The $500 Round of Golf: A Guide to Pilot-Friendly Golf Courses

The $500 Round of Golf

This page intentionally left blank.

The $500 Round of Golf A Guide to Pilot-Friendly Golf Courses John Purner

McGraw-Hill New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto

Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-HIll Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 0-07-142935-2 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-07-140973-4

All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps. McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. For more information, please contact George Hoare, Special Sales, at [email protected] or (212) 904-4069.

TERMS OF USE This is a copyrighted work and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (“McGraw-Hill”) and its licensors reserve all rights in and to the work. Use of this work is subject to these terms. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1976 and the right to store and retrieve one copy of the work, you may not decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, reproduce, modify, create derivative works based upon, transmit, distribute, disseminate, sell, publish or sublicense the work or any part of it without McGraw-Hill’s prior consent. You may use the work for your own noncommercial and personal use; any other use of the work is strictly prohibited. Your right to use the work may be terminated if you fail to comply with these terms. THE WORK IS PROVIDED “AS IS”. McGRAW-HILL AND ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO GUARANTEES OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACY OR COMPLETENESS OF OR RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM USING THE WORK, INCLUDING ANY INFORMATION THAT CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE WORK VIA HYPERLINK OR OTHERWISE, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. McGraw-Hill and its licensors do not warrant or guarantee that the functions contained in the work will meet your requirements or that its operation will be uninterrupted or error free. Neither McGraw-Hill nor its licensors shall be liable to you or anyone else for any inaccuracy, error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any damages resulting therefrom. McGraw-Hill has no responsibility for the content of any information accessed through the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise. DOI: 10.1036/0071429352

Want to learn more? We hope you enjoy this McGraw-Hill eBook! , If you d like more information about this book, its author, or related books and websites, please click here.

For more information about this title, click here.

Contents

Introduction ix Acknowledgments

xiii

Winning Defined 1 Alabama 3 It’s Tiger’s Job 5 Alaska 7 The Double Bogey Challenge 9 Arizona 13 It’s in Your Mind, Not Your Bag! 17 Arkansas 21 Be a Square 25 California 31 Big Hole Putting 43 Colorado 49 Too Far to Putt, Too Close to Swing 51 Connecticut 53 Sand Traps Aren’t, Water Traps Are 55 Delaware 61 Bringin’ It on Down 63 Florida 69 Get a Grip! 77 Georgia 81

v Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

vi

Contents

Take a Stand 87 Hawaii 89 The Eyes Have It 91 Idaho 93 A Tip of the Hat 95 Illinois 97 Two for the Money 101 Indiana 103 Blue Suede Shoes 107 Iowa 109 Never on a Sunday 113 Kansas 115 Kentucky 117 Louisiana 119 Maine 121 Maryland 123 Massachusetts 127 Michigan 129 Minnesota 135 Mississippi 141 Missouri 143 Montana 147 Nebraska 149 Nevada 151 New Hampshire 155 New Jersey 157 New Mexico 161 New York 163 North Carolina 167 North Dakota 171 Ohio 173 Oklahoma 175 Oregon 179 Pennsylvania 183 Rhode Island 189 South Carolina 191 South Dakota 193 Tennessee 195

Contents

Texas 199 G-2 209 Utah 211 Practice Session #1 Vermont 217 Practice Session #2 Virginia 223 Practice Session #3 Washington 227 Practice Session #4 West Virginia 235 Practice Session #5 Wisconsin 239 Practice Session #6 Wyoming 247

vii

213 219 225 233 237 243

This page intentionally left blank.

Introduction

Mark Twain commented on golf by saying, “it is a good walk spoiled.” You might gather that he was not a golfer. You’d be wrong. He was, but like most, he was continually frustrated by the game. Certainly there are those days when “it is a good walk spoiled,” but thankfully there are moments when it is “a good flight made better.” I’m passionate about three things in life: flying, golfing, and dining. Those of you who have read The $100 Hamburger: A Guide to Pilots’ Favorite Fly-In Restaurants or visited the companion website www.100dollarhamburger.com are well aware of my love for fly-in dining spots. No meal preceded by flight and followed by flight could be anything but wonderful. Sometimes the food isn’t, but a meal is about so much more than the food! So it is with golf. Any round of golf preceded by flight and followed by flight is awesome. Throw in a meal at the country club and you’ve won the game of life. I didn’t touch the stick of an airplane until I was 17. My fingers first danced with a golf stick 6 years earlier. There was something about a nine iron that always made me smile—still does. I love the way the ball jumps quickly skyward, travels in a smooth arc, reunites with mother earth with a thud, and trickles only a few more yards. It was from the nine iron that I learned the essential secret of golf. It is about finesse, not power. The nine iron was the first club I mastered and is still my favorite. I never work at hitting a nine iron; I look forward to it.

ix Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

x

Introduction

The putter for me is different. It is a club to be studied, to be mastered. A taste to be acquired! Without good putting skills, the game is lost. Half of the strokes of a par round will be made with the putter. Half! The putter, like a beautiful woman, must be met with romance and persistence, never force and alacrity. Twenty-five percent of this book is about the golfing techniques that will help make your walk better. How to putt, how to aim, and how to think about each round of golf. Playing the game better will help you enjoy it more. The most valuable winning techniques that I have been passing along for more than a quarter century are in the tip sections of this book. They are sprinkled between the “where to go” chapters. Please read them all. Apply them and you will be a happier golfer. Seventy-five percent of this book is about where to play. It is not a book dedicated to naming the best golf courses in the world. True, you will find some of those in this book, but that is by coincidence not purpose. My purpose is to present pilot-friendly golf courses. What makes a golf course pilot-friendly? Throughout these pages you will notice that I employ a ranking system. Each location is proceeded and defined by one to five icons. They look like this w, a simple golf ball, five golf balls being my opinion of the best or most pilot-friendly. To be in this book a course must be somewhat aviation-friendly, just being the world’s greatest golf course or country club is not enough to be in these pages. Imagine for a moment what you think pilot-friendly might mean. For me, proximity to the airport is at the top of the list. It is my numberone criterion. I know of a spot where you taxi right up to the clubhouse. That’s cool! Being on the airport property earns a golf course a four. If it is also a rated course, then a five is awarded. Quality matters. So a really good golf course right on the airport gets a five. What about a really bad golf course right on the airport? Say a rattlesnake-infested 9-hole par 3. In my opinion, four would be one too many. Three seems about right. It is, after all, on the airport. Airport courses get at least three and can get as many as five golf balls. Proximity is our guide, so courses adjacent to airports are next on our list. A ranked golf course adjacent to an airport would get four. If that ranked course is so aviation-friendly that they will come and get you at no charge, or leave a golf cart at the tie downs for you, then they could get five golf balls. Mine is a subjective measurement

Introduction

xi

based on how pilot-friendly the courses are. Do they want our business, and are they trying to make it easy for us to play their course or stay at their resort? If yes, their score goes up; if no, they aren’t in the book. A set of golf clubs weighs a ton. So two people in a Cherokee carrying two sets of golf clubs are loaded. It’s not just the weight, it’s the clumsiness of the golf bags. Getting them into my Cherokee 140 is a bear. I can do it, but it isn’t fun! Two sets is a real challenge. That brings us to our next criterion: Does the golf course make rental clubs available? This is desirable for two reasons. I don’t have to bring mine, and I might get to try out a set of the latest ones I am considering purchasing. Normally, rental cubs are top of the line. What about a great resort with a golf course that is 15 miles from the airport? If there is transportation easily available by rental car, limo, taxi, crew car, it qualifies. Think of it this way. It is far easier to rent a car and drive 15 miles than to walk 2 miles. Far easier. So a course 15 miles away might make the book, while a course 1 mile away might not. I once flew into a course I had heard about that was only 1 mile from the tie downs—1 mile. There was no transportation, and the course didn’t rent clubs. It’s not in this book. One mile is too far to walk carrying your clubs, your shoes, your wife’s clubs, and her shoes. It’s just too hard, no fun, NOT aviation-friendly! A course like that isn’t worthy of even a one. But that world-class resort that will send a long black limo your way might get five golf balls, even if they are miles away. I hope this all make sense to you. It does to me. Our rating system is based on ease of use. Yes, the airport figures into the equation, as does the fixed base operator (FBO). An airport with 5,000 feet of recently surfaced concrete runways, an instrument landing system (ILS) approach, an FBO with low fuel prices, no ramp fees, and lots of services is always preferable to 2,400 feet of pot-holed asphalt with no FBO to greet you or sell you fuel. Please remember to buzz the strip once to scare away the deer. That’s not my first choice, so I downrate a golf course served by the latter and uprate one associated with the former. I’m in it for fun, not challenge. I have presented the information that I think you will need to decide where to fly and play golf this week. First you’ll find the rating icons. Now you understand them. More is better. Next you’ll see the city and state location, the airport name, and the identifier. Often

xii

Introduction

I like to call an airport before I fly in to discuss hours of operation, services provided, fuel charges, and ramp fees. I don’t like surprises, so I included the phone number and when possible the FAX number, e-mail address, and website URL. After the airport info I list the name of the golf club followed by its contact info, phone numbers, and the like. How many holes—18, 54, 9, or 6—and proximity to the airport. Green fees, cart fees, and rental club charges come next. Finally, I list the URL if it has one, and then come the all-important PIREPs. Notes from people like us who have actually experienced this spot, played a round and sent a note to www.flyingolf.com to tell us about it. I don’t have all of this information for every course. At a minimum you will find airport info, golf course info, and phone numbers. Get on the horn and check them out before flying 200 miles. Things change, often very quickly. Restaurants and golf courses open and close, and change their hours of operation, pricing, and accessibility. A country club that was semiprivate just last week may be members-only today. Don’t allow disappointment in your life; call them to make sure! It is an important element of your flight-planning process. Your airplane is a transportation device that makes many new possibilities available to you. If you live in a major metro area, chances are pretty good that the courses fill up on the weekend, even at your country club. With this book and some planning, you can play at a wonderful uncrowded country club a hundred miles or so away and avoid the tee-time hassle and the crowds. In the process you can introduce your golfing gang to the joys of general aviation. With every flight, you become a better pilot. A skill practiced is a skill remembered. The same is true for your golf game. Get out there and tee ’em up. Read the advice in this book and put whatever works for you into practice. Become better and smile more. A skill practiced is a skill remembered. Golf is, after all, not “a good walk spoiled” but “a good flight made better.”

