time. I know it's my weakness and it's frustrating as hell, but I can't do anything but work on it and get better at the return. To say the least, I wasn't prepared to face someone who's strength was serving to the backhand. I put up a decent fight for this match, but the serve proved to be to much for me and I lost 3 games to 0. Not the start to my tournament experience I was looking for.

Oh well, onto the consolation round of the D league. Atleast winning this bracket would be something to build on. I was to face another guy I've never played or seen. This match was much better. Again playing someone on my own level and feeling good about my game after a good nights sleep I was ready to move on in the win coloum. This match was a real battle. First game he took 10 -8. I was hitting all my shots, serve was good, drop shot was on point, and I was feeling good. I took the next 2 games to go up 2-1. Unfortunatly, I couldn't put him away in the 4th game and we were all tied up at 2. The last game was one of the toughest games I've ever played. My opponent got off to a quick start and I found myself down 6-0. I fought so hard. There had to be 10 points back and forth before I finally got on the board. I started to make a run. Next thing I know we are tied at 6. I'm soooo back in this. I then got up 7-6, but lost my serve on the next point. Unfortunatly, that would be the end of me as he took the next 3 points to win 9-7 and take the match. I took some good things from this match. First off, I should I could battle back. secondly, I played my shots and didn't let him dictate the game or pace. This match really could have gone either way.

So now I find myself in the consolation round of the consolation round. Pretty sad. Playing the losers who were gauranteed 3 games, but suck. So i came back saturday night and played some schmuck. Warming up I knew I was going to kill him. I took the match in about 15 mins. 9-1, 9-0, 9-2. Then in the finals of the shittiest players in the tourny, I was hoping for a decent match atleast, but again found myself up against another weak player. This time is was some 12 or 13 year old kid. Don't get me wrong, there is a few 12-16 year old kids at the club that could be playing in A division, but this kid just sucked. I actually felt kind of bad kicking his ass, but what am I supposed to do? It's a tournament. So i took the first game 9-4, then 9-2, lost my concentration and lost a game 7-9, but then took the last one easily 9-1. So i was the big winner of the biggest losers.

All in all, it was a great time. I got some good experience. My first 2 matches had quite a few people watching, which was pretty cool, even the support after the game everyone telling me how well i did for someone who just started out was good. and it was fun. Definitly looking forward to the next one, just have to work a little harder to make sure I play better.

8 Months

2007-12-17T12:39:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I lost all my fantasy football playoff games due to the massive snow storm that riped through North eastern part of USA. There is now 8 months untill the next fantasy football season.

I am not happy about this.

What do people do on sundays with no fantasy football?

Golf Report

2007-12-10T08:16:00.000-05:00

My friends did a golf report for 2007, so I figure I'll throw one together for you. Chekc Matts statistical playground over at on the tee, and toasts short but sweet breakdown at golf and poker.

Mixed reviews on this years golf game.

I started off struggling for the first few months of the year. By struggle I mean i couldn't break 80 no matter what I did. Can't remember exactly, but i think it was Late June or july before I broke 80 for the first time this summer. That was dissapointing. But i managed to turn it around and actually started scoring really well. I got my handicapp down to a low 4, meaning I was a few decimals away from a 3. My lowest I ever got handicapp to was a 5, so this was great for me. Unfortunatly, I lost focus on golf as Football season approached and stumbled a bit to finish off with a high 5. My goal was to finish this season at a 4, so not to bad anyways.

My irons were a huge improvement this year after I got the Taylor Made R7 TP's. I upgraded my driver to the new R7 which gave me some more accuracy, better ball flight, and maybe a few extra yards. I already hit the driver long so, if i gained anything, i didn't really notice. My putting was better at times, but with less practice this year, i can't say it improved. I will say that my wedge game improved this year. I felt much more confident that I could get the ball close to the hole from 100 yards in. I've been strugling with this area for years now. hopefully things continue to improve next year.

Now lets see, some stats from the year.

Low round was 74 at St. Catharines from the back tees.

High round was 115 at Oakmont Contry club

Courses played - Oakmont Country Club, St. George's Golf and Country Club, Wooden Sticks, Heron Pointe (of course), Rattle Snake, The Raptor (Ari, pga event played here), Dinosaur Mount (ari, gorgeous course).

I had a trip to Arizona in april, played some amazing golf there. Got to the play the number 1 course in Canada, and played a top 10 course in the world, Oakmont Country Club.

I chokend in the qualifying event for the niagara mens tour, so I missed out on that. I will be trying again next year. This is were I need to improve the most, my tournament play. I made it to the semi finals of the Langly Cup (low handicappers) at my club. Atleast I was able to face Mike K (arguably one of the best golfers in the club) and beat him, so that was a big deal for me. Bombed in the Club Championships, again. I need to be more relaxed during important rounds. I'm hoping yoga helps me to calm myself for important rounds of golf.

So things to work on for next year. Consistency, must string together the good rounds rather then play spotty golf. Improve mental game during tournament play. Accuracy, although my iron game improved this year now that i can hit the half swing shot, i still need improvement with my driver and long irons. Course Management, I need to think more about when to attack and when to let up, basically think more about risk/reward. And of course, BE MORE LIKE MATT, HE'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

So thats it untill next april. Might be heading to Palm Springs this year with the boys. For now it's on to my new passion, Squash. Right now im in the D league (there is only A B C D), so I've got my work cut out for me. Need to be in A or I won't be happy.

Have a good winter .

Oakmont Country Club

2007-10-30T08:32:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of playing Oakmont Country Club. Home of the 2007 U.S. Open. Ranked #5 in America as the hardest course to play, and Ranked #9 in the WORLD.

Let me get the painful part out of the way so i can say what I want to say about he course. I shot 115. Thats right, i sucked big time out there. Preston, Matt, and Jon al shot under 90, played really well, and I sucked big time. I haven't played golf in a month, and i tried to hard, and that course is so difficult, it killed me. Next time i get a chance to play there (which might be in 5 years or never) I will make sure to play as much golf as possible before hand. I learn't my lesson the hard way. But in no way did this diminish my experience.

This course was an amazing life experience for me. I don't think I have done anything, or been somewhere that has meant as much to me. Honestly, as stupid as that sounds, this was huge for me. I know there is a lot of amazing placed in the world to visit and see, but for a guy who breaths golf, this was spectacular.

You drive up, park your car and walk towards the entrance of the club house. Then you look to your left, and see the whole entire golf course, and I mean, the whole thing. I read somewhere before I got there that fromthe club house you could see 17 of the 18 flags, that is 100% accurate. This had to be the most amazing site I have seen, right up there with the colosium in Rome. Just gorgeous.

The club house was a special place aswell. Inside was a shrine to golfs U.S Open. The history inside was breath taking. The pictures on the wall of Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicolas, Bobby Jones, all of them are enshrined on the walls of the club house. The most amazing pictures you've ever seen. I'm almost surprised that the club house isn't a tourist attraction, but only a member and us 108 lucky people get to see this stuff.

Playing the course was amazing. So difficult. I spent a lot of time in the bunkres. Every one was extremely deep and had these huge mounds that created lips infront of them. So if you were anywhere near the front of a trap, you couldn't get out. I got punished by these many times. Even one time I hit the ball, knew it hit the lip, spent about 45 seconds looking around for the ball, only to find it between my feet. Pretty comical.

It was the greens that make this place so difficult. There isn't a single piece of green on the course that is flat. Honestly, I am not exagerating, not one square foot of green is flat. And the speed. On the practice green, I dropped my ball to take a few practice putts, I had trouble getting the ball just to rest so i could putt. Amazing. So difficult.

The fairways were cut about 50 yards in front of every green about a milimeter longer then the green. Most greens in the world are probably aslong as the fairway cut in front of the greens. On the first hole, you ave the huge downhill slope to the green from about 190 yards out. I had duffed my second and found myself 75 yards out. My caddie suggested I putt it, so i did. I hit a nice putt, read the break nicely, and watched as my ball rolled forever, and ever, and ever, and it rolled right through the green without a chance to stop. CRAZY.

The one aspect of this place I couldn't get over was the history. Every so often I would be walking up to a tee box, or the green, or even just that stripe of trimmed grass from tee box to fairway, and you think to yourself about the people that have walked the exact same spot. You go up to the locker room, up these old stairs, with a hallway barely big enough for single file person and think of Jack and Tiger walking up the exact same stairs. You can feel the history as you play and walk around. Really an amazing experience, something I will never forget for the rest of my life.

Visit On The Tee for a detailed discription of the course. I would do it, but Matt will do such a better job with pictures and detail.

Is it July still?

2007-10-09T10:26:00.000-04:00

What a great long weekend.

It all started on saturday morning with a free round of golf at The Legends here in fort erie. Always a nice course to play, but usually the pace of play and the cost keep me away. Luckly I hooked up a free round for us, but only Cal and I played. For some reason no one wanted to take up the chance to play. So we tee'd off at 7:45 am with 1 grup in front of us. It was perfect, we waited once at the start of the round and then never saw these guys again. I started off great, making 2 doubles on the front to shoot 40. Then i fell apart on the back and fired off another 3 doubles and shot a 85 on the day. We played the back tees which are pretty hard, but I still should have been a lot better. I think it was a few mental mistakes and a couple bad drives that cost me.

Saturday afternoon I headed over to White Oaks, where i just got a membership, with my cousin and we played basketball for about an hour. Worked up a good sweat and got a decent work out. Haven't played ball in a while now, but the 2 of us joined a league with a bunch of my friends, so it's time to brush up on the skills.

Sunday, i spent home all day watching football. My fantasy season is going horribly. I'm just getting so unlucky. Had a great dinner at my moms friends house for thanksgiving. Then returned home to finish off the night sitting on the couch watching football. I love football sundays.

Monday, day off work. I woke up late, didn't even try to get up for 8 am tee time. Had breakfast, went to work an cleaned my office. It was really dirty and needed it bad. Then on my way home, due to extremly good weather, I decided I needed to play golf. So i called up my buddy dustin. I had some 2 for 1 passes to the course I live on called Royal Niagara Golff Club. Its a Kaneff Golf course, and it's probably the worse course I have ever played. I was actually embarresed to be playing in. But it was semi cheap and easy to get on so we played there.

The grass on this course was barely even cut. Every bunker had water in it. The holes haven't been cut in days, there was grass growing over the edges. The greens were slow as fuck, and everytime you took a step on it you left full foot marks. Every single tee box is uneven, impossible to find any spot on the tee box with flat footing. Just an awful course.

There was one higlight on the day. On the par 4 9th hole of the escarpment 9, 324 yards, I drove the green. I left the ball about 12 feet from the cup and rimmed out the eagle putt. To bad. Shot 41 on the front, 38 on the back to shot 79. Weather was great, but the course sucked. Still better then sitting at home all day.

Watched monday night football. Excited to see the Bills on it, but they lost in true Buffalo Bills fashion. Don't even want to talk about it.

The one you've been waiting for

2007-10-01T07:56:00.000-04:00

This was an epic weekend. Some people would take the time to write 3 or 4 posts with so much detail you can barely see by the the time you finish reading it, and have a million pictures and quotes and all types of shit. You won't find that here. Head over to On The Tee for that novel. Here you will find the story of what is now considered one of the top 3 birthday weekends of all time, except for a period of about 1 hour that was absolutly horrible.

Firstly, I shoud give a quick rundown of what this weekend was up against. #1 birthday of all time was my 24th, which was spent in Miami with my best friend Marissa. Interchangable with this one was my 21st which was a wild party in downtown St. Catharines followed by a Bills game when i turned 21. Then there was this one just passed.

Started off on Friday night with Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals at Massey Hall in toronto. As I said in a previous post I had seen Harper and the band in New York City and the concert was good, but not fantastic. So my expectations for friday night were not super high. I was looking forward to the show and to hanging out with my friend Lindsay. When we got to the show and our seats I was pretty stoked about the venue. Never been there before and at first glance it looked like a great place for a concert. My tickets were 7th row and just to the right of the stage. Nice view other then the 7 footer in front of me that caused me to lean to the left all night. No big deal. So the band started playing and right off the bat you could feel the difference in NY. I'm not going to go over the setlist (check web page, it's linked to the right) but this one was amazing. So many classic songs. Even a few that have been played live maybe 1 or 2 times over the last 15 years. Just an unreal concert. After the show, I slotted it at the number 2 spot all time just after the 2 Nights at Temple Bar in L.A. and just barely ahead of the County Bowl show in Santa Barbara.

Saturday was a relaxing day. Got up late, went for breakfast at the club where i just happened to run in to Matt and Cal as they finished they're morning round. Talked a bit before I went home grabbed my stuff and headed to Toronto for another Harper show and my Birthday dinner. We ended up going to a place called Blowfish. I'll tell ya, this was the best damn sushi and all around dinner I have ever had. Probably rank it #2 or #3, but a very strong case for #1. The tastiest fish and rolls I have ever had, great atmosphere, and the company I had was perfect. My amazing sister and her husband, and my cousin Jamie and his wife, all the people (minus my parents) that I wanted to spend my birthday with.

