Shiny Balls

I played a scramble tournament with the ladies league yesterday (my team won). One of the fun add-ons was a game called Mystery Ball. Each team was given a blue Nike Mojo ball, which had to be played by a different player on each hole. The object was not to lose the ball -- not such an easy task, since it was a dark, matte blue and definitely hard to spot against green grass. All teams who still had the blue ball at the end of the tournament would be entered in a raffle for a prize. Turned out, my team was the only one that didn't lose their ball, so we won the raffle by default.

Speaking of balls of color, one of the women on my team showed up with the most blinged-out balls I've ever seen. The silver ball is from the Lynx brand, the same maker of a beloved $16 sand wedge I once had. The gold ball is made by Chromax, a specialist in metallic balls of color. I must say that the silver ball was easier to spot in the grass than any golf ball I've ever seen. Maybe it's because they shine like a light, which is the opposite of those matte golf balls I tried out recently.

I think I'm gonna have to try out these metallic, high-visibility golf balls for myself some day. Because finding one's balls should never be a mystery.

(P.S. Nike discontinued its Mojo balls, so now those blue balls will be almost impossible to find.)

Orange You Glad...?

So I tried out the new Volvik Vivid orange balls. As you may know, I like playing with color balls (or "balls of color," as I like to say) because they're fun. When you're playing a ball of color, it takes the guesswork out of who blasted that tee shot furthest down the fairway when everyone else is playing a boring old white ball. I've been playing the hot pink Callaway Supersoft and the tour yellow Srixon Soft Feel balls for a few years now, but a few weeks ago, I noticed that another lady in my golf league plays the same pink ball, and a few others play yellow balls. So I thought I'd try out another ball in a color no one has. This led me to the Volvik Vivid orange ball.

I've played with Volvik Crystal balls before, and I found them too pastel and glittery to be easy to find on the course. But the Volvik Vivid balls are the first-ever ball with a matte finish. And the color promised to be, well, vivid.

The verdict? Well, they have a compression of 80, which is higher than my usual pink and yellow balls, and I did notice the change in feel. They didn't roll out as much on my driver shots, leading to less distance. But they did feel grippier around the greens. I felt my putts were easier to control and rolled somewhat truer. However, the matte finish made them seem to attract and hold dirt more, so if any mud got on the ball (and lately it's been rainy and muddy out there), I had to spend more time cleaning the ball once I got on the green.

And what about the promise of greater visibility? Yes, they are more visible, almost glaringly, annoyingly so -- once you can actually see them. On the course, from a distance, these orange balls actually seem less visible than white or yellow balls. Perhaps it's due to the matte finish, which absorbs light instead of reflecting it.

On the plus side, if you can spot the orange ball in the distance, you will never mistake it for something else, the way you sometimes do with white balls. (How many times have we been given false hope, spotting something light-colored in the rough, only to find that it's just a crumpled receipt or piece of trash?) So unless you're playing in a grove of trees bearing tiny citrus fruits, the Volvik Vivid orange ball will solve at least that common problem.

When the Rough Gets Growing

It was my first play day with the women’s league yesterday. I signed up for the second year, and hopefully I’ll stay fit enough to last throughout the season. I’m limiting myself to no more than 2 rounds a week, once on Wednesdays with the league, and once on the weekend with hubby.

Yesterday, the league played at the same course where I shot an 88 a month and a half ago. Back then, the fairways were hard from the cold, and the rough grass was still thin. Plus, the greens had just been aerated, so balls landed squarely and putts rolled without much break. By now, the rough has grown as thick as a scrub brush and the greens were firm and fast, so balls landing on them had a tendency to roll like a marble out of a frying pan. 

In the end, I shot a pitiful 107. About 5 of those shots were from chunking my wedges into the thick rough. Another 5 strokes were from bunker shots that didn’t quite make it onto the green, resulting in crappy wedge shots out of the rough. I also lost a ball in the water, and another in a red stake hazard, after overhitting a ball past the green.