Acknowledgments

Stick and Rudder is probably the best book ever written on the art of flying. I have a dog-eared copy and I’ll bet you do as well. It is a book that I pull out when I feel that I have forgotten something that I thought I knew or when I am finally ready to learn something that I never knew. Stick and Rudder has a special place on my bookcase and in my heart. I really like that book. The $500 Round of Golf: A Guide to Pilot-Friendly Golf Courses takes off where Stick and Rudder lands. This book isn’t about how to fly. It is about why to fly. Although The $500 Round of Golf: A Guide to Pilot-Friendly Golf Courses won’t help you fly better, it will help you fly more often and have more fun doing it. The sticks we’ll talk about are designed to control a golf ball, not an aircraft. Golf sticks and airplane rudders—can it get any better than that? Not for me. I love ’em both! I am deeply indebted to all the pilots who have mailed and emailed me countless reports (PIREPs) on aviation-friendly golf courses they have encountered. Their willingness to share their experiences makes this travel guide possible. Thanks also to Shelley Carr and McGrawHill for realizing what a valuable tool The $500 Round of Golf: A Guide to Pilot-Friendly Golf Courses could become and for providing the resources to make it possible. When I was in high school and college I played golf practically everyday. Naturally my game got very good. I even made a few dollars teaching others the game. Continual practice can’t help but make you better at whatever you attempt, whether it’s golfing, flying, or lawyering. After school came career, and although it filled many voids in my life, it took golf away from me. There just wasn’t enough time to play. With the loss of practice came the loss of proficiency. Golf for me was xiii Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

xiv

Acknowledgments

totally about winning, which I defined as having a lower score than anyone I was playing with. Period! If I could not win, I would not play. Simple as that. Years later, while I was dating my wife to be, she suggested we play golf one weekend. Renee had learned that I had been very good at the game when I was in school and figured that I still played. I declined and told her that I no longer played because I didn’t like to do anything that I wasn’t good at! She laughed and uttered these words, “Do you know that people play golf for the fun of it? That’s why they call it a game!” We played the very next weekend, and she taught me how to smile while shooting poorly and thus how to really win at golf. I share some of my knowledge of golfing techniques with her and she shares her passion for the fun of the game with me. We’re getting better and we’re smiling. Golf is a game, and I love my wife for helping me learn that. Thanks, Renee. Finally thanks to you, the readers, and a special thanks to each of you who has taken the time to send a letter of support or to come up and shake hands at an airshow or on a golf course. I am very thankful for your decision to buy this book and for visiting the companion website www.flyingolf.com. Send us a PIREP now and then!

The $500 Round of Golf

This page intentionally left blank.

W inning Defined The first thought that pops into my mind, and yours too, I’ll bet, is that winning has everything to do with a low score. It doesn’t! Having a lower score than anyone else in your foursome could mean winning, but not necessarily. Having a lower score this week than you had last week is a more thoughtful but still incorrect answer. Winning at anything, golf included, is about achieving your predetermined goals. To win at golf, you must win with each stroke. The ball must go exactly where you determined it would go—to do otherwise is to fail. This is easier to envision with putting than with driving. When putting, we all know where the ball must go and learn very quickly whether the putt succeeded. Did it go into the cup? That’s all that matters. With a drive, it is easy to delude yourself. Look down the fairway in the direction of the green, take a solid swing at the ball, and watch it go. If it goes a long way and is basically in the center of the fairway, then we are very happy. Each member of our foursome will congratulate us. “Nice shot! Well done! You’ll like that one!” 1 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

2

Winning Defined

If it goes a long way and is on the right or left side of the fairway, we are still pretty happy. If it goes into the short rough but has a playable lie open to the green, we are mildly happy. If the offending ball finds its way into the woods and lodges behind a tall pine tree, totally blocking our shot to the green, then we are unhappy. It is a bad shot. Actually, they were all bad shots unless they went exactly the distance we expected, followed the route of our aim, and landed at a predetermined spot. Winning starts with considering each shot. Where would you like the ball to land? Are you capable of placing it there with any club in your bag? If not, choose another target. Once the target has been accepted, it is all about club selection. How far away is the target? Grab the club for this mission. Swing the club. Did the ball find the target? If yes, you have won. If no, you have lost. Wrong target? Wrong club? Bad stroke? For the moment, let’s say that the ball missed the target by 30 yards but still landed in the middle of the fairway; and the shot to the green, while not optimum, was doable. Your approach shot was perfectly hit and landed on the green 2 feet from the cup, and you heroically sank the putt to birdie this par 4. Your score does not reflect the problem with the drive. In this circumstance, the low score reflects a loss. Your game cannot improve until you accept that. You can’t really be proud of luck. A poorly hit chip shot that bounces off of a tree and lands in the cup is not something that will fill you with pride, is it? Neither is a double bogey something that should automatically make you feel ashamed. If you hit each stroke exactly as intended, and you are better this week than last week, you are winning. Golf is not about the total of all your strokes, it is about the precision of each. Winning golf is not only about personal growth. It is also about enjoyment. The golfing tips in this book will help you set and realize achievable goals and enjoy each round of golf, probably for the first time. You’ll learn the six golden rules that will get you closer to enjoying golf as you attain your goals. When you finish, you’ll be playing golf with a smile on your face. Will your score be lower? Probably!

of Alabama Pell City, AL (St. Clair County Airport—PLR) 205-338-9456 205-338-9884 fax

Pell City Country Club 205-338-2066 9 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $20.00

wwwww

PIREP Wow, what a neat airport! Lakes surround it, a golf course sits beside it, and neat airplanes live there. The restaurant has an excellent menu, good food, friendly people, aviation artifacts all over, and a bar for the nonflyers. Highly recommended.

3 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

4

Alabama

Weaver, AL (Mcminn—25A) 205-820-1954

Stoney Brook Golf Course 256-435-3114 18 holes Green fee $18.00

www

It’ s T iger ’ s Job You’re never going to beat Tiger Woods at golf. Neither will I. Never! Never ever! Never, never, never! Why not? Easy question, easier answer. It’s his job and our pastime. It is what Tiger does for a living and was trained to do for a living since his third birthday. Did you start that early with that goal? Probably not. Tiger Woods plays golf every day of his life. He is either in a tournament or practicing to be in a tournament. He has a full-time coach—not a teaching professional, but a coach. He has a full-time caddy. He has a full-time staff to keep the world away from his door and to help him deal with the issues of fame and wealth. He is focused 24/7 on winning golf tournaments. It is not only his job, it is his life. Every other member of the tour has a similar story. They started early and trained constantly. They are all focused on winning. Usually they don’t. Usually Tiger does. 5 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

6

It’s Tiger’s Job

Let’s take a minute to consider not the best player on the tour but the worst. The name isn’t important as that baton gets passed on a weekly basis. The loser—the guy who doesn’t make the cut, the guy with the short paycheck—is still a consistent subpar shooter. You and I will never be and should not expect to be. It isn’t our job. We and the legions of weekend golfers are doctors, lawyers, accountants, businessmen, and pilots. That is what we do. Golf for us is recreation, not vocation. I love the game and I know you do too, but I wouldn’t want to depend on it to feed my family. Most of us get to play about once every two weeks during the season. Playing more frequently would certainly improve our game, but greater frequency won’t make us winning golfers. Practice makes permanent, not perfect. Knowing what to do and then doing it consistently is what makes a winner at anything, golf included. Most of us practice a series of very bad techniques— wrong stance, wrong stroke, wrong swing, wrong grip, wrong alignment, and wrong mental attitude. It takes all of these things working together to make a true winner. If everything else is working, but your alignment to the cup is wrong, the ball will travel a great distance in the wrong direction. No win there. Everything must click. Tiger doesn’t play golf, he studies golf, and then he executes what he has learned. Perfect execution of the right techniques equals success. Can we duplicate it? NO! For most of us, the years now work against us. Even if we could hire Tiger’s staff away from him, and if we could play 24/7, the critical moment of peak athletic performance has passed. I think either Jack Nicklaus or Arnold Palmer could have beaten Tiger consistently when they were in their prime. Their prime has past. So has mine and maybe yours as well. But beating Tiger isn’t really the goal, is it? The real goal is playing better golf today than you did yesterday and to be better still tomorrow. The real goal is for the golfer you are today to be able to beat the golfer you were yesterday. Golf is an individual game. So let’s get started learning the skills that can make us better. Then let’s practice them until we have perfected them. That is the way to get better. That is the way to win at weekend golf.

of Alaska Homer, AK (Homer Municipal—HOM) 907-235-5217 907-235-2498 fax

Kachemak Bay Lynx Golf

www

800-295-5969 [email protected] 9 holes Adjacent to golf course (transportation provided) Green fee $8.00 http://www.alaskagolfandfishing.com/golf.html PIREP This is the western-most golf course in the United States. If that’s not enough, consider this: You can tee off at midnight. This is, after all, the land of the midnight sun.

