Archive for September, 2009

That's what people kept telling me when I would brag about my adventures in diving for golf balls when I was a kid, sneaking onto the links at Bellerive CC in St. Louis, the place where I grew up and eventually witnessed Gary Player win the US Open in 1965, a course that was the "youngest" course ever to hold the Open. The same place where I evaded the evil golf course guards and stalked the lakes of this very exclusive club. In the dark of night, dressed only in swimming trunks, t-shirt stashed in the bush, diving for those precious balls.

I remember one particular lake that I favored for it's shallowness. I could hunker down with just my head above the water to protect against Missouri's vicious summer mosquitos while my toes scoured the gooey mud bottom for balls. It seemed like there were millions of them, and I remember asking myself if these golfers ever got any of their shots on the grass of the course? This golf ball gathering was just so easy, I never even dreamed I would need Scuba gear. 

These memories for me are good ones, primarily because I never got caught and my shag bag was always full, but sadly, I just read about a guy who drowned while golf ball diving with Scuba gear. His name was Jerry Gunderson, he was 75 years old and golf ball diving was his passion. He was a guy who started a chain of golf equipment stores with his golf ball diving treasures. Strangely enough, one of Gunderson's sons also lost his life diving for balls. You would have thought the last thing he would be doing is diving for golf balls.

Too bad Jerry and his son didn't have the advantage of shallower conditions so that they could do without Scuba gear but a lot of these golf course lakes are deep and Scuba gear is required to get the balls. That takes golf ball diving to a whole new level which I am not familiar and i'm glad I never tried.

This is the first of what we hope will be many GWOP's, Golf World Opinion Polls. There is so much cool stuff in the world of golf that we all have opinions about and we think Golf WOP's will enhance our site and make it more interesting for our readers. Are you curious? If so, vote!

Tiger Woods VS Jack Nicklaus

There is a consensus out there in the golf world that Tiger Woods is already the greatest golfer of all time. With his 70+ wins on the PGA Tour, 14 major championships and golf's first billionaire some would vote Tiger has already eclipsed Jack Nicklaus for the title: Greatest Golfer Of All Time.

Not a brick and mortar golf store where overhead like rent and utilities can kill you. Not to mention inventory, employees, insurance and all the rest that will keep you awake at night in a cold sweat.

It's my very own golf store and it is powered by the folks at Amazon. They have this really cool software called Associate O Matic where you can build a store around your URL and it features Amazon's products. The customer gets a wide selection of specific products, in my case, golf equipment, golf clubs, golf apparel, golf balls and all kinds of great golf gear. The prices are competitive, the transaction is between Amazon and my customer and I get paid a nice commission on each sale. No rent, no inventory, no employees, no worries!

So to help me bring customers to my golf store I shamelessly promote myself using this blog as a platform. Hopefully what I write about here will be of some value to my readers and in exchange they might even visit my store, they don't even have to buy anything! But this blogger sure would be grateful if they did!

I have participated in a few million dollar hole-in-one contests before and come away with nothing more than a KP and a golf course membership for a year as a prize. I have also taken up a few challenges on par 3's where the prize for a hole-in-one was a car, you know the ones where there is a car parked off to the side of the green? Well, once I hit my tee shot INTO the car! (it was a convertible).

Reminds me of the story of a golfer that was playing a golf course a day after a tournament was held there. The hole-in-one sign was still up and the car still parked there. So you know what happens next, right? You guessed it, he holes his tee shot and claims the car is his. Tournament organizers say the event is over, don't be ridiculous. Judge says: sign still up, car still there, give the man his car.

I have even had three hole-in-ones myself over a span of 30 years of playing golf, two of which came within 6 months of each other and I consider myself fortunate, a lot of golfers I know have been playing golf for years and have not scored a hole-in-one, good players too.

So when I saw this video I got a real kick out of it and tried to imagine making a hole-in-one under these circumstances and decided to poll my readers to to see what their experience was with a hole in one., where, when and under what circumstances, ie tournament, Saturday foursome, etc.

Congratulations, Jason Hargett, great swing. Imagine this happening to you, a million bucks with one swing!

Did you see the mini-interview with Tommy Armour III in the October 09 issue of Golf Magazine? He talks about turning 50 next month, his recovery from back surgery, the Champions Tour, being friends with Tiger Woods and the legendary parties he throws at the Byron Nelson Tournament. Seeing that article brought back the memory of a day of golf I will never forget.

During the week of the 1989 Phoenix Open I was paired with Tommy Armour III in the Desert Pro-Am, played at the TPC of Scottsdale (Desert). This was not THE Pro-Am, the one with Bob Hope, Barry Goldwater, Glen Campbell et al on the Stadium course. This was the OTHER Pro-Am played on the TPC's other golf course, the Desert course. Two completely different animals, but my company put up the entry fee and I was happy to play, no matter which Pro-Am.

The other two guys in our foursome were an attorney and a banker, who it turned out, were complete jerks. Not only that but these two supposed low-handicappers were hitting it all over the place.

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