Sat's performance was good. Sat in the 7th row again, but this time dead center. Amazing seats, never had better at a concert before. But the show left somthing to be desired, only cause friday nights show was so good. Don't get me wrong it was still a great show. Whipping Boy, which was played at all 3 concerts, was the best version I ever heard, but the whole setlist was pretty much the same as NY, and we all know what I thought of that one. This one was kind of Like Jordan scoring 25 points back in the day, good but expected. Friday was more like Jordan putting up 62 while fighting off the flu and being carried off the court after each whistle. You get my drift.

Just real quick, cause I'm trying not to think about it. The one bad hour of the whole weekend, I left my freakin blackberry in the god damn cab when I returned to my friends house. So stupid. I was on it the whole time in the cab for like 20 minutes and only put it down to get money out of my pocket. I put it on the seat beside me, looked at it, said to myself "don't forget your phone", paid the guy, got change, and then got out of the cab and left the phone. Realized it like 1 minute after he left and it was already to late.

STOP READING HERE IF YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT MY GOLF GAME.

Then came the most glorious sunday golf game ever (sorry boys). I was invited by my friend from Western to play St. Georges Golf and Country club in Toronto. The number 1 golf course in Canada. Needless to say, for a golf nut like myself, this was a huge deal, and I mean huge, huge, deal.

The course was breath taking. I'm going to try and keep this short due to how much you read already, but I can't promise anything. It deserves to be written about.

We started off by taking the long drive to to the practice facility (it's in the middle of he course). Just driving by the holes you could see the beauty of this course. Pearl White sand in every trap, perfectly raked. Not a blade of grass on the ground, prefectly maintained. Almost no divots in the fairways, just everything was perfect. I was feeling good on the range, didn't want to think about it, but I felt a good round coming on.

We head back to the tee to get in some putting before we tee off. Just before we step up to the tee, the starter handed me my personalized bag tag, yardage guide, and some ball markers and divot tool. Matt, I kept the yardage guide for you, i know you like that shit.

I'll try to do this quick.

we played the Blue tees (one from the back) which are 6742 yards, and a modest 136 slope, 72.6 rating. The Black are a 138/74.7, and 7025 yards. I wanted to play those, but the guys I played with aren't that good. Didn't matter, on to the course.

First hole. Straight away 370 yards, with a huge tree hanging over half the faiway on the right. I bomb my drive up the left hand side and were off. When I get to my ball i realize the green is about 50 yards up hill. There is a lot of elevation changes on this course. You hit up to almost all the greens. I hit a nice little 52 degree wedge from 120 to about 10 feet. I just barely miss the birdie putt and tap in for Par. Good start.

The greens were phenominal. About as good as St. Catharines were for the club championship. This is the end of september. I guess thats what you get for $150 000 initiation.

Hole #2 - This was a long par 4, 445 yards with a short carry off the tee and a tiny little green with 4 massive bunkers guarding it on both sides. My friend turns to me and says "you really have to bomb this to carry everything and be safe." The carry was maybe 150 yards, but I didn't want to sound like a jerk. So I step up and nail my drive, into a tree 100 yards off the tee. Some how I carried what I needed to and had 230 to the hole. From here I hit a great 4 iron rescue to the green but it rolled through. I couldn't make the up and down and took the boogie.

Hole #3. An extremely difficult par 3, 198 yards. The green was on;y 13 paces deep and looked like the par three from the Masters (we played it at wooden sticks) with the pin tucked just behind this huge bunker in front. Oh ya, it was dead into the wind. I hit 4 iron (wrong club) to the right of the green in some long grass. Hit a great lob chip that rolled to about 2 feet and drained the gimmie for par.

Hole #4 - Shorter par 5, 474 yards and the number one stroke hole. The hole was a slight dog leg to the right. The fairway went out to about 267 yards, then dropped down 20 yards. I drove my ball down this hill and had about 200 to the hole. You had to hit way up hill again to the green. With large trees guarding the whole left side of the hole, and another 2 massive bunkers on the right. I hit a gorgeous shot that hugged the tree line and curled nicely to the hole. Due to the firmness (is that a word) of the green it bounced through. But i still made a great up and down for birdie. I'm Even on the day.

Hole #5 - A par 4, 410 yards slightly down hill untill about 100 yards infront, where you hit uphill 30 yards, again. I had a huge drive to the 100 yards marker down the middle. My driver and wedge play was on today. Got safely on the green and just missed the birdie, making par.

Hole #6 - A very short but difficult 146 yards par 3. It was all carry to the green, with huge bunkers covering the whole green. Either you were on the green, in a trap, or dead. I hit a light PW just left of the cup, the green sloped towards the cup and my ball rolled to about 15 feet. Again, i just missed the birdie putt but drained it for par. Still even on the day.

Hole #7 - A moderate par 4, 440 pards. A carry of 220 yards to the fairway. Not much to say here. Hit another great drive, iron to the green, 2 putt for par. still even.

Hole #8 - 215 yard par 3. Very tough pin postions on this one. All up the left hand side were houses and a hill sloping towards the green and covered half of it from the tee. In front of the green to the left was a large bunker and 2 bunkers behind and to the left. Wide open to the right. If you are short and left it's in a bunker and long all the way is dead. The pin was tucked to the left of the green right behind this hill and bunker. I go right at the pin. Put a weak swing on the on the ball, didn't rotate through and come up way short and to the right. I made a decent chip from there, but not good enough and missed the par putt to go to 1 over.

Hole #9 - A very long 538 yard par 5. Anything left or right of the fairway between 263 yards and 306 was in a bunker. The hole was a dog leg right, but kind of weaved it's way along with lots of bunkers up both sides. I hit a poor drive here and found myself with the ball above my feet just infront of the first trap to the right. With little to no shot i hit a 9 iron to about 140 yards, but left of the fairway and on a downhill. I hit a great shot out of here with my 9 iron, aiming about 10 yards left of the green to a pin that was all the way on the right. Turned out great about 8 feet from the cup, but missed the birdie putt again and settled for par. 1 over.

Shot a 36 on the par 35 for a great start to the day. Off to the back 9.

Hole #10 - 377 yard par 4. Not much here, just another amazing hole. Every hole was so visually pleasing. Never seen anything like this place before. Again, just breath taking. I'm still rolling here. Just 4 solid shots to make another par.

Hole #11 - Long par 5, 502 yards. Slighty down hill. The green was guarded by a mound of bunkers to the right, and of course the pin was tucked in the back behind all this. I went right at it since I was playing so well. Bombed my drive 300 yards, had 200 in. I hit a great 5 iron that bounced off the mounds, and roled nicely onto the green, leaving me a 30 foot eagle putt. I actually rimmed out the putt and took the gimmie for birdie. Back to even par through 11 holes. I've been here before, see Cherry Hill.

Hole #12. Things get a little dicey. Not a hugely difficult par 4 376 yards. There is 2 huge bunkers that have 20 foot walls in the front of them off to the left, plenty of room to the right. I check the yardage guide, only 277 to clear the second bunker. I go right at the bunkers looking to make the "cool" shot of the day. I go right into the second bunker. with a horrible sand shot i barely get up and over this huge wall, followed by a wedge that came up just short, and i 2 putted for a double. I'm 2 over.

Hole #13 - Par 3 213 yards. Green surronded by 5 large bunkers, and a creeek that runs along the front of the green. I hit a nice 4 iron into the green, but it was actually a bit to much and i hit my ball through the green and up this small hill. I made a decent chip, but not good enough and 2 putted again for a boggie. 3 over.

Hole #14 - Great hole here. 446 yard par 4. The fairway is straight out till about 150 yards out when half the fairway falls off to the right. If you hit it to far you can hit this down slope and roll right into a creek that stretched for about 150 yards all the way to the front of the green. I got lucky and avoided the creeek after my puffy fade headed right for it. I hit a nice 8 iron to the front of the green. But with a back pin, and a horrible putt, i 3 wacked for boogie. Oh no, 4 over. TILT, TILT, TILT.

Hole #15 - This was probably the nicest hole on the course. #2 handicapp hole. It was a par 5 558 yards, 570 from the tips. Your tee shot is 150 yard carry to the fairway. The fairway was literally in the shape of an "S" with bunkers gaurding each turn in the fairway. Then when you get to 125 yards out, it shoots straight up about 75 yards to the green. Again, the elevation changes are unreal. I bombed a drive to 283 yards out. Hit a 6 iron to the bottom of the hill and a wedge up to the green. It looked great from down below, but when we got up to the hole i was a good 70 feet away. Couldn't read the break very well and hit a bad putt that broke the way i thought it wouldn't. Missed the come back putt to make another boogie. 5 over, oh shit.

Hole #16 - A lengthy par 3 185 yards. Another green surronded by bunkers. Pin tucked in the far right behind a huge bunker. Safe was to the middle of the green, i went right at the pin. Came up a little short and found my ball in the bunker. First time in bunker, i hit a poor shot that just got out. Went for the chip in, but just missed and took the gimmie for another boogie. 6 over.

Hole #17 - 446 yard par 4. Tough fairway to hit into. Slight dog leg right, huge trees over hanging the fairway only 231 yards out. I hit the best drive of the group way over these trees and find myself 150 out. Hit my first bad approach shot of the day. Landed right of the green in another bunker. Over hit this bunker shot to the other side of the green and made another boogie, 7 over.

Hole #18. Just an amazing finisher. 403 yard par 4. Not much trouble in the fairway, 3 large bunkers. First 2 were only 217 out, so didn't play, other one was 267 out, right in my wheel house. My fade ended up going right at the bunker on the right. I thought I was in it, but when we drove up to my ball we found it about 15 yards past the bunker. Sweet. I missed club from there and came up about 5 yards short of the green, maybe 35 feet from the cup. up and down to break 80 with a 78. I get to cute with my chip and leave myself about 18 feet for par. What do you know. I leave it on the freaking edge of the cup and blow it in for another boogie, 8 over.

So atleast i broke 80. Shot a 79 on the number 1 course in Canada playing it for my first time. I was vrey proud of this score. I haven't really played golf in about 4 weeks and with the way I was tilting the last few holes it could have been way worse. Could have been way better, but also way worse. Still a phenominal course, day, and full out birthday weekend.

Mixed feelings

2007-09-25T08:19:00.000-04:00

so if you read yesterdays post you would know that I am extremely tired today cause I stayed up and watched the whole game last night. I needed to "special" things to happen last night so that I could have my first good fantasy week. As per my luck, it wasn't meant to be, sort of.

I lost in Cruise league (don't really care) by 2 points due to reggie bush.

I lost in Ancaster league (0-6 now) due to Brees still being shit, so Colston was crap. Vince Young had a good game and Roydell Williams tried his best, but it wasn't enough.

Nothing changed in my big one, lost both games.

Cowboys league, Bush has a good game so i won for the first time in that one.

Trash Talking. As i mentioned I was up 33 points, but my opponent had 3 guys playing, not a lot of points to make up for 3 guys. So how did it go? With Bush, Colston, and O'Mare (kicker for NO)? With the whole second half to go I was only up by 6 points. 6 points is nothing. I wake up this morning, turn the computer on right away (I never do this, sorry Harper), quickly go straight to the web page, hit live scoring, and find out I actually WON the game. I won by 1.13 points. Amazing, I'm in 4th place now instead of like 10th. Some positive news after 2 horrible all around weeks, I actually have something to be happy about. Bye weeks start now, and I need Andre Johnson back sooner then later, so the next few weeks are critical in this league. I did a pretty good job covering my bye weeks duringthe draft. Most guys don't even look at that, so hopefully I catch some guys in the coming weeks who are fucked by bye weeks.

In other news. I have continued my path on the healthy lifestyle. I'm still eating way better then I did before. Breakfast is easy. I have my fruit smoothie or the cereal, or both. Lunch is still difficult, and Dinner has been about 75% healthy. I'm getting there, just difficult for me to pass on so many good things that aren't completly healthy for you.

Also I have stuck with the Yoga. I really enjoy it so it's not that difficult to keep up with. It's very relaxing for one, which really helped yesterday after getting horrible GM news (strike). Feels great as far as the stretching. It is starting to get a little more intense, which is also good. Since it's power Yoga, my understanding is that you actually build some strength and tone muslces. You can definitly feel it when you leave with jello legs and arms. It feels so good though. And of course there is the instructor. Wow, she is just so good. Last night was the best yet. Let me explain. Last night the studio was a little steamy, wether it was from the heat outside or the chemistry between Michelle and I is up for debate, but it's kind of been like that the last few weeks. Anyways, I'm going through the warm up stuff, go into my first downward dog, take a few breaths, feeling good, then its up and BOOM, Michelle has taken off her shirt. Now she's got the hot little tank top on and things have taken a turn for the worse. I'm already getting busted looking at her all the time, now I'm getting busted checking out her body. I swear she busted me like 4 times last night, each time followed with a "head down and relaxed". She's got this really sexy tatoo on her upper arm and ankle. Her body is so tight its ridiculous. She is just gorgeous. Can't wait for next monday, I love Yoga.