7 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

The Double Bogey Challenge Man’s contest with the golf course is measured by the number of strokes used to put a ball in each of 18 successive cups after starting play at each of 18 successive tee boxes. Par, an average, for each hole and each golf course is established so that we supposedly know how we are doing. Each hole is either a par 3, 4, or 5. No exceptions to that rule—3, 4, or 5, no 2s and no 6s—nowhere, no time, no way. Just 3, 4, or 5. Why? Golf is a game of distance—yards, to be precise. The distance from tee to green is always measured in yards. Par is assigned based on that distance. Golf course designers decided a long time ago that two strokes would be allowed for par once the player reached the green. All greens are 2 pars. All of them. Some greens are a good deal larger than others. Some are a good deal more rolling than others. Some are a great deal more difficult than others. It doesn’t matter. All players

9 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

10

The Double Bogey Challenge

are allowed two putts on every green to reach par. All greens are exactly par 2s. So if all greens are par 2s, then the difference in the total par for a hole of either 3, 4, or 5 must be given to all of the other strokes taken—the tee shot, the fairway shot, and the approach shot. In the case of a par 3 only a tee shot is allowed for par. You gotta reach the green with one shot from the tee box. No approach shot or fairway shot is envisioned. All par 3s are short enough in yards such that one of the clubs in your bag, if properly and accurately hit, will reach them. A tee shot and two putts make a par 3. Normally, they are less than 200 yards long. Normally, they are well trapped, so accuracy and proper execution are rewarded. Now a par 4 is a par 3 lengthened to the point that an approach shot is allocated. They are designed for a well-hit driver followed by an accurately hit medium to long iron; a 5-iron down to a 3-iron is the typical design criteria. Par 4s are 350 to 400 yards long. They are seldom straight. The leg of a dog is almost always involved. A tee shot, an approach shot and two putts: that is par 4. Simple to define, hard to play. The granddaddy of them all is the par 5. It is designed to test all of your skills on one hole. It consists of a tee shot, followed by a fairway wood, then a medium to short iron for the approach and two putts. Sometimes they are straight, sometimes they are dog legs. It is interesting to note just how often number 18 and number 10 are par 5s. I guess those designers like to wear us out before we come into the clubhouse. Par for most golf courses is between 66 and 72. That works out to about one stroke per hundred yards of play, as most golf courses are between 6,500 and 7,200 yards long. Interesting? Yes, but that fact can make you a much better golfer as you come to accept and understand it. Golf is made up of terms even stranger than par. Eagle, birdie, bogey, and double bogey. We know the words, but now it is time to start winning because we understand them. Par is the ascribed average for the hole. Eagle and birdie are assigned to those times that a golfer betters par. Birdie means one stroke under par, and eagle means two strokes under. It is possible to get an eagle or a birdie on a 5 or 4 par. Difficult, but possible. It is virtually impossible to make a score lower than 3 on

The Double Bogey Challenge

11

a par 5. Has it happened? Certainly, but it is such a rare event as to be unworthy of discussion. Often a pro will get a birdie on a par 5. On rare occasions we have all witnessed an eagle being made on a par 4. It is rare but doable. Eagles even happen on par 3s. An ace, a hole in one, happens in tournament play frequently and is always exciting to watch. A pro can drop an approach shot, and pretty much that’s what many par 3s are to a pro, approach shots. With almost monotonous consistency, tournament pros drop their approach shots within 10 feet of the cup—not chip shots, but approach shots. We, the legions on weekend players, should not concern ourselves with eagles, birdies, or aces. Yes, we will occasionally have the experience of getting a birdie and even an eagle. Once in a lifetime we’ll even ace a hole, maybe. But birdies, eagles, and aces are not the stuff that our games are made of; pars are also rare for us. We live in the land of bogey and double bogey. Well, if we’re good, we do. Wait a minute, did I just claim that bogey and double bogey golf was good? You bet I did, and it is. Look at it this way. If par golf is a score of 72, then bogey golf, one over per hole, is 90. How many of us weekend golfers really shoot 90? If you count all the penalty strokes, never improve your lie, and never take a Mulligan, how often do you really, really shoot 90? Let’s make it even better. Take all of the above into consideration: penalty strokes, no improved lies, and no Mulligan’s. How many seasonal, weekend golfers do you know who could really, really break 108? That’s double bogey golf, two extra strokes per hole. Startling, isn’t it? Most weekend golfers would be ashamed to admit to a double bogey round, but most who score honestly seldom break 110 or 120, which is far worse. They make a par or two per round, maybe even a birdie. What kills them is the holes where they take 11. Most folks just stop counting at 9, pick up their ball, and move on to the next hole. They write 9 on their score card, even though they didn’t earn it. What ruins the game is inconsistency—not knowing exactly what to do and not executing what you do know perfectly every time. I challenge you to make it a goal to consistently play bogey golf, one extra stroke per hole on every hole. Make no pars and no birdies, but take no 11s and no 9s. One extra stroke per hole on each and every hole. To reach that goal you must agree to first step all the way back or up to double bogey golf.

12

The Double Bogey Challenge

Make the commitment even if you are honestly scoring better than 108 or even 90 per round today. There are some lessons to be learned and some skills to be perfected that can only happen by taking the Double Bogey Challenge. Do it! PLEASE! A 7 on a 5, a 5 on a 3, and a 6 on a 4, that’s par for you for a while. Not forever, but for now! Three putts per green and one extra stroke to get to the green. You can do it, but it won’t be easy. You must never four-putt a green, and you must never arrive on any green in more than one stroke over regulation. The goal is to be consistent. It is an honest goal, and you can achieve it. The goal isn’t to make a total score of 108 on a round of golf. It is to make your par on each and every hole. More important, it is to win with each shot. Your score for the round is unimportant. Actually your score on each hole is hardly worth considering. Focus instead on each shot. Did it go exactly where you wanted it to go?

of Arizona Ajo, AZ (Ajo Municipal—P01) 520-740-6449 520-620-1933 fax

Ajo Country Club

www

520-387-5011 1 ⁄2 mile from airport 9 holes Green fee $12.00 Cart fee $9.00 No credit cards accepted http://www.ajoinaz.com/countyclub.html

Kearny, AZ (Kearny—E67) 520-363-5547 520-363-7527 fax

13 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

14

Arizona

Kearny Golf Course 520-363-7441 9 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $9.00

wwwww

PIREP Nice course right next to airport. Call ahead 520-363-7441, and they will leave a cart for you on the #5 tee. It’s just through the fence next to the tie-downs. Just start there and pay when you get to the club house. Then leave the cart at the #5 tee, and they will pick it up. Fees are $9 for 9 holes or $12 for 18 and $10 for the cart. There is even a courtesy car at the airport for lunch; just ask for Roger at the hangar—he has the key. Very nice people, and the new runway is located in a beautiful little valley.

Mesa, AZ (Falcon Field—FFZ) 480-644-2450 480-644-2419 fax www.ci.mesa.az.us/airport/homepage.htm

Longbow Golf Club

www

480-807-5400 480-807-2576 fax [email protected] Green fee $85.00 http://www.longbowgolf.com/ PIREP Once you land, you’re just 1 mile from Longbow Golf Club. Longbow was named after the Longbow Chopper, which is built across the street from the course. Great golf course, reasonable green fees, beautiful desert course. Falcon Field (FFZ) has great facilities. Falcon Executive is my favorite FBO, with reasonable fuel prices and nice people. They might give you a lift over to Longbow Golf Club.

Phoenix, AZ (Williams Gateway—IWA) 480-988-1013 480-988-2315 fax [email protected] http://www.flywga.org/

Arizona

15

Toka Sticks Golf Course 602-988-9405 1 ⁄2 mile from airport 18 holes Green fee $45.00 Cart fee included

www

Prescott, AZ (Ernest Love Field—PRC) 520-445-7860 520-771-5861 fax [email protected] www.prcairport.com

Antelope Hills Golf Club

wwww

520-776-7888 520-771-5860 fax 36 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $36.00 for 18 holes

PIREP Prescott, Arizona’s Ernest Love Field (PRC) is a short walk from the Antelope Hill Golf Course. Two 18-hole courses, the south and the north course. The approach to 03 right is right over #13 and 18 on the north course.

Scottsdale, AZ (Scottsdale Muni—SDL) 480-312-2321 480-312-8480 fax [email protected] www.ci.scottsdale.az.us

Kierland Golf Course

wwww

480-922-9283 [email protected] Green fee $145.00 3 miles from airport http://www.kierlandgolf.com/

16

Arizona

PIREP From SDL, you have many, many courses to choose from. My favorite is Kierland. Kierland is located on Scottsdale Road and is the future home of the Westin Kierland Hotel. Great shopping and restaurants. Back to the golf. Kierland has three, very different 9-hole courses, which makes for endless possibilities. Great scenery and great golf in the Scottsdale tradition. Kierland is about 3 miles from SDL.

It’ s in Your Mind, Not Your Bag! If you spend $3,000 for a set of golf clubs, your score should be lower than it is playing with the $129 Wal-Mart® special. Sounds right. Why doesn’t it work that way? Could it be that there is more to winning golf than the clubs you swing, the balls you hit, and the clothes you wear? Sure could! Well, if it isn’t the equipment, then it must surely be the training. Not really. Training is a large part of it. Remember, practice makes permanent, not perfect. Whatever you train to do and then repeat over and over again had better be the right stuff or you are merely ensuring a consistently negative outcome. How should you judge the value of your training? Before you judge the imprinting (practice), first judge the coaching. Are you being taught in a way that you understand, and can you translate the instruction into action? Understanding what to do but not being able to do it is futile.

17 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

18

It’s in Your Mind, Not Your Bag!

