TED BITS, Ted McIntyre - A car crash, a
thrown club and Hank Haney

I passed the following on the way to work this morning. In case you can’t read it, the side of the truck reads a home renovation company. Not sure if I’d trust them with my place, personally. (Hope the driver’s OK, though!)

In other news, Hank Haney, Tiger’s official swing coach, was in Toronto last night as one of three speakers at The Art of Golf exhibition at the Convention Centre. After signing his new book, The Only Golf Lesson You’ll Ever Need, Haney told the crowd that approximately 90 percent of all golfers fight a slice. (I’m in the 10 percent who hooks it like a boomerang.) Haney recommended that every player carry at least two hybrids since “you can bottom out behind the ball, but still have the club skip and make good contact,” unlike a long-iron which requires much more precise contact.
Haney stressed the importance of properly diagnosing your shots–how the ball flies will lead you back to the root cause of your maladies. If you misdiagnose the fault, he noted, “you have no chance but to go backwards” in your development. And don’t be scared of getting worse before you get better. Most players, Haney says, have learned to play with swing fault piled upon swing fault. A bad stance is corrected by a bad grip. Standing too close to the ball is offset by an abnormal swing plane adjustment, and so on. You can hit it straight, in other words, with an even number of faults, but not an odd number. Consequently, as one swing flaw is repaired, your score may very well get worse. But it’s the only way to finally arrive at a perfect swing.
Haney’s greatest criticism of other instructors? “The worst mistake instructors make is they teach what they’re working on.” Haney related an anecdote of playing with an instructor one day who corrected other members in their group with exactly the same recommendation (keep your left arm in) even though those players had distinctly different ailments.
Fixing what ails you takes time, Haney notes. When he was reworking Tiger Woods’ swing a few years back, Woods had the patience to play through the changes without losing his focus on the goal. “Not once did Tiger ever say, ‘How long is this going to take?’”
Another intriguing quote concerned Woods’ greatest fear. Said Haney: “Not being able to improve is what scares Tiger most.”
Finally, a fellow golf scribe out west, Hal Quinn, sent me the following link outlining a very rare but essential lesson of which most of us have never truly appreciated the intricacies. Haney never talked about this one!

Shanks, Whiffs and One-Irons, Laura Aiken – Making Peace with the One-Piece

When I think of an active lifestyle, I think of running out the door with no time for mulling over skirt and shirt combinations. In university I relied heavily on denim cat suits to take me from day to night (although dresses remain my favourite clothing item). To my excitement, jumpsuits graced many a spring runaway this year and the golf world has produced a few nifty items of its own. To some, whether the one-piece will catch on is up for debate, as is the practicality of a dress on the golf course. Many women perceive the jumpsuit as hard to pull off. The European press advises treating it like you’re wearing a dress and belt it. I trust the Europeans when it comes to fashion. They know what they’re talking about. Go for it and you’ll look like you perfectly matched your shorts and shirt and most jumpsuits come with they’re own belt anyway. Short dresses shouldn’t be strutting the fairways so you ought to be safe enough as long as you’re not going commando. There are always boy-cut panties or bike shorts. Or crossing your legs and just being conscious of what you’re showing as is the case in any dress situation. Plus, there is real value in purchasing one item of clothing that serves as an entire outfit. With gas prices going the way they, it’s important to be cost conscious.

Here are my favourite golf-worthy one-pieces for 2008:

1. PUMA’s playsuit (puma.com)
2. Quagmire Golf’s Cuddly Dress (quagmiregolf.com)
3. Groggy’s Jumpsuit (groggy.com)
4. Escada Sport, dresses 43002-660 and 47011-420 (escada.com)
5. Lilly Pulitzer’s Fiesta Dress (lillypulitzer.com)
6. GAP’s Product Red Roll-Up Dress (half the profits go to fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa) (gap.com)
7. ACE Collection’s Line Tec Dress (ace-collection.com)

Laura Aiken is the editor of Bay Area Golfing magazine and assistant to the BAGS Junior Golf Tour. She has been a golf writer for four years, and a mediocre player and fashion activist for 10. Laura can be reached at laura@gallowstudios.com.