My Fantasy Life Sucks

2007-09-24T09:09:00.000-04:00

The dedicated readers of this blog may remember last year when i posted every so often about my Fantasy Football ups and downs. Last year I had some pretty good "ups". Winning my biggest league last year, and a championship for the second straight year. This year, things are just a little different.

I never went over my team drafts this year, but to keep things quick, I'm in 5 leagues. Yes that is proven to be to many leagues. 3 of the same ones I've been in for years. 1 new one with a guy from my trash talking league. It's actually with the guy that I consider to be one of the better players in the league, and turns out it's a pretty competitive league. I also started my own league this year. Its a super league for only the best players I knew. One of the biggest challenges in Fantasy football is finding 12 owners who are dedicated and competitive. So i screened everyone and got just that. I dont' want to talk about that one, I'm in second last and my team is total dog shit.

The original league that started my obsesion was Tom Cruise Fans. THis one is for very little money, I think the prize is $200, but is with all my friends who i grew up with. I loose in this league every year. It's funny cause 3/4 of the guys in the league are close to deadbeat owners, andI finish in the bottom 3 every year. So far this year I seem to have one of the stronger teams. WIth Stephen Jackson and Clinton Portis at RB, Boldin, B. Edwards, and Andre Johnson (injured) and Romo at the helm, I have a very strong team. I look forward to Johnson coming off injury and making a strong run in this pool.

My trash talking team is one of the better teams I drafted. I have Bree and Romo as Qb, couldn't be a much better rotation. Parker at Rb and a surprise so far in D. Foster. A phenominal WR corp consisting of M. Harrison, A. Johnson, S. Moss, Chris Cooley, Amani Tommer, basically 2 top flight WR is really good in this league. I'm ahead this week, but could still loose and drop to 1-2.

Then there is the Ancaster League with 4 keepers. I won this pool 2 years ago. I came into the season with 4 great keepers on paper. Addai, L. Maroney, L. Evans, and Colston. So far Addai is the only one who has done anything for me so far. i'm not giving up on the other guys just yet. Maroney is being working in slowly to the offense, but looks to loose a lot of carries to Sammy Morris over the course of the season. Especially in the red zone near the goal line. Not sure why, but I'm starting to believe it has something to do with Maroneys shoulder. I guess he can't bang away at the goal line. Evans has played some of the toughest defenses so far and of course, the bills are shit. And the Saints just haven't hit they're stride yet. Brees has been sub par so far, and as brees goes, Colston goes. So i'm looking for them to pick it up a bit in the coming weeks.

The new league I joined, called The Cowboys, is another one where I thought I should be winning. I have Bush at RB (see brees above for why he sucks) Romo again at Qb, A. Johnson, Chad Johsnon, S. Holmes, V. Davis. Just another great WR corp and good supporting cast. Right now I am 0-2 with a chance to win tonight if I can get 4 points out of Bush (thats only 40 yards). I lost last week putting up 150 points with the next closest person in the league scoring 110 points. SHould have been a win, but thats just fantasy, i ran up against the only person who scored more points then me. I feel good about this team, should turn out to be very competititve.

Then there is the big league. I thought I did a great job drafting in this league. Had Willis McGahee and Travis Henry, and Brandon Jacobs as my backs, Evans (see above, bills suck) B. Edwards, Moss, Cooley, and a good D. But this has turned out to be my worst team. I'm in second last place and there is no hope in sight. I traded Edwards for Derrick Ward, Jacobs backup after a injury, and edwards blew up the same week and had another good week this week. But in my defense, ward hasn't been to shabby. Of of right now he is in the top 10 for RB scoring. That doesn't matter, I still suck in that one. I have decided to get in the market for a trade. I'm offerning up Willis and T. Henry in an attempt to pull a move where I get a decent RB and a good WR. Downgrade a little with the RB and upgrade the WR is my strategy here. I'll let you know if it turns out.

I have some pretty terrible records in all of them. The big one I am 1-4-1. Cruise 2 - 0, Ancaster 0-6, Cowboys 0-2, Trash Talking 1-1. This is a make or break week for me. In Trash i have a chance to win, but only if New Orleans sucks tonight. I took a chance on that last night starting Romo over Brees cause the guy i play against has all New Orleans players going. I figured if brees puts up points tonight, his guys put up points and i would lose. Luckly Romo had a good game last night and I have a 33 point lead, but my opponent has 3 guys playing tonight and 30 points is pretty easy to make up. I could also get in the win column for the Cowboys with a small performance out of Bush, but I'm playing him in 2 other leagues, so I only want him to accumulate like 60 yards and thats it, i would get the win in 2 pools if he does that.

Over the top Weekend

2007-09-17T08:20:00.000-04:00

I had a big weekend to put it midly. Started off friday when I drove from London to milton to play a quick round of golf at Rattle Snake with my buddy Preston. I was in meetings all day out in the london area and didn't finish untill 1:30. Knowing I wouldn't get back to the shop till 3:00 i decided to head the other way and try to play some golf. When i showed up i could see flag sticks practically parellel to the ground due to the wind. I have never seen wind like this on the golf course. Almost everytime i put my bag down it blew over. So it was to be a battle. Unfortunatly a massive weather system rolled in on the 6th hole and we had to make the long walk back to the club house. Just as we stepped under the roof it started pouring. Wether thats a good things or a bad thing is up for debate, none the less, we had to get a rain check and hope for another day.

Saturday was the big one. Awaking at 6:00 Am i quickly ran to the office to straighten up a few things before boarding a plane to the NYC. My cousin Jamie, Rodney, his broad Bunny, and Christian were on our way to see Ben Harper at Radio City Music Hall. It's been over 2 years now since our last trip to L.A. to see him, and I was really looking forward to it. Not only have I never been to NYC, but to see him in such a historical and famous venue was going to be a real treat.

So we show up at the hotel just off of 5th avenue and start with all the checking in bs. We weren't at the hotel for more then 10 minutes when all of a sudden a huge bus pulls up to the front door and of course, out walks Harper himself and the band. Crazy. For some of you that think i'm the biggest groupie ever, i swear this was a total coincedence. We are staying at the same hotel as them. Harper instantly recognizes my buddy Rodney, as does the rest of the band, and then proceedes to greet the rest of us. Maybe recognizing Jamie and myself, but I can't be sure of that. He did comment on my shirt saying he liked it. As lame or cool as that is, I was stoked just to get a quick intimate 5 o 10 minutes with the man himself. Pretty cool we always seem to run into this guy. In L.A. we ran into him on the street and chilled for a while, and it seems to happen everywhere we go. I'll admit, we do try to meet him, but it usually works on a rondom basis. Whatever, still made the day.

Anyways, after checking in and throwing our crap in the room we hop in a cab an head down to the Soho area. Basically this area was Queen St. in Toronto on steriods. Super cool area with tonnes of cool shops, small bistro's and reasturants, and of course tonnes of people. But its cool how everyone moves so smoothly. Did the shopping and lunch thing for the next couple of hours, then decide to head back to the hotel to relax a bit before dinner and the show.

During that time, I headed up town to. Also by chance, my friend happen to be in NYC to see his GF who goes to school there. So i went up to meet her and chill with him for a little while. She lived about 100 yards away from Central Park in a nice apartment. From what I understand about the living costs in NYC she must be paying quite a bit for her place. It was cool seeing both of them, and my quick glance at Central Park had me really waning to come back. First off it is huge, and it's crazy thats it's in the middle of the city. My cab drove right through it, but the cool thing is from the road you can't see into the park. The road is down lower then the park and there is huge trees and bushes obviously grown to block the view into the park. I'm sure it a very nice detail for the people in the park trying to avoid the car and cement for the brief time they are in the park. That side of the city was also very upscale, very nice.

A few hours later we headed down to the hotel restaurant for a quick bite to eat and a few drinks. Then headed over to the venue. Walking up and all of a sudden seeing the Radio City sign was pretty cool. Took a few pictures, but due to my cave man camera (disposable, i know, the only person without a digital camera still) none of the pictures I took turned out. So we walked in just in time to grab oine more beer and head to our seats. Funny story about the seats. Rodney had 5 tickets. 2 were beside each other and the other 3 were singles. 1 in row H, N and P. I volunteer to take the one in P, but Jamie hands me the N tickte, takes the H for himself, and Christian gets the P. Christian and I have almost the same seat, jamie is a few rows infront of us and he thought he had the good one. As we all get to our seat i notice something funny. My seat is the best one. Jamie and christian were in the same section off to the right of the stage as I was, but theres were all the was to the left of the section, mine were almost on the aisle to the right giving me the best view. Jamie was moving around all night trying to find an open seat so he could see better. I had the most perfect view. By chance there was an open seat beside me. I texted Jamie first ot let him know and he didn't respond, so I called christian over and we had to seats together with a great view. About 3/4 of the way through the show, Jamie responds saying he's coming over. Luckly there was another seat open a few spots downs, and the guys beside me were nice enough to move down one seat and now the 3 of us were chilling from my seats, Pretty sweet.

The concert was good. A number of songs stood out. whipping boy, a few of the new ones, and a couple rare songs were played that made the conert. The rest of it was pretty slow and to be honest, completely different from what i wanted. I checked all the setlists before going so I knew what I was in for, and was still very happy I went. I'm willing to bet that 80% of the crowd had no idea what they were in for. None of his staple songs were played, and most people probably didn't even recognize the songs he played. If you didn't have the new album, you would have been pissed with the setlist. Also if you were a new fan since the last record, you didn't recognize anything. The only songs that he played that weren't on the new album came from his very first one which very little people know about, only the "true" fans have that one. Let me make something clear, I am not saying I didn't like the show. It was a great show in an amazing venue, in a great city. It was great for me, I loved the rare stuff and fully appreciated what Ben was trying to accomplish on this tour. His voice is the best it as ever been, and the band was tight, and it was an all around great show. Very happy I got to see it. Next years tour, if he does one, will be back to normal i assume, and will be just as good as this one. I'm throwing it out there, I want a bar tour next year. Jus travel around playing bars, that woudl be so sweet. Anyways, 2 more shows to see here in Toronto at Massey Hall. Anticipating the same type of setlist (it won't change) but still looking forward to going. I have 7th row centre seats for that one, so it should be sweet.

Thats it.

It's been awhile

2007-09-12T08:55:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the extended absence. Golf season is basically over for me and I've been consumed with Fantasy Football. So i'll give you a quick update on my semi-interesting life.

Starting with the most important aspect, Fantasy Football. Last week I had my 5 drafts. Thats right, i'm in 5 freaking leagues. Some might think it's a little overboard, but not me. I love it. Just a little more conflicted each week in who I cheer for. Didn't do that well in the first week. I thought my teams were much stronger, but week 1 was a strange week and I feel I will bounce back this week. I think atleast 2 or 3 of my teams are very competitive. The one I'm not so sure about is in my biggest pool. I'll have to get to work on that one cause I don't have the best WR corp. Going to have to get some deals going if they don't pan out how I planned.

Golf game. Last weekend I didn't play at all. Had baseball playoffs on saturday so had to cancel last minute on the boys. Then i thought abut getting up early to play sunday but didn't really want to. Luckly, it was raining when i woke up and i just went right back to bed.

This saturday I am taking a trip. My cousin, friend rodney and his girl, and christian, are heading to New York for the night to see Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals at Radio City Music Hall. I'm so pumped for this. Such and amazing venue and it's been 2 years since I've seen Harper. The new album came out a couple weeks ago and was o.k. Not my most favourite album, but it was still good. My sister saw his show last weekend and said that is was really good. So far the setlists have been a lot of slower songs, not the usual party sets, but i'm sure it will still be great. Can't wait to here some of the versions he plays. I'll definitly by reporting on that one monday morning. Hopefully I can sneak a camera in and post some pics for you.

You might be wondering how my health kick is going, or you might not give a shit. I'm going to tell you anyways. It's been almost 4 weeks now. I've stuck to the fruit smoothies, they are still great, but added a healthy cereal today. It was all oats and stuff, but actually tasted good. I just needed a little something extra in the morning. The rest of my diet has been good aswell. Been eating a lot more greens and barely any red meat. I have to say, that i feel way better. I also started Yoga this week. It was a very interesting. I liked it and will stick with it. I found it to be very relaxing. Plus the instructor was ridiculously hot. She has the tightest little body I've ever seen, obviously flexible beyond belief, and to top it all off she's got those sweet Lulu Lemon paints that make any girls ass 100 times more amazing then it already is. My biggest problem with yoga is your supposed to eliminate all distractions for optimal results, but everytime she is demonstrating something I can't stpo staring. Atleast she's married so I am able to control myself for the most part. As soon as she asks me to stay after class for a private lesson I will be sure to post. I also hope to sneak a camera into that aswell and have some pics for you.

I think thats about it. If i think of anything else I'll post again.

