Beat A Path To Ballybunion

The 18th on the Old Course at Ballybunion. Photo courtesy of the club.

There are many old golf courses and more than a few great ones in Ireland, but you can count on one hand the number that are both old and great. The first or second finger on that hand signifies Ballybunion's Old Course, where 120 years of great golf have been played. How great? Tom Watson, winner of five British Opens, called it the best links course in the world.

When you walk out of the modern clubhouse to meet your caddie on the first tee, you're following in the footsteps of nearly every great golfer who ever played on either side of the pond, as well as thousands of devoted duffers from all over the world. The latter group includes countless notables like former President Bill Clinton. His enthusiasm for Ballybunion, not to mention his role in settling the religious strife in Ireland, earned him a statue at the main crossroads in town as well as life membership in the club. Caddies still talk about the drive he supposedly sliced into the cemetery bordering the first hole.

Don't laugh too hard at the man's errant drive, however, until you've successfully hit one to a fairway you can barely see in a 30-mph left-to-right crosswind. That's what you can easily encounter at Ballybunion where, like any great links course, the wind shapes your entire round, pushing the ball wherever it wants in the air and frequently even on the ground. The wind can easily blow a standing ball uphill and caddies develop a particular skill in teeing the ball at a slant to stand up to it.

Wind isn't the only element that can wreck your score at Ballybunion. Missing the fairway can bring on scorecard disaster whether it comes about from an unfortunate gust or shear duffer-ness. Countless pot bunkers await in all the most inconvenient places. Even worse is the marram grass, which is like fescue only meaner since it falls over in the damp air and smothers the unfortunate ProV you just took out of the sleeve and launched into the wind.

Ballybunion's Old Course was thought to be first laid out by a local professional, James McKenna, in 1892. It's been redone, extended, revised, and otherwise tinkered with through the years with the latest design changes overseen by Tom Watson in 1995. Today it plays par 71 at 6,802 yards.

Caddies say the real course begins on the sixth tee since the first five holes are little more than warm ups for the fun the come. The sixth hole is also where the Atlantic comes first into full view. Most golfers would hesitate to dismiss the opening holes as trivial, however. After all, they include a 224-yard par 3 and back-to-back par fives, the second of which, at 560 yards uphill, plays plenty tough.

The eleventh hole, a 473-yard par four, is the signature hole on the Old Course. It plays full along the ocean for both your drive and approach and the elevated green sits nestled against a marram-covered hillside with only a narrow lay-up option 50 yards in front.

While the front side has back-to-back par fives, the second nine has back-to-back par threes. The fourteenth hole is a 133 yard uphill tester with trouble on every side. It's immediately followed by the fifteenth, a 216-yard monster with a 200-yard carry.

16th Hole at Ballybunion's Cashen Course. Photo courtesy of the club.

Ballybunion also boasts a second course, the Cashen, designed by Robert Trent Jones, Sr., that opened in 1984. Depending on your frame of mind, you'll either find the Cashen Course a tremendous challenge or simply impossible. It features tight blind fairways, forced carries off the tee and to the green (sometimes on the same hole), and approaches with no safety zones for cautious players. The Cashen Course is par 72 and only 6,306 yards, but don't be fooled into thinking it an easy walk along the seashore.

The place to stay in Ballybunion is Kilcooly's Country House, a congenial small hotel with character, a fine dining room, and an intimate, well-stocked bar. The place is filled with antiques and tasteful bric-a-brac, but unlike so many old-world hotels, the rooms are spacious and uncluttered. It's worth requesting that your golf packager include Kilcooly's in your itinerary.

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf.

Pelz Plays Games

The day before I read Dave Pelz's Putting Games, I played in a scramble where all four members of my team--none with a handicap over ten--missed the same basically straight five-foot birdie putt. As you might imagine, I opened Pelz's book with more than average interest. I wasn't disappointed.

