Best Parody Golf Ball Endorsement: "I Play Rangé"

My neighbor Carlos Sartori played the clip above for me last night. It's absolutely the funniest parody golf ball endorsement I have ever seen by John Hurley who you will probably recognize from his many comic TV roles (for the real thing, try the Titleist U.S. Open endorsement commercial here). If you are not a golfer, range balls (rangé balls) are the worst. They have been hit literally millions of times by mostly hackers, have laid out in the elements on the driving range over night and would never be teed up in mixed company by any self-respecting golfer. What is even funnier to me is that I would guess John Hurley is actually a pretty good golfer!

Peninsula Park Golf: 1958 to 2013

Today we played golf at Peninsula State Park in Ephraim, WI. It was built in 1921 and has gone through many changes over the years. When you play the course, you can clearly see cuts through the thick woods, mounds that once were either greens or tees and one parapet next to the current 8th hole that, until recently, was overgrown with trees. For many years I have been asking questions about all this and haven't always received consistent answers. Today, some of the mystery was cleared up.

The 1958 Course Layout (above, click to enlarge) was posted in the club house and it was very interesting when compared with the current course layout (below, notice that the map has been rotated to the left). 

A few points of comparison:

• The parapet next to the current 8th hole was the tee box for the original 2nd hole.
• The 5th hole used to be across Hwy 42 where the new Peninsula Park Short Course is now located (scheduled to open in 2014). Hwy 42 had very little traffic in 1958, unlike today!
• The 6th, 7th and 8th holes are now the driving range.
• The 8th tee box is now the 9th tee box but the green is the same (into the wind, this is a very difficult hole).
• The 10th hole was moved West and cut through the woods as an up-hill dog-leg left.
• The 4th hole is now the 8th hole (the course's signature but somewhat goofy down-hill par three).
• The 16th hole is the same but the 14th and the 15th have moved (this is still an interesting and confusing part of the course to me with many paths through the trees that were once fairways).
• The dreaded 17th hole is the same, a down-hill par 3 with a severely sloping green that's impossible to putt from anywhere but straight below the hole (this hole is the subject of most suggestion box comments every year--my suggestion: create three, level tiers on the current green similar to the links course greens at Lawsonia).
• The 18th hole is now a par 4 (into the wind it plays like a par 5).

I should also comment that the course is in great shape, particularly the traps have all been meticulously rebuilt and filled with sand (this is a shout-out to my neighbor, Darryl Jaraczwski, who supervised the reconstruction). You can read more of the interesting Peninsula State Park Golf Course history here.

Miguel Zenon: The Afro-Cuban Jazz Avant-Garde

Last Saturday, September 21, 2013, we saw Miguel Zenon at Chicago's Jazz Showcase. Zenon is a jazz sax player who appeared with the Rhythm Collective (Aldemar Valentin, six-string electric bass, Tony Escapa, drums and Reynaldo de Jesus, percussion). If you have never heard him or his music (and I had not, until Saturday night), it's time to catch up. Zenon is leading the new Afro-Cuban jazz Avant-Garde. He is a multiple Grammy nominee, Guggenheim Fellow, MacArthur Fellow and educator from Puerto Rico.

The video above displays Zenon playing music from the Puerto Rican Song Book (songs from the George Gershwins, Cole Porters and Jerome Kerns of Puerto Rican music--beautiful music you have probably never heard before) with a great jazz quartet and ten piece woodwind ensemble. The video below features Zenon at New York's Village Vanguard, this time with the same quartet (Luis Perdomo, piano, Hans Glawischnig, double bass, and Henry Cole, drums) playing Zenon's original compositions. The video below has the same feel as his live performance at the Jazz Showcase. In Chicago, he started the set with Charlie Parker's She Rote and ended with Tito Puente's Oye Como Va, with original music in between.

