Suffering for the ’shot’ at Shaganappi

Green in progress at Shaganappi's first hole

I have a new, profound, respect for investigative journalists. As part of my ongoing coverage of the renovations at Calgary’s Shaganappi Golf Course, I needed a shot of the progress being made on the first hole. But when I showed up with my camera, I found that someone had put a fence in the way. No problem. I’m a resourceful gal who doesn’t mind a little bushwhacking, so I dove into the shrubbery to find a better angle.

My backpack got caught and, less than three feet in, I was properly stuck. No problem. I ditched the backpack and pushed forward. My shins and hands got the worst of it. Dozens of prickly branches left dozens of tiny red welts (tiny being relative, of course). I thought of the poor reporters in Vietnam and gritted my teeth, thinking, “you’ve got it easy, girl, and you know it.” Then right in front of me… another fence!

Into the jungle

Oh great, another fence!

No problem. I followed it until a gap opened up in line with the hole. There was a big, wobbly roll of extra chainlink blocking most of the opening, but I climbed up onto it and, perching precariously, took the shot you see above. National Geographic shot of the week, it ain’t. But it did allow me feel a certain kinship with the wild lensemen of yore, those brave souls who brought the trenches to life a hundred years ago, and all those since who’ve weedled their way into far tighter corners than I, for the sake of ‘the shot’.

Perched for the shot

I was ’snapped’ back to reality when I went back to grab my backpack. As I tugged it free, a nasty little twig whipped straight up and hit me on the nose, right on the tender bottom bit. OUCH! It stung like mad! My eyes watered and I struggled, half blind, to get out of the darned jungle. Yes, a kinship indeed. I cursed the fences, and the builders who’d put them there. What on Earth did a plot of scraped up land need protection from anyway? And then it hit me… Oh, I guess from people like me~wink.

A personal apology to Dorothy…

Coming up to the last tee box of a Saturday morning nine, one of my freshly introduced foursome, dear Dorothy, told us how she had never once hit the short par three’s green in 15 years of playing Shaganappi.

“Today’s the day,” she said, and promptly topped the ball straight into the rough.

The other two women played it safe, as in nowhere near the green. I shot last, taking a chance on my moody 5 hybrid rather than my usual 6 iron. I’ve never hit it so clean, and the ball sailed singing all the way to the very center of the green.   

I’m sorry Dorothy. I really am. But my ego has to say a little thank you, because you set me up for a shot that – with golf’s wicket sense of humor - couldn’t possibly have gone anywhere else.

Making a statement on the golf course…

Design sketch for pink plaid, vintage style, golf pants

I’ve been looking for ways to improve my golf game that don’t involve setting up camp on David Leadbetter’s front lawn. These pants just might do the trick. They should have sufficient flair to take my shot making (or at least my mood in the face of a four putt) to the next level. You wouldn’t believe how much lower I shoot whenever (and my apologizes to Gloria Steinem) I add a skort to my swing routine. These pants could take me all the way to the LPGA!  

But then again, instead, what would happen if I spent all those hours it would take me to create the pattern, source the fabric, and sew everything together, at the driving range? Hmmm, tough choice (I know, Gloria, I know- sigh).

Current Blog Serial: Designing a Driving Range Club Carrier (Part Two)

Need to catch up on Part One?

Once you’ve defined your design problem, and listed the criteria for a successful solution, it’s on to the fun part. I like to do some initial brainstoming before following ‘official’ procedure by researching any currently available solutions. This fresh ideation is helpful because it allows the problem to be examined through its basic physical parameters without the interference of preconceptions. I believe this ‘blank canvas’ approach acts as a short-cut to new ideas and creates the best mental environment for originality and creativity. In this case, I wanted to get a feel for the weights and balance points of the ‘top weighted sticks’ in relation to my body before ever thinking of them as golf clubs.

