Posted Aug 03 2011, 03:30 PM by Cathy Erickson
Lots going on in my golf head this week...First of all, it's August!! This means I only have about 2 months of decent golf season left. I'm sad that I haven't been out on the course nearly as much as I should have, but I've decided that I will be kicking my priorities around a bit to make more room for my happy place. Let's see, what else...oh, yes, Tiger is back. I've got to believe there are all kinds of betting possibilities for the "comeback" this week at the Bridgestone. Since there is no cut at this limited field event he eliminated that one, but I'd say there is a fairly large contingent that thinks he will be marginal at best, and considering his injuries and time away from golf, it's probably not a bad guess. But you know there also others that believe he'll be hoisting another WGC trophy come Sunday - and I guess you never know. From what I could see on a betting odds web site, he's still a 20/1 pick ahead of Phil, Nick Watney, Adam Scott, and Martin Kaymer. Best odds are McIlory at 14/1, so it looks to me that there is a lot of belief in TW out there. As I said last week, I hope that being back on the course will sprout some joy into Tiger's life, regardless of how he finishes. The funniest thing I've read so far is a comment from Chuck over at my favorite Fantasy Golf website, http://www.kerplookee.com/. He put Tiger on his squad for the week and followed it up with: "And I know I'm going to regret my Tiger pick. The soul patch made me do it." Laughed out loud!
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Posted Jul 27 2011, 12:06 AM by Cathy Erickson
I really don't do this very often, but I was thinking about Tiger Woods. If you are a fan of golf you've probably read about Tiger parting ways with his caddie Steve Williams. Depending on what source you read it sounds like going their separate ways wasn't exactly a mutual decision. The gist of what I got out of it was, Steve was asked to caddie for someone else...he asked Tiger, Tiger and his people said "okay", but maybe weren't really excited about it...Tiger's still on the DL so Steve is asked again...this time he doesn't ask he just caddies...well, seems like the Tiger camp was miffed about it, throwing words out like "loyalty" and pretty soon Williams can decide whatever he wants because he doesn't have to worry about being on TW's bag anymore. Posted Jun 14 2011, 02:02 PM by Cathy Erickson
Hi Golf Friends...man, it's been awhile since I've written and I can tell - I've missed the "therapy" I get when writing about my favorite thing in the world. Life's been a challenge lately, but this past weekend I was on the course and my happy place reminded me that I can't forget what keeps me grounded. So many golf thoughts came to mind that I couldn't help but feel a renewed spirit...so here I am! I'm going to have to "scatter shoot" like Sam this week because I've got a lot of golf on the brain! Where to start?! Posted May 20 2011, 07:08 AM by Cathy Erickson
For some reason, Spring is still taking it's sweet time showing up in Minnesota...cool temperatures, wind, and scattered storms (not to be confused with Sam's scatter shooting!) have not made our transition to golf season (which is what I call summer) very smooth. Trees are finally starting to see some leaf buds and green grass is starting to replace the brown dead patches that seem to be bigger than ever this year. I think I may have reported awhile back that I was a little worried about how our golf course would winter after having some serious issues in 2010. The news we got was a mix of a little good but mostly bad as the snow melted away and we saw what we had to work with. Posted May 09 2011, 07:01 AM by Cathy Erickson
One of my favorite times of year is coming up. It's US Open Qualifying! It's the shorter and more inexpensive version of the Q-school format, and while not playing for a Tour Card, you're still vying for the chance to tee it up with the best in the world. According to a USGA press release, 8,300 golfers registered to start the US Open Championship entry process. Sixty-five of those guys are already exempted straight into the championship...and there could be more by the time June rolls around and all of the exemption criteria come into play. A whole bunch more can exempt themselves into the sectional event if they meet any one of 34 exemption criteria, including, the Top 10 on the Canadian Tour money list, the Top 20 on the Sunshine and Challenge Tour money lists, and certain members of past Walker Cup teams. Want to know all of the exemptions? Just click here: https://champs.usga.org/EntryForms/usopen_2011.pdf Posted Apr 21 2011, 08:48 AM by Cathy Erickson
I was surprised to see that the PGA Tour has already played 17 events on its 2011 schedule. I mean, I guess if I looked at the calendar that would make complete sense, but it appears my brain isn't registering all of those tournaments and all of the very deserving winners. Granted, without the Golf Channel I'm not able to watch some of those first few tournaments on TV, but I play fantasy golf for pete's sake, you'd think I'd remember my great losing streak so far this year. Posted Apr 14 2011, 09:55 AM by Cathy Erickson
Another Masters is in the books and while there was certainly a lot of excitement come Sunday afternoon, for some reason this year just fell short for me...isn't that strange? It's my favorite week of the year for heavens sake! I'm happy for Charl Schwarzel and I think I'd like to be a fan! But, honestly, I didn't know a whole lot about him. Tiger's front 9 charge on Sunday caught my interest and I found myself actually hoping he'd be in the mix, for golf's sake of course. But when he missed the putt on #12 his momentum changed and he seemed to stall out. I kept hoping for a little more magic, but it just wasn't his time this week. Posted Mar 25 2011, 01:41 PM by Cathy Erickson
