Funny shit!
funny pic. Daly is kinda small (compared to what people might think…I reckon he’s barely 5’10")
Daly called me Bubba all day.
There’s gotta be more to the story than that! Lol
Thought I explained that before?
I do a volunteer job for the pga tour when the can open is here, as the walking scorer of a group. I walk with the players and caddies with an headset and a wireless little palm pilot and track each shot they hit, noting location (fway , rough, fringe, etc). I have to be pretty near them other than on the green, so it’s great if you’re a golf geek. You need to k ow the rules pretty well because you have to enter all this shit as it’s happening. It’s a break for me having played tournament golf but some of the other people who get this job can get a little frazzled in weird situations. Thus the headset so they can talk to the pga tour guys.
This data feeds pgatour.Com and shotlink and the on course leader boards. So when you’re watching a tour event at work and looking at the leader board online, that’s how it’s so fast. After the round I go with the players to confirm their scores in scoring trailer/room.
On the first tee of the second round at hamilton Golf Club in the 2012 CDN open, I met my group, which was John Daly, David Dual and someone I forget. Daly said ‘hey Bubba you going with us today?’ and I said ‘yes I am’ and shook his hand while wondering why he called me Bubba. He called me it a few times during the round when we had to wait. “you a member here Bubba?”. “Hey Bubba why they always moving the tournament around?”
I later looked it up. It’s like a southern term for “big guy”. I’m 6’5", so that made sense.
You’re right. You did post about your work for the Canadian Open. Not sure if the bubba stuff was included, but that’s still pretty funny. John Daly is quite a character.
I worked at the Western Open when I was a kid (back when that tournament still existed). I grew up about 20 minutes from Cog Hill, so it was nice and convenient. However, my job wasn’t nearly as glamorous as a walking scorer. I basically just drove around a golf cart stocking the concession stands. Still, the pay wasn’t bad, and I got free access to the tournament when my shift ended. Pretty good experience. Tiger always dominated that tournament - think he won like 7 times lol.
Yeah, walking scorer is the greatest volunteer job in the whole tournament.
You get to really absorb how they play, how they work their way around. You get to hang out inside the ropes and watch the best players on earth do EVERYTHING. You get to interact them them a little (I basically ignore them because that’s what I should do…they’re here to work although some of them are real chatty). On top of this, when your shift is over, you’re wearing a headset and carrying some equipment, so you basically have all access wherever you want to go on the property lol. Nobody fucks with you.
funny pic. Daly is kinda small (compared to what people might think…I reckon he’s barely 5’10")
Daly called me Bubba all day.
There’s gotta be more to the story than that! Lol
Thought I explained that before?
I do a volunteer job for the pga tour when the can open is here, as the walking scorer of a group. I walk with the players and caddies with an headset and a wireless little palm pilot and track each shot they hit, noting location (fway , rough, fringe, etc). I have to be pretty near them other than on the green, so it’s great if you’re a golf geek. You need to k ow the rules pretty well because you have to enter all this shit as it’s happening. It’s a break for me having played tournament golf but some of the other people who get this job can get a little frazzled in weird situations. Thus the headset so they can talk to the pga tour guys.
This data feeds pgatour.Com and shotlink and the on course leader boards. So when you’re watching a tour event at work and looking at the leader board online, that’s how it’s so fast. After the round I go with the players to confirm their scores in scoring trailer/room.
On the first tee of the second round at hamilton Golf Club in the 2012 CDN open, I met my group, which was John Daly, David Dual and someone I forget. Daly said ‘hey Bubba you going with us today?’ and I said ‘yes I am’ and shook his hand while wondering why he called me Bubba. He called me it a few times during the round when we had to wait. “you a member here Bubba?”. “Hey Bubba why they always moving the tournament around?”
I later looked it up. It’s like a southern term for “big guy”. I’m 6’5", so that made sense.
You’re right. You did post about your work for the Canadian Open. Not sure if the bubba stuff was included, but that’s still pretty funny. John Daly is quite a character.
I worked at the Western Open when I was a kid (back when that tournament still existed). I grew up about 20 minutes from Cog Hill, so it was nice and convenient. However, my job wasn’t nearly as glamorous as a walking scorer. I basically just drove around a golf cart stocking the concession stands. Still, the pay wasn’t bad, and I got free access to the tournament when my shift ended. Pretty good experience. Tiger always dominated that tournament - think he won like 7 times lol.