Thank goodness handicaps only include the 10 best of the last 20 rounds played, and I have enough decent rounds banked for the 107 to be inconsequential. But clearly, I need to practice my wedges. So it’s off to the golf course practice area. Or, since it'll be raining the next couple days, maybe I could just practice hitting balls off a bristle brush at home.

Mansplaining at the Range

I am seething with rage right now. Just got back from the range. I was practicing with my two brand-new Cleveland wedges with ladies graphite shafts. (I recently decided to switch from using my husband's old Cleveland wedges with the stiff iron shafts.) Anyway, I was at the range which has special targets just for practicing short wedge shots. I was almost done with my bucket when some old short, skinny white guy comes up to me and says, "Have you ever watched the LPGA?"
   Having no idea why he was asking me this question, I said, "Yeah, why?"
   "You should watch the ladies on the LPGA," he said. "I noticed your arm, it's like this--" he makes a motion of bending his arm.
   "You mean I bend my arm on the backswing?" I said.
   "Yeah. You need to keep your left arm straight," he said.
   "Have you been watching me this whole time?" I said, accusingly.
   "Well, a couple times," he said, sheepishly, looking away. "Your arm bends on the backswing."
   "I know it does," I said. "I've asked a lot of golf teachers and they all say it doesn't matter. What's more important is what happens at impact."
   "Well, that's true," he said.
   "Have you ever seen John Daly? Jordan Spieth?" I said. "The straight left arm thing is a myth. But why are you telling me this? Do you feel free to come up and comment on my swing just because I'm a woman?" I looked around, noticing there weren't any other women around. I began to get quite angry. "Would you do that to any of these guys around here?"
   The man kept trying to mansplain the golf swing to me. He had no clue that "keep your left arm straight" is overly simplistic advice, just like the commonly heard admonishment to "keep your head down." This douche bag just kept insisting, "If you watch the ladies on the LPGA, some of them are small like you, and they keep their left arm straight."
   "Oh really? Well, they're a lot younger and have been golfing since they were young. You have no idea what kind of physical limitations I might have. And how dare you criticize me! Who do you think you are, my husband?"
   Finally, the man started to back away.
   "Thanks a lot for ruining my day!" I said sharply.

   Later it occurred to me that this asshole might have assumed that I couldn't hit the ball very far, not even noticing that I am practicing my short game with wedges. But at the time, I was so angry I could have punched the guy in the nose.
   This wasn't the first time I'd been approached at a driving range, but in the past it was usually some random dude trying to start a harmless conversation. This time was different. This time, I almost felt sexually harrassed. Golf is a sport that is overwhelmingly dominated by men, but in this day and age, women on the range or on the course should not be considered an anomaly.
   I'm thinking about writing a letter of complaint to the range. Maybe I should demand that they put signs up at each stall, reminding people that it's rude to stare and comment on other people's swings. And if you're a man, keep your damn mouth shut around the women!

Zig-Zag Golf

This may look like modern art, but this is just an illustration to show how I've been playing so far this spring. On the left was a par 4 where I teed off into the trees, then punched out and hit an amazingly perfect 3-wood shot to land within a few feet of the hole. On the right was a par 4 where I teed off into another fairway, then hit a risky hook shot into the right rough, followed by a well-executed wedge onto the green.

On the first hole, I made the putt for par. On the second hole, I made a double-bogey (but only because of poor putting.) Net score for both holes was a 2. Which just goes to show, sometimes a short distance between two points doesn't have to be a straight line.

Another New Course Record

Saturday began with an inauspicious "Windows is preparing to install updates... " error message on my hubby's laptop. An hour later, the message was still there.
   "We have to leave in 30 minutes to make our tee time," I said. "Can you just turn off your computer?"
   "It says, 'Do not power off your computer,'" hubby replied.
   "If we leave it running while we play golf, what if it overheats and explodes and burns the house down?" I said. I often worry about such things before going to play golf. I worry that I've left the coffeemaker on and it will explode and burn the house down. Or that I've left the freezer door ajar and everything will melt and a pool of liquid will soak through the kitchen floor.
   "It's not going to explode," said hubby.
   "I don't want to leave it running all day," I said.
   "But it says not to turn it off," he said.
   "What do you think will happen if you turn it off, it will explode?" I said. "Maybe we should just cancel our tee time."
   Finally, hubby rebooted the laptop contrary to the screen command not to, and the updates installed quickly and smoothly and we made our tee time just in time.

