Pound Ridge Moves Toward Affordable

It's still not exactly a bargain, but Pound Ridge Golf Club just announced a significant cut in greens fees for weekday tee times. Players can now tee it up on the spectacularly tough Pete Dye design for just $155 if they book five days in advance. Regular rates are $235, so this represents a 35% discount. After 3 PM, the advance reservation rate drops to $105.

Pound Ridge owner Ken Wang says,

“These new price points deliver tremendous value, and will allow more golfers to experience what we, and the rest of the golfing world, are rapidly recognizing as a very special course.”

Pound Ridge is indeed a special course. It opened in 2008 after some ten years of planning, permit battles, and major rock blasting on 172 acres about an hour north of Manhattan. Pete Dye, his son Perry and long-time Dye construction manager/lead shaper Michael Langkau created a demanding, picturesque track among the site's escarpments, streams and wooded hills. Dramatic rock formations and boulders were left onsite, creating some of the most visually stunning golf holes in the Northeast. More than 14,000-linear-feet of rock wall surrounds trees, wetlands and water hazards. These frame contoured fairways which wind through hardwood forests and fescue mounds leading to devilish green complexes.

Golf Digest named Pound Ridge one of "America's Best New Courses" in 2009 and rival Golf Magazine put it in the number two slot of "Top Ten You Can Play." In addition to writing about the course when it opened, I featured the 14th hole, a 401-yarder with one of the most intimidating tee shots around, in Westchester Magazine this spring.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

A Legal Do-Over Putt

Every golfer knows that the second time you hit a putt, it always goes in the hole. Unfortunately, that's not legal....Unless you invoke a little-noticed aspect of Rule 28 of The Rules Of Golf, which covers unplayable lies.

Jeremy McLean, one of the excellent teaching pros at GlenArbor in Bedford, NY, reminds us that a ball can be deemed unplayable at anytime, anywhere on the course except when it lies in a water hazard. What's more, the player is the sole judge of whether or not the ball is unplayable. If you declare it, you have three options, all under penalty of one stroke:

1. Play the ball as near as possible to the spot where where the previous stroke was made.

2. Drop the ball anywhere on a line extending backwards from the point where the ball lay in line with the hole.

3. Drop a ball within two club lengths of the spot the ball lay, not nearer to the hole.

(If you're in a bunker for options 2 and 3, the ball must be dropped in the same bunker.)

Here's where the rule can help your score on the green. Let's say you've got a four-footer above the hole and decide to make an aggressive stroke to keep the ball on line. Unfortunately, the ball lips out and speeds down the hill, leaving you with a thirty-foot comebacker that's not even a cinch two-putt. Or even worse, it runs off the green and down into the fairway even further away! Jeremy reminds us that you can declare the ball unplayable, replace it on the spot above the hole and take your penalty, then have a second chance at that four-footer.

Brilliant!

Thanks for the GlenArbor Teaching Center Newsletter for that excellent rules tip.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

Tom Watson Releases DVD Instruction Set

By guest blogger and fellow golf writer Howie Munck

Tom Watson has released an instructional two-disk DVD set entitled “Lessons of a Lifetime” in which he draws upon his many years of experience and observation of reliable golf swings.

Watson's swing has been a model of repeatable simplicity and effectiveness. He credits his longevity in golf primarily to good family genes, a regimen of aerobics and weight training. He also credits The Champions Tour with keeping his game sharp.

Watson is generous with crediting those from whom he has learned: his father, Stan Thirsk, Cory Pavin, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, lee Trevino, Byron Nelson, Johnny Miller, Seve Ballesteros, Claude Harmon, Billy Casper, Dave Stockton, George Archer, Tiger Woods, Freddie Couples, Harvey Penick, and Gary Player.

A cursory on-line check reveals several of his You Tube sessions of recent vintage, but the new set provides a picture of his collective fundamentals that can be helpful to all.

Things not generally found in other instructional videos include the importance of maintaining the bend in the wrist at setup all the way through impact and his abandonment of the reverse C finish in favor of maintaining spine angle and swing plane. His observation of Cory Pavin’s unusual swing prelude in 1992 at Harbour Town led him to swing down the target line with a higher right shoulder at impact and more consistency.