Putting Games is all about developing the skills to make more putts. The first section is diagnostic, the second covers stroke mechanics like aim and face angle, while the third is about developing touch and feel. Pelz painstakingly describes seven games you should play to measure your performance so you can map a route to improvement. They are all played with twelve balls and address nearly every putting circumstance from the dreaded three-footer to sixty-foot lags.

As you would expect given Pelz's background as a NASA scientist and perhaps the most data-driven golf instructor in the business, the "games" rely heavily on measurement and data analysis. they also make extensive us of some of the many training aids Pelz sells. This approach will clearly appeal to analytic golfers, but the games will also help more "feel" players improve their putting performance as well.

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf

Crystal Springs Makes Golf A Family Game

There are those who talk about growing the game of golf, then there are those who do something about it. Put Art Walton, VP of Golf Operations at New Jersey's Crystal Springs Resort, at the head of the second group. He's led the seven-course facility in a major effort to make golf a family affair, the single best way to introduce new players into the game and increase the fun factor so they stay with it.

The Ultimate Buddy Trip at Crystal Springs. Photo courtesy of the resort.

It all began when they addedd the Minerals Hotel with its par-three nine-hole course to the portfolio a few years ago. The course was specified as a "Family Golf Club" and several features were added to make it more than a slogan. They cut oversize cups into the greens, provided four-seater golf carts, and put peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the snack cart. Similar steps were taken when the full-length nine-hole Cascades Course was opened a couple of years later. When Cascades was built, a special set of tees was built far forward on each hole and second, larger cups are cut into each green. Cascades, a Roger Rulewich design, can challenge golfers at all levels.

“Kids have done a lot to transform our two nine hole facilities,” Walton says. “It makes it more fun, not to mention easier, and certainly different.” Minerals has a full calendar of parent-junior events throughout the year and both courses offer family-friendly pricing, kids rental clubs, and rookie tee times.  “That took off," Walton says, "and each year our percentage of family golf has increased. It feels good and it’s been good from a financial standpoint, too. We’re growing the player segment.”

The resort isn't resting on its laurels. The Minerals course, a Robert Trent Jones design, is getting renovations to make it even more family-friendly. "The second hole has an elevated green with two bunkers in the front guarding the approach," Walton explains. "We took out one bunker and created a play-up area so you can hit it short and play on up. The par four fifth hole is a dog-leg right with a fairway bunker at the turn. We took out that bunker and created a run-up area for the green."

The single most popular innovation? "The four seater family carts are the best," says Walton. "Everyone in the family can ride together and you don’t have to worry about different sets of clubs."

The results have been rewarding, according to Walton, who points out, "The one limiting factor on family golf is the school year, of course, so you have a compressed season.” They still expect to log 13,000 rounds annually for family play on Minerals and a few less on Cascades.

He sums up the Crystal Springs philosophy perfectly: “You have to make it fun. People play for a lot of different reasons. Some are competitive, some aren’t. Some play for business, others to meet people. It makes you feel good when you try something like family golf and it works.”

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf

Lahinch Epitomizes Great Links

Sixth hole at Lahinch. Photo courtesy of the club.

You'll find every distinguishing feature of great links golf at the Old Course at Lahinch in County Clare, Ireland. Hard, fast greens. Narrow, rumpled fairways. Blind shots. Tangled rough. Wind, rain, intrepid golfers, and goats. Yes, goats. Local lore holds that when you encounter the goats munching their way around the course, you can expect an interlude of bad weather. From my experience, local lore is dead-on.

But it's the links landscape that makes Lahinch one of the world's great golf courses. When Alistair Mackenzie first saw saw it in 1927, he said, "Lahinch will make the finest and most popular course that I, or I believe anyone else, ever constructed." Mackenzie, whose credits include Augusta National, Cypress Point, and Pasatiempo, used the natural features of the wind-swept seaside to shape his holes among the dunes.