How the 'top weighted sticks' behave when held at their balance point

Basic strap tied at balance (pivot) point to enable testing of various body orientations. Note: Hair elastic (at grips) prevents pivoting

Comfortable and stable with stap over one shoulder and shafts behind, but dangerous for urban settings. Therefore, does not meet criteria.

Equally comfortable and stable with shafts in front and club heads tucked behind arm (pulled forward for clarity in photo). Strap hooked into backpack to test ways to prevent any ’swinging’ while walking. Shafts in front create more manageable urban footprint. Note: Yes, that is tape holding my glasses together (don’t say it! don’t even think it!)

Stay tuned for part three for product research and to find out what happens when this designer gets a little too carried away with the project in Walmart!

Savouring dawn at the driving range

A late May dawn breaks over Calgary’s Shaganappi golf course

There is only one smell more delicious to a golfer than freshly cut grass, and if you scratch this picture on your monitor hard enough, and breath in deep enough, you’ll get a taste of it. Mmm, that’s right, it’s the sweet smell of dawn breaking over a course yet to be conquered. Good luck, and remember… smooth tempo…always tempo. I’m not trying to be poetic here, or metaphorical, or in any way philosophical, just putting a gentle reminder out into the universe that unless you’re a 14 year old gymnast, any kind of grace before 7am is going to be harder than breaking par at St. Andrews in a hurricane (ok, so maybe just a bit metaphorical). 

17th at Sawgrass comes to Calgary’s Shaganappi Golf Course

First hole at Shaganappi May 26th - Construction of new layout

The front nine of Calgary’s Shaganappi golf course is undergoing a major face-lift to accommodate the city’s new western extension of its light rail system. Lucky for us players, rather than simply chopping yardages, the course architects have livened up the layout with an exiting new 1st hole and some creative tweaking on holes 2,3,4,6, and 7 (view map of reconfiguration).

Starting next season, Spring 2010 (fingers crossed), we Calgarians will be teeing it up on our very own 17th at Sawgrass. That infamous brute of hole is America’s most notorious, and has crushed its share of Tigers, but we Canadians are a tougher lot. None of this ‘putting’ off the hard stuff till the end. We like to face our challenges head on. Blizzard? B’ah, what blizzard? High income taxes? B’ah, bring them on! Impossible green in regulation? B’ah, um…ok… you got me on this one. I’m just happy we won’t be teeing it up on network television.

TOP FIVE – What NOT to do when golfing with a woman!

She will lose her mind (and not in that good way) if you pull any of these shady/condescending moves on the course. How do I know? Find out what happened when this experienced golfer was hit with ALL FIVE (in chronological order) during last Saturday’s round!

1# Don't try to stop my ball with your foot!

Don’t… try and stop my ball with your foot. This is, without a doubt, the most humiliating cruelty one golfer can inflict on another. Never mind sexist, this is downright inhuman! Go ahead and help your two year old fit her straw in her juicebox, be my guest. But pleeeease give my hand/eye coordination a little more credit. After all, I did manage, miraculously, to tie these laces all by myself. Even if my ball is supersonically blasting its way across the green, straight for a bunker, DO NOT PUT YOUR TOE IN ITS WAY. I will bite it off (you think I’m kidding, don’t you).

2# Don't coach me (in any way shape or form)!

Don’t say… “Don’t forget your club,” as I’m walking towards the wedge I left on the green while putting out. Trust me, even your two year old would get pissed at you for that one. If you do happen to have some useful advice for me, even swing tips, just ask permission first. You know, like when you’re on that first…(oops I mean third) date~wink.

3# Don't ask me, "are you having fun yet?"

Don’t ask… “Are you having fun yet?” after I’ve just made a mess of a hole. You know what? Don’t even say it after I’ve had a magical, afterlife-illuminating, hole. Just keep your mouth shut. I’m golfing. What business is it of anyone’s whether I’m having any fun at it! I’m here, aren’t I? What more can the bloody game want from me!

4# Don't try to make the game easier for/on me!