GOLF THROUGH THE LENS, Chris Gallow – New Digs.

So things have been moving fast moving, kids, new ventures… the move is great now I’m a minute walk to Wasaga Beach, which affords me the daily landscape shoot, well as long as mother nature is good to me. Here is an image that I captured yesterday evening, enjoy

TED BITS, Ted McIntyre - This Disabled Golfer is an Ace

Later this week, Ontario Golf has a feature appearing on physically challenged golfer Frank Peter, a Niagara Falls resident who has become a spokesman for the SoloRider, a unique power cart with a swivel-seat that elevates to allow players to tee off and putt, while also allowing them to travel onto the greens and even into bunkers due to its turf-friendly designed tires. Well, Peter jumped the gun on us by scoring a hole-in-one at Legends on the Niagara April 16. Enjoying his first round of the year with his nephew, Jordan, drained his tee shot at the par-3 14th on the Battlefield course with a 22-degree Wilson Staff Fybrid.
“I heard it hit the pin and I asked my nephew, Jordan, ‘Did you hear that?’ He was jumping up and down and said, ‘What do you mean hear that, it went in!’” “I have always dreamed about getting a hole-in-one. Thanks to the Niagara Parks Commission for providing the SoloRider, which allows me to play golf, my dream of a hole in one has come true.”
Legends on the Niagara became Ontario’s first golf complex to offer the SoloRider golf car in 2007, thereby enhancing the facility’s overall accessibility for those looking to play its courses.
Roger Pretekin, founder and president of SoloRider in Colorado, says he believes Peter is the first person to have ever reported a hole in one while golfing with a SoloRider.

TED BITS, Ted McIntyre - RCGA Helps Fight ALS

The Royal Canadian Golf Association has made itself into an effective partner in the fight against ALS (or Lou Gehrig’s Disease). At a press conference this morning at its Golf House headquarters in Oakville, Ont., an impressive lineup of speeches–including Oakville resident and ALS sufferer Tim Robertson, Toronto Argonaut Hall of Fame quarterback Damon Allen and Argos offensive lineman Jude St. John (both pictured below)–combined to make a powerful statement to the effects of ALS, a rapidly progressing and fatal neuromuscular disease that causes degeneration of the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. More than 80 percent of those diagnosed with ALS die within two to five years of symptom onset. Another startling stat to emerge from the gathering was the number of CFL’ers past and present that have contracted ALS–nine in 15,000, compared with the national average of two to three in 100,000–making Canadian pro footballers nearly 20 times more likely to be afflicted with the disease.
In an attempt to help raise money and awareness to combat ALS, the RCGA Golf Card will be sold across Ontario. The card, which retails for $24.95, offers players huge savings at participating courses (158 nationwide and counting). Players get a 50 percent-off first-time voucher at every participating course, and get a free round after booking five rounds with a particular course. There’s a pile of other savings as well (you can redeem your Air Miles for rounds of golf, your earn points for playing or spending at the course, and the vouchers are even transferable. Best of all, if you buy a card, you’ll be eligible to win one of four luxury vacations to Ireland.
Also, watch for regular Par-3 Challenges being operated by the ALS Society of Ontario at courses across the province on selected weekends in May and June. For $25, players get a free RCGA Golf Card and also get a chance to win prizes (usually a sleeve of golf balls).
If you play just one game all year, the card will pay for itself and more the first time you use it. Regardless, it’s certainly a worthy investment. Approximately $20 from every $24.95 sale foes directly to ALS Society of Ontario, with the RCGA recouping only enough to cover its costs in the program.

