Almost Par--New WNMLF Guideline

Civitan Golf Course--WNMLF home

 

At WNMLF League practice today, golfer Joan commented, “I am very happy with almost-par.”  Kudos to Joan. She had several almost-par holes today. We will refrain from embarrassing the other golfer and not refer to her performance.

And so we introduce a new guideline for WNMLF League play—if you get within one stroke of par, you are doing a pretty darn good job.

This seems like homage to another founding guideline for WNMLF: No day that includes golf can be a bad day.

We will not mention the interesting tee shot that went down the dreaded hill on #4 or the ball that was eaten by evil golf sprites on #5 never to be seen again…and a few other creative shots.

The sun is shining, the grass is beginning to green up, and golf seems more possible than it did a month ago. 

Cheers.  Here’s to another season on the course.  See you out there.

Salute to St. Andrews

We heard it first on the BBC World Service. 

The members of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews in Scotland have voted to admit female members.

It only took them 260 years. Better late than never, we say, to do the right thing. 

At this time, WNMLF Golf League members have elected not to go through the application process as we believe that St. Andrews is probably not ready for us.   

In any case, we raise a toast to St. Andrews and their future women members. Hit a few shots for us, ladies. We are with you in spirit.

Scramble = Golf With Friends

In another part of the sports world, WordsWith Friends is a version of Scrabble. 

It strikes us that in our golf world,   playing Scramble golf should be called Golf with Friends. 

We LOVE Scramble.   

It doesn’t matter if you’re having a bad day or you’re playing on an impossibly hard course. All you need is one friend who has a better hit, and you pick up your golf ball (if you can find it after that miserable tee shot) and move it to the spot where one of your golfing buddies landed her shot on a much better hit. 

The more the merrier. Your odds of a great hit improve with more players in your round. 

It seems to us that Scramble, or Golf With Friends, is very compatible with the WNMLF philosophy of golf.   

If you’re out there, enjoy your day, the scenery, and the company of friends.  Otherwise, what’s the point?

The Big Miss, and other Internet Miracles

When we (not quite) accidentally clicked on a picture of Sandra Bulloch with a set of golf clubs, we got to some Golf Coach talking about the Big Miss.

“Golf is extremely frustrating.”   Stop the presses.  News bulletin.

“All mistakes can be fixed.” 

“These lessons that I will send to you ABSOLUTELY FREE will find your Big Miss.”

It seems to us that we have more than one Big Miss, and this guy would have a hard time diagnosing us from inside the computer.

“All you have to do is send me your email address.”

Ok, getting a little dicey here.

“One catch—you must devote your complete attention to all of these lessons.”

Can anyone say spyware?  Will pictures of us in our jammies watching these ABSOLUTELY FREE lessons be posted on the Cloud where one of these Hollywood junk magazines can steal them and embarrass us while the Internet buzzes about it?

We think we’ll just keep to our own Big Miss.

So sorry to decline this generous offer.

Proposed Social Media Policy for WNMLF Golf League

Policy

WNMLF bloggers are not opposed to social media.  Anyone who golfs and/or reads the blog is encouraged to participate.

Social Media Tools

There are many social media tools.  We would use more, but we’re borderline techie imbeciles.  Therefore, the blog and notifications on Twitter will have to suffice. 

Purpose of Social Media

• Promote the WNMLF Golf League mission. 
• Disseminate grassroots golf news—because the world needs to know.
• Promote shamelessly the blogger.
• Educate, inform, entertain.
• Promote debate with a view to finding solutions.
• Consider alternative viewpoints.
• Promote events and exhibitions.

Moderation

• In all things be moderate.
• Any defamatory postings or comments will be removed.
• Defamatory postings include, but are not limited to, those that are: racist, sexist, political, insulting, reporting of actual golf scores, threatening.

Relevant Legislation

• The person writing the blog gets to make things up and use the royal “we,” as in, “We had a great tee shot on hole #3,” or “We prefer milk and lemon in our tea.”
• There will be no throwing of golf clubs, either on the course, or at the computer, or at the blogger.
• No animals will be harmed in the writing, reading, or golfing related to this blog.
• This policy will be reviewed every so often in case we need to do something else.

Signed

Etc & etc & etc

(With homage and thanks to Australian National Botanic Gardens for inspiration)

League Practice with Antelope Playing Through

August 20, 2014.  WNMLF golfers Joan, Katie, Cindy, and Vicki attended a league practice session on the Back 9 (aka the “Sunset” holes)  at Riverview Golf Course. 

(Alert readers will note that the Dreaded Badger lives on hole #6, so we avoided any unpleasant badgerial encounters.)

Report from Cart #23 follows: 

Hole #10—bunnies noted in the underbrush. 

Cart path between #12 and #13—snake zoomed across the path in front of the other golf cart. 

Hole #13—the “blue door” is a local idiomatic expression for the Port-a-Potty.  You may have suspected it is a restaurant in another New Mexico city, but you would be wrong. 

Hole #14—we were joined by a herd (5) of antelope.  The mama and 4 babies were unconcerned as golf balls whizzed by them as they ambled across the fairway.  The papa antelope watched (with some menace, we might add) from the other side of the fence.

Hole # 17—blood sugar dropping.  That picture of the green chile cheeseburger on the Riverview score card looking better and better. 

Club House—The Grill @ Riverview—We can, in fact, highly recommend the Riverview Burger (aka the green chile cheeseburger). 

All in all, a satisfying practice day.  A few good shots, a few lousy shots, lots of wildlife, fine cheeseburgers, New Mexico blue sky and sunshine, patient golfer friends. Does it really get any better than this?

Felonious Badger

To further demonstrate that we are not making this up, we present the ACTUAL SIGN from the Pro Shop at Riverview.

O Ye of Little Faith:   Read it and look out when you're on hole #6.

He is armed and dangerous if cornered.

Badger on Hole #6

Danger, danger.  Warning, warning. A badger has moved into hole #6 at Riverview Golf Course.  

The sign in the pro shop advises us that he is armed and dangerous, so don’t brandish golf clubs, offer him a martini, or look threatening. 

We are not making this up. 

You have been warned.   Proceed with caution.




Photographic evidence courtesy of our  friendly Riverview Pro Shop.

Prairie Dog Open July 2014

Our sponsor

We are happy to report that this year, a contingent of WNMLF golfers returned to Cedar City, Utah, to play the semi-irregular Prairie Dog Open. 

 

Faithful readers will note an absence of a few years and (we hope) rejoice in the return of this auspicious event.

 

Monday, July 21, 2014

Cedar Ridge Golf Course

Shotgun start:  9:30 am or so

Temp:  Moderate for this time of year

Sunny skies

Participating golfers:  Alan, Don, Vicki, and assorted prairie dogs

Cheerleader:  Kathy from the air conditioned splendor of the snack bar

 

The course invited golfers with very blue skies, red rock mountain foothills, and good grooming that worked skillfully around the prairie dog holes.

 

Prairie dogs were welcoming and did not interrupt too many backswings during this year’s tournament.  No animals were injured by either golf clubs or high velocity golf balls. Neither were there any corpses (prairie dog or otherwise) observed on the course of play.

 

Hole #8:  Golfers Don and Vicki scored holes-in-one when their tee shots disappeared into prairie dog holes!!!  Oh frabjous day!  

 

This led to the only disappointing moment of the day. The local car dealership did not seem to understand that the custom is to award a car to anyone who scores a hole-in-one during tournament play. 

 

Golfers retreated to the local Thai restaurant for the tournament banquet. A fine time was had by all. Thank you for your support.

 

Rebuttal to Poem--Fogo the Third

Prompt:  Read your favorite poem.  Write a rebuttal. (attributed to Fogo Von Slack)

Poem:

"Fleas"  by Anon.

Adam had ‘em. 

Rebuttal:

No, I don’t think he did. 

Apologia: 

I can not figure out a way to link this to golf.

Describe 5 characters from your next novel--another Fogo writing prompt

Cyril Pumperknickel is the golf pro.  He is bald, wears a Titleist cap at all times, and drives around the course in his cart while chomping on cigar butts.  He is probably not going to be the romantic hero.

Fido is the gopher, ironically named, who lives on the golf course.  He does not torture the groundskeeper played by Bill Murray because there are copyright issues with this story. Fido’s favorite tasty treats are the BLT scraps dropped by golfers as they speed by in their golf carts.