Don’t say… “You can move it out of there…” when I have a challenging lie. If I wanted to be mini-putting on Astroturf, then (and this will blow your mind) I would be mini-putting on Astroturf. Last time I checked, golf wasn’t supposed to be a walk in the park (oh wait, technically…). But really, maybe this is my mistake? Maybe it’s supposed to be easy? Just like getting rich is such a cinch, and having great hair every day is…sigh…

5# Don't laugh (out loud) if I flub a shot! Seriously.

Don’t… laugh (long and loud and luxuriously) when I flub my shot.

And there’s where it all went so wrong…
I played it cool all the way through till #5 (aside from a snarky “are you having fun yet” retort on hole 14), but I’m ashamed to say I lost my mind when he started laughing…and laughing…and kept on laughing at my blown bunker shot on hole 15. He went right on laughing even as I was charging at him up the lip of the trap!

I dropped my club and made straight for the brute. I didn’t care that he was a full ½ foot taller and about 100 pounds heavier; I had thousands of years of sexist injustices backing me up! Oh, and one rather shocked husband. Yes, the poor man who had gallantly kept me calm through all the condescension by explaining “he doesn’t know any better,” turned to find his tiny blond wife going all Hulk Hogan on his playing partner. I was up in the middle aged man’s “grill” shouting, “do you have some kind of problem,” when dear hubby dragged me away.

I’d like to say I’m exaggerating here (and so would dear hubby), but, and you girls can relate to me on this, it’s hard for any woman to be taken seriously on the course, no matter her skill level. We have so much more to prove, and so much less raw muscle to prove it with. It’s no wonder we can get a little sensitive when there’s blatant condescension in your voice. Just be warned, chivalry is a noble, but dangerous, game to play on a golf course.

~Visuals by brilliant illustrator Christina Nichols~

The official (embarrassing) first sign of golf season

Witness the glorious rebirth of sock-tan!

If Charles Dickens had been a golfer…

 

“It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times…
…it was golf.”

- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Courses

 

 

The gift of a grey morning on the range

7AM - With work and the city in the distance, this misty playground is all my own...

...well, almost. But he wasn't the only one.

His mate was spying too! Click on the image to play eye spy.

One last look at the real world...

…before ’setting up’ for the new golf season. Welcome back!

(Note: Click through to comments for answer to eye spy puzzle)

How to make a man’s jaw drop (and it’s not what you think)

So… I was walking home from work yesterday, minding my own business, when these two fellows came up and asked “can we get your opinion”? This is never a good thing, especially when one of them is wearing a suit and holding a clipboard, and the other one’s smile is just a little too wide. Keep in mind I was wearing a dirty baseball cap, rolled up hideous grey pants, a purple pyjama shirt, and a fluorescent orange makeshift backpack that I got as swag from a Geophysics convention (my job has some serious perks!). Glamazon, not so much. So I knew they had to be selling something and, be it a different faith or front row football tickets, I was just not interested.

“A new girl’s spa is opening up!” exclaimed the suited guy, waving a book of coupons at me (and ya, he really did say “girl’s”). Then the one behind him spoke up. All I heard was something about “free golf”. Oh, those two magic words were enough to stop me in my tracks. I could have been in the middle of an intersection or running with the Bulls in Spain, and I still would have stopped dead and put on my most charming smile.

“Free golf?” I asked excitedly, with raised eyebrows.

They both looked confused. “Nope, SPA,” said the suit.

“No thanks,” I said, “but now, if you were talking about free golf then that would be a totally different thing!”

The suit couldn’t quite get his tiny overly gelled head around the idea. The other fellow, a red haired scrawny twenty something, was just staring. His eyes went wide. His jaw slowly fell. It was shock; it was awe. It was fabulous! He kept repeating the word “golf” as if it was the first time he’d heard it come out of a girl (even if it was a girl with the ugliest pants ever brought into existence) – a fantastical fantasy come true. Could it be that “girl” and “golf” could be combined into one perfect-purple-pajama-shirted” package? I could see his brain trying to put it all together.