Weekend regression

2007-08-27T08:29:00.000-04:00

Not a great weekend on the course. PLayed as usual on saturday and sunday. But played really bad. So bad I don't really feel like talking about it. saturday was miserable. I shot an 86, just didn't have anything. Lots of double boogies, and lots of missed putts. Sunday, I played a little better but still a bad round. Shot 83. Shot 44 on the front, and 39 on the back. Really, I feel I should have been 80 or 79 cause I started off well on the back determined to keep my score 80 or lower. But a few missed putts and some miscalculated risks caused me to have 4 boogies and 1 birdie. Atleast I didn't play my langly match on sunday. although if I did, I would have showed up with a much different mentality. Next monday will be the day I play andy for my chance to be in the finals. Hopefully after 2 rounds sat and sun I'll be ready to go. Might try to get out to one of the tougher club link courses with my buddy preston just as a warm up. I always seem to play a little better after that.

Health Update

2007-08-24T08:34:00.001-04:00

After visiting the Doc on wednesday I found out that I am indeed lucky to by alive still. Well, obviously it's not that bad, probably more lucky not to be 250 pounds.

After showing my dr the diet diary she didn't condem me or anything. In fact she pointed out the 2 decent meals I had. Didn't really say much about the other ones, except for Happy Jacks, she never heard of it so i filled her in. Here's what tips she gave me. First of all I need to eat more green vegetables, with almost none on the sheet, I'm not getting enough. She also mentioned something I kind of knew. All the food I have been eating doesn't have any substance to it. I feel hungry all day long no matter what I would eat and that makes a lot of sense. When you are eating the crap I eat all day there is nothing to it so you actually get no nutrition or substance. So i have to change those things, but thats why I went to see her.

So i started hard right out of the gates yesterday. For breakfast she suggested I start making a smoothie every morning. The recipie she gave me is as follows. 1 orange, 1 bannana, 1 pear, 1 handful of berries, and 1 handful of spinach. Wasn't to sure about the spinach but she warned me it would chop up so fine in the blender that I wouldn't even taste it. So i shoved all that stuff in the blender yesterday morning and low and behold it was great. Couldn't taste the spinach either. The best thing about it, for the first time in a long time I wasn't hungry all morning. It really filled me up. Plus, it tasted great, no problem making that in the morning, very easy and quick. For lunch I stopped by the golf club and had a chicken ceasar salad. More greens and chicken. Much better then some shit cub or fast food. Just a side note, I hate fast food. I only eat it cause it's the only thing around my office and laziness, but thats all changing. For dinner I kept the train rolling and made a meal rather then takeout. Using brown rice pasta I made Pasta with shrimp and spinach. Phenominal meal. Never made it before and it still turned out amazing. I did have a few pieces of small garlic bread. However I had more greens, healthy pasta, and shrimp (fresh raw shrimp), very tasty, definitly will get made again sometime. Then i rewarded myself with a huge piece of Lemon mirange pie. No justification for this other then I really like it, so i ate, what are you gonna do about it?

So off to a good start. Had the smoothie again today, not sure about the rest of the days food, but hopefully we can keep this train rolling. Right now, out of 5 with that being the worst, I am a 4 on the body toxity scale. With some minor changes i should be able to get that to a better number. 8 weeks till my next apointment, i'll probably fill you in again then.

A new outlook

2007-08-22T08:11:00.001-04:00

Recently I have decided to take a new outlook (sort of) on life. More or less, I just want to live a little healthier then I currently do. I have recently got my fist phyisical, got my back problems looked after, visited a dr about my feet, and started seeing a Naturalpath (sp?). My sister has been seeing one for many years now and swears by it, so I thought I would try it. That, and I wanted to learn how to eat better. This is what brought about this post. I was asked last week at my first visit to keep a diet diary for a week and return it tonight to her. The only instructions she gave me were don't try and impress her, just eat normal and we would talk about it tonight. No problem, I can do that. Then last night I was talking to my sister and told her a little about what I've been eating. Her response was "she is going to tell you suck, so you might aswell go out wiht a bang." So here it is, a look into the specimen that is Harris.

Day 1 - Wednesday
Breakfast - I had my usual, Tim Hortons Coffee, 1 milk. Atleast i have some milk in there.

Lunch - Chicken Ceasar Pita, started off sort of healthy. But then I added poutine to it and found myself dipping the pita in the gravy. Wow was that good.

Dinner - pasta and meat sauce. That can't be that bad for you, can it?

Day 2 - Thursday
Breakfast - What should I have for breakfast this morning? Coffee, 1 milk.

Lunch - pasta and meat sauce. I had this recently, can't remember when?

Dinner - pizza. I love pizza, very nice treat once and a while.

Day 3 - Friday
Breakfast - Felling a little hungry today, I had 2 eggos.......and a coffee, 1 milk.

Lunch - Tuna sub. There was some vegetables in there, so it had to be healthy.

Dinner - Chicken Fajitas. Ok this one actually was a healthy meal. I had organic chicken, tomatoes, peppers, plus there was lots of vegetables.

Evening snack - cherries. I guess you are supposed to eat and mid morning and evening snack, this is all new to me. This was proably the healthiest 4 or 5 hours in my year.

Day 4 - Saturday
Breakfast - I had a late tee time today, so I made breakfast. Eggs and Toast, but i had 4 eggs. and of course, Coffee, 1 milk. I worried she is going to say no coffee, i will tell her I want my money back.

Lunch - Roastbeef sandwich. Can't be anything wrong with that.

Dinner - Chinese Food. O.k., this was Happy Jacks, the best chinese food on the planet, can't be blamed for that one. I probably ate enough for 2 or 3 meals, but it's Happy Jacks.

Evening Snack - I moderatly large piece of Apple Cheesecake. My dad got me about 1/2 a cake of this, from Happy Jacks, and it was probably the best cake I have ever had in my life. I actally had 2 pieces, but there was only room on the sheet to write one down. I think I'll keep that from her.

Day 5 - Sunday
Breakfast - back to the usual, Coffee, 1 milk.

Lunch - Went out after golf with my buddy preston to this really good place here in town. I had 2 pieces of french toast, the brad used for that was this cinnamon raison bread (best french toast I have ever had). 2 eggs, 2 pieces of toast. Potatoes, and some fruit. Oh ya, and a coffee. Wow, this was another classic meal, maybe best breafkast/lunch ever.

Dinner - It's been a while so, Pizza and Chicken Wings. But they were from a different place then the last time, so it doesn't count as the same thing.

Evening Snack - Apple Cheesecake, see above.

Day 6 - Monday
Breakfast - Coffee, and a bacon and egg sandwich on a bagel from Tims. I'm not a huge fan of these things, but it does provide some satisfaction.

Lunch - pizza. Leftovers, what am I supposed to do, just throw em out?

Dinner - Ceasar Salad, Lobster sandwich and french fries. O.k., let me explain this one. Here in town there is a place called the Blue Mermaid. In the loung downstairs they make the best sandwich known to man. It's basically a grilled cheese sandwich with like a whole lobster inside. You can't believe how amazing this is untill you eat it. The fried are also the best on the planet. Perfectly crispy, but not burnt, just can't pass it up. But atleast I had a salad. Oh, and I had another piece of cheese cake for dessert. mmmmmmmm, cheese cake.

Day 7 - Tuesday, going out with a bang.
Breakfast - Coffee, bacon and egg sandwich on a bagel. Kind of sad. I actually just wrote down bagel cause I was little embarresed at this point.

Lunch - steak and cheese sub.

Dinner - I talked to my sister just before I had dinner and couldn't figure what to do so I went easy. Made pasta and meat sauce. But i did use brown rice pasta and organic pasta sauce. added my own ground beef. Made some garlic bread too. Not a bad meal with a glass of red wine.

Evening snack - things got a little dicey here. I did have fruit, pineapple to be exact. Healthy, no? It was just the massive scoup of vannila fruit dip i took with each tiny piece of pineapple. That stuff is really good if you haven't had it before. Then I had some cookies. But they were oatmeal and rasin cookies. 2 healthy ingredients if you ask me. I had 2 cookies. But then I had a brilliant idea. What if I take the oatmeal raisin cookies and dip them in the fruit dip? Oh that sounds really good, better try it. 2 more cookies and a few more massive scoups of fruit dip and I'm in heaven and a fat piece of shit.

Needless to say I'm going to take her this diary tonight, and she is going to tell me, in my sisters words, you suck. What can I say? I eat all this stuff, don't get fat, and I love every bit of it. Not sure how well I'm going to be able to follow the diet I am expecting from her. I like food to much, especially the crap that is bad for you. I guess we'll see. Check in tomorrow for a short recap of what she says.

Weekend Golf

2007-08-20T08:10:00.000-04:00

Nothing exciting here today. Played golf all weekend again. Just trying to get in as many rounds as possible before football starts. Usually the weather isn't that great in September, and I have a serious addiction to Football, so it makes golf on sundays difficult for me. However, since I'm playing so well right now, and still have some Langly matches to play, i might actually play a few sunday morning rounds this year.

Anyways.

Saturday I decided to head up to Ancaster to play golf with my buddy Preston at his course, Heron Point. Always a nice track, part of the clublink franchise, and playing with Preston is always fun. The course was in great shape except I just happened to pick the week they punched the greens. Just a small punch, but the greens were covered in sand. It seemed like they top-dressed the greens, but never cleared it, kind of bullshit is you ask me. So everything hit the green and splashed sand and then stopped, and the putting was very slow. I didn't play well under these conditions. Along with the super slow play, which isn't normal for that place, it wasn't exactly the best day. I shot a horrible 86, 15 over par, and didn't even really play that bad. The problem was the putting. I can't putt that well on slow greens cause you have to be so aggressive to get the ball to the hole, which leads me to ge the putter off line. I was hitting the driver pretty good, and my chipping and wedges were good, i just couldn't hit those 4 or 5 footers. I actually hit 4 pins while chipping and rimmed out 2 other ones and still couldn't score. Oh well, no big deal, still a good day.

Sunday I barely made it to the tee in time and played at St. Catharines with Gary, Cal, and new guy Dave (a.k.a. Biker). I showed up just as the third guy was hitting so I really cut it close. First drive went far right just up to the out of bounds line. I warmed up a little ther just before me second shot, hit a noice lay up shot to the 100 yard marker, made par, and I was off. Didn't exactly play well on the front 9, but didn't play poorly either. I was still adapting to quicker greens (100 times better then Heron, and very nice for st. kitts) so i had a little trouble with my speed. It wasn't untill the 18th (#9 for us) that I got everything in check. I hit a nice drive to about 120 and a 52 degree wedge to about 10 feet, then drained the putt for birdie, to shot a 41. Not a great score, but managable. From there on I played the next 9 holes 1 over, but boogied the 9th (18th for us) for a 38 and shot 79. I'm still happy with that cause I broke 80. That my only goal right now and everytime i do it, i had a good round. Breaking 80 is like every golfers dream, and only something like 10 or 5 percent of golfers do it, so that means I'm good. lol.

I'm still playing the best golf I ever have. My handicapp is at a 4 and for the first time ever my index is a 3.9. Super happy about that. Kind of funny, Cal was putting his score in yesterday hoping for it to go up. Crazy. I hate my handicapp going up, just makes no sense, means you are regressing. But to each his own. I have my semifinal Langly Match this sunday against Andy A, a guy who plays with us most weekends. He's a pretty solid golfer and as of right now, I am going to be giving him a stroke. No big deal. If I can play just like I have been the past few weeks I can beat him no problem. I'm very confident in my match playing skills and my golf game. I won't take him lightly or anything like that, but I will be disappointed with a lose. On the brightside, if I do loose, atleast I made it to the Semi's and beat the #1 ranked guy. Definitly something to build on in the future.

Big Match

2007-08-13T07:54:00.001-04:00

I played my quarterfinal Langly cup match on sunday against Mike Kray, the 4 time club champion. I played Mike 2 years ago in the langly cup and took it to the 18th hole but lost. I was definitly looking to redeem myself this time around. Here's the breakdown in true Matty B fashion.

We started on the back nine.

#10 - The trash talking got going early on this one. Just before I tee off I let mike know that he doesn't have to chase me all day, meaning I'm going to bomb my drive past him all day. So i get set and hit my first drive......15 yards off the tee. Laughter erupts, including myself. MIke proceeds hit it up the fairway on the left side. I hit a nice rescue to about 190, and 5 iron to the green. Mike is in the left side bunker in 2, out in 3, and 2 putts for par. I 2 putt, and with a stroke I take the hole, Harris 1 Up.

#11 - I hit a 5 iron to be safe, but end up hitting the large tree just right of the fairway, leave myself with 180 yards and no shot to the green due to the tree. So i hit a 5 iron low and up behind the small trees to the left front of the green. Mike is on the green in 2. I have no shot again, having to go under the trees. So i use my 7 iron and kind of (on purpose) skull is along the ground. Bounce, bounce, bounce, I have a 6 foot par putt. Mike 2 putts, I drain mine, Harris still 1 Up.