Listen to a good coach. Me, for instance. Think about what you are being told. Visualize yourself doing it. This works the same for golf or anything else. Now try to do it. You won’t do it well at first because you haven’t translated the thought into action properly. Stay with it. Are you sure you are doing it as prescribed? No question about it? Good! Are you getting the desired result? The result promised if you followed the rules step by step? No? Look again. Are you doing it exactly as prescribed? You see, learning a new skill is a two-step test. First, am I doing what I was told to do? This is a test of me. Next, is it working? This is really a test of the coach. If you are doing what you are told to do and your coach isn’t a charlatan, your results will be predictable. If not, find a new coach and stop wasting your time and money. Life is short. If your results are sometimes good and sometimes not, all is well. What is needed is imprinting. Practice if you must, but be careful. There is a very big reason that I prefer to say imprinting instead of practice. We store what we do, the bad and the good. It is very important to only imprint the good and discard the bad. To focus only on good behavior and to concentrate on repeating it is to be an optimist, a winner. To focus on and lament about mistakes is to be a pessimist, a loser. Do not waste time considering your mistakes, for to do so is to recall and remember them, to imprint them. That which we think about we remember. That which we remember we repeat. Make sense? In the 1960s, Dr. Maxwell Maltz brought forth a new field of study based upon years of research. He called it Psycho-Cybernetics, and his book of the same name became the best-selling book ever published on self-image therapy, self-hypnosis, and self-improvement, with more than 30 million copies sold worldwide. It is the study of the psychology of self-image and self-action. In one well-documented study, Dr. Maltz separated 15 college freshmen basketball players into three groups. On day one they met in a gym and shot baskets from the free throw line. Each player made up to 10 attempts. The five players selected to be in group one were then sent home and asked not to play basketball again until they returned for retesting the following week.

It’s in Your Mind, Not Your Bag!

19

Those in group two were to return to the gym every day and shoot 10 shots from the free throw line. They also were to return the following week for retesting. It was a very different for those in group three. Like group one, they were to return the following week for retesting, and they were to shoot no baskets or even come to the gym until then. Unlike the players in groups one and two, they didn’t shoot 10 baskets during the initial test. They shot baskets until they made a perfect one. Meaning the ball went through the net without first hitting the backboard or the hoop. It slipped perfectly down the strings of the net. Whoosh! What a delightful sound. If it took five attempts, fine, they stopped after their fifth attempt. If it happened immediately, they made only one shot. If it took 30, so be it. Perfection would be served. Dr. Maltz took this group into a classroom and taught them the secrets of Psycho-Cybernetics. Let’s listen in. First he told them to remember fully all the details of their successful shot. What did it feel like as the ball left their hands? How were their arms and hands cocked prior to release? How low were they crouched? How much pressure did they feel in their legs prior to beginning the release? Next, they were asked to remember the input from their nontactile senses. What did the ball sound like as it went through the net, what did the gym smell like, what were the sounds around them, and what did the shot look like at the moment of release and as it traveled through the air? What did it look like as it went through the net? What did they feel like immediately prior to shooting and immediately upon seeing the success of their effort? He told them to remember that they were successful at shooting perfect baskets and to think of themselves as successful at shooting perfect baskets. Because they were successful at shooting perfect baskets, they could do it again at any time they choose. Dr. Maltz was teaching them how to imprint the success of a sports activity. The first step he taught them was to remember the event clearly and completely, to commit it to their conscious memory. The next step was to go home and relive the event completely every afternoon for 30 minutes. That’s right, for 30 minutes each day they were to go home and merely think about that one successful shot and all of the details of it, each of which had been imprinted into their conscious mind.

20

It’s in Your Mind, Not Your Bag!

They were to repeat it for 30 minutes, to shoot baskets in their mind. Each shot would be a success, for they were imprinting success, not failure. The week passed quickly, as all weeks do in the life of a college freshman. On the appointed day and at the appointed hour, they all showed up at the gym to be retested. The results were pretty much as you might expect. The group that shot 10 baskets, went home, and returned after a week of abstinence scored almost exactly as they had the previous week, not very well. The group that practiced each day did much better, averaging 5 out of 10 attempts. That’s five baskets, not five perfect baskets. The Psycho-Cybernetics group did best of all, sinking 8 of 10 attempts. Two of the five in this group actually netted every shot. They didn’t just net their shots, they netted them perfectly, right through the center of the basket. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh! These young men had learned a valuable life lesson. The essence of Maltz’s approach is simple: If practice makes permanent, then we must be very certain that what we are practicing is perfect. Our coaching must be skilled, and our initial results a testament to that skill. Nothing is worse than being told by a sorry coach to “just keep practicing until you get it.” Develop a success mentality, a true belief that you can succeed at this activity called golf. Your belief will be built upon the evidence that you have previously been successful at it. That’s why your focus must be on each stroke and its outcome, never on your score for a round or even the total number of strokes for each hole. Psycho-Cybernetics works! Make it work for you in all aspects of your life. Think how it could help your flying. Imprint a perfect landing. Spend 30 minutes each day reliving it at your desk. Close your eyes and land your airplane perfectly time after time. Come Saturday, that is exactly what will happen. How could it not?

of Arkansas Clinton, AR (Holley Mountain Airpark—2A2) 501-745-5300 www.holleymountainairpark.com

Mountain Ranch Golf Club at Fairfield Bay 18 holes Approximately 10 miles from the airport Green fee $65.00 http://www.mountainranchgolf.com/

wwww

PIREP Mountain Ranch Golf Club at Fairfield Bay has been consistently ranked as THE best golf course in the state. While 10 miles isn’t a short walk from the tiedowns, this course is worth the trouble. Arrive early and make a day of it. The friendly folks at 2A2 will assist with transportation. Call ’em!

21 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

22

Arkansas

Greer’s Ferry Lake, AR (Tannenbaum Airpark—private) 501-362-3075 800-535-3075 2700′ sod landing strip

The Tannenbaum Golf Course

wwwww

800-TEE-BOX1 501-362-5577 [email protected] 9 holes On the airport Green fee $45.00 (for 18 holes) Cart fee included http://www.tannenbaum.com/golf.htm

PIREP N35-32.67; W092-03.40. Approximately 3 NM northwest of HBZ, 2,700′ smooth grass runway, 18/36. The runway slopes uphill from south to north, so most pilots land to the north and take off to the south. There are tall trees on all sides of the runway, but plenty of clearance if your approach isn’t too high. No fuel or lights. A tie-down cable lies along the west edge of the runway, next to the tennis courts. The airstrip is in the middle of Tannenbaum Resort, which also features condominiums and chalets for rent or purchase, and a new 9-hole golf course. You may use the private airstrip if you are dining at the restaurant or playing golf. With the possible exception of Lakeview and Gaston’s, this is probably the best summer fly-in in Arkansas.

Walnut Ridge, AR (Walnut Ridge Regional—ARG) 870-886-5432 870-886-2750 fax [email protected] www.walnutridge-aaf.com

Walnut Ridge Golf & Country Club 870-886-9816 9 holes

www

Arkansas

23

On the airport Green fee $8.00 PIREP Once you land, step out of your plane, unload your clubs, and tee ’em up. The 9-hole Walnut Ridge Golf Course is literally steps away from your plane. This is the closest plane-to-tee golf course in the United States.

This page intentionally left blank.

Be a Square If you go to most golf instructors, let’s call them teaching pros, you’ll learn at least eight ways to fail during your first lesson. Guaranteed! Most haven’t been trained to teach you how to succeed. They have simply been steeped in cloning concepts. Their goal is to transfer their game into your body. Won’t work! Sometime during lesson number one you will be told that your grip is bad, your swing is awful, and your stance is not even worth discussing. They will certainly worry you about how you are addressing the ball. The grip they’ll want you to use is the interlocking grip. It works fine and feels comfortable for about 1⁄2 of 1 percent of the golfing population, particularly those with very short, skinny fingers. Here’s the rub on grips, and don’t ever forget it: Comfort works, contortion fails. Hold the club in any way you like with either hand

25 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

26

Be a Square

on the bottom. It will not affect your score at all. Now, if you are intent on turning pro and you are interested in getting the maximum length out of every stroke, then you should adopt the interlocking grip. This same grip that helps pros succeed causes weekend golfers to fail. It only works when you play every day for a number of years. Are you really going to do that? Don’t believe me? Test it! Go to a driving range—just this once— and don’t ever go again. Pull out your driver. Hit 10 balls using the painful interlocking grip. Watch them go straight and left and right and short and long and up and flat. Watch them carefully. See any consistency? No? I didn’t think you would. Now change your grip to anything that feels comfortable. Baseball grip? Fine! Use any grip that allows you to comfortably hold and swing the club. Notice something? The balls are consistently going in the same direction and traveling the same distance. Maybe you’re slicing all of them, maybe you’re hooking them, or maybe they’re going straight. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that each shot is going pretty much as the one before it. Consistency is critical. We’ll work on the other problems. For now, remember, the only purpose of the grip is to cause you to strike the ball the same way every time. This means that you have control over the clubface during the back swing, at the moment of impact and the crucial follow through. The clubface MUST be perfectly square at the moment of impact. If not, the ball will go who knows where. What does square mean? First, the center of the clubface must impact the center of the ball, the vertical center, and the horizontal center. When the clubface impacts the ball, it must be exactly perpendicular to the golfer’s sight line and body. If the clubface is square, the ball will travel straight along the golfer’s sight line. It will not hook or slice. Further, the arc of the ball will be a beautiful sight to behold. It will rise as the club designer intended, reach the peak of the arc properly, come down as pre-

Be a Square

27

scribed and run or stop perfectly for that club. Keeping the clubface square on the ball will make all of that happen. Only a comfortable grip will allow you to control the club and the clubface throughout your swing. What the heck is a sight line? It isn’t hard to imagine yourself standing on the tee box of a par-3 hole and wanting to hit the ball to the green. To make that happen you have to position your body in such a way that the ball is aimed at the green; flag if you’re feeling really ambitious. Your shoulders and your hips will exactly parallel the path your ball will travel if properly stroked. The ball is on the ground, though, not on your shoulders. Assume for the moment that you are right-handed. Now imagine a line running from your right shoulder to your left shoulder and the all the way to the green and the cup. This straight line will pass about 2 feet to the left of the cup. Now imagine a straight line, which runs through the center of your ball and perfectly parallels the line we just drew through your shoulders to the green. Notice that it goes right through the center of the cup, as it is approximately 2 feet above (to the right of) the first line. After all, we teed it up about 2 feet in front of our body. Make sense? The line that goes through the center of our ball is the sight line. How the heck do we know that it is sighted properly? Simple! Imagine that you are an archer not a golfer. The stance of your hips, feet, and shoulders is very similar for both sports. Walk to the position on the tee box where you can best see your target and can find a decent place to tee up your ball. Now let yourself assume the position that you would if you were about to send an arrow towards the cup. Pretend you actually have a bow in your left hand. Point your left hand and arm toward the target. Your arm, when extended straight out, should be on a perfect line with your shoulders. Extend your index finger. Look straight down your left arm; it should be pointing exactly two feet to the left of the target, in this case the flag. If it isn’t, re-orient your body until it does. Don’t simply move your arm or shoulders; that won’t work. You must reposition your entire body. Line up this same way before each and every golf stroke. Rather

28

Be a Square

than aiming down your index finger, hold the club straight out, lined up with your shoulders and outstretched arm. Aim along the club. If it is 2 feet to the left of your intended target, pin, or center of the fairway, you have a good sight line. This stuff is easy! Golf is, after all, a game played for the fun of it. It is intended to be fun, not torture. So far we have learned to use a grip that will allow us a square stroke and we know how to properly aim. What’s next? Remember the teaching pro who told you that your swing was awful? It isn’t, but it also isn’t college golf team beautiful, and thank God for that! Let’s work on developing an effective swing. Forget beauty—we’re after a lower score and to get there we need consistent control of the clubface throughout the swing. Let’s not say swing any more—let’s substitute stroke and agree never to say hit. Swing connotes college golf team pretty, and hit speaks of out-of-control violence. Neither will work for us. So what about this stroke thing? Well, think about croquet for a moment, not golf. Mentally grab the mallet over the ball and stroke it. In this case we want it to travel a great distance. We need to get some meat on it. Remember how you did this when you were a kid? That’s right—holding your arms straight, keeping your wrist stiff, and rotating your body at the waist as you moved your shoulders away from the ball (the back swing—er, stroke!) and then move your shoulders toward, in contact with, and through the ball (the downstroke, impact, and follow-through). It was natural. We all did it just that way. The ball went straight. The follow-through was naturally the same length as the back swing. Things just worked naturally. No croquet teaching pro was needed. A golf stroke is very similar. The back swing will come back further. To accommodate this, your wrist will break at the top of the back swing and the follow through. Now, your wrist won’t literally break but will unlock. Don’t overanalyze the stroke. Your body will figure out what to do. It really will. Concentrate on keeping your eye totally focused on the ball prior to contacting it with the clubface and after contact. Keep your head down and locked in position during the entire stroke. Once your follow-through is completed, you may and should look up to follow the flight of the ball. It is beautiful, and you deserve

Be a Square

29

to see it. Don’t ever think about the circular pattern of your swing. That’s fancy stuff for the showboats. You be a square and hit the ball squarely. You be a square and stroke the ball straight. Aim square and stroke square. No one will ever compliment you on your stroke or your grip. You will consistently play better than the player you were last week and that’s better than any false praise! I love that word player. It keeps me focused on the fact that golf is a game to be played, not a profession to be worked.

This page intentionally left blank.

of California Auburn, CA (Auburn Municipal—AUN) 530-888-8174 530-888-8026 fax

Ridge Golf Course

wwww

530-888-7888 1 ⁄4 mile from airport Karen Bickel (Director of Sales & Marketing): [email protected] 18 holes Green fee $55.00 includes bucket of ranger balls http://www.ridgegc.com/ PIREP Auburn, CA, has an airport-friendly golf course just across from the field. It is brand new. It is public. It is 18 holes. It ought to be a delight for golf-playing pilots. Have a great time.

31 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

32

California

Avalon, CA (Catalina—AVX) 310-510-0143

The Catalina Island Golf Course 310-510-7420 9 holes Green fee $27.00

wwww

PIREP My wife and I spent three days in Catalina in April 2002, flying in a PA-28 from Watsonville Airport (KWVI). Landing at Catalina Airport (KAVX). Much is made of the so-called difficulty in landing at Catalina’s “Airport in the Sky” (i.e., airport on a mountaintop). I think this is exaggerated a bit. The runway is a perfectly good runway. There are cliffs on three sides of the runway. That is really only important if you intend to land to the side of the runway. If you are in the habit of actually landing on the runway itself, it shouldn’t make much difference if there is a cliff to the side of it. After all, you don’t worry about landing on a runway with buildings full of people to the side of it, right? The real difficulty comes from the fact that the runway slopes slightly upward and thus gives the optical illusion that it is much shorter than its actual length. The upward slope also gives the impression that the pilot is diving into the runway rather than approaching it. Again, it shouldn’t be that big a deal. Novice pilots should note that Catalina’s mountaintop location means that strong winds (10–25 knots) are quite normal; luckily, they are usually blowing right down the runway. The surveyors spent several years picking the airport’s location; they chose well, a location where the winds are generally uniform in direction. Although there is not a tower per se, the airport office monitors UNICOM frequencies and will generally chime in to let you know what’s going on. Because of its remote mountaintop location, a night landing at Catalina would be exceedingly dangerous, and for this reason, the airport is closed at night and the runway is not lit. You need to plan to arrive in daylight or not at all. Make sure to coordinate your arrival time with the scheduled bus service to Avalon. The airport itself is a perfectly good lunch stop for a day trip. The airport’s restaurant is comfortable and casual, and the buffalo burgers are justly famous. The airport has been used in several movies, perhaps

California

33

most famously in “The In-Laws” with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin (“Serpentine, Shelly! Serpentine!”). Getting in to Avalon from the airport. Catalina has only one town: Avalon. The remainder of the island is essentially empty. There are various campgrounds and drinking holes for yachtsmen who sail to the island, but Avalon is the place to stay for visitors who fly in. Avalon city is a very windy 30-minute bus ride from Catalina airport. Bus tickets are $15 per person, round trip. Although the bus runs some five to six times per day, do not assume that you can simply get a seat on any bus that you want: Lots of hikers use the airport bus to get to upland hiking trails, and occasionally the bus is booked up. To avoid this, you’ll want to call the airport office and see about getting a reservation for the bus. The fact that you may need to prearrange your bus trip back to the airport more than a day in advance suggests that overnight trips to Catalina should not be made unless the pilot is IFR-capable. For example, if the weather is VFR [visual flight rules] in the morning, turning to IFR [instrument flight rules] in the afternoon, and you cannot get a bus until the afternoon, you may not be very happy. If you get to the airport only to find it has suddenly become IFR, you may be stuck waiting for hours until the next available bus to get back to Avalon. Remember that the airport is on top of a mountain. When there is low-level stratus in the area, the weather up at the airport maybe very different from how things look at the beach in Avalon. Avalon is a very small town. You do not need a car to get around. I would bring luggage that rolls, because you may need to walk a few blocks to your hotel from the central plaza where the airport bus will let you off. Ask the driver to take you to your hotel; sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t, depending on how full the bus is. In Avalon, you can walk most anywhere, and taxis are readily available by phone call if you prefer a ride or need to take heavy luggage or golf bags with you. Golf. There is an executive 9-hole course (32 par) that has hosted many movie stars and tournaments. It’s a fun short course with narrow fairways, nothing too challenging, par 3s and 4s only. The course is just above Avalon, easy walk from downtown. You can pay to leave your clubs overnight. Clubs and carts can be rented. In April 2002,

34

California

the rates were $27 for nine holes and $40 for 18 holes. Note that the course often hosts tournaments; you may want to call Mike Mellinger at the golf course to check if tee times are available. Renting golf carts. There are more golf carts in Avalon than cars, and they are used as the principal mode of transportation. It costs $30 an hour to rent a golf cart to drive around Avalon, a town so small you will want to walk everywhere anyway. My interest really declined when the rental office gave us a map showing just about every road marked as off-limits to rented golf carts. Don’t bother. Summary. For couples and families, Avalon is a very good one- or two-day getaway. More than two days and you will probably run out of things to do. Remember that there is no aviation fuel available at the airport. Plan to arrive with enough gas to get back to your destination if the Los Angeles area is fogged in.

Borrego Springs/Temecula, CA (French Valley Airport—F70) 909-955-6735 909-955-6686 fax

Borrego Springs Resort & Country Club 760-767-3330 760-767-5710 fax [email protected] 18 holes Green fee $54.00 www.borregospringsresort.com/golf.html

wwww

PIREP Borrego Springs is located approximately 30 miles north of the Julian VOR in north San Diego County. The Borrego Springs Resort will send a shuttle to pick you up and transport you to the golf club, which is about a 5-minute drive.

Borrego Valley, CA (Borrego Valley—L08) 760-767-7415 760-767-5727 fax www.co.san-diego.ca.us/dpw/airports/airlocations

California

Ram’s Hill Country Club 760-767-5125 760-767-5023 fax [email protected] 18 holes Green fee $105.00

35

www

PIREP My wife and I flew into Borrego Valley (L08) and went to Ram’s Hill Country Club. It is about 5 miles south of the airport, and with an advance phone call from UNICOM, 760-767-5000, we got a free ride to and from the Club. The golf course is terrific.

Colusa, CA (Colusa County—O08) 530-458-0580 530-458-5000 fax

Colusa Golf and Country Club 530-458-5577 530-458-7331 fax 9 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $20.00

www

PIREP The Colusa Golf and Country Club, 0.3 mile north of the Colusa County Airport, is a 9-hole course. It is usually not crowded, is in great shape, and has one of the best greens keepers in northern California.

Death Valley, CA (Furnace Creek—L06) 760-786-2331

Furnace Creek Inn & Ranch Resort 760-786-2345 760-786-2514 fax [email protected] 18 holes Green fee $55.00 http://www.furnacecreekresort.com/

www

36

California

PIREP The lowest elevation golf course in the United States at 214 feet below sea level. This is a fun course with some water, some coyotes, and lots of view. Phone from the airport to get a complimentary shuttle ride anywhere within the resort (lodge, inn, or golf course). Visitor fee required (National park: $10, same fee cars would pay). The inn has a wonderful restaurant and a great Sunday brunch as well. Reservations are required.

Fall River Mills, CA (Fall River Mills—O89) 530-225-5661

Fall River Valley Golf Course

www

530-336-5555 2 miles from airport; transportation provided 18 holes Green fee $24.00 Cart fee $13.00 http://golffallriver.com/ PIREP Fall River Mills (O89) is a great place for golf with the Fall River Golf and Country Club available just minutes away. The golf course provides a free shuttle to and from the airport. Call ahead. The flight in takes you right by Lassen. This is also a superb area for fishing.

Groveland, CA (Pine Mountain Lake Airport—Q68) 209-533-5685 209-533-5657 fax

Chalet de Fontenay—Pine Mountain Lake Country Club

wwww

800-495-9619 209-962-5629 209-962-8620 pro shop [email protected] Green fee $64 http://www.pinemountainlake.com/golf.html http://www.chaletdefontenay.com/

California

37

PIREP I wanted to tell everyone about one of my favorite places. It’s called Chalet de Fontenay in Groveland, CA, Pine Mountain Lake Airport (Q68). You land and taxi to the chalet; it’s built in a fly-in community. Ralph and Janet McDonald are wonderful hosts and have provided a beautiful getaway. The kicker is that this B&B is about 25 miles from the gates of Yosemite National Park. Ralph has a couple of cars available to rent for $10.00 per day, plus fuel and a small mileage fee. His fees for the B&B have been $90 per night. The town of Groveland is about 4 miles away, and there is a very fine restaurant in the Groveland Hotel. This B&B is also located near a lake, golf course, tennis, and many other attractions. But if you have never been to Yosemite, the trip is a must. This is one of the most impressive places on Earth. The field is 3,625 ft ⫻ 50 ft at 2930 ft and the chalet is about a 1-minute taxi ride away from runway 9. Give this one a try and you will go back.

Livermore, CA (Livermore Municipal—LVK) 925-373-5280 [email protected] www.ci.livermore.ca.us/airport.html

La Posistas Golf Course

wwww

925-455-7820 pro shop 925-443-3122 automated reservation system [email protected] Adjacent to the airport Green fee $30.00 Cart fee $26.00 http://www.laspositasgolf.com/ PIREP Livermore Airport in Livermore, CA, is immediately adjacent to Las Positas Golf Course. Temporary parking for the golf course is available at the northwest end of the ramp. From there it’s about a 100-yard walk to the pro shop. Las Positas is a nice 18-hole municipal course. The front 9 is a rather open links-style, and the back is heavily wooded. Las Positas also has a 9-hole executive course immediately adjacent to the north

38

California

runway. There’s usually lots of interesting fly-by activity (warbirds, acro, etc.) at Livermore, so you won’t be bored if you have to wait on a tee. There’s also a great sportsbar, Beeb’s, at the course.

Madera, CA (Madera Municipal—MAE) 559-674-6958

The Madera Municipal Golf Course [email protected] 18 holes 2 miles from airport Green fee $20.00 http://www.maderagolf.com/

www

PIREP The Madera Municipal Golf Course is about 2 miles from the airport (you’ll see it from the pattern just beyond and to the left of runway 30). To get there, you’ll have to borrow a car from one of the FBOs and take Aviation drive out to Avenue 17 and turn left. Go for about a mile and a half to the corner of Avenue 17 and Road 23, and you’re there.

Oroville, CA (Oroville Municipal—OVE) 530-538-2420 530-538-2426 fax

Table Mountain Golf Club 530-533-3922 18 holes On the airport

wwwww

PIREP Oroville Airport has a golf course right on the airport. The course is wide open. Suggest people fly in early because it gets hot in the afternoon. It is named Table Mountain, but the airport is in the Sacramento Valley and is anything but mountainous. The golf course is on the opposite side of the airport from the FBO. You can taxi right to the golf club, where there is plenty of parking and tie-downs. Aircraft parking is west of runway 1-19 and less than 100 yards from the golf course.

California

39

Palo Alto, CA (Palo Alto Airport of Santa Clara County—PAO) 650-856-7833 650-424-8071 fax

Palo Alto Golf Course 650-856-0881 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $40.00 Cart fee $22.00

www

PIREP Palo Alto has a golf course next to the airport. PAO has recently been renovated. It sits close to the south of the bay.

Petaluma, CA (Petaluma Municipal—O69) 707-778-4404 707-778-4405 fax

Rooster Run Golf Course

www

707-778-1211 [email protected] 18 holes Green fee $34.00 Cart fee included http://www.roosterrun.com/

PIREP There is a new golf course. I have only played it once and found it to be worth the trip.

Rio Vista, CA (Rio Vista Municipal—O88) 707-374-2716 707-374-6559 fax

Rio Vista Golf Course 707-374-2900 Adjacent to the airport Green fees $65.00 Cart fee included http://riovistagolf.com/

wwww

40

California

Sacramento, CA (Mather Field—MHR) 916-875-7077 916-875-7078 fax [email protected] www.sacairports.org

www

Mather Field Golf Course 916-364-4353 18 holes 2 miles from airport Green fee $26.00 Cart fee $12.00

Shelter Cove, CA (0Q5) 707-986-7361 701-986-7435 fax

Shelter Cove Golf Links

wwww

707-986-1464 9 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $14.00 (all day) Cart fee $18.00 (18 holes) Rental clubs $3.00 http://www.ridno1.com/golf.html

PIREP Shelter Cove has a golf course and the runway goes right through it. It couldn’t be more convenient. It’s situated on a bluff near the crashing surf, and it has ocean and pine tree mountain views. It’s a gorgeous setting. Golf carts are available to rent as well. Fly in early because late afternoon crosswinds can make for a difficult landing.

Stockton, CA (Stockton Metropolitan—SCK) 209-468-4700 209-468-4730 fax [email protected] www.stocktonet.com/community/airport

California

41

French Camp Golf Course

wwww

209-234-3030 [email protected] 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $17.00 Cart fee $10.00 Club rental $5.00 http://www.frenchcamp.com/green_fees.htm#Green%20Fees PIREP It’s a 9-hole golf course, which is really nice! The thing that makes this so great is that it is somehow connected to the FBO at the airport. They will get you discounts on green fees, range balls, cart fees, and the like, and even get you to the course!!!! Open seven days, it’s a neat way to just shoot a bucket of balls and have lunch! The airport is Stockton Metro, SCK. The course is French Camp Golf Course. It’s literally 5 minutes to the southeast of the airport. The FBO is Flight Support Inc., a Chevron brand with a 24-hour fastpay system.

Temecula, CA (French Valley Airport—F70) 909-955-6735 909-955-6686 fax

Temecula Creek Inn

wwww

909-694-1000 909-676-8961 fax 10 miles from the airport Green fee $80.00 http://www.temeculacreekinn.com/ PIREP We flew in to French Valley Airport (F70) and headed over to the Temecula Creek Inn. Nice airport, friendly FBO (they even gave us a ride to the course), and a fabulous round of golf. Course is in great shape, very challenging, great grillroom, and excellent service all around. Pro even gave us a ride back to the airport. Highly recommended.

42

California

Woodland, CA (Watts-Woodland Airport—O41) 800-442-1333 530-662-3035 fax [email protected] www.woodlandaviation.com

Yolo Flier’s Club 530-662-8050 18 holes On the airport Green fee $55.00 Cart fee $22.00

wwww

PIREP Watts-Woodland Airport has an excellent little golf club called the Yolo Flier’s Club located about 200 yards off the end of runway 36.

Big Hole Putting The problem with putting is that the cup is so small, only 4 inches across, and the distance to it is so great. On some greens it can be as much as 120 feet from ball to cup. Did you ever notice how the cup gets smaller and smaller the further you are from it? What if it was bigger—much, much bigger? What if the cup was actually 20 feet across? Under those circumstances it would be almost impossible to miss it, even from 120 feet away. You would miss occasionally, but only very occasionally. Putting would no longer be of any concern. You would routinely putt only one time on each hole. Eighteen holes, eighteen putts. Simple! The possibility of holes-in-one and sinking approach shots would go way up, maybe one hole-in-one per round and two dropped approach shots. Cups aren’t going to be 20 feet across for everyone, just you and me. I like that. Golf is a game we play against ourselves. We are playing against our last round. Simple as that. We are our only competitor. In truth, the holes are going to remain only 4 inches across.

