TED BITS, Ted McIntyre –Glen Abbey the perfect spot for Open.

Glen Abbey the perfect site for Canadian Open
Most of the Canadian golf media enjoy bashing the decisions of the Royal Canadian Golf Association because, well, it’s an easy target. Let’s face it, the RCGA doesn’t have the greatest track record in turning out top professional players despite the historic record popularity of the game in Canada—there’s not a single female player with a hope of winning an LPGA Tour event in the foreseeable future, and Mike Weir’s best days would appear to be well behind him, with no homegrown talent waiting to take his place among the Tour’s top 50. Meanwhile, the RCGA’s showcase event, the Canadian Open, is such a difficult marketing sell that it remains without a title sponsor.
However, I give the RCGA credit for making the wise—if not hugely popular—decision of going back to Glen Abbey for both 2008 and 2009 (predicted here almost two months ago). Say what you want about how much some Tour players apparently hate the Abbey, but I have never met a single player who bypassed the Open just because it was in Oakville, Ontario, and not somewhere else. On the contrary, I have heard many a player tell the RCGA that they’re taking the week off because they don’t like the course, only to not show up the following year at a different venue. In other words, it’s not the course; it’s just a good excuse.
Jim Furyk is the exception. After hearing about how stunning Hamilton G&CC was, he showed up there last year and won. He would never have shown up at Angus Glen in July had he not been defending champion, and he may well have bypassed the Abbey next year as well had he not made the mistake of winning again, which will force him into the same brutal schedule next year—unable to take the one week off he really needs in the midst of the run from the British Open to the Ryder Cup. (I predict right now that Furyk is stricken with some flu-like ailment immediately following the British Open next year.)
However, short of going back to Hamilton–which the club members wouldn’t agree to anyway after just surrendering their course for the second time in four years—where else would make a good financial and practical decision for the RCGA? I guarantee Tiger, Ernie and Phil don’t come to either Royal Montreal or Shaughnessy at the other end of the country. The field will not be affected one way or the other.
Besides, as anyone who has been to the Abbey in the past year will attest, it’s in the best shape it’s seen in almost a generation. It’s also improving with age as once seedling trees mature to better define fairways.
So it’s now a simple case of what makes financial sense—not a dumb starting point considering how dire the situation is for those caretakers of Canada’s most important golf championship—the one that drives and funds amateur golf programs throughout the nation. The RCGA will get a pile more spectators through the gates at Glen Abbey—a place specifically designed as a model tournament venue for fans–than they will at any other course in Canada. They also have a long history of running marble-smooth events there. And like it or not, they’re also in the centre of the universe when it comes to gaining Canadian media attention, which they also desperately need to peddle this puppy.
This is not the time to make bold, experimental moves. This is the time to take stock of your bank account and make careful, prudent moves that you are confident will leave you in the black when all is said and done.
Having a Canadian Open rota of classic courses in the near future is all fine and good—assuming enough can be found that can logistically host the tournament. But let’s make sure we have a PGA Tour event that’s still afloat to take to those various ports of call.

GOLF THROUGH THE LENS, Chris Gallow – WARNING!!!!!.

So pretty much everyone these days is shooting with digital cameras. Great you have all these images and your running out of storage space, right? When it comes to external hard drives don’t go cheap! You really pay for what you get. An good drive should cost around 60 to 75 cents per gb, which is very cheap compared to  few years ago but things change. One very good manufacture is Lacie but they do have a line of drives designed by F.A. Porsche which have major issues. I have noticed that Future Shop, Best Buy and others have been advertising the 500gb version of this drive for a $150 or less which is a great deal, but not when the reliability of the drive is questionable. So a world from the wise do not go for this drive or any other cheap drive its total hit and miss. Wouldn’t you hate to loose some or all your photos because you decided to save a buck or two. Also backup all your images to DVD media and only use a CD/DVD marker to label them also never store the disk in the slim line case. the slim case put pressure on the disk which can cause issues with reading it down the road.

GOLF THROUGH THE LENS, Chris Gallow – 5 quick tips to better course images.

1. Higher vantage point will give you a better view of a golf hole, so look for higher spot to shoot from. Never shoot the fairway from standing height level.
2. Only take pictures early morning and late evening. The low sun angle will bring out the undulations of the hole. Midday sun will make everything look like a football field.
3. Wide-angle lens and a tri-pod are a must to give depth to your photo and take a steady shot.
4. Don’t shoot from the centre of the fairway. Move to the right or left of the hole. Shoot many different angles of the hole. Don’t just take one photo. Memory cards are cheap in relation to the fees you have paid to travel and play the course so shoot away and have more choice.
5. Composition should always have a foreground, mid-ground, and background. Use the features such as bunkers and fescue to create this.