The course was originally laid out in 1892 and re-designed by Old Tom Morris in 1894. The present fifth hole, a 154-yard par 3 that plays more like 180 over a dune that blocks all but about 20% of the green, was Old Tom's handiwork. In 1999, Martin Hawtree modernized the course.

From the tips at 6,950 yards and at par 72, Lahinch demands a firm stroke and steady nerves. The heavy, wet wind off the Atlantic affects every single shot, including your putts. You play the wind from every angle, too, since Mackenzie routed the holes so that six play into it, six play with it, and six play across. But you play the landscape as well. Fairways can be as narrow as 20 yards and thread their way through dunes covered by knotty rough. The heavily contoured greens look slow but they roll fast and are guarded by numerous deep bunkers.

The fairway on the fourth hole at Lahinch. Photo courtesy of the club.

Blind shots add to the fun. The fourth hole, for example, is a simple 475-yard par five. It plays straight away downwind, too, which should mean a birdie fest. But forty-foot-tall Klondyke Hill stands in the middle of the fairway about 300 yards from the tee, blocking all views of the fairway and green beyond. It blocks the hole so completely that a club employee is stationed atop it to let you know when it's safe to hit over. Your strategy? Hit your blind second shot over the white rock on top of the hill and trust it.

The par fours make Lahinch. Eight of them are over 400 yards and none are automatic pars. Even the uniquely short 279-yard thirteenth hole can give you fits. It's eminently drive-able, but be sure to hit the green or you'll be left with an impossible up and down. It is followed by two monsters, the 461-yard fourteenth with its deadly mounds blocking the approach to the green and the 460-yard fifteenth hole, where bunkers off the tee and near the green challenge long hitters.

A good second round (or a first if you're looking for an easier warm-up) is the Castle Course at Lahinch, which plays a little shorter through less hilly terrain, but still requires precision shot making due to several water features. It's par 69 at 5,488 yards.

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf

More Unconscious Instruction From Dave Stockton

I got quite a lot from reading Dave Stockton's book, Unconscious Putting, probably because the master's approach very much mirrors mine: see the hole, role the ball into it. Sweet and simple. I consider myself a pretty good putter but not a great one, though, because I still don't have as many one-putts as I need to really get the putt count down. That's where Stockton's latest book, Unconscious Scoring, is helpful.

Why? Because one-putts come mostly from hitting your approach shot closer to the hole in the first place. That's what Unconscious Scoring is all about. Again, I really, really identify with Stockton's KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) philosophy.

Stockton says you only need two basic shots around the green to produce a fabulous short game--a low shot and a high shot. After explaining why this approach will work for players at all handicaps, he shows how to hit each one in two clearly-illustrated chapters.

Next, he carries these principles into various situations where he demonstrates how you don't need to create a whole new swing to get up and down every time you face a tough lie. Stockton covers numerous trouble shots--from a bunker, hardpan, a divot, off a side-hill, etc.--with some elementary modifications of his basic two-shot repertoire. The book is rounded out with chapters on the Mental Game, Practice, Equipment, and Putting.

The material in Unconscious Scoring came from Stockton's excellent five-major-championship career as well as his work with world-class players like Phil Mickelson, Annika Sorenstam, Yani Tseng, and Rory McIlroy, who also wrote the foreword for the book.

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf

The Mental Game At The Ryder Cup

A guest post about the Ryder Cup from Mike Diffley, Head Pro at Pelham Country Club, and frequent speaker on the power of the mental game:

Mike Diffley, PGA

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog" --Mark Twain

Keegan Bradley, from his 330 yard tee shot down the middle on Hole #1 to rolling in everything he looked at on the first day, showed he might be the mentally strongest player in the world.

Phil Mickelson--now known as Keegan's partner--said the more the pressure the better Keegan plays.

The intensity, focus, determination are incredible. He embraces the pressure and doesn't hide from it. He wants the chance to go. We cannot deny the adrenaline flowing through our system but we can learn to channel it to focus and strength.