Enjoy! Catch Up! Afro-Cuban Avant-Garde Jazz is very accessible, new music! How did we decide to see him if we had never either heard of him or his music? You can go to anything at the Jazz Showcase and know it will be the best live Jazz you can hear outside New York city and the ticket price is right ($25, Saturday night, no drink minimum--unlike New York city). The Jazz Showcase has music seven nights a week and you can find discount coupons for the weeknight performances with the concierge at either your hotel or at the Blackstone Hotel (where the Jazz Showcase used to be prior to 2008).



I should also comment that Aldemar Valentin played six-string bass like you have probably never heard  electric bass played before. First, the typical jazz quartet has some rhythm instrument (guitar or piano, as in the clip above). Zenon appeared in Chicago without a rhythm instrument, but Valentin filled the gap by playing the six string bass very much like the six string guitar with arpeggio bass lines and three or four note block chords, especially on the slower tempo pieces.

The Steve Stricker Pitch Shot

Steve Stricker only tied for fourth in today's finish to the BMW Championship and he still has a chance at the FedEx Cup since he is currently ranked 6th in the points total (Zach Johnson won the BMW and moved from 27th to 4th place in the standings, Tiger Woods goes into the tournament as the first seed).

In prior posts (here) I described a variation on Stricker's chipping style. At iLoveScottsdaleGolf.com, Brandel Chamblee reports (here) watching Stricker practicing his short game before the BMW and was fascinated by what he saw. Here is how he described Stricker's approach to pitching (video example above):

Stand up tall, but not rigid, grip the club with a slight arch in your wrists at address and make no effort to set the club in the take-away, just turn the club back with your upper body and let the weight of the club tell you when to cock your wrists. That takes care of the back swing and now the moment of truth, when so much can go wrong. As you begin the downswing, make no effort to turn your lower body on these shots, as that will cause an increase in the angle of your wrists and on pitch shots that’s the last thing you want. Think instead of your left upper arm(assuming your right handed) and your chest initiating the forward move, keeping your lower body quiet, and turn your left shoulder behind you while your forearms rotate counter clock wise. This will put the bottom of your swing more forward, or right at the ball and you will be able to use the bounce of your pitching wedge and in todays, closely mown world of pitch shots, using the bounce is more important than ever.

Whether we could do this or not, Stricker's short game is pretty impressive and worth a close look.

Should Steve Stricker be Hitting the Golf Ball Further?

Golf professional and Wisconsin native Steve Stricker recently made a big decision. He decided to forego an elk hunt vacation for a shot at winning the $10 million Fed-Ex Cup. Stricker has played a limited schedule of about 10-12 tournaments this year yet he is at the top of the Fed-Ex Cup standings and has a chance of winning the Tour Championship in Atlanta and $10 million. Stricker is also currently ranked 8th among the PGA money leaders. His official world ranking is 10 and his scoring average is 69.46 strokes. His official earnings this year are about $3.5 million and this does not include endorsements (see Steve's hilarious "The Professionals" Avis commercial below).




So, it takes a great deal of chutzpah for golf instructor Clay Ballard (the Rotary Swing Lag Doctor) to suggest that if Steve Stricker followed Ballard's advice, he could hit the ball further. Ballard suggests that by getting more "lag" in his golf swing, Stricker (driving distance 285.3 yards and ranked 7th in driving accuracy) could be hitting the ball as far as Bubba Watson (304.2 yard average, ranked 141st in accuracy), Sergio Garcia (289.7 yard average, ranked 78th in driving accuracy) and Tiger Woods (292.7 yard average, ranked 74th in driving accuracy).

What Mr. Ballard does not discuss is that Steve Stricker used to have a lot of lag in his golf swing and he was hitting the ball all over the place. What Steve Stricker learned in the trailer (he hit balls in a heated trailer at the Cherokee Country Club during the off-season until he worked his way out of a horrible slump between 2004 and 2006) was that less lag produced greater accuracy (which is obvious from his current performance statistics) and that greater accuracy produces better performance. Lag Doctor indeed!