#12 - I use a 5 iron to attack the middle pin with no wind. I nail a perfect shot to about 10 feet pin high, just right of the pin. Mike hits his left, and lands on the fringe about 20 feet away. He barely misses the birdie putt, but I roll mine right in. Off to a great start, and I'm 2 Up. Keep your cool Harris.

#13 - I bomb a drive but it's tailing right, towards the woods. Luckly it gets down and I'm about 150 out to the back bin. Mike was already on in 2, but at the back of the green. I hit a nice 8 iron, but it comes up way short and I'm in the front of the green, about 80 feet away. I hit a great lag putt that comes up about 6 inches short, par, bet birdie. Mike barely misses his putt and I take a 3 Up lead. Steady!!!

#14 - Mike and I both hit the green with very long birdie putts. Neither of us make the putt, but we both tied, Still 3 Up

#15. I hit a bad drive left and on the the #6 fairway. Mike is right up the middle. I try to hit an easy 4 iron as a lay-up, but I hit it poorly and I went in the water to the left of the fairway. Couldn't recover and made a boogie while mike made the routine par to bring the match to 2 Up. Just a side note, Mike ALWAYS makes par. Crazy how good this guy is.

#16 - Both of us are down the hill hitting our 3rd shots. Mike goes first and leave it about 12 feet for birdie. I make a nice shot to about 8 feet. Of course, Mike drains the long birdie putt no problem. I give the ball no chance of being short, and run it over the edge. Oh well, can't really complain about loosing to a birdie. Harris 1 Up

#17 - Nothing special here. Mike is on but only about a foot infront of me as I come up just short of the green. I make a great chip to about 6 inches for the gimmie. Mike 2 putts for par. Harris 1 up.

#18 - I watch Mike hit first. It's sailing right over the trees and towards the highway (In my head, YESSSSS). I step up and bomb my drive, but it's right along the tree line to the left. I yell, cut, cut, cut, but it doesn't, and it stop just infront of the large willow, leaving me no backswing. No problem, Mike is out of bounds. Then I get to my ball and there is a problem, mike is in the trap, not out of bounds. I choke up a little on a 7 iron so that my backswing doesn't hit the tree and i put the ball in the back of my stance. I chop at it and manage to get it up and just short and right of the green. Mike is actually chipping from the same distance, but in the fairway. I make a beautiful chip to about 5 feet. Mike drains his par putt first. I then step up and drain my right to lefter centre of the cup.

We head to the back 9. I shot a 36 on the front, Mike was 35, but I'm 1 Up and feeling it.

#1 - Mike strokes it perfectly down the middle. I hit 5 iron left and into the trap under the willow tree. I make great contact on the ball but pull it left and find my ball about halfway inbetween the #1 green and the 18th tee. Mike is just long of the green but it's a back pin so he's in o.k. shape. I have to go under a tree, over the small hill around the green, and then contend with a huge left o right break. By the way, my short game chipping around the greens was on fire this day. I make a great shot that lands perfectly in the rough slowing it down and rolls to about 8 feet. Unfortunatly, I miss the putt for par and make boogie. Goodthing Mike missed it aswell, Harris still 1 Up.

At this point I'm still feeling pretty good. No nerves, and the swing is working well. Putting out of my mind, and chipping is great, only problem I'm having is driving. Usually thats my best part, but today it just wasn't working. I hit 3 fairways all day.

This is where things starting getting interesting.

#2 - Mike is up the left side near the pine trees. I bomb a drive, but it's hard left and bounce off the hills around the 17th tee. After almost conceding the hole I begin to walk towards the green and spot my ball lying dead in the middle of the flower bed at the top of the tow rope near 17. Mike instructs me to measure my nearest point of relief. To the right would have been on the side of a hill with little to no shot. To the left was a small area where I would have a shot no problem. I measure the bad way first, 3.5 drivers, then go to the left, 3 drivers. I take my drop and hit a solid 8 iron, but it goes long of the green and the pin is in the very front. Side note, Mike had told me the pin was in the middle, no big deal. I walk up to ball and make another great chip to about 5 feet. Mike is already in for a par. I make the great save and I'm still 1 Up.

#3 - Mike and I both hit our ball left but no trouble. I hit first and come up just right on the fringe middle of the green. Mike goes long. Did i mention my chipping was on this day? I chip to about 1 foot. Mike blows his chip shot by the hole about 20 feet. Misses the par putt and taps in for boogie. This is where things really get interesting. I basically duff the putt and miss making boogie. Bo big deal I say to myself and try to wipe it out.

#4 - Mike come up just short on the par 3 and right of the green. I see the door wide open with an easy 5 iron in hand that I have been hitting well all day. Regardless, I hit it right and into the trees. I couldn't chip out of the woods and get it on the green, i make 4, mike makes 3, we are all even.

#5 - Things take a turn for the worst here. I get a stroke on this hole, and no one ever birdies this hole, so a par wins the hole I'm thinking to myself. Mike is dead down the middle, again. I bomb a drive out of anger, down the middle. I hit my 7 iron pretty good to the front right of the green, but it's a front left pin. Mike is on in 2 aswell. No problem 2 putt for par and the hole. Mike makes his par no problem. I hit my 70 footer lag putt to about 1 foot, sweet I win the hole. I go to tap mine in, didn't rush, actually looked at it and everything, and proceed to blast it past the hole. O.k. I'll just tap this one in and take the tie, no blood. I then go ahead and miss that one to. Mike finally gives me one and I actually 4 putt the hole to loose. This was very difficult to accept. I'm realing now on the verge of a full out Matty B tilt.

#6 - Mike hits a massive drive down the middle. But i follow with an equally huge drive middle of the fairway. He hits 3 wood from i'm guessing about 300 yards, comes up about 50 yards short. I hit my 2 iron rescue from the same spot, come up about 20 yards short. Mike's chip it o.k. but still a tough birdie putt. I hit mine a little firm and roll about 20 feet past the pin. I didn't hit the best putt, but i still left myself an easy 4 footer straight up hill. Mike has about 2 feet for par, so I need this one. The jitters start to creep in, and I've got the last hole on my mind and the other other easy putt missed on #3, not good thoughts. I miss the putt that I have been hitting all day and make boogie. To my astonishment, Mike misses the putt and makes boogie. But i get a stroke on the hole, so I win the hole. Very bitter sweet. All square going into the last 3 holes.

#7 - Back pin with a little cross wind. I hit a solid 5 iron to the back of the green, but had to ship to the back pin that was on the right side. Mike had a tough birdie putt, i wasn't o concerned he would make it, but Mike is a really good putter so I didn't doubt he could. I hit a great to chip to the dreaded spot of the last few holes of a foot. Mike makes par and of course makes me putt it. 'm shaking over this putt like never before. Some how I will it in and gain some confidence back. Still all square, 2 holes to play, exact same situation as the last time we played.

#8 - I couldn't believe it, but I'm geting a stroke on the easy par 5. Both Mike and I drive long but left. Our balls were probably 5 yards apart, Mikes being a little more right then mine had a shot at the green. A very tough 5 wood, but a shot nonetheless. I almost don't even have a shot at getting down the hill cause I'm directly behind a tree. I chop at it with a 5 iron to keep it low barely missing the tree in front of me. Literally less then an inch from hitting the tree, but it gets down the hill about 50 yards from the pin. I hit a beautiful 56 degree wedge to about 6 feet, great shot, needed that big time. Mike is right of the green behind the bunker. A very tough chip shot. He attempts to lob it over the trap and land it softly but over hits its and find himself with a birdie putt from the left front of the green about 30 feet. Did I mention I'm nervous as hell right now? He strokes a beauty of a putt and I'm watching it thinking I can't believe this is going in, but it stops about 2 inches short, I breath again. With a little less preasure knowing I can 2 putt from 6 feet to win the hole, I roll my birdie straight in and take the hole even if I didn't have the stroke. I feeling great but still nervous and thinking I don't want to have to make a 1 footer to win, sad actually.

#9 - Walking up the tow rope Cal tells me to go infront so he can play caddy. He tells me "Harris, step up to your fucking drive on 9 and swing the shit out of it. Blast it harder then you ever have and don't think about anything else." Good advice. I did just that, dead down the middle to the 150 yards marker. After that I talked a little shit to Kray, suggesting he block it left or right, no preference. He doesn't block it, but does go up the right side and gets in the tiny little bunker. I'm nervous now, a par wins this thing and I'm sitting pretty in the middle of the fairway. Walking up to Mikes ball we find his ball in the trap and a divot is resting up against his ball, of shit this gets better and better. But after looking at his, I walk over to my ball and find it dead in the middle of the fairway, and dead in the middle of a divot, NOOOOOOOO. WHY ME. Mike with little effort hits out of the sand just short of the green to a front pin, probably an easy up and down for him. I have no idea how to hit the divot shot. So i attempt something with my 9 iron and skull it. But it flys to the green almost, a couple of bounce and rolls up to about 4 feet. Mike hits his chip a little past the hole and misses the par putt, makes Boogie. This is in the bag. I missed the 4 footer but left it on the edge for a tap in and the HUGE win. 2 Up.

So i beat Mike. I feel like I won a tournament with this win it was so big. He is a phenominal golfer. I played really well for me and it still almost wasn't enough. I also discovered I get way to nervous when I'm in a situation to win and have to find some way to over come that. Regardless, a win is a win and I'm in the final 4 for the first time ever. My next match is against either Andy a guy from our group who is a 5 handicapp, or this other guy who is a 9. I don't want to have to play someone and give 5 strokes, so hopefully Andy beats that guy.

Plus my handicapp dropped to a 4 this weekend after rounds of 78, and 77. I'm playing better right now then I ever have. Hopefully I can keep it going and give a go at winning this Langly Cup.

Thanks for reading, if you made it this far.

First taste of the year

2007-08-10T13:16:00.001-04:00

Finally today I officially kicked off the Fantasy Football season. Although for me the season never really ends since i research all year round, i still made my first official move today.

In my one league the Ancaster Fantasy Football Federation (awful name) you are required to keep 4 guys. Pretty tough thing to do if you aren't always thinking ahead. Last year I made a few great moves and set myself up with Joseph Addai, Laurence Maroney, Marques Colston, and Donovan Mcnabb. By any standards, this was a good group no matter what. Addai is ranked in the top 5 this year, Maroney top 10, Colston is a top 12 WR, and Mcnabb is arguably the 4th or 5th best QB in the league when healthy. However, I wasn't comfortable with Mcnabb. He's been banged up the last 2 years, is getting older which has taken away his mobility to some degree, and the Eagles have absolutly no WR's except for a guy named Reggie Brown who could be #1 WR but hasn't done anything mind blowing to warrent that.

So I sent out some feeler emails to see who was interested in trading me someone more attractive. I first tried to get Lavernous Coles from the Jets. Offered a low pick, 6th round, and got rejected. Not really looking hard enough at the guys team, i should have realized he was keeping him anyways. So i turned to plan B. I inquired about Lee Evans from the Bills. Not really thinking the guy would give him up i asked anyways, but never thought I would have anything to give him. Low and behold, I wake up today and a proposal has been sent through from the Evans owner. Lee Evans and Cotchery (Jets #2 WR) for my 3.06 draft pick. I like it, good value, but I'm still stuck with Mcnabb. I ask the guy just to give me a day or 2 to accept it and proceed to offer everyone in the league Mcnabb for various 3rd round picks. What do you know, someone took the bait and gave me a 3.14 draft pick for Mcnabb. I quickly run to the computer and accept the Evans deal. I made out like a bandit as far as I'm concerned. Basically swap 3.06 for 3.14 for Evans. Great deal making, exactly how it should be done. Now i have Addai, Maroney, Colston, and Evans. Solid, very very solid. I have a first round pick in this league for only the second time in 4 years, and only missing one other pick. Usually i sell all my picks cause I can out draft guys in the later rounds, so this year I will be a force. Can't wait.

More Fantasy news to come. I have drafts on Aug 29 and 31, and Sept 3rd and 4th. Check back then for the beginning of 5 straight months of nothing but Fantasy Football.

John Butler Trio Concert

2007-08-06T09:37:00.000-04:00

Last thursday I took a trip to Buffalo with my cousin Jamie, and 2 friends Tim and Katie to see the John Butler Trio. One special thing about this concert was it was totally FREE. Every thursday night throughout the summer, buffalo city puts on a concert series called "Concert in the Square". It's basically this square (obviously) dead in the middle of the downtown core. There is maybe 1000 people standing around the stage with another 500 or so back behind everyone just hanging out and drinking beer. So there was maybe 35% of the people there knew who the band was. Most are just out for a night of music and drinking. Good times either way you look at it.

So Jamie and I get down to the square around 5:30 (show started at 5, went to 9). I had been to a show there about 2 years ago and it was quite busy. To gaurantee a good spot we thought we would just show up early, have a beer or to and talk fantasy football. Turned out to be a good move going early, even though there wasn't a lot of people there. Right in front of the stage about 50 yards back is this statue raised up about 6 stairs. We were able to plant ourselves right on the top stair for the most perfect view. Not only did we get to sit and relax for the hour and half we had to wait, but we also had no worries of seeing over people, and were close enough to see everything perfectly. What i mean by this, is Butler is probably the most talented Guitar player i have ever seen. It's a show in itself just watching him play. Just amazing at his craft.

