Golf Practice-zine Newsletter for January 2009

Happy New Year! Thanks for signing up to receive the January 2009 issue of the Newsletter. I completed my Great Western Golf Tour during the summer. What a fantastic experience! As I drove west across Canada, I managed to play and photograph 31 excellent golf courses. After 7 weeks, I moved into my new house to start my retirement and settle down. That process has taken a few months. Now I'm bursting to share news of my trip with you!

Here is the lineup for January:

Newsletter Contents:

1. Four Questions for the 2009 Pro Tour
2. Golf Tour - Top Ten Courses
3. Golf Tour - Lessons Learned
4. Pre-Season Preparations - 2009

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Four Questions for the 2009 Pro Tour

1. Will someone pass Tiger in the World Rankings as the Number One ranked golfer before Woods returns in 2009? If so, who will it be? Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Padraig Harrington or somebody else? I bet Phil will rise. My guess is he's still smoking over the Steve Williams comments -- Tiger/Steve apology or not.

2. Will John Daly behave himself and return to the PGA Tour in the US after his six month suspension?

3. Will Tiger return to action BEFORE the Masters in April(9-12)? If so, which tournament? My guess is yes, he returns and he plays Bayhill (Arnold Palmer's Invitational) in the last week of March. This gives Tiger a two-week warm-up to the major. It's in his home base of Orlando, he is defending champion and he loves Arnold Palmer (who doesn't).

4. How will Michelle Wie perform as a fully qualified tour pro on the LPGA Tour in 2009? Top ten; top twenty; or somewhere else? I vote at least a top ten money list finish. Whether she wins a tournament or not will be the real question.

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I've mentioned my retirement on July 2008 in this newsletter before. I also talked about the golf "tour" I took right after. From mid-August to October 7, 2008 I played 31 courses during my travels from Ottawa to Chemainus on Vancouver Island.

All of the courses were fantastic places to play. Picking my favourites is almost impossible. I'm still basking in the glow of that great trip and all the people and places I saw along the way. So here goes:

1. Banff Springs (Banff, Alberta)
2. Whirlpool (Niagra, Ontario)
3. Tobiano (Kamloops, BC)
4. Eagles Nest (Maple, Ontario)
5. Predator Ridge (Vernon, BC)
6. Clear Lake (Riding Mountain Nat'l Park, Manitoba)
7. Granite Hills (Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba)
8. Dakota Dunes (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
9. Heritage Pointe (DeWinton, Alberta)
10. Deer Valley (Lumsden, Saskatchewan)

Keeping the list to ten, well I just couldn't do it. Here are six more favourites in no particular order:

Honourable Mention:

• Stewart Creek (Canmore, Alberta)
• Taboo (Gravenhurst, Ontario)
• Katepwa (Indian Head, Saskatchewan)
• Wolf Creek (Ponoka, Alberta)
• Sirocco (DeWinton, Alberta)
• Copper Creek (Kleinburg, Ontario)
• The Sands (Gravenhurst, Ontario)

I took photos of every one of these courses. I've put them in albums on Facebook and linked them to my website. Check them out and you'll see what fabulous golf there is all across Canada. There is not one of these 31 courses that I wouldn't love to play over and over again. The one regret I have about the Tour is that I could only play each track once.

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I had done some Tour pre-planning of course, but I largely just jumped in the car and drove. I want to do more tours, so I paid attention along the way. The best way to learn is the hard way.

Lessons from My Golf Tour

1. Places I didn't play, but wished I had:

• Black Bear Ridge, Belleville, Ontario
• Bigwin Island, Lake of Bays, Ontario
• Rocky Crest, Mactier, Ontario
• Elk Ridge Resort, Waskesiu Lake, Saskatchewan
• Waskesiu, Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan
• Blackfoot, Edmonton Alberta
• Jasper Park Lodge, Jasper, Alberta
• Grey Wolf, Invermere, BC

2. Course Selection

My guides were primarily word of mouth from local golfers/pros/vendors, recommendations from friends, and the Score Magazine Top 100 list. Best was the local golfer recommendations. You get reasonably priced courses, places you can play and tracks that are often not widely known (hidden gems) this way over the more published sources.

This made for awkward travel scheduling sometimes -- I drove for six hours in order to play a 4.5 hour round at Clear Lake in Manitoba, for example. To play courses I really wanted to play, I made sacrifices-- I stayed an extra day in Winnipeg just to play Granite Hills and to accommodate Clear Lake in my schedule.