43 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

44

Big Hole Putting

What is going to change is the way we think of them. We are going to think of them as being 20 feet across and the center of this huge circle is going to be the real 4-inch cup. We are going to aim and stroke for the 4-inch real cup even though our goal is only to leave the ball within the 20-foot imaginary cup. Got it! We are going to put our first putt inside this 20-foot cup every time. It makes no difference if we are 30 feet out from the cup or 120 feet. The first putt must get into this imaginary 20-foot cup. I can’t imagine failing at that, can you? You’ve accepted the Double Bogey Challenge, right? So par for you will include three putts per green, one more than regulation. The first putt into the imaginary 20-foot-wide cup is the key to success. The ball will be left within 10 feet of the 4-inch cup. Whether you go wide or long or short doesn’t matter. Forget studying the green and the way it breaks. It doesn’t really matter that much anyway. Please forget about that ridiculous idea that you should hit the ball so it runs into the back of the cup. You know how that old wives’ tale goes. Never leave one short. That’s the concern. So hit it hard enough that it strikes the back of the cup. Don’t ever be satisfied with it just trickling over the front lip of the cup. Hogwash! The ball running a foot beyond the cup because you hit it too hard is the same result as leaving it a foot in front of the cup because you hit it too soft. Always stroke the ball with the exact power you feel required to precisely reach the center of the cup. No one would purposely try to understroke a putt, so why would you purposely try to overstroke? Makes no sense! So much for striking down myths. Back to our study of winning putting. On average, your first putt will be only 5 feet away from the cup. It will never be more than 10, that’s the radius of our 20-foot cup. Let’s work with the worst case, a 10-foot putt. That can be pretty intimidating. It won’t be for you, not any more, because we aren’t going for a 4-inch cup. For our second putt we will imagine a 4-foot cup. Think you could miss a 4-foot round cup if you are no more than 6 feet away from its

Big Hole Putting

45

lip? You would really have to work to achieving that. The goal is to drop the ball into the center of the 4-foot imaginary cup, right into the waiting 4-inch real cup. Probably you won’t, and that’s fine. What you will accomplish is to leave the second putt no more than 2 feet from the real cup. On average, your second putt will be only 1 foot away from the real 4-inch cup. That 4-inch cup that looked so small from 120 feet away looks cavernous from 12 inches. Again, let’s look at the worse case, a 2-foot putt for our par. The pressure is on and the putt is certainly not a gimmie. It will be for us though. Why? Glad you asked! Because we’re gonna work on sinking 3-foot putts until we consistently sink 3-foot putts. It takes some effort and some understanding. The 3-foot putt is one of only two strokes we will ever practice off the course to reach our goal of playing perfect double bogey golf. We will not be spending needless hours at the driving range trying to perfect a 7-, 5-, or 9-iron. What makes the putter so special? We take 50 percent of our shots with that one club, yes, 50 percent. The only other club in our modest bag that even comes close is the predictable 3-iron. If you’re playing on a course that has long, open par 3s, you might use the 3-iron on every hole. In that case, you would use it 20 percent of the time. Go to the golf supply store immediately and buy a practice-putting cup. Nothing fancy and automated: Get one of the simple metal ones. Next go to your home or office, anywhere you can find some carpeted privacy for a 30-minute putting session. Do not start with 3-foot putts. Start with 6-inch putts. Remember, we believe in imprinting success. Putt nothing but 6-inchers for the first three days. On day four introduce the 12-inch putt. Drop 6-inchers for the first 10 minutes, then move on to the long 12-inch putt. Stay with this workout until day seven. The 2-foot putt comes next, and the 3-footer after that. When the 3-footer is added, drop the 6-incher from your practice session. This leaves you practicing a 1-foot putt for 10 minutes followed by 10 minutes with the 2-footer and 10 minutes with the 3-footer. At the end of each day, spend 10 minutes with your feet up and your eyes closed reliving and imprinting your successful putts. Forty

46

Big Hole Putting

minutes a day on putting? You bet! Remember, it is 50 percent of your game. Well, that’s the practice session, but what are the techniques? Number one, be a square! The sight line is the most important thing with putting. The ball will absolutely go where you hit it. So line yourself up just as an archer would. Your toes and your shoulders should be perfectly square with each other as you hover over the ball. You will have to bend over to the point that your putter’s face will exactly hit the horizontal and vertical center of the ball. Your putter must not touch the surface of the green—the tiff grass. Your feet should be about the same distance apart as your shoulders. Now relax. The ball will be placed exactly between your two feet and about 10 inches in front of them. Be comfortable. If you need the ball to be closer or further away, fine! Did I say to put the ball exactly between your left and right foot? Yes! I know that you have seen countless pros and wannabe pros position the ball in front of their left foot (that is, the righties; the lefties put it in front of their right foot). It works, but you have to do a lot of compensating for the fact that the ball isn’t in the center of the pendulum. It means that you right-handers are likely to pull the ball to the left or push it to the right. Keeping it on the sight line is tough using this technique. So why bother? Keep it simple and keep the ball between your feet. Check the sight line by rotating your head toward the cup. Does it look right? Are you on the right line? If not, reposition your body and look again. Move your putter in front of the ball. Keep your arms straight and your wrist locked. Now start an imaginary stroke from this point in front of your ball; no backstroke is necessary to line up. Stop the follow-through at about 45 degrees or less. Make sure to stroke exactly above and along the intended path of the ball. Stop the sighting stroke at the point where the head of your putter obscures part of the cup from your view. If the cup is not obscured, you are not lined up. Shift your body position as necessary and start again. Now you have to stroke it squarely with enough force to reach the center of the cup and no more. Keep your arms straight, elbows and wrist locked. Bring the club back the appropriate distance. The follow-through will exactly equal the backstroke. Keep your head

Big Hole Putting

47

and eyes focused on the center of the ball. Now begin the stroke. Forget about the impact point and make certain the follow-through equals the backstroke. To be smooth, think like a square! Watch the ball roll toward the cup. Notice that it is rolling smoothly from start to finish. Smile and enjoy your results.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Colorado Denver, CO (Centennial—APA) 303-790-8736 303-790-2129 fax [email protected] http://www.centennialairport.com

Inverness Hotel & Golf Club Adjacent to airport 800-346-4891 303-799-5800 http://www.invernesshotel.com 18 holes Green fee $102.00 Cart fee included

wwww

PIREP This is an AAA four-diamond resort and well worth a stop. Visit its website and latch on to one of its specials.

49 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

50

Colorado

Meeker, CO (Meeker—EE0) 970-878-5045 970-878-5046 fax

Meeker Golf Course 970-878-5642 9 holes Adjacent to airport Green fees $9.00

wwww

Too Far to Putt, Too Close to Swing It’s a regulation par 4, for those of you taking the double bogey challenge it’s a 6. You should be on in 3 and then take our regulation three putts. A tee shot followed by a fairway iron and then an approach shot. Everything goes according to plan. A perfectly hit 3-iron from the tee, followed by a right down the middle 3-iron from the fairway. The ball now lies 20 yards in front of the green and another 40 feet from the edge of the green to the pin. Your ball position is perfect, but there is a real problem. What club will you select and how will you stroke it? The shortest iron in the bag is a 9. The 9-iron has consistently provided 70 yards for you. Terrific, but in this situation 70 yards is way too much. It will easily put you over the green and into the woods. Sometimes you can pull out your putter if you are just a little bit off the green, but 20 yards is way too far to go to think about that tactic. The 9 is the club and the stroke is the thing. A full stroke gives you a 70-yard result. 51 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

52

Too Far to Putt, Too Close to Swing

What will half a stroke give you? 35 yards? Absolutely, correct! And 35 yards is about right, too, isn’t it? 20 yards plus 40 feet. Let’s see—40 feet divided by 3—that’s about 13 yards, and 20 yards plus 13 yards is 33 yards—almost exactly the 35 yards you need. Stroke it perfectly, keep it on line, and you’ll wind up about 6 feet from the cup—6 feet away! If half a stroke equals half the distance, will a quarter-stroke equal one quarter of the distance? Yes! Understanding the arithmetic is easy, but what about execution? How do you go about putting a half- or quarter-stroke together? Easy! All strokes are defined by the backswing. You take it all the way to the top, so the club shaft is above your shoulders and parallel to the ground. That’s a full backswing. The follow-through, as we have discovered, is the other side of the pendulum. It is the mirror of the backswing. If you stopped, your backswing halfway through your left arm would be about waist high and parallel to the ground. The club shaft would be almost perpendicular to the ground. Stop the backswing at this point, and you’ll half a perfect halfstroke. The ball will go half the normal distance—in this case the 35 yards you need, not the 70 yards that will kill ’ya. Your stance and alignment are exactly the same. Change nothing but the length of the backswing. What if you only needed 20 yards? Go with a quarter-stroke. It will give you about 171⁄2 yards. To this point you’ve learned to control distance by shortening your swing. It works perfectly, every time. Have you ever left your ball just 10 feet off the green? That’s a little less than 31⁄2 yards. Can you imagine a 5 percent backswing working? Absolutely not? It is certainly time to open your stance, move your feet together, point both toes toward the cup and chip or pitch or whatever the big money winners call it. Right? Wrong! Forget about changing your stance and all that other stuff. Forget about trying to induce backspin. Leave that to the pool hustlers. Take a 5 percent backswing, make a 5 percent stroke, and be very happy with your 5 percent results. The ball will go almost exactly 31⁄2 yards, 10 feet if you like.

of Connecticut Burlington, CT (Mountain Meadow Airstrip—22B) 860-485-0222 860-485-0358 fax

Driving Range

w

Adjacent to airport

53 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

Sand T raps Aren’ t, W ater T raps Are “One 10 can kill 18.” If you take a 10 on any hole, the day is over. The road to a 10 begins with a penalty stroke and the mounting frustration it can cause. Don’t allow it to happen. Avoid situations that cost you a penalty stroke. Every now and then the ball will go where we don’t want it to go. You’ll lose focus, the wind will gust at the wrong moment, and something will happen. Your ball goes just a little off course and you are left with an undesirable lie. Accept the inevitability of this scenario and consider techniques to make it as painless as possible. Some bad lies aren’t really all that bad. Consider the fairway sand trap. No, you don’t want to aim for one, but sometimes your ball will run into one. Maybe they are truly ball magnets. I don’t know about that, but I do know that being in one can actually be a blessing. Sometimes they keep an errant ball from running into the deep rough or the woods. 55 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

56

Sand Traps Aren’t, Water Traps Are

Always keep a positive mental attitude and look on the bright side. Be an optimist, because that is the best way to keep frustration from ruining your game. If your ball had run into the deep rough or woods, maybe you wouldn’t have found it. If you lose your ball or it goes out of bounds, you encounter the world of the penalty stroke. Suddenly it is bad enough that you have lost an expensive golf ball and wasted a stroke. No, no! It gets worse. You must add an additional stroke to your tally. Let’s say your ball was lost on your tee shot. Rather than lying one and preparing to shoot your second shot, you are now lying two and preparing to hit your third shot. From where? When you hit your ball out of bounds or lose it, add a penalty stroke, go back, and drop a ball at the place you played the shot. (On the tee, you may tee the ball.) If you think you have hit your ball out of bounds or lost it outside a water hazard, play a provisional ball before searching for the first one. Think about that. You lose your tee shot, tee up and stroke again. The second stroke goes well, long and right down the center. The problem is you now lie 3, not 1. How? Your first stroke, your second stroke and a penalty stroke. You’re three where you would normally be 1. The familiar water trap saying summarizes it pretty well “in in one, out in two, shooting three.” Ouch is about all you can say. The penalty scenario sure makes that fairway bunker seem like a nice home. Your first shot went, and you’re now going to hit your second shot—period, the end. Playing the fairway bunker is just as always, except your lie is different—not impossible and not difficult— just different, and you can make some decisions about what your tactic will be. If it is a nice flat bunker with short lips and you have rolled into the center of it, you can pretty much take a normal stroke and press on. Let’s say it is a 5 par and your tee shot rolled into the bunker. No big deal. Pull out your 3-iron as you normally would, take a full swing at it and expect fairly normal results. No sweat! What if your tee shot went into a fairway bunker with a tremendous lip? A well-played 3-iron won’t rise quickly enough to escape the trap. It just won’t. OK, so what? A change of tactics and expected outcomes is called for. You’re going to have to pull out either your 7- or 9-iron. Don’t get flustered. Just hit it well and you’ll be fine.

