Tag Archives: par for the course

Taking Your Golf Lessons On To The Course

Golf lessons will typically take place on the driving range, where balls can be hit successively in order to practise and hone your game. This is ideal for perfecting the different types of shots, learning about distance, and being able to do this at your own pace.

The game itself is of course played on a course, and after the initial practise it’s here that the fun really starts!

Dukes Meadows Golf Club has a superb nine-hole course, with fantastic greens, great scenery and some challenging holes – it’s perfect for beginners and experienced players alike.

Many golfers are nervous when stepping out onto the first tee for the first time, so an on-course lesson can be great to calm those nerves, learn about the etiquette of the sport, and be guided on which clubs to use and when.

It’s the perfect way to make the transition from the driving range to the course, and it won’t be long before you’re knocking shots off your score with every round…

Please click here for my teaching hours and price list.

Golf Courses Suffering In America

Phil Mickelson is the beneficiary of an over-populated golf course market in Arizona.

The golf star and his agent recently purchased Sanctuary golf Course in Scottsdale for a cool $2.2 million. Not a bad price considering five years ago that course was probably valued near $20 million.

Golf clubs all over Arizona, from Superstition Mountain in Gold Canyon to Seven Canyons in Sedona, have been hurt. But the economic fallout is especially noticeable in Scottsdale, the pinnacle of the Valley’s sprawling golf landscape of close to 200 courses.

There are far too many golf courses for the metropolitan Phoenix market, an InsightLand and Investments partner who has sold golf courses for 25 years. Mississippi has just over 200 golf courses in the entire state. In metropolitan Phoenixalone, there are 200 courses. Granted, there are more people in Phoenix than in the entire Magnolia state, but you wonder how they ever thought they would be able to support all 200 plus golf courses.

Vandalism Delays Start Of KLM Open

Overnight Vandalism delayed the start of the KLM Open near Amsterdam , several of the greens had been vandalised at the Hilversumsche Golf Club, of which Simon Khan and Simon Dyson are currently leading.

The putting surfaces on the fourth, fifth, sixth and ninth holes were dug up, leading to a 45 minute delay on the opening day as greenkeeping staff went about repairing the damage done by the vandals.

Play will still be possible on the affected putting surfaces with the repaired areas of the greens being treated as areas of Ground Under Repair under the normal rules of golf.

The Director of the KLM Championship Daan Slooter said: “Early this morning we ascertained damage to four of the greens here at Hilversumsche.

“At this moment we do not know who caused the damage. All has been restored and the tournament will resume.

“For this evening and the rest of the tournament we have increased security substantially.

“I’m very disappointed for all the people here at the club who worked so hard over the past few days, through challenging weather conditions, to ensure the course was in playable condition.

“However, having said that, the same professionalism of the greenkeepers has ensured that the damage has been repaired so the tournament can go ahead.

 

Great Golf Courses | Number 3 | Augusta National

Augusta has to be one of my favourite courses of all time, it hosts the second biggest Major of the year ‘The Masters’. Every year when it comes around you can feel the excitement growing around all golf fans as it’s the sign that spring is here and the golf season is a about to get underway again!

Augusta is the most picturesque golf course in the world with its amazing array of flowers and shrubs. Augusta is known best for it’s fast and sloping greens which can make the best players in the world look foolish at times, and it’s usually the person that handles the greens the best that goes on to win.

The course has had to be extended over the years to cope with the advances of technology as it was playing a little bit to easy at one stage, but its back to its toughest again now stretching over 7,400 yards.  The course has 10 par 4’s, 4 par 3’s and 4 par 5’s.

Past Winners include:  Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Tiger Woods,and  Phil Mickleson.

Nick Price and Greg Norman share the course record which stands at 63.

The mystery of how Bobby Jones and course designer Alister MacKenzie  first met — and how Jones arrived at picking MacKenzie to design Augusta National Golf Club — has never been fully explained.

The golfer and architect created their masterpiece in the early 1930s, and it is the center of attention each spring as the home of the Masters Tournament.

 

The Basic Rules Of Golf

Learning to play golf is not just about picking up a club and hitting a ball – far from it. Of course fundamentally that’s the physical aspect of the game, using one of a variety of clubs to hit a ball into a hole a few hundred yards away, but there are also rules and ettiquette to follow too.

The beauty of golf is that although you can play against one, two or three other people at once, you are also all playing against the course, and so every course you play on adds a totally different dimension to every game of golf that you play.

A standard golf course is made up of 18 holes (although Dukes Meadows Golf Club, where I am based, is a challenging nine-hole course, although you can always go round twice!). The first shot on each hole is usually hit from a tee, in an area where different markers indicate whereabouts you should hit the ball from. There are separate markers for gents, ladies, and also professionals.

The course will more than likely be covered in hazards which you will need to try and avoid hitting – for example bunkers, rough or longer grass, and the dreaded water. The place you want to be is the fairway – closely-mown grass that usually runs length-ways down the centre of the hole that you’re playing.

James Irons Golf

Try And Stay Out Of The Bunker!

The hole itself will be on the green – a section of even more closely-mown grass  – where you will look to putt the ball home. You can see the hole from a distance represented by a flag with the number of the hole usually written on it. The flags are usually yellow or red.

So your aim is to get from the tee to the hole in as few shots as possible – the combined total of shots that you take makes up your total score, and so if you take less shots than your opponent, you win the game – simple!

There are a number of golfing terms regarding scoring that even if you’re not familiar with playing golf, you probably would have heard of. These usually refer to the number of shots you have taken on each hole either side of the par for the hole. Holes are usually par 3, 4 or 5 – these are based on a combination of difficulty and length, and you are aiming to take a minimum of that number of shots per hole. The par for the course is the par for each hole multiplied by the number of holes on the course.

If you take one shot less than the par of the hole to get your ball down, this is called a birdie. If you take one shot more than the par of the hole, this is called a bogey. Please see a full list of these terms below.

Albatross: Three shots less than par
Eagle: Two shots less less than par
Birdie: One shot less less than par
Bogey: One shot more than par
Double bogey: Two shots more than par
Triple bogey: Three shots more than par

At the end of the game, your total score is balanced against the par for the course. So if the par for the course is 70, and you shoot 68, you are 2 under-par for the round. If you shoot 80, you are ten over par. When playing enough times, you will eventually gain a handicap – effectively the average number of shots you take to go around above par. This enables you to play on equal terms against the most experienced golfer.

As a professional, I don’t have a handicap at all, so if I played against someone with a ’10’ handicap, 10 shots are deducted from their overall score in order to make the competition fair for ow you were able to play against the course on the day for your ability.

Golf has a great tradition of sportsmanship, and often honesty is required in terms of admitting how many shots you have taken per hole – only in major tournaments will you find a referee or umpire.

Once the ball is in play you should not touch it with anything other than the club, and only then when taking a shot. This can be particularly tricky in the long grass or sand! If you land in the water you can choose a new ball and take a ‘drop’ in line with where the ball entered the water, but no nearer the hole.

There are a lot of other rules to follow but generally what you think seems right will be right.

In terms of ettiquette – it’s best to try and remember two things: respect the course and respect your fellow golfers.

For example you should never distract a fellow player as he takes a shot, try and remember to repair the pitch and look after / rake the bunkers, and also be careful when walking across the greens – it is considered disrespectful to walk across the path that your player needs to take to putt the ball into the hole.

I hope that gives you a good idea as an introduction to the rules of golf. For more advice please contact me directly by clicking here.