AT&T National

Been going to Philadelphia a lot recently. Concert, baseball game, and movie last week alone.

AT&T National, by chriswellner

This week it's the AT&T National Tournament, held for the first time at the Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square (15 miles from center city). Closest thing to homefield as it gets on the PGA Tour. Tomorrow I'll be following local favorites Jim Furyk and Sean O'Hair around the course; they tee-off in subsequent groups around 1:00PM.

Don't question Furyk.

Free bird

It's my favorite time of year for golf. The sun stays up late, and the attendant at Clayton Park usually leaves the course unguarded by 7:00PM.

I pay my fees there frequently enough to feel great about occassionally walking on after hours for a few complimentary holes. Carrying only an iron, a pitching wedge, and a putter makes things go a little quicker, and playing just three clubs has a remarkable clarifying effect on my golf game. I never hit that five iron so well as when it's the only option for shots of 120+ yards.

Yesterday I striped whitie about 175 yards off the first tee, drawing the ball a bit at the steeply uphill green. This set up a good look at the flag with the 50° wedge.....knocked it eight feet from the cup.....drained the putt. Free birdie.

The People's Champion Reigns Again

Snowboarding and golf

Davis Love III does not strike me as the snowboarding type. He seems like a real square, even for a middle-aged professional golfer. Alas, his politician haircut and hyper-white triple suffix moniker belie an avid snowboarder. And on second thought, golf and snowboarding have a lot in common.

I tried snowboarding for the first time this winter. It was not pretty. A bit overconfident in my innate sideways sliding abilities, I spent every ounce of energy falling down the first run before whimpering back to the rental shop to trade for a pair of skis.

My big problem was balance, or lack thereof. I never got a feel for the proper weight distribution that is required to stay afoot (aboard?). The fear of tumbling face-forward down the hill had me repeatedly favoring my back foot, causing the board to spin out in front.

A few days later I was in the backyard chipping golf balls. It immediately occurred to me that there was a correlation between my catastrophic snowboarding experience and the havoc I typically wreak on the golf course.

Golf is a game of stability and repetition, and every swing requires a firm athletic stance (opposite to my goofy-footed snowboard position). I typically plant my feet haphazardly, hunch over the ball, and sway my hips leaving all the weight on my back foot. This ugly approach yields frequent shanks, gouges, and listless slices. Golf wipeout.

Flex in the knees, weight off the heels, and a subtle shift to the front foot during the downswing. I think the snowboard analogy will provide a firmer foundation for swinging the clubs more consistently this year.

I've hastily sworn so many times to never golf again (usually after a mental, if not physical, traumatizing). I might even give snowboarding a second chance someday.

Good start

The first hole at Clayton Park Golf Course (nine holes for $10 on the weekend) is marked 258 yards on the card, plays straight uphill with trees on both sides of the "fairway," i.e. the area between the tree-lines - because the whole course is evenly mowed (or not mowed, as the case may be). Sunday afternoon weather was perfect; bright, fresh, spring conditions. The course was crowded for March.

I teed off last in a group of three, stiff-arming a low draw with the 9° Callaway driver to about 65 yards from the elevated green. It had been a couple of days since the last rain and the ground was still plenty hydrated. Previous experience attempting full swings with my 60° wedge in this situation (especially with soggy turf) have yielded exclusively calamitous results, so a little 2/3 gap wedge it was. And was it ever - I couldn't see the ball land, but the early report was good.

When I got the top of the hill (walking only at Clayton International) my Titleist 1 was sitting pretty with only about three feet of shaggy green between it and the cup. Despite a scream of "Fore!" from someone teeing off in the group behind us at the exact moment I was attempting my birdie putt, the ball found the back of the cup and for the first fleeting moment of the season I grinned, "Par? What par?"

Remember to forget

One of the paramount characteristics common to great poker players is an acute faculty for recollection. Poker is a game played with incomplete information, and the ability to retain data (i.e. e.g. - what types of hands an opponent has played in a particular way) is an unquantifiable asset to any player. Inconspicuously, however, the sharp ability to forget is a crucial component to a well-functioning memory.

AN ILLUSTRATION FROM LAST WEEK'S PGA TOURNAMENT
Playing at Torrey Pines near San Diego, local Rickie Fowler was a crowd favorite. He is 21 years old, and facing a short putt the commentators raised this question:

"What is it about youth that makes those short ones so easy to knock into the back of the cup?"