Not everyone is the same. Keegan can't hide his emotions through those eyes and facial expressions, that's him. It's important that he knows that and obviously he does. Some players just smile or give a small fist pump and that's their way of expressing their emotions.

The most important time is the 10 to 20 seconds before you hit the ball to find your own zone or comfort level. Keegan found his yesterday and hopefully keeps it through the weekend. Do you know yours?

Positive self talk and visualization are the key. Keegan told us last year that's what he does!!! Go USA!

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf

Concord's Monster Still A Ball-Eating Beast

photo courtesy of the course.

Everything you've heard about the Monster is true. It's longer than long. It's hard. It will test every part of your game and make you cry for your mama. It's one of those courses you need to play at least once in your life. And, if you're lucky enough to live within a two hour drive, the Monster is worth the trip several times every year.

Course conditions are excellent and the layout hasn't changed since the day Gene Sarazen walked off the course and declared it a monster while warning the owner to not change a thing. The moniker was well-earned. From the tips, the Monster plays an astonishing 7,650 yards with a course rating of 76.8 and slope of 137. Move up to the blue tees and you're playing 7,471. The whites are almost manageable at 6,989. Two shorter tees (green at 6,068 and red at 5,201) are available for sane golfers. Length notwithstanding, the layout itself is challenging and fun.

Water is in play on half the holes, there is a good mix of short(er) and long holes at all three pars, and you'll see enough elevation changes, bunkers, and contoured greens to keep you from being bored. There are even a couple of reachable par fives--depending on which tees you play. The first hole may be the easiest par you'll have all day. At 522 yards (all my distances are from the white tees), a long hitter can get there in two and even a regular guy like you and I can make a birdie with a wedge. The first really big hole you face is the fourth, a 585-yard par five (632 from the black tees!). Watch out for the water on your left from the tee, then carefully plan your second shot because that same water splits the fairway, then cuts across it about 100 yards from the green. Depending on the pin position, you might want to play the left fairway by hitting over the lake with your second shot.

The par threes are all killers. The fifth hole is 207 yards to a green surrounded by bunkers. The seventh is a place to seriously think about laying up, since you're playing 216 yards to a steeply-elevated green with a gigantic bunker in front and a rock-faced cliff on the left. On the back side, the one-shotters are shorter (both are about 160 yards) but both are all carry over water and both have false fronts that will send inadequately-struck balls back into the drink.

The back nine on the Monster is a little shorter than the front but plays tighter and rewards good strategy.  The tenth hole is only 352-yards but it has water, water everywhere to punish hooks, slices, and under-clubbed shots from both the tee and the fairway. The seventeenth, a 405-yard par four, is a confusing mess from the tee. It has pine trees in what looks like the middle of the fairway (it's not), a forced carry of nearly 200 yards over a lake to what really is the best landing area, and a lay-up option to the right that is surrounded by water and will leave you over 200 yards to the green if you choose it. Then you get a two-tiered green with three-putt written all over it to finish the hole.

A big part of the fun of playing the Monster is imagining what it would have been like to take it on using a persimmon driver, forged blades, and a balata ball like the golfers who tackled it in 1963 when it opened. Even though it was never chosen as a tour stop, nearly everyone in the game played it during the resort's star-studded heyday. Dashing and debonair Jimmy Demaret was the official club professional when it premiered. Raymond Floyd held the course record (67) solo for many years. Sam Snead, Jackie Burke, Jr., Gene Sarazen, and Lee Trevino all frequented the resort along with entertainers like Bobby Darin and Englebert Humperdink.

The legendary course has gone through some rough times, closing during a recent bankruptcy and reopening only a couple of years ago without its hotel and clubhouse. The current owners have preserved the most important part of the facility--the golf course itself--and are preparing a major overhaul of the amenities and other attractions to re-establish the property as a major tourist attraction. In the meantime, you can still enjoy--or at least endure--one of the toughest rounds of golf you'll ever play for just a few dollars.

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf