Blogging here at the Brickyard has become popular as our golf course superintendent, Jeff Stuart, and touring professional Chad Collins started their respective blogs last week. I think people will be intrigued with these blogs and hope they keep you up to date on what’s happening.
It looks like Tiger will make his return this week at the World Match Play, and Phil Mickelson won last weekend at L.A. A lot of talk lately about the PGA Tour not being much without Tiger and how it needs him back, so if you are going to watch any golf it will definitely be Tiger-dominated. We just have to see if Phil can carry some steam into the Match Play after hanging on to win in L.A.
I might also say very smart of Tiger to return to a match play event, considering his record. Plus he may not need to play all the holes if he gets it going, saving wear and tear on his knee.
It’s somewhat depressing sitting here in the Midwest if you’re a golfer. The weather has been cold and somewhat ugly. We are hoping to get our course open on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, if the weather is decent. We have a lot of good events here this year, with about three college events and some professional events. So look for the Brickyard to be in its normal, excellent shape.
Not much more going on here. We have our Indiana PGA meetings in about two weeks, and that’s when you know the season is just around the corner.
Until next time, keep stretching for a better swing.
Jeff Schroeder
PGA Head Professional
Brickyard Crossing
After some disappointing golf in Florida, it was off to the annual PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando. The Show, as it is called, is the largest golf-related exhibition that I know of in the world. It takes up the entire Orange County Convention Center, with anything and everything that could be related to golf and some things that are not.
There was not much buzz this going into The Show as there has been in the past other than a few new drivers were debuting and Titleist’s revamped ProV1 golf balls.
The Show starts out with an outdoor demo day at Orange County National Golf course. Every major manufacturer was there except for Taylor Made, which has one of the hottest drivers on the market now with the R9. The entire course’s practice facility was being used, and if you have ever been to OC, then you know how large it is.
All the manufacturers large and small had their equipment there to demo. We walked around and looked at all the major companies and spent a little more time talking to our good friends at Bridgestone. They had their ball-fitting challenge equipment there and were slammed with people getting fitted for the right golf ball. They don’t have any new clubs coming out this year, but some of their staff players are using some prototype drivers from Japan.
If you have not been through this ball fitting, it is well worth the time to see if you are playing the right ball. As a matter of fact, we will be trained by Bridgestone to do this on our equipment we have here at Brickyard Crossing. Check our Web site in the future for dates when we will conduct ball fittings and more this season.
Back to The Show.
So demo day was quiet but interesting. A few Tour professionals were there, including Trevor Immelman and Suzanne Petersen for Nike Golf. Both put on a little clinic promoting Nike’s new clubs the Victory Red and the new Dymo driver, which is adjustable. It allows you to change both the loft of the club and the face angle. In other words, the shaft can be inserted at three different angles to change the playability of the club. The Taylor Made R9 does the same thing.
A few more Tour pros made appearances, the biggest being Boo Weekley, who was promoting his new Boo line. The Boo line, as you might expect, features camouflage. Just think camouflage shirts so you can hide after you a terrible shot.
The opening day of The Show was pretty quiet. No hoopla like in past years, just a lot talk among industry folks about the economy and how it has affected golf. I would say that attendance overall for the show was down somewhat, and some companies participated in demo day but did not have floor space at the convention.
On the last day of The Show, I spent most of my time in the teaching aids and what I call gadget area checking out the latest products. The teaching aids are truly the fun part of The Show since you see something that definitely helps your students.
One of the items that will help me is a putting aid called Putt Easy (www.easy-waygolf.com). The next product is a little more complicated, the Golf Achiever. The Golf Achiever has multiple functions. It can be a club-and ball-fitting tool along with swing analysis, and most importantly, it also can be a simulator at a reasonable price. It would be pretty cool to have the Brickyard as a simulator course.
On the clothing side of The Show, not much new out there. Materials are about the same: Every company has tech wear (polyester).
That’s it for this week. Next time, we will talk about getting ready for golf here in Indiana and talk about what’s happening on the PGA Tour.
Jeff Schroeder
PGA Head Professional
Brickyard Crossing
First, I must apologize for not writing a blog during my recent journey to Florida to play in a tournament and attend the PGA Merchandise Show.
It was my one-year anniversary of blogging, which has been fun. I’m looking forward to continuing this feature in 2009.
Let’s start with the golf. I teamed up again with the veteran Larry Ziegler for the Winter Senior Junior Championship at PGA Village in Port St. Lucie, Fla. We got a couple practice rounds in, and the weather was great. But as we looked toward the forecast for the tournament, a cold front with high winds was heading our way.
The first round of the tournament started out slow for us as we made the turn only 1-under par. The winds were really starting to pick up as we had an afternoon time, which means that our second round would be in the morning, when the cold front arrived with stronger winds.
We finished the second round with a 4-under-par 68, and we both felt good about the round except for not making any putts longer than 8 feet. Our ball-striking was pretty good, and we just didn’t make any putts.
The next morning was absolutely brutal. The high temperature for the day – 62 degrees – was recorded at 7 a.m., and the wind was whipping at 30 mph with gusts over 45 mph.
Needless to say, it was tough.
We started OK, making pars on the first three holes. Then some unfortunate events happened. We had things like our balls ending up in divots, started three-putting, and before you know it, we were 3-over par on our first nine and really struggling.
Larry started the back nine with a birdie, and I thought that would be the turnaround. Wrong. We proceeded to bogey the next two holes from about 100 yards or so.
At that point, we just tried to keep it under 80 and finish the round with out hurting ourselves. We ended up shooting an embarrassing best ball of 79 and obviously missing the cut.
I must say I enjoyed playing with Larry. As I told him, I think we were probably the oldest team in the field at a combined total of 117 years.
But I will not miss those back tees, as this was the last time that I would be playing as the junior member of the team. So goodbye back tees, and hello Senior tees next year.
As always, Larry kept working with me on my short game, and he also emphasized how important it is to stay in shape and, more importantly, maintain your flexibility. So my goal now is to continue working on my short game as I struggle with wanting to flip the club head at the ball to help it up in the air, which is just totally wrong.
The other important thing I will work on is regaining my flexibility, which will help me with some distance.
Next week I will talk about the PGA Merchandise Show and the happenings from Orlando from last week. Till next week, you just might see me in the gym.
Jeff Schroeder
PGA Head Professional
Brickyard Crossing