Since Masters fever hit me early this year, I almost missed the news about the PGA Tour Policy Committee's proposed changes for how players qualify for the Tour and the Nationwide Tour. As you know, the PGA Tour's Qualifying School (Q-School) one of the few ways a player can make it to the "big dance" instead of toiling on any one of the developmental tours or companion tours around the world. According to an article on www.pga.com , the change was explained this way: Posted Mar 03 2011, 02:39 PM by Cathy Erickson
Well, after a dismal Match Play week in my predictions (dang you Steve Stricker!) I thought I needed to at least study the field at the Honda Classic to see if there was any inspiration for getting the right guys in my fantasy squad. (Big Shocker - Go Matt Kuchar!) Making a run through of the field, I was quickly distracted by seeing the name Lee Rinker at the very bottom of the tee time sheet for the Honda. I'm thinking I know that name, but no details come to mind. It's time to turn to my friend Google! But here's the funny part...I put in LARRY Rinker instead of Lee and sure enough, a web site pops up and I'm reading about how Larry was a former PGA Tour Professional who made more than $2 million in his day and is currently an instructor (and guitar player) who would love to make you your best coach! Posted Feb 15 2011, 08:41 AM by Cathy Erickson
You go out and win a golf tournament with some of the world’s best golfers in it and your story is buried behind the Tiger Woods spitting scandal...and behind the will Tiger ever win again saga. Life just isn’t fair sometimes. Well I am happy to dedicate my little blog spot to Alvaro Quiros and to congratulate him on winning the Dubai Desert Classic last weekend. Posted Feb 08 2011, 10:54 PM by Cathy Erickson
It's a little hard to fathom that a mere 48 hours ago I was experiencing 80 degrees warmer weather than it is outside right now in Minnesota. What is even harder to believe is that when I arrived in Arizona a week ago it was less than 10 degrees warmer than when I left the Twin Cities!! My Arizona Adventure got off to a VERY cold start, but that didn't stop me from having a great 6 days in the Phoenix area. My mini-vacation started by arriving in Phoenix, Arizona last Wednesday around noon. The pilot advised us that the winds were gusty but he failed to mention that we were about to experience Phoenix's lowest high temperature in its history on that day! High Temp? 34. Posted Jan 20 2011, 10:42 AM by Cathy Erickson
What started out as an impulse decision to buy tickets to a concert has turned into a 6 day trip to Phoenix, Arizona the first week in February...and I couldn't be more excited! My plans have evolved a few times since buying the concert tickets (I am now going solo), but it's safe to say that I'm going get to wear my brand new Callaway Golf Shoes in a few weeks! This has been an interesting experience...and being the deal shopper that I am, I have been finding moments of triumph and panic as I started making plans. Posted Jan 04 2011, 02:55 PM by Cathy Erickson
For the past 3 years, http://www.pgatour.com/ has done a Top 100 players to watch feature in December. It's a ranking, sort of, and also a listing of players who will garner the most attention in 2011. To me these are 2 very different things, and as I get ready to post my own 2011 predictions I thought I would do a quick review of the PGA Tour's list of their top 20, just to see how annoyed I get. Posted Dec 30 2010, 10:43 AM by Cathy Erickson
I don't know about you, but this last week of December is a time for me to say good-bye to the current year and prepare for the next. My mental photo album gets sketchier every year (this is what happens when you get older), but I still have a pretty good slide show of great golf memories this year. And at the same time I find a part of my brain already getting ready for the season ahead, even though it's at least 5 months away. And it's that "resolution" and "goal setting" time of year, so pondering some golf goals seems appropriate, too. Posted Dec 06 2010, 10:36 AM by Cathy Erickson
Ah, the holiday season - it's that time where you may be trying to find that special golf gift for that special golf person, or you're a savvy shopper looking for some good deals for yourself! Tees2Greens very own super fitness contributor, Mindi Boysen, shared some great suggestions for some neat gear that can help you improve your game, but sometimes you just want a new pair of shoes!! Posted Nov 11 2010, 12:08 PM by Cathy Erickson
You know I love Tees2Greens. But I have to admit that I do visit some other blogs and message boards because we just don't get the golf conversations, debates, and insights on a regular basis here. (of course I wouldn't trade 2Putt's contributions for the world!!) Many of the things I ponder and write about here come from those dialogues from other golfers around the web. What's been on my mind lately is a discussion about which players should be allowed on the PGA Tour. Posted Oct 14 2010, 06:17 PM by Cathy Erickson
My new best friends (Sorry, Sam!) at Titleist dropped a sleeve of "test balls" in the mail to me and they arrived 2 days ago. My mission, if I so chose, was to play one of these golf balls along with the golf ball I usually play and then rate the performance from all parts of the golf course. The golf balls came in a plain white sleeve, they were stamped with the Titliest logo (a #1 ball) and where you usually see the type (Pro-V1, NXT, So/Lo) it just said TEST. The cover seemed similar to a ProV 1x, but the dimple pattern was different. Posted Oct 07 2010, 01:23 PM by Cathy Erickson
