Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

Bogey’s concern that I wasn’t writing often enough about golf caused me to search for golf blogs. I’ve linked three on the right under “Golf Stuff”.

It’s difficult to really sit down and write about golf without being directly involved with what’s going on out on the tours, either playing or reporting. I watch Golf Central fairly regularly, but unless you follow closely, you can’t really develop the insight necessary to write about things well.

For example, there’s a discussion here about David Duval’s misfortunes. How can any of us really have a clue about why his career has sunk so low? He’s not in golf news because he’s not playing. There really isn’t any other forum for getting information.

Those interested in golf should peruse these other blogs. For my part, I’ll try to get on-topic with my own game!

And John Daly’s still playing well in San Diego!

Bogey is giving me grief for the plethora of political postings and the dearth of golf topics. I must comply.

John Daly is 3 under at the Buick. That is more exciting than any of the other stories at Torrey Pines as far as I’m concerned. I’m a Daly fan. He’s been a yo-yo over the years, but it is thrilling to watch someone built like him take that big long swing and send the ball 320 yards. He can then take a wedge and make the ball dance.

His all-out approach to the game has given him Major wins, and big numbers. More than once he’s walked away from a green and written “18” on the scorecard. But when he’s on, he’s a joy to watch.

If ever I got the opportunity to play in a Pro-Am, Daly would be high on my list of partners. I hope the TV coverage actually includes some of his play this time around, but with Tiger in the field, it won’t happen unless they’re in the same group.

Gary Van Sickle has an article in this month’s Golf Magazine about Bill Murray and his play at Pebble Beach. Gary complains that the cameras follow Ray Romano and Kevin James instead of Murray.

I watched today, and those two were featured prominantly, along with cameo appearances by every CBS star and exec in the field. It was pretty much a four-hour ad for their prime time lineup. I didn’t see Murray. I checked to see if he was in the field, and couldn’t find his name. So much for checking if CBS would follow his advice.

I enjoy watching Bill Murray on the course. He is a true golfer, and enjoys himself when he plays. The article I’ve linked explains it pretty well. He’s first-rate, and I hope he missed the tournament for reasons other than illness.

Well, the weekend finally ended. I played two rounds of golf and spent the remaining time with the in-laws at their annual Super Bowl Party. Actually, very few actually sat and watched the game, but there was a lot of drinking, singing, and conversing going on. To my knowledge, nobody even saw the “Janet Jackson thing.”

I played pretty badly. Pasatiempo was fun, but overpriced. I had one birdie, two pars, and a complete variety of other scores. The fairways were soft, and all distance came from carry, which made it play longer than the 6500 yards listed for the back tees. Greens were very deceptive, as you would expect from Alister MacKenzie. I sympathize with players at the Masters. Many times I putted downhill, thinking it was uphill, and left myself an even longer return putt.

I played the Bayonet Course in Seaside Sunday. It is an excellent course. I shot 97 for net 81. I placed third in my flight. There were a handful of scratch golfers in the tournament who were also trying to qualify for the AT&T Pebble Beach. The lowest gross score was 71, and lowest net: 71. The greens were tough to read here also. I played this course regularly 25 years ago, and think I could score well once I adjusted to the greens with some experience, but the breaks are really hard to see…until you putt!

Tomorrow I fly out to Santa Cruz, California, for the In-Law Super Bowl Weekend. I don’t follow the NFL closely any more, and the Cowboys and Packers aren’t in it, so I don’t have a lot of interest in the game. The family, however, is a different story. They keep a running weekly football pool going through email, and Mother-in-Law-Dearest is fanatic. She knows the teams and players far better than I did when I paid attention to the NFL. So they’ll all be partying and whooping and hollering.

I’m taking my golf clubs with me.

I was stationed at the Presidio of Monterey 25 years ago. I played at the Fort Ord golf courses many weekends. The Bayonet Course was prime, and the Blackhorse Course was fairly new, but growing in very nicely. I think I paid $5 a round. Now that Fort Ord is closed, the city of Seaside owns the courses. Bayonet is used in a Nationwide Tour event (I think it needs to go back to being the Hogan Tour), and Blackhorse is now also first-rate. I’ve signed up for the Super Bowl Tournament Sunday morning, and am looking forward to seeing the Bayonet Course again.

For Saturday, I considered playing Pebble Beach again, but the green fee is now up to $380–$20 per hole. I paid $25 to play it back in 1977. I also considered Spanish Bay and Spyglass. But I just didn’t want to shell out $250 without being on the course with Dad, Birdie, or Bogey. But there is another I’ve wanted to play for a long time.

I’ve become interested in golf course architecture. I enjoy looking at how different designers take a piece of property and shape a course into something that make sense. Not everyone can do it. If you start with a flat piece of bare ground, just about anyone can envision a layout. But take a property with hills and trees, streams and undergrowth, and it requires a special understanding. I also keep track of the courses I play, and want to try those designed by the best. So far, I’ve played courses designed by A.W. Tillinghast, Arnold Palmer, Bruce Devlin, Donald Ross, Frank Hummel, Gary Player, Greg Norman, Herman Hackbarth, Jack Burke, Jack Neville, John Bredemus, Pete Dye, Press Maxwell, Ralph Plummer, Rees Jones, Robert Lawrence, Robert Trent Jones, and a host of others with not-so-famous resumes.

My favorite is Donald Ross. Of the more recent designers, I enjoyed Player’s and Norman’s courses. It is interesting to see how different people approach design of 18 holes differently. One whose courses I haven’t yet played is Alister MacKenzie. He designed Augusta National and Cypress Point, and I doubt I’ll ever get the opportunity to play those. But Saturday I’ll play his design at Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz. It is rated as one of the 100 best in America.

I’ll finish by trying to stay awake during the Super Bowl. I’m sure there will be plenty of beer. I just hope I don’t snore too loudly!

As my sons were growing up, I insisted they participate in at least one team sport and one individual sport. Team sports give you the chance to work as a group, learning how synergism works. It teaches you to do your own job well without worrying about what others are doing. If everyone on the team takes that approach, the team does well regardless of individual talent.

Individual sports give you the opportunity to learn self-reliance and self-discipline. When you walk onto a wrestling mat or tennis court or golf course, it’s just you on your own. You had better be prepared. Nobody can pick up any slack you leave. Dedication can overcome talent. I’ve seen it happen many times. In fact, my oldest son was the least athletically talented of my boys, yet he was the one who played college football and baseball. He even wrestled his freshman year.

All three played football, baseball, and wrestled. While growing up, they also got a few seasons of basketball and soccer in, and tried tennis and golf on their own.

Along the way they had some good coaches and some bad ones, some who were good teachers and some who weren’t. Fortunately, they had a father who was involved to help them understand the difference. I coached a lot of baseball, and generally tried not to coach my own sons. When they had a season with a coach I didn’t think understood coaching, I made sure they played for me the following year. They suffered through a year with me as their basketball coach, and next year played for someone who knew what they were doing!

I had the good fortune of coaching junior varsity baseball at USAFA. It was a wonderful experience, and I learned a lot. In particular, I learned what college scouts are looking for. I later had the good fortune to get to coach high school baseball at a private school in Texas. It was a “part-time” position, and I still worked my regular job. If I were to calculate my hourly wages for coaching, it would have been less than $5 an hour. Regardless, I put the money right back into the program, along with another chunk of cash in the form of equipment, grass seed, fertilizer, and balls. Worth every cent. I think the boys got something from me.

What Bogey talks about in his post is very common. I replaced a basketball coach who had the baseball team as a sideline. He was (and is) a very good basketball coach. But he doesn’t have a baseball heart. The boys Bogey played with have a similar coach–one with no golf heart.

Coaching golf in high school is nothing like being the football coach or basketball coach. Practices are a time to work on specific areas of the game, and the coach doesn’t need to be a PGA professional. If a player wants to play, he’ll find the right swing instructor. A high school golf coach needs to know how to think his way around a course, because that’s what the players need to learn. They probably already have the skills, but they need to learn how to make the most of that talent.

The biggest failure in our public schools is exactly this, and it is the most important lesson a coach can offer–and one nobody else on the faculty really can. Coaches teach life. Be one if you can.

Today was one of those days. It started off well, but ended with 91. My swing completely deserted me. I got a bit frustrated, but finally reminded myself that the score wasn’t why I played. I played because I enjoy golf. Things went a little better after that.

Really, today was not a good day at the course in general. I am the Tournament Chairman for our local association, but only because I wasn’t around when the voting took place. For the last year I’ve been on the receiving end of every complaint by anyone who felt they were mistreated in pairing, didn’t like the format of a tounament, didn’t like playing in a group other than their regulars, or objected to playing from a different set of tees.

I thought I was through with the job, but had to furnish a tournament listing for this year to the course manager so he could set up the schedule. I simply gave him a copy of last year’s with dates changed to reflect the new calendar. He asked if they were all on the fourth weekend of each month because one group has the second weekend, another group has the third weekend, etc. I asked myself why I even bothered if he already knew which dates needed to be scheduled!

It’s really quite pointless, regardless. The association is made up of the same guys who play every Saturday and Sunday. They have a “blitz,” which is a computer-generated teams event. Everyone puts $7 in the pot, and plays with any group they want. While they’re playing, the course staff puts the names into a program which picks teams of three or four players based on handicap. You don’t know who your teammates are until you finish playing.

Now, this is a group who complain about paying $8 for half a cart. They want to roll the ball around on every shot to get a good lie. And they just want tournaments to be very similar to the Blitz. They don’t like individual play, or even two-man teams. Scrambles are favored. They don’t like playing the back tees because it’s too long–6500 yards!

I like match play, and individual stroke play. I like to depend on my own ability. I’ve never won playing in the Blitz. When I play well, the partners I get don’t When I don’t play well, it doesn’t matter what my partners do. I got tired of simply donating seven bucks.

So, I played alone this morning. The guys I play with Sunday mornings didn’t show up today, as one or two occasionally do. So, I played the back tees, and finished in three hours.

I didn’t play well. I didn’t have a playing partner to tell lies with. I hit some really bad shots.

But I got a few pars, missed a few birdie putts, got out of the sand well, and even had one or two decent drives. It was golf, and I enjoyed my time in the cool January air.

It was golf. Life is good.