Yeah, walking scorer is the greatest volunteer job in the whole tournament.
You get to really absorb how they play, how they work their way around. You get to hang out inside the ropes and watch the best players on earth do EVERYTHING. You get to interact them them a little (I basically ignore them because that’s what I should do…they’re here to work although some of them are real chatty). On top of this, when your shift is over, you’re wearing a headset and carrying some equipment, so you basically have all access wherever you want to go on the property lol. Nobody fucks with you.
Well golf season is over. Sucks because I finally felt like I was hitting it well in the fall.
I was around a 1 handicap for about 5-6 years in the mid-late 2000s. In 2010 I had my best year ever. The final round of the year for me back then was at my home course, and playing blue tees as I was a with a couple of 8 to 10 handicappers. It’s still quite tough with a course rating of 72.2 and a slope rating of 141. We all had decent rounds with them shooting in the low-mid 80s. I played well, almost never getting into trouble and ended up shooting 68. That’s still the lowest I’ve ever been, to this day.
Anyway, next season, in the spring of 2011, I went on a 4 day golf trip to PGA National in Florida (where they play the Honda) and played really well for spring (I barely practice over the winter and am usually a slow starter in spring), shooting in the mid-70s for the 3 rounds, including 77 on the very tough Nicklaus course. If not for a thinned 5 iron at the 16th hole (tough par 4) which ended up wet and cost me a double, I would have parred through the bear trap. Anyway, I was looking forward to a great year, but I completely fell apart about July of that season. My swing path changed but I didn’t know it. I went from taking it away a little outside, and then dropping it undernearth on the way down and hitting a bit of a draw on everything, to eliminating the drop, and hitting a pull-cut. It was infuriating. My friend who is a pro watched me and was just flat confused. So was I … I would always look in a certain spot in the sky for my ball after hitting a shot, and now it wasn’t there. I was really lost. We watched me on video and noticed the swing plane change, and were both looking at the screen like we’d seen a ghost on a surveillance camera video…it was weird.
It got terrible, to the point at the end of the year, I was struggling to break 80. I played with my pro friend and shot 87, losing half a dozen balls in hazzards and OB. The ‘finale’ was on Thanksgiving, at my home course from the same tees, 1 year to the day after shooting 68 in 2010. I tripled the last two holes and shot 90, and wanted to cry lol. I hadn’t shot in the 90s since it was the 1990s. This was staggering.
I took the winter off and hoped my AIDS riddled swing would be fixed (I don’t take lessons, so it would be up to me). But I was OK with it because I had always wanted to eliminate that drop underneath my takeaway plane , and just take it back and bring it back on the same plane.Well my dad died that December, and I didn’t give a fuck about golf. I toook the next summer off golf, and went to Europe on vacation and to see family. I played 3 times all summer when invited to charity events, and didn’t care/hated golf.
In 2013 I started playing again. WOW…was I shit. I was shooting in the high 80s to low 90s the first 3 rounds. The scores were hilarious compared to what I was used to. I had really lost my shit. 2013 was a new beginning though and I was going to work through it and get good again. A guy in one of our other regional offices asked me to play in a charity event on his team because he had heard how good I was (was being the key word lol). When I got there, I told him how I was rebuilding my swing and was playing like a 12 capper, and he was like ‘WTF…WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME!’ We still won, I hit it pretty well considering lol. Thank fuck I could still chip and putt or I’d have shot 100 a couple of times though that spring. By the end of the year, I had it back to a low single digit handicap or so, but still didn’t own my swing. I was kind of erratic.
This year, I was more keen than ever, and ended up playing about 80 rounds and another 10 nine holes (after work), as well as at least 15-20 par 3 course rounds with my wife who now plays. Most golf I’ve ever played. I was still a bit up and down, but was a steady 4 capper all summer. In September, I read an article and got a tip and put it to use. CHanged everything. Suddenly I started cracking the ball again. I was hitting it great like back in 2010, but without the loop in my swing. In September/October/November, I played some of my best golf ever, shooting in the low 70s a pile of times, and making more birdies than I ever have. Unfortunately after working on my long game for 2 years, my short game wasn’t awesome, so that’s the only thing that has stopped me from going really low. Next year I hope to keep this up and get back to working on the scoring game too.