TED BITS, Ted McIntyre - End of the Line for Sonartec?
One of my favourite golf club manufacturers appears to have gone out of business. Sonartec, the producer of a driver with which my oldest brother won a few golf tournament long drive contests–years after the handsome model was brought to retail–and a number of fairway woods and hybrids that were in the bags of British Open champions Nick Price, Todd Hamilton
and David Duval, has reportedly shut the doors of its Carlsbad, Calif. facility, with the new new owner having packed up and moved the remaining assets up the road to La Quinta, according to a recent Golfweek article.
Sonartec’s future is, at the very least, in limbo, with the company’s fortunes suspended between co-founder Toru Kamatari and investor Peter Pocklington, the notorious former owner of the Edmonton Oilers.
The company reached its zenith in 2004 when Hamilton used his 17-degree Sonartec Md hybrid, (bent to 14 degrees) all over the course en route to victory.
Sonartec, plagued by a shortage of cash and a questionable business plan, was never able to meet the demand for the popular hybrid in the tournament’s aftermath, and never turned a profit again after 2004.

TED BITS, Ted McIntyre - Trevor Immelman says thanks to Nike

In case you need any further evidence of the class of South African Trevor Immelman, here’s a little video evidence.

TED BITS, Ted McIntyre - Who’s REALLY playing a Nike ball on Tour?

I got invited to a little TaylorMade technical summit at Glen Abbey GC last week, and it was pretty revealing–not so much for the self-congratulatory plaudits one expects at these gatherings, but the politically unfiltered comments from Dean Snell, TaylorMade’s very bright and affable senior director of golf ball research, who had flown in from California along with a few of the company’s other leading brass. In front of a gathering of mostly buyers (I don’t think the company’s director of marketing was even aware there were four media in the room) Snell, who was in on the ground floor of the Titleist Pro V1 creation, observed that few of Nike’s Tour players were likely playing Nike’s off-the-rack golf balls. Rather, the company’s top players were playing a ball custom made for them by Bridgestone, who manufactures Nike’s retail balls as well.
Snell also noted that the 500-pound gorilla of golf balls, the Titleist Pro V1, probably actually now ranks fourth according to Tour players, behind TaylorMade, Bridgestone and the new Callaway i and ix brands.
Speaking of Nike, if the company were to have chosen the three Nike players most likely to win the Masters, Trevor Immelman would not have been among the top three. After Tiger, you gotta figure they would have had KJ Choi, followed closely by Stephen Ames, the latter of whom didn’t seem to want it badly enough last weekend to grind as hard as he needed to at Augusta National.
Also, it’s getting easy and easier to call Jack Nicklaus the greatest player who ever played the game–at least as long as Woods continues to be 0-for-his entire career in Sunday comeback wins in major championships.

TED BITS, Ted McIntyre - Did Mickelson lose a $200,000 bet at Augusta?

OK, here’s the posting on Golfweek forums (read my reply at the bottom)

From GolfWeek Insider…..

“MICKELSON’S GAMBLING DEBTS CAUSE UPROAR AMONG AUGUSTA MEMBERS

Last week Phil Mickelson was playing a practice round at Augusta and went away from protocol and convinced his playing partners to up the stakes in the usual $1 game. It was Mickelson versus the other three which included some of the deepest pockets among the membership. The stakes: $5000 skins and a pot of $130,000, $100,000 of which was contributed by Mickelson for the low net score - Mickelson would play off scratch. According to one of the threesome which obviously will remain anonymous, “everything was going great until the back 9 when Mickelson really could not believe the good fortune of ‘chuckie’. He was draining everything on the greens and when he missed the green twice he had two chip-ins.Phil’s lead on the scorecard looked safe but in the clubhouse we added it up and lo and behold, Phil owed $200,000.” And then it got ugly. The stories by witnesses conflict, but in effect Mickelson tried to pass the bets off as laugh on the first tee and insisted “there was no way he would bet hundreds of thousands on golf.” Mickelson believed the standard one dollar game was in effect.
The threesome was having none of it and before you know it the foursome was sitting in the office of Billy Payne who was none too happy about the loud conversations taking place in the dining room. But even in the privacy of the office, Mickelson was being very difficult. According to the same anonymous member: “Phil slipped up and admitted that he initiated the stakes and set the terms of the bet. Then he protested at having to pay so much and offered 30 cents on the dollar right then and there, take it or leave it. Billy was aghast and told Phil, you will arrange to pay every dollar or you will never be welcome at Augusta again, TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT. Mickelson tried to protest and even made a snide remark that Billy couldn’t stop him from being welcome at Augusta every April. Billy simply asked are you taking it or leaving it.” Mickelson later called his accountant with the banking details of ‘chuckie’ and an arrangement was made for a wire transfer of an undisclosed amount. The worse of this may not be over as the other member of the threesome was upset enough to call the PGA Tour. When contacted for a comment, the PGA Tour declined to comment and would not even acknowledge whether or not they have been contacted about the conflict at Augusta National.
From GolfWeek Insider…..”