Sparrow Sudsworth is the son and/or daughter of one of those Big Cheeses we wrote about yesterday. S/he is a trust funder and therefore doesn’t have to worry about trivial things like paying next month’s rent or keeping up with golf club membership dues.

Suzanna the Goose Girl.  She is wispy, young, and poor.  It is her job to chase the geese off the golf course with clubs that have been tossed away by frustrated golfers. Someone will probably fall in love with her and rescue her from this life of woe.

Rebecca Robot lives in a culvert near the water hazard and worries about rust. Since a culvert is associated with the movement of water, Rebecca is not very smart. 

Compare & Contrast the Big Tomato to the Big Cheese--a Fogo Von Slack Writing Prompt

The Big Tomato and the Big Cheese are somewhat alike, but mostly they are different. 

First of all, they are both Big.  This is where the similarity ends. 

Mostly, they are different.  You need the Big Tomato whenever you set out to write something.  You need a Big Tomato for a college essay (please), a blog post, a poem, a screenplay, a tv show, a Tweet, even your grocery list needs a Big Tomato. (Although we recommend that you confine most of your Big Tomato procurements to your local farmers’ market or what you discover growing on vines in your backyard.) 

You really don’t need a Big Cheese for much of anything, except perhaps as an object of satire in your Tweets.  A caution here—if job security is important to you, be careful with this satirical purposing of the Big Cheese.   

Now for the connection to golf, because of course it is here.  Golf can help us understand just about anything. 

On the golf course, your best use of the Big Tomato is on the BLT you order from the grill during your break between the front nine and the back nine.  In fact, we recommend the BLT. 

On the golf course, the Big Cheese is the guy in his own golf cart with the very expensive, custom-made clubs who may or may not actually be able to hit the golf ball.  In any event, avoid the Big Cheese on the course.  Let him play through.  He is obnoxious and may even bean you with a golf ball from a  tee shot with his pricey driver.   

Now it is important to write a conclusion.  So you see, the Big Tomato and the Big Cheese are somewhat alike, but mostly they are different.

News from this blogger (but sadly, not about golf)

Ok, so we've been off the map and the blogosphere for quite some time.  For at least this past month, we have an excuse.

In addition to some crummy weather that precluded trips to the golf course, even in our often golf-friendly New Mexico climate, we were distracted this month by participation in NaNoWriMo.

For the unintiated, this is National Novel Writing Month.  We took the pledge to write a 50,000 word first draft of a novel during the month of November.  

We, in fact, crossed that 50,000 word count on November 23 and not long after that added THE END to this draft.

A good way to celebrate this would be a round of golf, but alas, the weather is still pretty crummy today.

We'll keep you posted, and try to do better at both golfing and blogging.

Golf Deficit Disorder II

We reported back in November 2010 on what we thought was Golf Deficit Disorder.  

Sadly, we now understand that the illness we defined then was Golf Deficit Disorder Lite.   Our faithful readers may have noticed that we have not been either golfing or blogging for an extended time frame.  (We do apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.)  

From first-hand experience, we now understand what happens in a truly serious case of Golf Deficit Disorder.

In order to help others avoid long-term cases of this dread disease, let us hereby report the symptoms so that the Afflicted might seek more immediate relief than we did in our recent bout.

Symptoms include (but may not be limited to):

• Ear wax
• Migraine headaches
• Insomnia
• Binge-viewing of Caddyshack and Tin Cup
• An extreme craving for iced coffee
• Anxiety attacks upon passing by large expanses of neatly trimmed green grass
• Inability to watch Golf Channel without weeping
• Failure to keep up with golf blogging, thereby depriving the world of the important grassroots golf news

NB:  If you have these symptoms but your fever spikes to over 102, seek immediate medical attention.  You have been eating too much grass or you may have Mad Cow Disease.  This should be evaluated by a medical professional.

The CURE (and the only CURE)—

• Dust off your clubs and get out there on the golf course.

We are happy to report, again from first-hand experience, that this works pretty well.

We’re back out there.

FORE!  



Golf Haiku

Homage to National Poetry month  and the return of more suitable golfing weather.

I.

April grass grows green.

Springtime skies bring wind and dust.

I approach the tee.  Clouds laugh.

II.

Stand at the tee box.

Aim for the stars and the sky.

Can not see the flag.