The answer is simple. Young golfers lack a memory bank of missed putts, manifesting in their apparent fearlessness. At a farther end of the golf psyche, longtime pros are known to develop "the yips" when attempting easy putts. This condition can virtually paralyze a golfer, unwilling to initiate a backswing from the set position behind the ball.

Is poker, or life, so different? Recollection of tough beats can reduce a robust winning strategy to an anemic frailty. Dwelling on times when it all went wrong is certain to perpetuate such fate. Try to remember to forget.

Blind leading blind

There are none so blind as they that will not see.

Golf is a constant, shifting battle. Imagination versus ability. Ability versus execution. Execution versus repetition. Essentially, the conflict is within oneself.

I recently played with a friend, attempting to give some instruction along the way. Understand and simplify. A smooth swing plane that finds the ball at the bottom will produce consistency, if not power. The least productive technique is to hope and thrash. Even when a miracle occurs and whitie sails away perfectly, you've learned nothing. Ignorance breeds frustration, especially when it's all going wrong.

Of course, there's a multitude of variables in every shot, and no way of synthesizing good theory and technique without lots of practice. And golf is trying enough without the added irritation of unsolicited amateur advice. But a little conceptual coaxing can help break the chains of vexation when getting into the swing of things.

Skip ahead a week. Here I am, complacently hoping and thrashing. Left to my own devices, I will ignore all my own advice. Buried somewhere in my psyche is a nonplussed swing-coach-me, arms crossed, saying,

"You're making this a lot tougher than it has to be, bro."

Preview:

Deutsche Bank Championship. Sunday. Mark it, dude.

Rookie mistake

I was very happy that Heath Slocum sank his twenty-five foot putt yesterday to win the Barclays Championship. He and co-leader Steve Stricker had hacked their way to the eighteenth green, each with a par-putt to shut out the group of players trailing by one stroke. Namely: Tiger Woods, Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington.

Why would an avid televised-golf enthusiast rejoice at the abortion of an epic playoff-to-be? Well, I neglected to record the program that followed the alloted PGA coverage time. Rookie mistake. So there I was, watching at around 11:00 last night, praying that one of these guys would make par so I could live with myself, not having missed a legendary sudden-death melee. The recording cut off a few seconds after Slocum's ball went in the cup. Whew.

The ticket

Discovered my Wilco ticket behind the storm door at the front entrance to the house yesterday. It was sitting there for a week, glad to finally have it in hand. On the horizon:

DEUTSCHE BANK CHAMPIONSHIP
Labor Day weekend, 2009. Heading up to Boston again to catch some playoff golf, third sequential year. Ticket's in the mail, jawohl!

AP Photo/Mary Schwalm

MUTEMATH FALL TOUR
The band is still together and will be touring to promote their overdue followup album, Armistice. They released an EP a few months ago with different versions of the single "Spotlight." Hoping the bulk of the new album is closer in spirit to the SON LUX remix than the standard issue (which shows up in the Twilight soundtrack). Regardless, I will be attending a concert; MuteMath is a must-see live performance.

Three laws

Ripped from a link in recent BLDGBLOG post, although I did encounter the third law cited in this year's Golf Digest equipment issue:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.



2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.



3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
   
   

These laws asserted by Sir Arthur Clarke, noted author (2001: A Space Odyssey), inventor, and futurist.

Big steps

Had another marvelous weekend in Grand Rapids. Weather was beautiful, got in thirty-six holes of golf, played some good poker at Soaring Eagle, observed sister's college graduation, ate well, travelled easy. ConGRaDulations LVD.

At San Chez tapas restaurant on Fulton Street. A fine, if not over-indulgent, meal. Here's shots of a few courses:

Heirloom tomato salad with goat cheese.

Stuffed poblano pepper with raspberry salsa. I want to eat this every day.

Ginger tuna.

Suffering

Last week Alex Cejka (chay-ka) was leading The Players Championship by five strokes going into the final round. He wore all black to the Stadium at TPC Sawgrass on Sunday, playing under a hot Florida sun, which prompted this statement from NBC commentator Johnny Miller,

"Well, you've got to suffer a little bit in golf."

Cejka shot seven-over-par, finishing in a tie for ninth place.

It reminded me of a PGA promo commercial from a couple years ago. It had a vintage motif; a stylistic montage of famous heartbreaking moments. The words "Love" and "Hate" emerged in vintage, sylistic fonts amongst the gut-wrenching medley. The last clip was a moment of pure crystalline redemption, Payne Stewart winning the 1999 U.S. Open, followed by the text,

Golf is a four letter word.

Yard golf