It's been nice to have a few good nights' sleep after getting up a 3AM three days in a row to watch the Ryder Cup last weekend. I know, I know, I didn't HAVE to get up, but the Ryder Cup is a golf event that I just don't want to miss, with the instantaneousness of the internet and social media, I knew I'd hear about it before I got a chance to watch if I waited. The weather delays sure put a kink in the schedule, but in the end it seemed like the changes made were what needed to happen. Although, if you read some of the media and bloggers out there, if Pavin had rejected the 6 groups playing in the morning and afternoon on Sunday, team USA may have retained the cup. It's impossible to know, but Europe winning 5 of the 6 afternoon matches makes you wonder if there's something to the theory. Posted Sep 30 2010, 12:42 PM by Cathy Erickson
What in the...? It's already September 30! It seems like just yesterday I was looking forward to my favorite golf month of the year and now, just like that, it's over. I had some fun days golfing this past month, and even though we had a few rainy days, I was able to get out on the course for at least 9 holes whenever I didn't have to work late (which was too often if you asked me!). The sun setting earlier has been a total drag. By 7pm it's very hard to see the golf balls and there is a definite chill in the air by that time, too. How can daylight savings time not be until November 7??? This does not help golfers in Minnesota at all!! If we could get that extra hour NOW, I'd be a lot happier. Posted Sep 23 2010, 05:42 AM by Cathy Erickson
There is really nothing better than having your favorite golfers being in contention coming into a Major or an end of season event like the Tour Championship...or the FedEx Cup finale. I'm thinking back to Greg Norman's hey days...it was like an emotional roller coaster for me - the highs of seeing him winning and crushing blows of seeing a few heart breaking losses. It's sort of hilarious that I am STILL picturing Larry Mize in the purple striped shirt jumping and running after knocking his chip in at the Masters all those years ago. But that is what being a golf fan is all about. Posted Sep 15 2010, 10:03 PM by Cathy Erickson
It's been a hectic few weeks in my little part of the world...just as I am entering my favorite golf month of the year my work world gets very busy. Usually I'm sort of giddy when it comes to talking about school taxes, but this year has been a combination of challenging and maddening...not to mention overwhelming enough that it's elbowing into my golf time! Posted Sep 01 2010, 09:35 AM by Cathy Erickson
Holy cow, it's September 1. How did this happen? I am not ready to head into the downward slide of the golf season yet! It's funny, last night as we were playing in our weekly "Scramble Tuesday" event, it was like Mother Nature decided to let us know September was on the door step. It was hot and muggy as I left my office yesterday afternoon and my house felt like someone had left a heat lamp on all day when I walked in. Posted Aug 17 2010, 12:06 PM by Cathy Erickson
Just when you think golf is going to go all boring on us because we don't have Tiger to swoon over, you get the 2010 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits. I'm guessing anyone with at least a slight interest in professional golf is still chattering away about how things played out over the past week. Obviously the story of the Championship is Dustin Johnson and the infamous bunker shot on the 18th. Funny thing...I wasn't even watching it! My fantasy team pegged all its hopes on Rory McIlroy and when he missed his birdie putt on 18 I knew I was sunk...already late for a family dinner, I headed to my Aunt's instead of watching the end. I walk in the front door and everyone is leaning forward in their seats staring at the TV...and there I see DJ and Nick Watney in a room and Dustin is not looking like he just won a Major...it's then that I get the full story...wow! Posted Aug 12 2010, 06:59 AM by Cathy Erickson
I read somewhere that what makes a professional golfer better than the rest of the golfers out there is concentration. Somewhere in the depths of our brains we need to find that iron curtain and block out the rest of the world when we decide to tee it up in a match that means something. I recently found out that my curtain is in need of serious repair! But I also found out that if you're not carrying around confidence in your golf bag it's like playing without your "go to" club. Posted Jul 29 2010, 12:39 PM by Cathy Erickson It has been a busy few weeks in my world outside of golf and I feel like I'm going through withdrawals. But a big work presentation is over and now I can think about golf again! Yippee!! But what's been on my mind lately were a couple of great golf days earlier this month... Our annual golf scramble was a huge success! The weather was perfect, the golf course was full, over 100 gift certificates were given out, and my water bottles made it with 15 minutes to spare! (Thank You FedEx!!) There is a lot I love about this day - it's my way of providing a day to give back to our golf course and to have an opportunity for more than 150 golfers to have a fun day. Of course, for some of us, there is a little something about winning that's in the back of our minds, too. For the past 3 years my team of great golf pals and I have not been able to stand on the winner's podium...we've either struggled with our putting or had a hard time getting our approach shots close to the pin. Either way, we were on the outside looking in at our other golf friends who have taken the title since 2007. We were ready to put up a great score this year, but it was a comment by our rival team's guys..."you make a good 2nd place team"...that made us all just a little more determined bring our best game.