John ended up coming on just before 7 and played a full 2 hour set. AMAZING. I was hoping for a hour, maybe an hour and half set, but it was a full freakin set. It was an amazing show. What was cool about the crowd was that almost no one knew who he was when it started. after the first few songs you could see a few people clapping and cheering. By the end of the concert the whole crowd was going nuts. It was great. Hopefully he saw the reaction and will make a stop in buffalo from now on when he tours through toronto.

Anyways, great show, great night capped off by Yanks pizza. Hopefully we get lucky next year and he plays the Square again.

Not my best performance

2007-08-06T08:05:00.000-04:00

Sadly enough, I played awful this weekend and was a complete non-factor in the Club Championships. The buildup to this weekend was looking so promising this year. My last 10 rounds or so have been very good by comparison to the rest of the year. I had maybe 2 out of 10 rounds above 80 and seemed to have all facets of my game in check. None the less, the preasure of tournament play got to me again, i guess.

I went into saturday's round feeling pretty good. Playing with a familiar partner, Brian B, I figured I would be relaxed and in control of my game and post a decent score. After getting off to a miserable start, duffing my first shot of the day 15 yards off the tee deck, I knew I was in for it. I didn't get upset or discouraged, but something just didn't feel right and I couldn't fix it untill it was to late. I just had some nerves while I was standing over the ball. After parring the second hole I thought maybe I was back, but duffed another drive on the 3rd hole. This time loosing it in the creek, and eventually making a double boogie. Bad shot on 4th caused me to chip it way past the hole, followed by a 3 putt for another double. That was about it. The rest of the round went bad, and I shot a 84. Out of the tournament.

So i showed up sunday just happy to have a tee time aswell as playing with Cal and another friend Matt N. Thinking i could just post a good score as a respect thing, i failed myself again. Supe slow play, and i guess nerves again, caused me to play even worse then saturday. I shot a horrible 47 on the front, including a 3 putt from 2 feet on number 8 taking a 6 instead of birdie. Got to the back nine and played the first 7 holes 1 under par. Then boogied the 17th after blasting my 90 foot putt past the hole and missed the comeback. Then for only the second time this year, i hit my tee shot over the highway, luckly not breaking a club this time. Hit a bad approach shot for my 4th shot and ended up making a 7 on the hole. Shot a 86. I am very disapointed in myself.

It wasn't the missing the cut, or not winning the tournament, which I new I wouldn't win anyways. It was the fact that I seem to be a weekend golfer instead of a tournament player. I've been in 3 tournys this year and sucked in all of them. i don't want to be like that. I guess thats part of my problem. I put to much preasure on myself and blow it when it counts. Hopefully with another year of experience under my belt i will play better next year. Still sucks big time. Atleast I still have the Langly Cup to play for, even though my next match is against one of the best players in the club. Hopefully I play better that day then I did this weekend.

I can't believe I'm saying this

2007-08-02T07:21:00.000-04:00

I shot a bad 79 last night. Thats right, i shot a score that over 90% of golfers would love to shoot and I was pissed. Earlier in the summer Matt and Cal used to come off the course and shot 78, 76, 79 and be pissed, and I would then get pissed cause they were like that kid in school who got a 95% on a test and went to the teacher to complain. I hated those kids. Now, i find myself in the same situation.

I went to the club just to practice my putting and chipping for a little while. Then Ryan, the ass pro, showed up and asked if I wanted to play. Getting around in rather the practicing was much more appealing so i saddled up and tried my luck on the course.

Started off great. Striking the ball almost perfectly throughout the front 9, i was able to hold it togeather with 2 birdies and 2 boogies for an even 36. Great score, very happy with it.

Tied off the 10th with a massive drive dead down the middle. Hit my second into the green but far left with w front right pin. No big deal, 2 putt birdie. Nope. I 3 wacked it for a par, given strokes away. Second hole i par, and then the wheels came off.

Took a double boogie on 12 after hitting up the hill behind the green for the first time ever. Boogied 13. Par 14. On 15 from the back tees of 590 i absolutly kill a drive leaving myself 230 to the green. Looking at an easy 2 iron rescue shot into the green, i manage to pull it right and find myself on the 4th tee box behind a tree. I got up over the tree, but still only made par, very discouraging. 16 i almost chip in for birdie, but settle for a par. 17 i come up short and miss the up down for boogie. 18 i bomb a drive up the left side only to find myself nestled under a pine tree. I take a drop and make a poor attempt at the green coming 20 yards short from 110 yards out. What a joke. I ended up making a double to shot 43 on the back for a total 79.

Awful. Just awful. Things started slowing up after the front nine. waiting on almost every shot. I guess that through me off a bit and i just lost concentration. To bad, cause I was playing so well i thought this was one of those days.

Atleast the swing was back after a bad weekend. Drove the ball very well. My short game was solid. But of course one thing has to be off, last night it was my wedge play which hasn't waivered at all this year. Just didn't have the touch from 100 to 125 out that I have had lately. This weekends Club Championships are going to be extremely tough. 75 - 75, might not even be good enough to make the cut. Hopefully I can play out of my mind one day or actually 2 days and make the cut. That would be a huge accomplishment for me with the way my game has been this year.

Big night tonight. There is a free John Butler Trio concert in buffalo, NY. I've seen this guy twice now and they were 2 of the best shows I've ever seen. Should be amazing, check in tomorrow for a review.

Not in the mood

2007-07-30T08:13:00.000-04:00

Usually i would post something of substance today, but i'm not. I played golf all weekend, and played like shit. Actually, played o.k. on satuday, shot a 79, but missed 3 easy birdie putts so I should have been lower. then came out on sunday and played horrible. Then late in the afternoon I thought I would try my luck again at Whirlpool golf course. Played 9 holes, and sucked again. I don't feel very good about my swing for the upcoming Championships. My chipping which has been a problem is actually good, and my putting is o.k., but could be better. Hopefully I'll get out for 1 or 2 practice rounds this week and get in some kind of grove for the weekend. We'll see.

I guess I was due for it

2007-07-23T08:56:00.001-04:00

After 6 really good rounds of golf I finally hit the wall. Although it doesn't effect my handicapp in a bad way or discouraged me from thinking I can play. But i guess i was due for it. After shooting a bad 77 on friday i went 86 at St. Catharines on saturday, and 82 at East Aurora on sunday. Both rounds I was only 2 or 3 over after the front nine. For some reason I just fell apart on the back.

I credit the collapse on saturday to fatigue. I didn't get much sleep the night before and just felt drained while playing and kind of gave up. No biggie i thought, I'll get it back on sunday. But i had a small problem saturday night. I got up off the couch and felt a massive pain in my lower back. I had the same pain last year when I pulled a muscle practicing. First thought, Oh shit. I got ice on it right away and just hoped for the best. Woke up sunday morning and felt good. I figured I was out of the woods. Probably could have used a day off of golf, but since we were set to play East Aurora in buffalo i couldn't resist testing it right away.

Maybe a mistake. After 9 holes yesterday I felt like i was going to be in big trouble. I could feel the back bothering me and was heavily favouring my right side. I think this caused some mental issues with my swing. Although i wasn't in enough pain or discomfort to not play, it was in my head all day. The most important thing for my swing is swinging all the way through the ball. BUt due to the back I didn't want to push it and this was causing me to loose some distance, and accuracy. A small sacrifice when I'm thinking of having to sit out for a few weeks again, especially with Club Championships coming up in 2 weeks.

So luckly I woke up monday morning with no pain. I plan on taking it easy for the next 2 weeks. Probably only play 3 or 4 times over the next weeks just to make sure I don'r reaggrevate the injury. Ice and rest, thats all i need.

I'm in the sweet 16*

2007-07-18T07:22:00.000-04:00

Thats right, I'm talking about the Langly cup at our club. But you might of noticed the astricks beside it. Thats cause the guy I was going to play just conceded the match. I had contacted my opponent last week by email. Thinking nothing of it I didn't call him again untill monday, still no response. Finally he he got back to me yesterday saying his computer had crashed with no email for the week. So we tried to arrange a game but due to conflicts he wasn't able to play this saturday. Plus he is not in the handicapp range of 0-7 so he decided to just hand the match to me. I guess you could say a little bitter sweet. I mean it's cool to be further in this competition then i've ever been, but I wanted to play my way into it.

You never know whats going to happen in match play, but I believe I would have beat him anyways with the way I am playing right now. Plus my opponent doesn't even play from the black tees, plays the whites most of the time (2 tees forward), and I think even on a bad day for me I could post an 81 or 80 and beat him. Not sure who i play next but I'm sure it won't be easy.

More importantly, I got some amazing news yesterday. Ben Harper has announced his tour dates for the fall. All small venues and he plans on playing more stuff that they don't perform to often and some new covers. SWEEEEET!!! Right now I'm going to atleast 3 shows. 1 in New York at the Radio City Music Hall on the 15th. Then he plays 2 shows in toronto at Massay Hall, SWEEET!!! Heres the best part of all. The second show is on the 29th of September, my freaking Birthday. How fucking unbelievably amazing is that. I get to see my all time favourite performer on my brithday in my backyard basically. Fantastic. Tickets go on presale for Harper club memebers on the 25th, so I'll post back with how good of seats I get. I'm very nervous.

It's good to be good

2007-07-16T07:54:00.000-04:00

Finally after 3.5 months of golf I am playing to my potential. After an extended period of only 1 round under 80 I posted 3 out of my last 4 rounds sub 80. Last tuesday I was 74, then 78 on friday, stumbled a little with a 82 on saturday, and turned it back on to shot 76 yesterday. What a run. In just 1 week I dropped my handicapp 3 points to settle at 5, and it feels fucking great to be back where i was 2 years ago.

I've been so frustrated with my play for the last 2 summers. I might aswell have not even played last year it was so bad and I was losing a lot of confidence this year. Well, actually it wasn't that bad this year. I knew I had it in me, i just couldn't seem to put it together. But after another swing change this year, my 3rd in 3 years, i felt i had the right stuff to get low. Now it's actually clicking perfectly.

So what has been the difference you might ask?

As i've mentioned before i have been trying to force shots. Thinking i can work the ball left to right, right to left, bounce off this hill, suck it back here and there, whatever. Instead of imagining these amazing PGA shots I've been just stepping up and hitting the shot. Trust the swing. So i'm swinging nice and smooth with a good tempo and just hitting the ball straight. I guess you could say letting it come to me.

My putting has been very good as far as I'm concerned. My lag putts have been good enough to leave 4 or 3 foot par putts when needed. And the odd time I needed to make long putts to save par have been dropping for me. I'm being a little more aggressive with the putting to make sure every ball gets to the hole.

One of the most improved things of my game has to be my wedge play. Not the chipping, which I'll get to later, but the 50 to 125 yard wedg shots. My gap wedge, always dependable, has been phenominal. I've been very accurate with it and have a lot of confidence in it. I've also changed my use of the 56 degree wedge. Where I use to use the gap wedge for shots 25 to 50 yards out and kind of run it up, now i pull out the 56 and treat it like a full swing, sort of. With a short backswing depending on the distance i just slowly swing all the way through and trust the touch. The results have been better accuracy due to a soft landing and getting a little spin to stop the ball from rolling. I'm very happy with that part of my game.

My driving has been off the charts. With my new R7 Superquad, which in my hands should be considered illegal, I am just killing the ball. I think over the last 4 rounds I've missed my drive maybe 5 to 8 times. The rest have been long and straight. The beauty of this new club is the force I can swing with. I've always had a very quick swing with my driver. The shaft in this one seems to be just a little more stiff that my previous driver which allows me to use everything i got when I need to. I can just swing and hit a nice 270 yard drive when it's called for. But when I want to really go after it I can cork up and come through the ball hard and blast it in the 300 range. Not saying I can hit it 300 everytime, but when i need to I can really get it out there. With my wedge play combined with these long drives i've seen the huge improvement.

All i need to do is get the chipping straight. I caught Ryan, my "teacher", on the putting green on friday and got some quick tips on chipping. He told me to put my fee closer together and move all my weight to my front foot. Then he gave me the biggest tip to help my rock hands touch, swing lighter. WOW!! Who would of thought that if you are constantly chipping it past the hole you are swing to hard, fuck i'm dumb. I've always been one of those guys who sometimes just needs to hear someone else say whats wrong with my swing before I get it. So i took his advise to the course and it did work. Still some bad chips here and there, but no where near as bad as it was previously.

Anyways, thats enough. I've got a match to play this week for the Langly Cup. Hopefully I can get a win and advance past the second round for the first time. Kind of stupid. I've waited to play this match for over a month and now the greens are getting punched today and i'm going to have to play in terrible conditions. Should of thought about that last week. Then the club Championships are the following weekend. If i can keep the form I've had this past week I will be able to compete this year. Not win, but compete. I'd just be happy with a top 10 finish, actually that would be just as good as winning to me at this point. My only plan is to try and get atleast 1 round in during the week before the CC. I'm sure i can find time to do that.