Here is an example:

Coppinwood- 12th Hole Par 4 347 to 453 Yards

GOLF THROUGH THE LENS, Chris Gallow – Rice.

So I’m out shooting again on a golf course (big shocker), and thinking about what a huge pet peeve broken tees on the tee decks is for me. Either I have to go and pick them up or opt to photoshop them out after the fact. I’ve been shooting Cobble Beach Golf Links this year and noticed they have taken a step forward in providing each golfer with rice plastic tees. These things are great! I used to use the blue pro-tees until I found these little white gems. They cost more per tee but in the long run but save you money in with their indestructability. I used to break a tee almost every hole, pick up the pieces and move on to my next embarrassing swing attempt. Now I can play an entire round with only a couple tees in my pocket, the one or two you lose are ones that end up in the fescue or bush and the normal broken tees just bend so you straighten them up to place a new little white sphere to fire off into the abyss called OB. The great part is these rice plastic tees are completely bio-degradable, so no worries on the green issue, but the best part is the tee blocks at Cobble aren’t littered with the shrapnel of the previous warriors trying to bring the course to its knees and I don’t have to clean them up to get my shot. Start playing with these tees and ask your home club to make the switch. You will be doing the environment, myself and fellow course photographers a huge favour. They cost more up front but save your course  money and labour in the long run.

TED BITS, Ted McIntyre –PGA Tour players killing time.

PGA Tour players killing time
It’s hard enough to make a PGA Tour event without the Fed-Ex Cup coming along, adding a series of three limited-field tournaments to the calendar. If you weren’t among the top 144 Fed-Ex Cup points leaders after the Wyndham Championship (which followed the PGA Championship), you had no place to play until the Turning Stone Resort Championship Sept. 20. The list of guys with time off has been growing, of course, from week to week—down to 120 for last week’s Deutsche Bank Championship; 70 players for this week’s BMW Championship; and then 30 for the Tour Championship. And it’s not like there are smaller-purse events to play in, such as is the case opposite the British Open or two of the World Golf Championships. I expect the multitude of PGA Tour members with no way of improving their position on the official money list in hopes of securing a place to play next year are shedding very few tears for the elite players complaining about their busy schedule these days.

North Bay pro seeks world record
Canadian PGA member Glenn Cundari is set to challenge for a Guinness Book of World Records entry. Cundari School of Golf and KidSport North Bay have joined together to challenge the mark of most golf balls hit in one hour. On Sunday, September 9, beginning at 10 a.m., at the Lakeshore Driving Range in North Bay, Cundari will try to beat the current world record of 2,146 (about one every 1.7 seconds). Each ball must travel 100 yards and land within a specific-sized grid. The regulations do allow for the balls to be loaded by another person(s), but only within a five-square-yard area.
Cundari is hoping to raise $15, 000 for KidSport, a national children’s charitable program that helps disadvantaged kids overcome the barriers preventing or limiting their participation in organized sport. “Even if I don’t break the record it is still going to be a successful event by raising funds for KidsSport,� Cundari says. “It’s a great charity because you can actually see the outcome and benefits of the dollars raised by going to the local hockey rink or gymnasium and seeing these kids take part in sport. So far we have between 300 and 400 kids that have registered in organized sport because of KidSport in our community, which is outstanding for a reasonably small population.�
If interested in sponsoring Cundari in his quest, please contact him at (705) 494-9669 or Dave Mendicino at (705) 471-2359. All proceeds will go to KidSport North Bay.
(Not to toot my own horn here, but I was sure I was going to eclipse that record myself on a particularly windy day at Muskoka Bay two weeks ago, but came up a few shots short.)

Fifth place ain’t so bad
Sitting at two under par with two holes to play, Rosedale members Peter McCarthy and Lindsay Knowlton were in the mix at the Golf Association of Ontario’s Mixed Championship last week at Wooden Sticks GC in Uxbridge. However, a bogey on the island-green 17th was followed by a four-putt double-bogey on the 18th, leaving them in fifth spot in the Open division’s low-gross flight. Still, it wasn’t a bad result for the talented twosome considering McCarthy had been undergoing a series of treatments after recently being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Knowlton, who is recovering from a torn ligament in her arm, hadn’t played 18 holes in two months.