   It was a good thing, too, as I ended up playing pretty well and I shot an 88, a course record for me at this particular track in northern Baltimore County.

   Here's one of my approach shots with the scenic rolling hills in the distant background.

The greens were aerated, which was a bonus if they happened to align straight with the putting line. But when they ran diagonally to my putting line, I just got dizzy and confused.

Still, I made enough putts to score respectably low. I have to give some credit to my newest club in my bag. I recently traded in my old G20 regular flex 3-wood for a new G25 senior flex 3-wood to match the G25 senior flex 5-wood hubby bought me last year.  (Keep in mind that the Ping G25 series is actually already discontinued, but I can't afford to buy the absolute newest clubs all the time. I can only afford them after a price drop or two.) Whether new or just new to me, I must say that the equipment upgrade helped my game. The clubs really do seem more forgiving and hit straighter than my old ones.

Or maybe I just felt relaxed and confident, knowing that hubby's laptop wasn't going to explode.

Putting Out of a Bunker

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday I was golfing in sunny, windy 65-degree weather. Today I'm stuck inside watching snow accumulate on the lawn. Luckily, the brain has something called a memory that can replay pleasant scenes in just this kind of circumstance.

Yesterday started with a restless feeling, as I checked the online tee times of my local course and found that nothing was available till after 12:30pm. So I spent the morning stretching and washing my clubs and winnowing them down to a set of 10, which would make my bag lighter since I was going to be walking. I ate a breakfast sandwich and headed out to the range to practice before my round.

Golf season is gearing up, and it was nice to see some familiar faces around and engage in some light chitchat about golfy things like recent injuries and performance clothing. I got paired with 3 nice gentlemen who were squeezing in a round before they headed off on a golf trip to Myrtle Beach. Naturally, the talk turned to the weather. While it was a sunny day, the wind had some wicked gusts that were throwing me off my game. But after one of the guys mentioned he wasn't looking forward to the 20-degree drop in temps in the forecast in Myrtle Beach, I decided I had no right to complain. Imagine scrimping and saving all year for a week-long vacation, only to find the normally balmy weather suddenly turn cold and rainy. But as any golfer knows, them's the breaks. And to quote Bobby Jones, "Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots -- but you have to play the ball where it lies."

The stakes were lower for me. I was just trying to get in my golf fix before freezing temps set in. The handicap season hasn't started yet, so after the first couple double-bogeys, I stopped keeping score. The fairways were still hard and tight and full of patches of dried-out bermuda grass, so it was hard for me to hit any decent irons shots. But I did hit some respectable driver shots and managed to par a couple holes. (To my 90-year-old self who will reread this blog after my days of golf have ended: Remember that long par 3 with water on the left and bunkers on the right? You set up a couple yards back from the forward tees and pured your 5-wood to within 10 feet, pin-high. Great shot, you!)

And I tried something new on a dogleg-right par 4, which was to purposely try and hit a slice. It didn't work, and I ended up playing from the adjacent fairway, hitting through trees only to have my ball rejected like a coin from a broken vending machine. Finally, I punched through and finished the hole with some unpretty putting. But that's what the off-season is for, trying things you wouldn't normally do if you were keeping score.

I also learned something new from one of the guys who landed in bunkers so often I couldn't help but notice. Normally, I don't stare at people swinging, because it's just not polite, but after one bunker shot, I couldn't help but see that he emerged with a putter in his hand.

"You can use a putter to get out of a bunker?" I said.
"Oh sure," he said, "but only if it's a shallow one with no lip."

I was amazed. This was something I'd never seen a highly paid golf professional do on TV, but something I wouldn't be too proud to try if the opportunity arose. Not that I'm going to be aiming for any bunkers. But it's good to know it's an option when you find yourself getting a tough break like landing in a bunker. It's nice to have a new way to play the ball as it lies.