For Once, I'm Gooooooooooooood.

2007-07-11T07:40:00.001-04:00

I took off work a half hour early yesterday to play golf with Matty B at the Club. A little hesitant to play in 40 degree weather, but it turned out not to bad. Atleast, not to bad after 6 powerades, 3 bottles of water, and a good drenching of water at every water station. Regardless of the temp I played great, finally, half way through the season.

Started off nicely with a routine par on the 1st hole. On the second I hit a average drive and found myself left behind some trees. Hitting a 7 iron into the wind 150 yards my ball landed and checked up about 4 feet from the hole. Made the birdie putt, -1.

3rd hole I bomb a drive to the 100 yard marker. Made a quick par just missing the birdie. Followed that up with another par on the 4th.

I found myself chipping out from behind the trees on the left of number 5. Hitting my third shot from the same spot matt hit his second I was prepared to loose the hole. Already Up 2 for the day I make boogie. Matt had a relatively easy up and down for par, but missed the par putt, I'm still up 2.

On the par 5 6th I tee it up and absolutly blast another drive. I was hitting my driver out of this world all day. I found myself 230 yards out. With a 4 iron in hand down wind, i kind of miss it and come up short in the bunker front right. Made a decent sand shot, and 2 putted for par. Matt birdies, I'm up 1.

On the 7th I make par, matt falls apart around the green and I'm back to 2 up. 8th hole we both make pars. Matt's par was a grinder par, i smoothed to a par barely missing the birdie putt again.

On the 9th I hit yet another bomb to the 150 yard marker from the black, thats loooooong. Make a horrible attempt at my birdie putt, but drain the par putt to finish the front even at 36. Great, I've got a chance for a good round. But we all know what happened last time I was in this situation, see Cherry Hill.

On the 10th after another bomb, I hit a 4 iron to a back pin into the wind from 180 yards. The ball lands in the middle of the green and rolls just past the hole. As it was landing and rolling I was seriously thinking that it was going in. Nonetheless it settled about 3 feet from the pin for eagle. I blew the putt and made birdie. Unfortunate, but no problem.

I would go on to par 11, boogie 12 after a horrible birdie putt, par 13, boogie 14, par 15, 16, boogie 17, and par 18. Shooting a 38 on the back for 74. Wow!! I played steady for the whole round, swung through every shot, didn't think to much and look what happens. I look like a real golfer. Plus i smacked Matt winning 4 and 3.

My driver was great all day. I didn't miss one the whole round except for being a little left on 2 and 15. My gap wedge from 100 to 120 could have been a little better, but overall solid. I boogied 14 and 17 only cause I made horrible chips, i really need to figure that part out soon. My irons were on point, and my putting was solid. It wasn't really anything out of the ordinary and i'm not trying to be a dick. I have been playing my irons and driver really good as of late, and my wedge play from the fairway has been decent. It's just that god damn chipping that is killing me. Regardless, I'm very happy with the results yesterday and the last few rounds. The handicapp dropped to a 6, first time it's dropped this year, and i'm looking to continue playing solid golf.

Gotta Love Club Link

2007-07-09T08:31:00.001-04:00

Due to the Auction Pool event at the Club yesterday I took off to Milton to play golf with Preston and a few friends. We played a course called Glencairn Golf Club. This is a new Club Link course, only 3 years old. It is a very difficult track. A links style course with fescue every where, rolling faiways to the point of every shot bounces in different directions when it lands, making good shots turn into bad lies when it kicks hard towards the fescue. The ground is rock hard from tee to green, although the rain before we played softened it up a bit. And the greens are true and quick.

I played this course 2 years ago when it just opened up and after playing to a satisfying 87 I swore off the course for ever. It was so difficult and punishing I never wanted to play again. The fescue back then wasn't fescue. It was basically little bushes everywhere, you couldn't find your ball, and if you did these bushes gave you no shot. The wind just makes things worse since there is nothing but wide open links holes. But this time around it was much different. The fescue was real fescue, and that basically made all the difference. While it cost you a stroke most of the time you went in it, there was times it was forgiving cause they has cut it down a bit. I guess it didn't bother me to much since I only had one shot from it on the second hole.

So on to how I played. Playing the Leithfield-Speyside course (there is 27 holes, Scoth block being the other 9), which plays at 6840 yards with a 73.5 rating and 133 slope, i had a pretty good day.

Started off pretty weak going boogie on the first 5 holes. My problem which has plagued me recently was the short game. My chipping touch was just awful leaving long par putts all day. I was hitting good drives and decent approach shots, only to find myself blasting chips 10 feet past the hole for very tough par putts. Needless to say I didn't make any of them to start. After the rough start I said to Preston, "I just need to start hitting shots rather then pressing." A pattern for me as of late. I invision myself making these cut shots, draw shots, bounce it off this, whatever. The thing is, I don't hit a draw, and I don't hit a cut on purpose. So i don't know why i think i can hit these shots. I don't even understand how to change my stance, grip, swing, whatever to hit a draw. I hit the ball the straight. Thats what i worked for, and thats how i play. But for some reason I step up look at my shot and think I'm going to hit a perfect little draw into the back pin tucked behind a bunker. Anyways, I got the good thoughts into my head of just hit the ball and all of a sudden i started playing well. What do you know?

Just a quick not before I continue. We had 5 guys out yesterday, was supposed to be 6 or 7. After playing the first 2 holes as a 2 and 3 and waiting on every shot we decided to play as 5. This went on for about 3 holes untill the ranger came flying over to give us shit. After making a small deal of it he told us he was going to look into it. About half way down the next hole he comes up and gets in one guys face and says "you play as 3 and 2". Just to make sure we understood he used his hand to show 3 and 2, kind of funny. we are a little shocked that it was a problem since even with us playing as 5 we were still waiting for the group in front of us. Anyways, on the next hole we split back into 2 groups. Just after Preston and I tee off and begin to drive up to the green the ranger comes tearing down the cart path again, i'm thinking were in serious trouble or something. Instead he pulls up and tells us he cleared it with the proshop and they are going to allow us to play as a fivesome aslong as we don't hold anyone up. Crazy shit. Never heard of, especially in the middle of a sunday at a major facility. Just made fora better day, we kept up all day, and it helped the pace for us. Never saw the group behind us all day.

Back to the round. After i talked myself into hitting the ball and not thinking I began hitting perfect shots, one after another. Finished off the front with 1 more boogie coming in at 42. Not bad considering the difficulty of the course, but could have been a 38 easily. Off to the back 9.

I started off with a massive drive dead down the middle. 315 leaving myself 80 yards chip shot to the green. Nice being that close, but i was on a down slope and couldn't really get aggressive. Still made a nice shot leaving 15 feet for birdie, made the par.

Next hole is a short 385 yards, but your second shot into the green is about 50 yards up. I made a poor shot and had a long birdie putt. I hit it long, missed the comeback and made boogie.

Par 3 next which was down hill 160 yards with a strong wind right left. All 5 of us missed the green badly. My ball plugged in the side of a pot bunker, i ended up barely missing the par putt and made boogie.

Then came the hole of the day for me. 500 yards par 5. Off the tee you can see about 75 yards in front of you and the rst is down hill and not visible from where you are. I blast a perfect drive right down the middle. Drive up to find my ball 365 yards, leaving myself 135 to the pin. Maybe the first time ever I was driver gap wedge on a par 5. I hit a beautiful wedge to about 15 feet past the hole and sucked it down the slope to about 10 feet. Rolled in a nice left to right putt for eagle. Sweet, my first one of the year, and I'm back to even on the back.

Next hole is a routine par 3, 190 yards. I try to hit a 3/4 4 iron into the wind. I duff it into the waste area and make double. Fuck. so i gave it right back.

I go on to par out from there. I had a makable birdie putt on the 6th par 5, and on the 9th but missed both. The one on the 9th was dissapointing cause it was maybe 6 feet and i should of made it. Would have put me at 79, a great score out there. Still happy with the 80.

We had about an hour rain delay but after that the weather was pretty good. Humid, but not to hot. Oh ya, played under the Alias Ian Clark. Didn't pay a cent. Harris $150 - club link 0. Gotta love club link.

Ben Harper and friends Superjam

2007-07-05T12:12:00.000-04:00

Had a big night downloading new concerts for John Butler and Ben Harper last night when I cam across something from this years Bonnaroo Festival. It's called the Superjam and it's the most amazing thing I have ever heard from Harper.

For those that don't know, Bonnaroo is the huge festival in Tennesse every year with hundreds of bands, and multiple stages. Harper, Butler, G-Love, Donovan Frankenreighter, The Roots, and many many more artists are there. I've never been, but hope to go one day.

Anyways, heres the deal. Ben Harper, John Paul Jones, and ?uestlove. ?uestlove is the drummer from the band The Roots, and John Paul Jones is from Led Zepplin. What a fucking combination. These got got on stage together and basically rocked out so hard to some of the all time classics. It really is a "superjam". I don't even have the words to describe how amazing this sounds. The talent is just amazing, and puts anything else from our current era to shame. No one should ever step on stage again without giving a shoutout to these guys for they're contribution to the world of music on this one. They are the very best at what they do.

Here is a link to download (do it, it will change your world of music) - http://www.sendspace.com/file/t1g90g

Heres what your in for.

97 minutes of pure musical genius.

Disc 1
01 Intro/Tuning
02 When The Levee Breaks*
03 Good Times Bad Times >
04 Bass Solo > Ramble On Jam >
05 Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler)**
06 Drums Jam >
07 Dazed & Confused***

Disc 2
01 Banter
02 Superstitious^ >
03 Them Changes^ >
04 It's Your Thing^~
05 Introductions

Band: John Paul Jones - bass Ben Harper - slide guitar & vocals Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson - drums

Notes: * w/ Michael Ward (Ben Harper) on Bass & John Paul Jones on second lap steel guitar
** Cissy Strut teases
***Immigrant Song teases ^with Kirk Douglas (The Roots) on guitar & vocals ~

Now get on it and put this shit in your ipod, car, home stereo, bedroom stereo, kitchen stereo, everywhere you possibly can. You will thank me later after you listen to the most infectious thing I have ever heard. Enjoy.

A nice surprise

2007-07-04T08:40:00.000-04:00

After an extended period of Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals obsession of mine, I took an break from the best band on the planet to pursue other musicians. Getting a little deeper with John Butler Trio, revisting Bob Marley, going back to my roots in Hip-Hop, and even sampling some crappy Amy Winehouse (it was $7 figured it couldn't be that bad, it was). I turned my attention back to Harper last night just see what was going on. What did I find you might ask?

Well I found out that in the next few weeks a brand spankin new album is coming out, Lifeline. August 28th is the release date. From reading a recent interview it sounds as though the new one is going to take it back to the good old days. With some sweet jams, raw sound, Ben just belting out the lyrics. Here's some interesting parts to the interview.

"We recorded this album in a week so we had to check our egos and let the music speak and be at the forefront. It almost makes feel like a jazz musician, without those chops. Sorry I got sidetracked, yeah the album sounds this way due to the fact that were road weary, having our chops up and limiting the time we spent in the studio, we said we were going to do it in a week, one and a half to two songs a day and not bring everything plus the kitchen sink onto this record. Plus the sixteen-track analog tape machine really lets that 2-inch tape breath. "

TD: On this record your vocal style has really shifted into that of a soul singer, do you feel that is a result from working with the brilliant Blind Boys Of Alabama? BH: Thank you, I have been so lucky to work with the people I have worked with. The Blind Boys and The Funk Brothers, to share those experiences will defiantly have an effect on you. The Blind Boys kind of handled me with kid gloves, but with the Funk Brothers it was like ok, are going to sing or are you going to sang, so that pushed me in my singing. The guys in the band are so excited about my singing on this record, and I kind of don’t hear it right now, it’s just something I did. I guess it’s too raw for me right now, it’s almost like I don’t even hear it.

And the most amazing part of the interview -
TD: Your album comes out in August; will you be taking it out on the road this summer?
BH: We are going to take a little time off at the end of July, and then we are going to go head on into a full fledged tour, and I want to tour this record in a way that it deserves like intimate venues, like Radio City Music Hall, and I want to focus on this record, the Blind boys stuff never got represented on the road, We did one show at the Apollo, so those two records and songs off of previous records that are in that vain will be the spotlight of the tour.

An intimate small venue tour? Are you freakin kidding me? I can't wait for this. Last time he did a tour like that I saw 4 shows. 2 in a tiny club in Santa Monica called The Temple Bar, 1 in the worst venue ever the Warehouse in Toronto, and an amzing show in Royal Oak, MI that was absolutly off the charts. I think i met Ben and the band all 4 times, actually I did, i even introduced my sister to him, which was super cool. I can't wait for this tour. It's already been discussed with my cousin that trip to see a few concerts is a definite adventure. I'll be looking forward to the release of the new album, and to the concert dates. I'll update as to which shows I'll be attenting. I'm hoping for a Cali trip for 1 or 2 shows or the Radio City Music hall show in New York. I'd love to see a Toronto show at Massie (SP?) Hall or the Opera House, and catch a show in Michigan. Can't freakin wait.