OK, now my reply.
FAKE FAKE FAKE! As usual, 90 percent of every tall tale on the internet is false. Read Golfweek’s reply:

Posted: Apr/09/2008 at 5:03pm by Golfweek editor Jeff Babineau on our Masters blog.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – We all know that rumors in cyberspace can take on a life of their own. There was one circulating across the internet the last two days with a tale about Phil Mickelson. It was story describing a considerable gambling debt incurred over a practice round with members at Augusta leading into this year’s Masters tournament.

A spokesman from Mickelson’s camp called the posting (which originated on a web discussion board on the golfwrx.com site; it since has been pulled) both “baseless” and “erroneous,” so we won’t even go into detail on it. Unfortunately, atop the post, the lead-in said the item was “From a GolfWeek (sic) insider.”

Not true. As the editor of Golfweek, I can assure that nobody at our magazine or web site had anything to do with the ruse, which was posted, go figure, on April 1. This point also was made clear to two key memers of the Mickelson camp on the eve of the Masters.

Never a dull moment.

– Jeff Babineau

Speaking of the Masters, I miss that tournament. Excuse me? You say there’s a big event with lots of hoopla taking place right now in Augusta, Georgia? Sure, there is. But it’s not the Masters–at least not the Masters I used to know, where anyone could make a charge on the final day and come from seven shots back to win given all the eagle opportunities on the back nine, and where the best players could still fold due to pressure and not because the course was like 8,000 yards from the tips. Come Sunday this year, there will just be lots of bogey opportunities. Unless your name is Tiger Woods, nobody’s capable of making a big final-round comeback anymore. Truth is, there are just three and a half majors now–The British Open, the PGA Championship and two U.S. Opens, the first one merely involving less rough and more flowers.

Shanks, Whiffs and One-Irons, Laura Aiken – Monty, We’ll Miss You at The Masters.

Colin Montgomerie missed the top 50 mark in the rankings to get his auto-pass to this week’s Masters. Other players with higher rankings received invitations–at least ones from countries with lucrative television markets did. Fair? Not really. Surprising? Nope. I can see why Monty’s ticked about the whole situation, but we accept big business behaviour in many areas of life and will take the bitter pill of televised sports too. The bottom line can often supersede the fairness line, depending on perspective, and the mighty Augusta will be no exception. Its clout with the Masters surpasses the dictionary definition of the term. It’s their party and they’ll do what they want to. While television’s influence on sporting events is widely discussed and hotly debated, it’s hard to sympathize when the bank accounts of many of the most vocal are so healthy. Television played a role in that fact and there will always a price to pay somewhere for it. Although Monty will be missed at this year’s Masters—I found him to be an absolute gentleman and quite personable at last year’s Skins game—I’ll put my interest in growing the game and hope they’re making good decisions for the field and the ratings. Like any monopoly, it’s tough to get in their way.

Laura Aiken is the editor of Bay Area Golfing magazine and assistant to the BAGS Junior Golf Tour. She has been a golf writer for four years, and a mediocre player and fashion activist for 10. Laura can be reached at laura@gallowstudios.com.