Asked last week how long it took to internalize the new move, he said, “It took me three swings.” That translates to more than three for those without eight majors.

The set includes 44 instructional points. It plays in two hours and forty minutes. As to how the dvd’s should be viewed, Watson said, “You certainly can’t go through all 44 points. You’d be a basket case. There’s a sequential order to it. We started with the grip, then the setup and grip pressure, where your feet should be and your weight balance. You have to start with that before you swing the golf club.”

The set was in the planning last year, and he credits the mental process in working out the script as a factor for his fine performance at Turnberry. He does not dwell on quick fixes, but following the fundamentals he presents should minimize the need for them. View selected lessons with the dvd player for what you need. Available for $49.95 at golf stores or at www.tomwatson.com.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

Words From A Winner

Bobby Heins is one of the most successful golfers I know, so when he talks about what it takes to win, I try to pay attention. He had some interesting words of advice during the MGA 2010 Media Day:

"To win," he said, "it's all about staying in the moment. You have to take care of the shot at hand. After forty years in this game, I've learned that a bogey not made is a birdie not needed."

"Once you get outside three or four feet, putting is all about the feel. Master your stroke on the short ones, then trust it on the long ones."

"When I reached my 40s, I went back to work. I couldn't rely on natural talent anymore. I try to hit a few balls every day and keep in shape with yoga, rolfing, and stretching."

Bobby is the head professional at Old Oaks Country Club in Purchase, NY, and one of the top teachers in the area. Among others, he coaches PGA Tour winner Johnson Wagner. He's also one of the winningest golfers in the game. In 2009 he was named Met PGA Senior Player of the Year after a fabulous season during which he won the MGA Senior Open Championship for the second year in a row. Those back-to-back wins mirrored his two-peat of the Met Open Championship, which he captured exactly twenty years earlier in 1988 and '89.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

Struggling? Fit Your Swing To Your Body!

Fit the swing to the body was the advice Dave Phillips gave to an avid audience of PGA professionals at the 48th annual Metropolitan PGA Educational Forum. Phillips was one of the founders of the Titleist Performance Institute and knows whereof he speaks.

His message was directed to the club pros who do a ton to shape the way golf is played through the lessons they give and the clinics and golf camps they organize for players at all levels. Everyday golfers should take the message to heart too, though, because it corrects one of the great misconceptions of the game, that you should strive for a picture-perfect swing whether your body is capable of producing one or not. The game can not only be enjoyed without one, Phillips said, but every golfer will have a better time--and actually play better, too--if they stop trying to achieve some sort of ideal swing.

"There are millions of ways to swing a club," Phillips said, "but there is only one efficient way for each golfer. It's based on their individual body."

What is an "efficient" swing?

Phillips says that's determined by the answers to two questions:

"Can you hit the ball where you want it to go?"
"Are you in pain when you walk off the course?"

Hitting where you want it to go doesn't necessarily mean bombing 300 yard drives off every tee (as much fun as that might be). Knowing--really knowing--you are capable of getting the ball on the green 150 yard away over water will probably mean a lot more to your score. More importantly, your body is probably capable of performing the second shot consistently whereas the only time you and I are going to hit a 300 yard drive is when we're hitting down-wind, down-hill, on a concrete fairway.

The point of Phillips presentation was to encourage the teaching pros to start their lessons with every student by conducting an assessment of the player's physical abilities. He outlined a brief series of tests (you can find them at mytpi.com) that reveal what the golfer can or can't do. Rather than try to force the golfer's body to conform to an ideal swing, he recommends tweaking the swing to fit the body.

The Titleist Performance Institute is one of the most advanced learning facilities in golf. They look at everything that makes people better at the game including equipment, biomechanics, diet, and even optometry. In addition to an advisory board of specialists in all those fields, they base their approach on a research database of 40,000 golfers around the world. They offer programs for golfers at all levels and certify golf, medical, and fitness professionals.

The best way to start shaping your swing to your body? By taking a lesson from a PGA Professional.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

Hollow Brook Changes Hands

Hollow Brook, one of Westchester County's more interesting golf courses, changed hands recently and the new owner promises to take the facility up a notch or two while making the cost of membership more accurately reflect the realities of today's economy.

"The land is spectacular, the course wonderfully challenging and my team will be working on the little things to make Hollow Brook the greatest experience it can be for our members," says new owner Steve Torsoe. He says he plans to make the course more player friendly and adds, "We’ll make Hollow Brook accessible to local residents, charities, as well as local high school and college golf teams."

The course, which opened in 2004 on 250 acres in Cortlandt Manor, was designed and built by Eric Bergstol, who also recently sold two other courses in the metropolitan area to Donald Trump. The track is noted for dramatic elevation changes and punitive rough as well as judicious use of the eponymous Hollow Brook that runs through it. It's 6,923 yards from the tips, although unless you drive it long and laser-straight, you have no business playing from the back tees.

I'll be watching to see what changes Torsoe makes to the course, which has a quirky hole or two. The eighth hole, for example, could be a good, solid 531-yard par five. It's a well-laid-out dog leg right that should reward a long drive that challenges the bunkers at the turn with a good chance to make the green in two. I say "should" because there's a huge tree on the edge of the fairway that completely blocks an aggressive second shot regardless of how well you place your drive.

Hollow Brook is very much a strategic player's golf course. There are a couple of short par fours that preclude use of a driver off the tee and more than a few approach shots where elevation changes make you think twice about club selection. Greens are large and rolling and well-bunkered. Bergstol was an early adapter of the shaggy-edge bunker, which fits well with the general ambiance of the course.

Word on the street is that Torsoe is offering some very affordable membership deals, so it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the club.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

First Class First Round

I posted my first local round for 2010 yesterday and had the pleasure of starting my season in the NY area at a real first-class facility, Manhattan Woods in West Nyack. This Gary Player design has been one of the most under-reported gems of the New York market. It deserves a lot more recognition.

Hills and wetlands define most of the holes. High fescue is everywhere, too, so accuracy is much more important than length. Fortunately for me, it was still early in the season and the rough hadn't yet grown in. You'll encounter water on four holes and forced carries over environmentally-sensitive waste areas on several others. The bunkering is fiendish but fair.

The greens at Manhattan Woods are good sized and well-contoured. They weren't rolling particularly fast yesterday, but I've played them in mid-summer and can guarantee the speed will make you pay attention. One other important note: the grain here is very pronounced and many times doesn't flow the way you expect, so check it carefully before putting. If the caddie tells you to putt like it's uphill even though it looks like a downhiller, believe him. Short into-the-grain putts cost me at least four strokes. You'd think I'd learn, wouldn't you?

Manhattan Woods plays from 5,090 to over 7,100 yards with five sets of tees. I'm a big believer in playing from the proper tees for your handicap and yesterday's round showed how much that can improve the enjoyment of the game. My friend and colleague Dan Berger and I both hover between 9 and 11 indexes. We were playing with Michael Quaglianno, who turned pro last year. With Michael teeing off from the tips and Dan and I from the blues, we were all typically left with equal distances to the green for our second shots. Rounding out our foursome was club Membership Director Mary Ann Jones, who played from the forward tees and kept up with us very well. That's the mark of a well-laid-out course.

The amenities at Manhattan Woods are exemplary. The practice facility not only has a range with two sets of tees, but a practice bunker and chipping green as well. There are two practice greens, too, so you never feel like you're trying to putt in the crowd at Times Square. Every time I've played there, my caddie knew his stuff, too, which means a lot on a course where strategy is more important than brute strength and knowledge of the greens is just as important as reading the contours. The staff in the pro shop and locker room couldn't be friendlier, either.

One final note about friendliness: We were guests on a busy, holiday Friday (the parking lot was full) but the members who were playing went beyond cordial--there were a lot of them, too, but they seemed truly happy to have us there. And even though the course was full, we never felt rushed or had to wait on another group--another sign of a well-designed and well-run facility.

Manhattan Woods has a lot offer. You'll be hearing a lot more about it this year.


Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.