I pulled a huge Greg Norman

2007-07-03T10:38:00.000-04:00

At the conclusion of a glorious weekend of 4 days of golf I blew it big time. Playing Cherry Hill in Fort Erie monday afternoon with Matt, Cal, and Preston, i was poised to shoot one of my best rounds ever only to see it fade away with one relatively simple chip.

I started of better then i could have ever imagined yesterday. Cherry Hill is a classic private club beauty. With harldy any sign of people actually playing there (no divots or ball marks) this has to be one of the best maintained courses I play. The greens are like putting on marble, and your lucky to find yourself with a straight putt. Still I played great, for awhile.

I started the first 8 holes with out a blemish on the scorecard, all pars. Just one after another. Great drive off every tee, perfect little chip shots landing under the hole everytime, and solid putts for birdie, leaving tap ins for par. My only boogie was on number 9, par 3, after hitting a sub-par chip for my second.

On 10, i bomb another drive, made the easy par. 11 which is a longer par 3 with a crazy green, i hit a perfect 6 iron about 6 inches from the cup for birdie. Number 12, i drive just left of the fairway and with 260 left to go I blast a 2 iron rescue. Leaving myself 10 yards from the green and a chip over the bunker, i'm thinking birdie no problem. Except just before i hit it, i tell the guys to watch this go in the middle of the trap. Thinking nothing of it, i duff my chip and i'm in the bunker. Duff it out of there, chip on, 2 putt and double boogie. Now i'm 2 over. No big deal, i can control this.

On the 12th, i blast a drive, over the the road, out of bounds. 3rd shot from the tee, leave myself with nothing barely staying in bounds again. Make another double.

14, i hit an awful drive that finds it way to the base of a tree on the right side of it. For a right hander this was impossible. I turn the club over and try to hit a left handed shot like Matt. I make contact, but the ball bounces up and hits me in the chest. I make another double. I'm tilting so fucking hard right now.

The big thing about this day was the Happy Jacks Open. Preston and I team up to play Matt and Cal for dinner at possibly the best chinese food in the world. When i was playing well, it was looking like I was going to best the 2 of them all by myself. On the 15th Tee, we are 2 down with 4 to play.

All 4 of us hit bunkers off our drive. I'm in the right side bunker, fade, the others are in the left side, draw. I hit a pretty good shot to about 15 feet with a makable birdie putt. Matt hits hit to about 40 feet with a near impossible birdie putt. I watch as matt strokes his up the hill, along the ridge, down the hill with a left to right break. The ball hits the cup, spins to the back, freezes on the edge for about 5 seconds and drops in the cup. No one will ever make that putt again, but Matt the freaking luck box that he is makes it. I'm in total disbelief and make an awful stroke at my putt and we are 3 down, 3 to play.

Still super angry over that putt, I blast my PW over the green of the par 3 16th 140 yards, and make another double boogie. Match over, we loose, I am so pissed I think about which club i need the least so i can break over me knee.

I didn't break any, but I did blow it big time. Even on the 12th hole, and I go 9 over for the last 7 holes to shoot 81. Such a let down. Everything was going so well, and I just fell apart. Story of my golf game this year.

Going through another Hip-Hop stage

2007-06-27T08:39:00.000-04:00

So after getting a little bored of my regular rotation of Ben Harper, John Butler, Marley, and G-Love, i dove into the old cd books looking for some new tunes. After flipping through the books for awhile I decided to pump it up a bit and loaded up the classic hip-hop. None of that new crunk shit, or a bunch of guys yelling "what, what". Started off the Redman's second album "The Bricks". A classic from 1996. Redman has always been a favourite of mine. Smooth ryhmes, solid beats, and hard lyrics. The classic on this album which most people probably have heard is "Who's in love with Maryjane". I think the title speaks for itself as to what the songs about. Probably my favourite of the album is "Pick it up".

Second disk I chose was Method Man, the preqeul. This was Methods latest album that came out about 5 years ago. Method Man is one of the premiere artists that didn't go completely mainstream. Although he reached huge popularity, he maintained his hardcore lyrics and beats from the days of The Wu-Tang Clan. He never sold out to the pop rap you hear now a days. He also has the most unique voice out of every rapper, very contagious you could say. It's raspy but smooth, with a slight NY accent. Love the Method Man, perfect compliment to Redman.

Lastly I inserted probably the best Album of all time. Notorious B.I.G's Ready to Die. In my mind there is no doubt this is the best album of all time, although some would argue one of Tupacs album is better. I'm not a Tupac fan, but I love Biggie. No one ever has rapped like he did. Every single line, verse, word just seemed to fit perfectly togeather. He always sounds like he is telling a story and you can understand every word, hear every ryhme. Pure genious.

Needless to say I'm loving the new rotation for now. Sometimes I find myself having to turn down the volume when I pull up to stop lights for fear of looking like a loser. Not to many White kids in Denalis rolling down the street blasting "The Ten Crack Commandments". But is does bring me back to the good old days of cruising with my friends, Murray, Mike, Erik, Boss, you know the regulars. Just loving life.

Also thinking of picking up the Kris Kross album. Love how the break down.

I really sucked this weekend

2007-06-25T13:59:00.001-04:00

Wow, was i absolutly horrible on the links this weekend. Not sure what to credit it to, but I think it had a little to do with being over tired. I didn't really have the energy to play both days.

Saturday was a train wreck. I think i was in the mid 90's, which is totally offsides for me. I won't bore you with all the details of how bad it was except to mention one hole. #16 basically sums up the whole round. Off the tee I hit the large headge (for the first time ever) that runs alongside the tee box. It bounced over the hedge and into this stupid long grass, much worse then fescue. It took me 3 shots to advance the ball 3 feet out of it. Then I hit a 5 iron to the top of the dog leg. 5 shots to get past the white tees (maybe 15 yards). Made a 11 on the hole and basically wanted to give up golf.

Sunday wasn't much better. I truly hacked my way around the course to another 83. My putting was almost good yesterday, rimming out quite a few putts. I was 41 on the front, and with 3 doubles and a boogie, with 1 birdie, i was 42 on the back. My driver was good most of the time. Now that i think of it, i reverted back to my old self on sunday. I was hitting the wrong irons all day. Instead of getting aggressive with one less club and swining through the ball, i was trying to guide in full iron shots leaving me right on almost every shot. It's to bad, cause I was finally starting to play well last weekend and on tuesday at Firerock.

My sister, who just happenned to start her own blog, told me to start actually talking about entertainment stuff sometimes. So starting tomorrow I am going to make a concentrated effort to bring up some t.v., movies, or music that i'm into and see how i do as a reviewer.

Check out her blog - http://funfashionfood.blogspot.com/. So far it only has some recipes and a brief introduction. Her page will be written far better then mine (shes in PR) and anything she has to say about food is worth while. She's a great cook and loves all types of food. For the ladies, i'm sure she'll have some great stuff about shopping and fashion, she's a perennial all-star when it comes to that.

Wooden Sticks was the big winner

2007-06-18T07:49:00.000-04:00

After an early morning rise (4:00 Am), Toast, Matt and I were off to play what turned out to be one of the most enjoyable courses ever. Wooden Sticks in North Toronto. Just standing on the first tee before breakfast looking out at the Church Peu (SP?) Bunkers I knew we were in for a special round. We could hardly wait to get this round under way.

After some breakfast, a few practice shots at the range, and some warm up putting we were on our way to the 5th hole for the shotgun start. There was a tourny in the afternoon, so to provide the most amount of public play there was a full 144 golfer shotgun. No big deal, but it did cause a 6 hour round. But the excitement of playing this course was to much for me and I didn't really care about the wait. Even driving out to the 5th hole I was amazed by the beauty of the hole we drove by, especially te augusta replicas, I recognized these ones instantly.

I'm not going to try and make a huge desctription of this course, see Now On the Tee for that, Matt did a great job, worthy of a Golf Digest.

Heres how my round went. I started off very poorly. Dropping a triple boogie on the first and a double boogie on the second hole. But then I started to turn it around. Made a few pars in a row. There was a 230 yard par 3 where I really started to turn things around. Being the first off the tee, I hit a perfect 3 iron that bounced just on front of the green and rolled almost all the way to the back of this massive green. I hit a nice lag putt to about 3 feet and drained the second for a solid par.

I think i had one more boogie on the next hole and pared out the rest of the front.

Starting on the 10th tee I actually started to play much better. The 10th had a fairway that had to be atleast 150 yards wide, no joke. On the tee we were joking what a loser you would have to be to miss this fairway. Cal, oops I mean Toast and Matt both hit very safe shots, which i commented on. Then I stepped up and managed to hit my ball even further left and long to miss the fairway, yes, I'm a loser. I ended up 3 putting for a boogie.

The 11th was a tough par 3, the Postage Stamp at troon. I hit a beautiful 3/4 PW to about 15 feet left of the pin and procedeed to drain the putt for birdie, first of the day for me. On the next holoe i boogied and followed that up with a birdie on the long 508 yard par 5. I hit a monster drive on this hole leaving myself only 187 yards to the pin.

The next hole I remember was the #17 from St. Andrews, the Road hole. I hit one of my best shots of the day on this hole. I think this hole was 480 down wind par 4. Very tough. I blasted a huge drive to 200 yards, but I was way left in the short fescue. Luckly my ball was sitting up a little so I was able to still attack the pin. From my angle the pin was sitting right behind a trecherous pot bunker, I decided to attack anyways. With a 5 iron in hand i put a perfect swing on it. While in the air I yell "Whatch how freaking good this is gonna be." To the laughter of Toast and Cal, the ball soared just over the bunker landing on the green, but rolling just off. I hit a touch chip to about 2 feet and drained the putt for par. One of the best pars of my life.

Of course I have to mention #17 which was a replica from the TPC Sawgrass. Very intimidating, but actually not that hard. Funny thing is, everyone in our group hit the green and made par. I was the closest to going in the water. I really attacked the pin and went slightly long stopping the ball about a foot away from going over the back. Made a very nice chip to a foot and tapped in for par.

The 18th was a replica of 18 at St. Andrews. Again faced with the largest fairway ever (joined with number 10) I blast a deep long drive, way left. From here I hit a 9 iron from 147 to about 8 feet. Just missed the birdie putt, made par, and I was in with 39. Extremely happy with this.

The next best hightlight was playing #12 and #13 from augusta as our last holes of the. The three of us were all playing matches and just happened to work out that I was 2 up on matt and 2 down to toast going into these holes. The par 185 yard #3 (12 augusta) was a very difficult shot. I was hitting my irons perfectly so I actually thought I could get a nice one in there. Hit a beautiful 6 iron to about 8 feet just right of the pin. Matt had missed his par putt leaving me 2 putts to close him out. Cal missed his birdie putt giving me a chance to extend the match. I read the line perfectly, hit a nice putt, and just missed leaving the ball leaning on the edge of the cup. Oh well, atleast I beat Matt.

The last hole was a beauty. It looked exactly like the #13 at augusta, scoreboard and all. I tried to cream a drive and hit it out of bounds left. After Matt and Cal hit little baby drives, I stepped up to hit my third. I blasted this one for my longest of the day coming to rest only 57 yards infront of both of Matt and Cal, fuck, i mean toast. With a chance of still making par, i hit a safe 5 iron from 200, but found myself at the very back of the large green, neading to chip in for par. It wasn't meant to be, i hit a horrible chip and ended up 2 putting for a double bogey. That leaft me with a disapointing 44 on the front 9 to shoot 83 overall. Although this as a good score for never playing the course before and for the level of difficulty, I'm sure I could have easily been under 80, i was playing that well. Except for those first 2 holes, i was solid all day.

Anyways, the day was pefect, the golf was amazing, and I can't wait to go back again.

Exciting weekend and a few days coming up

2007-06-13T12:54:00.000-04:00

With the Mens Invitational at our golf club this weekend Cal, Matt, and I have decided to travel to a different course for the day. After some attempts to get on East Aurora in buffalo and Legends on the niagara in Fort Erie failed, I was able to convince the boys to look into paying to play at a nicer course to treat ourselves for the day. After much deliberation we settled on a course I've been looking to play for a few years. Wooden Sticks just outside toronto is our final destination. I believe this course opened up about 5 or 6 years ago. The deal with the course is all the holes are replicas of famous ones through-out North America, maybe some from around the world, not sure exactly. I don't know which holes are represented at the course other then the famous Island green at the TPC Sawgrass. With a 7:30 AM tee time we are getting started early at 4AM to make the 2 hour drive. I'll be tired as hell, but the round will be very much worth it.

Then on tuesday next week we head to St. Thomas Golf and Country Club. This is a round through our club that has a deal with other Stanley Thompson courses. I've been told this course ranks in the top 50 for Canada and should be another great day. I just hope I play well at both courses. It's always a shame to play such nice courses and come away wishing you had played better, or knowing that you could of.