Current News & Conditions

That Was Fun.  A (somewhat) warm and sunny morning.  How nice was that?  Many of us got in our qualifying scores for BobEagleye's Camby Cup , the rest were treated to fast greens and tough rough.  And the final members of the PBB Elite Eight won through.

Did I say tough rough?  Wow.  For those who missed the fairway, Mike Belmont set one tough challenge.  Anybody short of the fairway on 6 was lucky to find the ball and even luckier to move it 100 yards.  Right of 2 was knee deep and sometimes just a couple inches off the main strip was enough to add a stroke - like left on 12 or right on 9.  Can you guess how I was driving it?  

After the round we got to talking about how much the course has changed and how that should affect the handicap ratings of holes.  Andy took a little survey on which holes were the toughest.  Take a look and please send comments.  We clearly have to re-rank the club cards and this could be it.  Hole Handicap Ranking   

   This Week At A Glance

From the First Tee	Saturday, May 21st	Matches This Week
	First Tee Time: 5:40 Weekly: Best Front 9 (80% hcap) Forecast: Cool & Cloudy	PBB Round 2:      Eight Matches in action

A fun addition from Graham Young - this link shows many of our local public courses as pins on Google maps.  Looking for a new place to play - point and click.  

Last week I recommended checking out Bill Pennington's section in the New York Times.  On Wednesday the 9th he made the front page with a non-tournament golf story.  I haven't seen that, well, ever.

A Golf Ball That Won’t Slice Comes With a Catch: It’s Illegal
By BILL PENNINGTON Published in the New York Times: May 9, 2011

 EDGEWATER, N.J. — Ducks quack, dogs bark, cab drivers honk and golfers slice. Among the basic truths of the planet: 80 percent of golfers cannot hit their tee shots where they aim.  But what if there were a golf ball that went only straight?

“That would be a miracle,” Dion Cooper, 26, of Brooklyn, said as he swatted balls last week at the Edgewater Golf Range in northern New Jersey.  Mr. Cooper was hitting his driver toward the Manhattan skyline, the balls tailing off in the familiar arc of the classic golf slice. Then he was handed the new Polara golf ball and took a healthy swat.  “Straight as an arrow,” he yelped with a mix of awe and surprise. For the next five minutes, he rarely hit a ball crooked.

A golf ball that won’t slice? It sounds like an old joke: guy invents a ball that won’t sink in water hazards, then loses it in the woods. It sounds too good to be true, sacrilege to the golf ethos of eternal struggle.  Or, as Mr. Cooper asked, “Is this magic?”

It is physics, not magic, but there is, of course, a catch. The Polara ball has an irregular dimple pattern that means it does not conform to golf’s official rules. The ball, which is designed to reduce slices and hooks by 75 percent or more, would be illegal to use in the Masters, for example, or any other competition, local or otherwise, sanctioned by the United States Golf Association.   read more...

Sneaking in a mid-week round our own Larry McNaughton captured the 3rd green in all its spring glory.  Thanks, UnkaLarry.