My last 2 rounds of the year were 2 of my best and were a 70 with 5 birdies and 2 bogeys, and then last week’s round was my best birdie performance ever. I was kind of messing around. Made a couple of bogeys on easy holes (3rd and 4th). I made 2birdies to get back to even but on 8 i tried a hero shot after a bad drive and made double. I then bogeyed 9 and was kinda just ‘whatever’ after shooting 39 on the front. On the back we met up with some friends and played a match against them, and that’s where I came alive. It’s par 37 on the back, and I made 5 birdies and a double bogey and shot 34. I had 2 different 10 foot eagle putts that I missed. That was a 73 (even par as there are 5 par 5s) with a couple of doubles and 3 bogeys, and 7 birdies, most I’ve ever made. Funny. I wish I was sharper on the front, as this could have been a 67.
http://i60.tinypic.com/34qvarp.jpg
SO for the first time ever I’m going to practice through the winter. I’m excited and want to remain sharp and grooved. I bought a launch monitor the other day, and am looking forward to hitting balls here in the house with good speed/carry/path/flight/spin data to confirm what I’m feeling. Today I went to an open house at a high tech golf practice facility and they had about 8 hitting stations , each with their own trackman, HD video camera and 2 x 50" LCD TVs with your data/video on them. Insanely cool.
Here’s my warm up PW (shots 1-5), full swing PW (shots 6-14 shown on the dispersion map in the first pic) and 8 iron (shots 15-21, shown on the dispersion map on the 2nd pic) and a few 6 irons (shots 22-26 but I don’t have the averages there or the map). Pretty amazing how good launch monitors are now. I was hitting shots and then thinking where that went, then looking at the TV screens and sure enough it’s frigging BANG ON. I can’t wait for mine to get here so I can setup in the house.
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo193/sakimano/tempFileForShare_zpsgtt8ovqt.jpg
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo193/sakimano/tempFileForShare_zpslxcahyvf.jpg
always fun to see how the tour players numbers look. These are PGA tour averages. I can keep up with them up to about a 5 iron. Then it becomes a much smaller margin for error with long irons/hybrids and woods, and their averages vs. my averages start to get REEEALLLY disparate!
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo193/sakimano/Mobile%20Uploads/20141122_101302_zps1fofbkti.jpg
Nice insight and appreciate us sharing your misery/enjoyment/misery of being a golf addict yet again.
I can’t believe how much you played this last year and on such a short season for yall. I dunno if I’ve teed off 80 round (9 or 18 holes) in the past 3 years much less 1 year haha.
I did forget about this thread as I went out to Vegas two weeks ago for a TPGA (Tennessee PGA) golf trip. We played all 3 courses at Piaute, all Pete dye designs. Had a lot of fun. It was a 5 man team with 1 gross and 1 net ball. More fun golf than serious. But my first time playin in Vegas and I really enjoyed the courses there. Ignorance is bliss though, as I had some killer drives, but not knowing how tight the landing area was in some spots made it pretty easy to be fearless haha.
Here are a couple pics.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/11/22/4bd311705b0a48c6757162b6f36cf7ca.jpg
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/11/22/b0d0b7d0f6f214b0d1e935167cf64c7e.jpg
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/11/22/d2989cb6efc057df682233b0e658e6bd.jpg
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/11/22/6eeec1f36001d5a5596459171a372b21.jpg
This course was also where they hold the national long drive competitions. They had the driving range all painted up. It was pretty cool to even see it.
Well golf season is over. Sucks because I finally felt like I was hitting it well in the fall.
I was around a 1 handicap for about 5-6 years in the mid-late 2000s. In 2010 I had my best year ever. The final round of the year for me back then was at my home course, and playing blue tees as I was a with a couple of 8 to 10 handicappers. It’s still quite tough with a course rating of 72.2 and a slope rating of 141. We all had decent rounds with them shooting in the low-mid 80s. I played well, almost never getting into trouble and ended up shooting 68. That’s still the lowest I’ve ever been, to this day.
Anyway, next season, in the spring of 2011, I went on a 4 day golf trip to PGA National in Florida (where they play the Honda) and played really well for spring (I barely practice over the winter and am usually a slow starter in spring), shooting in the mid-70s for the 3 rounds, including 77 on the very tough Nicklaus course. If not for a thinned 5 iron at the 16th hole (tough par 4) which ended up wet and cost me a double, I would have parred through the bear trap. Anyway, I was looking forward to a great year, but I completely fell apart about July of that season. My swing path changed but I didn’t know it. I went from taking it away a little outside, and then dropping it undernearth on the way down and hitting a bit of a draw on everything, to eliminating the drop, and hitting a pull-cut. It was infuriating. My friend who is a pro watched me and was just flat confused. So was I … I would always look in a certain spot in the sky for my ball after hitting a shot, and now it wasn’t there. I was really lost. We watched me on video and noticed the swing plane change, and were both looking at the screen like we’d seen a ghost on a surveillance camera video…it was weird.
It got terrible, to the point at the end of the year, I was struggling to break 80. I played with my pro friend and shot 87, losing half a dozen balls in hazzards and OB. The ‘finale’ was on Thanksgiving, at my home course from the same tees, 1 year to the day after shooting 68 in 2010. I tripled the last two holes and shot 90, and wanted to cry lol. I hadn’t shot in the 90s since it was the 1990s. This was staggering.
I took the winter off and hoped my AIDS riddled swing would be fixed (I don’t take lessons, so it would be up to me). But I was OK with it because I had always wanted to eliminate that drop underneath my takeaway plane , and just take it back and bring it back on the same plane.Well my dad died that December, and I didn’t give a fuck about golf. I toook the next summer off golf, and went to Europe on vacation and to see family. I played 3 times all summer when invited to charity events, and didn’t care/hated golf.
In 2013 I started playing again. WOW…was I shit. I was shooting in the high 80s to low 90s the first 3 rounds. The scores were hilarious compared to what I was used to. I had really lost my shit. 2013 was a new beginning though and I was going to work through it and get good again. A guy in one of our other regional offices asked me to play in a charity event on his team because he had heard how good I was (was being the key word lol). When I got there, I told him how I was rebuilding my swing and was playing like a 12 capper, and he was like ‘WTF…WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME!’ We still won, I hit it pretty well considering lol. Thank fuck I could still chip and putt or I’d have shot 100 a couple of times though that spring. By the end of the year, I had it back to a low single digit handicap or so, but still didn’t own my swing. I was kind of erratic.
This year, I was more keen than ever, and ended up playing about 80 rounds and another 10 nine holes (after work), as well as at least 15-20 par 3 course rounds with my wife who now plays. Most golf I’ve ever played. I was still a bit up and down, but was a steady 4 capper all summer. In September, I read an article and got a tip and put it to use. CHanged everything. Suddenly I started cracking the ball again. I was hitting it great like back in 2010, but without the loop in my swing. In September/October/November, I played some of my best golf ever, shooting in the low 70s a pile of times, and making more birdies than I ever have. Unfortunately after working on my long game for 2 years, my short game wasn’t awesome, so that’s the only thing that has stopped me from going really low. Next year I hope to keep this up and get back to working on the scoring game too.
My last 2 rounds of the year were 2 of my best and were a 70 with 5 birdies and 2 bogeys, and then last week’s round was my best birdie performance ever. I was kind of messing around. Made a couple of bogeys on easy holes (3rd and 4th). I made 2birdies to get back to even but on 8 i tried a hero shot after a bad drive and made double. I then bogeyed 9 and was kinda just ‘whatever’ after shooting 39 on the front. On the back we met up with some friends and played a match against them, and that’s where I came alive. It’s par 37 on the back, and I made 5 birdies and a double bogey and shot 34. I had 2 different 10 foot eagle putts that I missed. That was a 73 (even par as there are 5 par 5s) with a couple of doubles and 3 bogeys, and 7 birdies, most I’ve ever made. Funny. I wish I was sharper on the front, as this could have been a 67.
http://i60.tinypic.com/34qvarp.jpg
SO for the first time ever I’m going to practice through the winter. I’m excited and want to remain sharp and grooved. I bought a launch monitor the other day, and am looking forward to hitting balls here in the house with good speed/carry/path/flight/spin data to confirm what I’m feeling. Today I went to an open house at a high tech golf practice facility and they had about 8 hitting stations , each with their own trackman, HD video camera and 2 x 50" LCD TVs with your data/video on them. Insanely cool.
Here’s my warm up PW (shots 1-5), full swing PW (shots 6-14 shown on the dispersion map in the first pic) and 8 iron (shots 15-21, shown on the dispersion map on the 2nd pic) and a few 6 irons (shots 22-26 but I don’t have the averages there or the map). Pretty amazing how good launch monitors are now. I was hitting shots and then thinking where that went, then looking at the TV screens and sure enough it’s frigging BANG ON. I can’t wait for mine to get here so I can setup in the house.
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo193/sakimano/tempFileForShare_zpsgtt8ovqt.jpg
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo193/sakimano/tempFileForShare_zpslxcahyvf.jpg
always fun to see how the tour players numbers look. These are PGA tour averages. I can keep up with them up to about a 5 iron. Then it becomes a much smaller margin for error with long irons/hybrids and woods, and their averages vs. my averages start to get REEEALLLY disparate!
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo193/sakimano/Mobile%20Uploads/20141122_101302_zps1fofbkti.jpg
Nice insight and appreciate us sharing your misery/enjoyment/misery of being a golf addict yet again.
I can’t believe how much you played this last year and on such a short season for yall. I dunno if I’ve teed off 80 round (9 or 18 holes) in the past 3 years much less 1 year haha.
I did forget about this thread as I went out to Vegas two weeks ago for a TPGA (Tennessee PGA) golf trip. We played all 3 courses at Piaute, all Pete dye designs. Had a lot of fun. It was a 5 man team with 1 gross and 1 net ball. More fun golf than serious. But my first time playin in Vegas and I really enjoyed the courses there. Ignorance is bliss though, as I had some killer drives, but not knowing how tight the landing area was in some spots made it pretty easy to be fearless haha.
Here are a couple pics.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/11/22/4bd311705b0a48c6757162b6f36cf7ca.jpg
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/11/22/b0d0b7d0f6f214b0d1e935167cf64c7e.jpg
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/11/22/d2989cb6efc057df682233b0e658e6bd.jpg
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/11/22/6eeec1f36001d5a5596459171a372b21.jpg
This course was also where they hold the national long drive competitions. They had the driving range all painted up. It was pretty cool to even see it.
sak - great golf bio! That was a good read. So are you back to hitting a draw now? Looks like it from the shot shape on your mid irons. Pretty crazy how you all of sudden lost it there for a year or two. Though that does tend to happen in this game - Ian Baker Finch, David Duval, and probably countless other pros have had that happen. Not sure if any have come back.
I know you don’t take lessons now, but did you ever work with a pro when you started playing? If not, that’s pretty fucking impressive to have a completely home-grown swing and shoot low 70s consistently. Guess it doesn’t hurt to play 80 (!!) rounds in a single season. 
As for your launch monitor, what does that setup include? Are you basically hitting into a screen that measures all of the different data points? How much do those run?
Interesting bit about the Tour averages. I can keep up to about the 8 iron lol
Maddog - nice pics. I’m jealous - especially with the early onslaught of winter this year.
I’ve never played in the desert, but I may have an opportunity to do so in February. Tuscon, AZ area.
I’ve never worked with a pro. Just figured it out. Started a kid and developed a good swing. Was never good as a kid though. Got serious at about 21.
The launch monitor measures loads of things. It has a camera in it and takes two photos of the ball at super high speed and calculates ball speed , spin, side spin, which then turns that data into ball flight, carry roll , shape, height etc etc.
It outputs it on a screen on the machine itself, or you can live connect to a computer for output there on software, or just use the vector and take the data of using a USB key. That will be good in the summer if I take it to the range to gather data (wireless, battery) and then bring the USB home , but I really don’t see me doing that. Seeing Ball flight is fine. In winter hitting into a net you can’t see flight so that’s why I bought it. Don’t want to groove a fault all winter.
It’s a vector x. It was $4000 new. Now you can find them on eBay for anywhere from $500 to $1500.
Theres always a new ‘gotta have it’ fancy launch monitor every few years. Used to be Vector. Then $4000 flightscope and then $20,000 trackman and now it’s the $7,000 FORESIGHT GC2. Silly.
Here’s a couple of the output screens… There’s also a range software that is a full screen flight simulator.
http://theaposition.com/jimgolfrank/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2010/02/screen2.jpg
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo193/sakimano/Screenshot_2014-11-25-22-22-37_zpsnuuqtwh8.png