I fell in love with Stanley Thompson-designed golf courses. I really like his style. If I found a course by ST, I tried to play it (Whirlpool, The Sands, Clear Lake, Banff Springs are all Stanley Thompson courses). I missed some of Stanley's best work when I bypassed Bigwin Island, Waskesiu and especially Jasper Park Lodge (reputed to be his very best). Sometimes hindsight is 20-20, but time, money and logistics pre-empted me from playing them all.

Cost was a factor, but I never rejected a course because of the fees I had to pay. I paid fees ranging from $45 to $190 per round.

3. Scheduling and Timing

My Tour started in August and lasted until October. This turned out perfect by accident, not by any pre-planning. If I had to plan another Tour, I would pick these months for the following reasons:

• weather - best chances for good weather. Heat is less intense past the June-July boiling points of summer. Summer holidays are over for most people and many golfers are winding down for their season.

• end of season - many courses are charging "off-peak" prices per round and offering discounts for pro shop goods in order to reduce inventories for year end.

• timing of rounds are best in early morning for Monday-Wednesday when courses experience their slowest times and at twilight periods in the afternoons. Fees are lower, you miss the crowds on course and the earlier starts make time for post-round travel to the next city easier.

• cart golf under the above scheduling/timing criteria is more affordable and advisable if you expect to pack a lot of golf into a short amount of time. I packed a camera which meant I spent as much time taking pictures as taking golf shots. The cart kept me from slow play and allowed me to stay fresh for a round-a day pace during certain parts of the tour.

• practice - allow time for more practice between rounds. The Tour is NOT a way to improve your handicap. I seldom had time to practice prior to playing. I sometimes forced myself to take a practice day to focus on my game. Commuting did not permit that very often. When by myself, I was often hustled into gaps in the play schedule as courses seldom take bookings for singles (and never on weekends. Sometimes, I would start to hit on the range, only to be yanked into a group to fill out a threesome or to be inserted where a "no-show" occurred. After all, the Tour means you are playing a course you've never seen before and are only going to play once in your life, so you aren't likely going to play to your handicap unless you have your 'A' game.

• play with locals or members whenever you can. When you're new to a course, a playing partner that knows the course is a huge plus. I had lots of help; I played with over 50 people that I met along the way and they were really great, even helping me select good spots to take pictures during the round.

4. Navigational Aids

Take an in-car navigational device with you. If you don't have a car with built-in navigation (I don't), a Garmin GPS navigation tool will be a life-saver. Mine saved me days of time (literally) in terms of finding accommodations, restaurants, gas stations and points of interest, not to mention golf courses. I bought mine on a whim, two days before I started the tour. It was the best $300 investment I've ever made. The female voice navigation (I called her Wanda) gave turn-by-turn directions that were very accurate. It was not flawless, but I still love and cherish Wanda with all my heart. An indispensible Tour aid.

5. Financial

I retired, so my severance package held me in good stead financially for my trip. Good thing. Next Tour will be different. Cost averages: $100 per night for motel, $100 per round of golf, $110 in gas for every 1,000 kilometers driven. Who knew about fuel prices? I paid as high as $1.42 per litre (yikes)!

Next time I might look for a Tour sponsor -- to have a sponsor would be a dream within a dream. More on this topic on the website and in newsletters to come.

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Prepare yourself! What's your pre-season preparation strategy for 2009?

Here are my tips to get you thinking:

Get a fitness program:

• start stretching
• start walking
• start exercises
• lift light weights
• strengthen your core

Work on swing fundamentals

• swing aids
• ball striking at an indoor or outdoor range

Get your swing analyzed

• video your swing
• swing analysis software
• visit your pro

More detailed treatment of these pre-season preparations are on my website or on the web. Check them out. I have a section on on Golf Fitness at the website, with examples of core and flexibility exercises. The Golf Swing Help section talks about Swing Mechanics and there are some sample videos under Golf Swing Instruction. I'm currently building content on Golf Swing Aids to detail some tools that help you groove proper swing fundamentals and assess your progress. Check it out later in January.

My season will start in March, so my pre-season prep starts NOW.

Spring will be here soon. My journey to long term, continuous improvement has to get going. I'll have more detailed tips in the February newsletter. Until then, good luck.

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