I tell you, it’s moments like that, that make those three puts on 18 and all those agonizing push slices worth it. I turned away feeling like I’d expanded the poor boy’s view of women, of maybe the whole world! But should the feminist agenda ever be put before a facial? I didn’t even check the deals! And if anyone needs to save on a massage, it would be us golfers! lol

“Pulling a Maggert” – Golf’s most dangerous shot

If you look close enough...you can actually see the pain

Who says golf is a boring game? I barely survived the second hole of my “leisurely” Sunday afternoon round yesterday. My ball was buried in deep rough off the right side of the fairway. I had about 60 yards to the green, but there was a large elm halfway between me and the pin. I knew I’d have to power the ball out of the grass with enough oomf to punch it through the leaves. No problem. I set up with my seven and let ‘er rip with maxed out swing speed and a full body turn. It hit the trunk dead square. There was a tremendous “Thwack” and suddenly the ball was heading straight for me – missile style – target locked. I chucked my club with a yell and did a ever-so-graceful backwards dive onto the grass – out of the line of fire. Time slowed, and one word, one name, flashed before my eyes as I arched through the air…MAGGERT.

What is “pulling a Maggert”?

Who pulled the first Maggert? Jeff Maggert, of course, on that infamous Sunday afternoon at the Masters five years ago. It remember watching it (on TV, tragically) as a fledgling golfer and thinking – “No, this can’t be happening, this game can’t be that cruel!” An oh, oh yes it can, as I have learned many times over since then. And as I picked my grass stained self up off the ground, I learned it all over again. My bullet ball had come to rest a good 25 yards behind where I’d first hit it… touché golf, touché.

(photo source: sportsillustrated.cnn.com)

Dropping shots with Padraig Harrington and Dr. Bob

When Padraig Harrington tapped in for a clean par on the 18th, he won the British Open for the second year in a row. We’re all left wondering… How in blue blazes!!!! Well, turns out his lovely wife, Caroline, had booked him some face time with the world’s top sports psychologist. You can find the genius list and quote below in this month’s Golf Digest article, Your 15th Club.  

 

Dr. Bob Rotella’s Mental Keys

1. Visualize the shot

2. Adhere to a pre-shot routine

3. Focus on your target

4. Commit to your swing

5. Accept the result

“Because (Harrington) already knows that he’ll accept whatever happens to his shot, he’s relaxed.”

hmmmm, I’m thinkin’ there might just be a life lesson tucked in there somewhere?

Teetering on 100 – waiting for David Feherty to give me a nudge

I’m teetering on the precipice. Below me stretch miles of wide golden green fairways and shimmering funnel shaped greens. The water hazards are safely iced over, and off in the distance I can just barely make out David Feherty cheering me on from one of the bunker trampolines. Turns out he’s as subtley graceful in the air as he is on the mike lol.

Where is this gilded heaven, you ask? It’s that tantalizing promise of glory beyond 100. No, I’m not talking about blowing out candles and getting a letter from the Queen. I’m talking about shooting a golf score below that magic number. Only after breaking 100 can a golfer hold his/her head high. No more “but I really do enjoy it” or “I’m using my husbands clubs” excuses. Because let’s face it, sure you may enjoy moments when you’re shooting 100+, the birds, nice sunshine, a decent put here and there, but there’s no way you are enjoying golf - the full body/mind/spirit fight to the death against physics, grass, and (toughest of all) yourself!

Now with my own set of clubs, a stiff cotton skort in cream, and a pretty pink polo top, I’m all out of excuses. This is my summer to break 100. I absolutely have to shoot 99 or lower! I’ve been going for it, with every muscle keyed up and every gray cell focused. Last round I was sure I was gonna do it. So what does a warrior woman do on on the eighteenth green when her husband tells her she just holed out for and exact 1-0-0 score? She starts to quietly cry, of course. I blame the pink polo.

(photo source: golf.com)