III.

Oh little white ball

Nested in grass so deep green.

Where will you fly next?

IV.

Soar into the sky—

Bump along the rocky trail—

Please sink this last putt.

No Film at 11



The highlight of our WNMLF practice round at Civitan on Friday night was a helicopter circling the golf course and landing across the street at the Farmington High School football field.



No nose for news

 The Channel 13 News Helicopter from Albuquerque, for whatever reason, was doing some landing practice during the Piedra Vista HS-Santa Fe HS football game season opener.

We blame one particularly bad tee shot on this unexpected distraction during play.

Later, golfers Joan and Vicki did their best to wave at the helicopter in a brazen attempt to get themselves and their golf clubs on the evening news, but to no avail.

Violating our bed time, we stayed up long enough to watch Channel 13 News from Albuquerque. We were skunked. No footage of league practice that night.

This seems like an error in judgment on the part of the Channel 13 sports editors and a missed opportunity.

And WNMLF golfers lost a potential 30 seconds of fame (out of the 15 minutes that Andy Warhol promised us).

Too bad. Maybe the next helicopter pass will produce better results.



Pagosa Springs Open

Monday, August 1, 2011. Golfers Joan, Katie, and Vicki journeyed to the Pagosa Springs Golf Club.





Welcome to the club

 

Important notes from tournament play—



• If you hook your ball on a big swing at the driving range and hit the window on someone’s house, you’re on your own. We hope you have golf insurance.

• Neither do you want to park your car on the perimeter of the driving range.

• When a golf course has three hole #1’s, it is very important to listen to directions from the nice man who hands out the keys to the golf carts.

• If you find yourself bumping down a washboard gravel road headed toward someone’s driveway, odds are good that you have missed the turn to hole #2.

• If you spend too much time admiring the scenery and the mountain views during your round, you will annoy the golfers who are behind you and in a hurry to make it to a lunch appointment. This is a good time to let other golfers play through. This also has the advantage of giving you more time to admire the scenery.

Evidence that we actually play golf

• Chainsaw bear sculptures are a hot item in Pagosa Springs. Our favorite was the bear in the chef’s hat at hole #8 who was holding a blank piece of wood that probably used to hold a menu.

• The new restaurant in the clubhouse has excellent sandwiches and sweet potato fries. All this and a wonderful view of the course and the mountains from the deck.

• We highly recommend the coffee house on the river in downtown Pagosa Springs.



Nourishment

 We apologize for the delay in filing this report and hope it has not caused any inconvenience for our readers.

Golf and Trees



WNMLF golfers Katie, Joan, and Vicki found their way back to the Hidden Valley Golf Course in Aztec last week for another round of the Roaming WNMLF Tournament.

This course has excellent trees.

We found ourselves recommending Hidden Valley earlier that week to fellow golfers at Civitan who hit the tree on hole #1 while we waited our turn to tee off.

Our own favorite trees at Civitan are those that border holes #3 and #4, at the base of the Dreaded Hill.

But the Civitan trees pale in comparison to those at Hidden Valley. The trees there are all over the place, often separating us from our intended targets on the greens.

We report that we must be making progress. After a pleasant lunch on the patio of the clubhouse (recommended—the chicken quesadilla) with a view of the green on #9, we note that maybe we’re not as bad as we think we are at this golf thing.

And on the way out, the pro in the shop told us that no one had complained about us.

Baseball and Golf



Golfer at Spring Training

They are completely connected.


• You are compelled to try to hit a relatively small ball with a long stick.

• If you don’t have your head game on, you can’t accomplish anything.

• Fair weather and green grass make for the best fields of play.

• It’s all about math and counting things.

• The actual rules of each are a bit mystifying.

• No day that includes baseball or golf is a bad day.

• Anything can happen out there, even miracles.

• Hope springs eternal.

Smash Factor

We heard the golf pro out on the driving range today giving a lesson to a man who appeared to be intent on hitting the ball very HARD.


We heard a bit about Newtonian physics, the “one guy and fourteen clubs” theory, and the smash factor.

Apparently, the smash factor is all about physics, ratios, compression, club speed, and whether or not you actually manage to hit the ball.

We say HUZZAH and smash away. May that little ball fly far into the sky and in the right direction.

Golf helmet, anyone?