Just before teeing off I had a thought...sometimes in scrambles we are our own worst enemy - trying to "make a shot happen" or maybe swinging out of our shoes instead of just playing our game. So I thought that if we had a little competition within our own team we would be able to bring out our best shots...so I proposed to the team that for every approach shot, the person who got the closest got a point, and at the end of the round whoever had the most points won our "wager". Being the competitive types, my boys loved the idea, and before we were ready to hit our first shots, we had already changed up the rules to include putts and cancelling points. This was going to be a fun round! First hole, point for me!! I'm already loving this game. But soon enough we were all throwing darts at the pins and giving ourselves great birdie chances on almost every hole. There were some hilarious moments when someone would get just inside of what we thought was already a great shot - points were hard to come by! We also hit all of the par-5's in 2 and made eagle on 2 of the 3! Our only struggle were the par-3's - we left ourselves with longer putts and the best we could do was burn the edge, so no birdies on our 3 par-3's! Ouch. The 2 eagles made up for it though and we ended up -17 for the day and a 3 shot victory! Our point game was tight to the last hole, too - DY had 5 points and 3 of us had 4 points and one had 3, so there was still a chance to tie...our approach shot to the par-4 9th hole was about 60 yards, and I can't tell you how happy I was that I had hit about 75 60-yard wedge shots just a few days before as practice! I was 2nd to hit and I ended up about 6ft away so I had to wait for 3 other guys before knowing if I could tie! It was close, but it was me! I think our point scores were a testament that we all contributed shots all day long. (And Jason & Casey, I forgive you for cancelling my putts!) It was funny, because of my own internal competitiveness and side game, I didn't even realize how great we shot until the round was over. To me, that was the real success of the day - we played some great golf because we wanted to beat each other! (side bar: I just wanted to once again thank everyone who played that day, my great friends for volunteering, and especially to my team who once again made this my favorite golf day of the year - thanks JJ for keeping track of all my "stuff"! ...virtual hugs!) My other golf highlight in the past few weeks was getting the opportunity to play in a scramble with 3 great women. Deb, Judy, Joan and I played in a Hot Ball scramble with about 12 other teams. The format is, everyone tees off and one person has to be the "hot ball"...that person plays the hole by themselves and other three scramble whichever other drive they want. Handicaps mattered, so there was definitely strategy involved in picking the right hot ball player, because sometimes one of us would get a stroke on certain holes. I really liked that there was thinking involved! For whatever reason, my putter decided to get hot that day - and we were able to card quite a few birdies on our scramble ball and we did quite well on our hot ball, too! Although I'll admit my hot balls STUNK! But thankfully I got strokes on a couple of them. Judy was definitely our Hot Ball VIP! She came through when we needed her. Deb and Joan were solid all day long and Joan's competitive spirit was contagious! It was the BEST day!! I wasn't sure if we would have a chance to win with some teams having a lot of handicap to work with, but in the end we were the winners...and I couldn't have been more thankful to have been asked to play that day. As I'm reflecting on these great 2 days, I'm remembering that Sam Johnson isn't a fan of scrambles...I remember a post of his and I'm recalling that he did have some valid points...but you know what, I still love them!! That's why I started Scramble Tuesdays at our golf course!! I'm looking forward to playing in a few more events this summer, but mostly I just love playing golf with great friends. I hope you get the chance, too. Filed under: competition, scramble, friends, Golf, Cathy Erickson, hot ball |
AuthorWhen I found Tees2Greens website and forum I found a happy place. There were great people there and in 2009 they asked me if I wanted my own blog space. It was a dream come true!! The site is down now, but I was able to get all of my posts to be able to post here. I will always be grateful for all of the Tees2Greens folks!! ArchivesCategories
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