Sand Traps Aren’t, Water Traps Are

57

Actually all that has happened is that you are playing your normal fairway sequence out of order. Usually you stroke the fairway 3-iron followed by the 7 or 9 depending on the length of the hole. In this case, you’ll hit the 7-iron, followed by the 3-iron. So what’s the big deal? You’ll use exactly the same number of strokes. Let’s make it worse. The sand is really powder, so your ball is halfway covered, and the trap is a tall lip and you’re close to it. Now what? Be thankful! Here’s what you’re going to do. Pull out your 9iron and aim in a direction that affords you the best chance to clear the lip and assures you the best possible course position. Worst case: You’ll wind up advancing your distance toward the pin by 20 yards or so, and you will have repositioned your ball to the center of the fairway, which makes your next shot a piece of cake. You’ll lie 2. In the above lost ball example, you would lie 3 and be 20 yards farther away even if your second tee shot was beautiful! So a fairway sand trap isn’t a bad thing. It may actually save your bacon. What happens with a sandtrap that guards the green? If you hit into one of these, your ball is still in play. No penalty stroke. So go to the trap and take your shot. It may require a different stroke, but don’t be alarmed. It actually adds spice to your game. Bringing a buried ball out of the sand is fun. Your goal is simple. Get the ball out of the trap and onto the green. Not into the cup, just onto the green. Use a normal 9-iron stance. We don’t have a wedge in our bag for double bogey golf. Here’s the important stuff: You may not touch the sand with your hand or club before making your stroke. To do either is to take a penalty stroke. Don’t do it. Take no more than a half-swing and hit under and behind the ball. Hit firm, do not allow your wrist to break, keep your wrists locked, and keep your head down. Because you have hit under and behind the ball, two things will happen. First, the ball will loft nicely out of the sand and arc at a greater angle than normal. Second, you will have introduced tremendous backspin into the shot. This causes the ball to stop almost immediately as it strikes the green. It will not run. Let’s think about the tactics of this situation. Your approach shot went into a trap guarding the green. The ball may be lying on top of the sand or buried in it. You’ll either chip normally or use your sand shot. Aim carefully to assure the best postshot placement. Smile, this is fun and little has been lost. Your approach shot should have rolled on to the

58

Sand Traps Aren’t, Water Traps Are

green, and then you would have made your big hole putt to the imaginary 20-foot cup. Your sand shot will now substitute for that putt. Chances are very good that you will wind up within the 20-foot cup. So nothing has been lost; you’ve simply substituted a sand shot for a putt! If you hit your ball into a water hazard, either drop behind the hazard or at the place you played the shot. (One penalty stroke.) If you hit into a lateral hazard you may also drop within two club-lengths of the point where the ball last crossed the hazard margin, or a point equidistant from the hole on the opposite margin. (One penalty stroke.) The difference is clear. You can’t save the problems caused by a water hazard. You can’t mentally substitute a sand shot for a putt. Once you enter the water you have gained a penalty stroke—“in in one, out in two, shooting three” or “in in three out in four shooting five.” Whenever it occurs, it is never pretty. Contrast this with the sandtrap next to the green. Your third shot went in, and your fourth shot brought you out and hopefully finds you within the 20-foot imaginary cup. You lie 4 within 10 feet of the cup. Two more putts and you finish this par 4 with a 6. Perfect double bogey golf. You lost nothing and have gained some trap experience. If the same shot goes into a water trap, which is, say, 60 yards away, your situation is radically different. The best you can hope for is to hit an approach shot so well that it makes the green. You lie 5. Now you putt for the 20-foot imaginary cup. You will then lie 6 within 10 feet of the cup. Two more putts will complete the hole. You take an 8 on a par 4. That’s 2 more than double bogey golf. A water trap is a game killer, but a sandtrap isn’t. So what’s the point? Simple! Don’t aim anywhere close to a water trap even when that line is very compelling. If you go just a little off your sight line, you will have ruined the hole. Never aim toward a boundary to try to cut a few yards off the length of the hole. It isn’t worth it. Go out of bounds or lose your ball, and the hole is ruined. Pick up a copy of the rules of golf and come to understand them. Here are a few other examples of penalty stroke causes. • When you have an unplayable lie, you may drop a ball at the place where you played the previous shot, adding a penalty stroke. (On the tee, you may tee the ball.) Alternatively, drop within two club lengths, not nearer the hole, or any distance behind the unplayable

Sand Traps Aren’t, Water Traps Are

59

spot, keeping it between you and the hole. If the ball is in a bunker, you must drop it in the bunker, under either of the alternative options. An unplayable lie will never occur on the fairway or green. Keeping ’em straight down the middle is your best defense. • If a ball in play moves after the player has addressed it (other than as a result of a stroke), the player shall be deemed to have moved the ball and shall incur a penalty stroke. The player shall replace the ball unless the movement of the ball occurs after he or she has begun his swing and he or she does not discontinue his swing. As a simple defense, don’t allow your club face to come anywhere close to the ball as you line up. It’ll cost you a penalty stroke. • Through the green, if the ball moves after any loose impediment lying within a club length of it has been touched by the player, partner, or either of their caddies and before the player has addressed it, the player shall be deemed to have moved the ball and shall incur a penalty stroke. When you move loose impediments—grass twigs and the like on the fairway—do it carefully to make certain that you don’t pay the price. • If a player’s club strikes the ball more than once in the course of a stroke, the player shall count the stroke and add a penalty stroke, making two strokes in all. Be a square! Line up well and stroke cleanly. There really is no excuse for dubbing a stroke. • The player shall start a stipulated round with not more than 14 clubs. The player is limited to the clubs thus selected for that round except that, if he or she started with fewer than 14 clubs, then he or she may add any number, provided the total number does not exceed 14. The addition of a club or clubs must not unduly delay play (Rule 6-7) and must not be made by borrowing any club selected for play by any other person playing on the course. The penalty is two strokes for each hole at which any breach occurred; the maximum penalty per round is four strokes. You’ve taken the double bogey challenge and are playing with only five clubs. One day you will graduate to a full set of clubs.

60

Sand Traps Aren’t, Water Traps Are

Realize that many people consider a full set to be a putter, 2- through 9-irons, a pitching wedge and a sand wedge, and four woods. WOW! That’s 15 clubs! You can take ’em all but it will cost you four strokes per round. Those extra clubs need to be pretty helpful to overcome that kind of handicap.

of Delaware Middletown, DE (Summit—EVY) 302-834-5400 302-378-7035 fax

Back Creek Golf Club

www

[email protected] 18 holes 5 miles from the airport Green fee $68.00 Cart fee included http://www.backcreekgc.com/

PIREP For two consecutive years, the Back Creek Golf Club, has been named one of Golfweek’s Best 100 Modern Courses in the United States and one of Golf & Travel magazine’s Top 40 Public Courses in the United States! Little wonder that Back Creek Golf Club is Delaware’s number one public golf course.

61 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

Bringin’ It on Down Improving your golf score is like any other self-improvement technique. First you’ve got to know where you are in order to know how much further you have to go. For the dieting crowd, that means constantly checking total body weight and caloric intake. The best way to keep track of your progress is with a pen and a notebook. You know the old adage, “The weakest pencil is brighter than the best memory.” This is especially true in golf because there is so much to track. Have you ever noticed how a pro and caddie will huddle before making a key shot? What in the world are they talking about? Are they guessing? Certainly not! First, they pull out a little notebook and begin the debate. The notebook is their “Course Performance Notebook.” Winning pros keep one for every tournament they play, every year. Pros begin making notes about their performance on this course during practice week. First they review last year’s book, then they begin practice, carefully noting every shot, which club was used, and

63 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

64

Bringin’ It on Down

the behavior of the ball after it landed. Last, the pros note the distance the ball traveled, the club, the direction, and the distance for every shot taken. Pros gather information about the course and their performance on it. You must do the same. Write down the number of the club you swing and whether it arrived where you intended. Did the ball go straight? How far did it travel? But how, oh how, do you get the distance? Simple, really. The pros simply count the number of steps they take to reach their ball. They try always to walk at the same pace. If they’re off a little bit, it won’t affect their measurement greatly. But how can this work unless their stride is exactly 1 yard? Isn’t that the only way they would know for sure how many yards they hit the ball? Yes, it is, but we don’t really care how many yards each club carries the ball. We are simply interested in how far it goes each time we hit it with the same club relative to the last time we hit it with that very same club. Any unit of measure will work, inches, feet, yards, miles, or our unique stride. Hey! Wait a minute! Most golf clubs don’t allow you to carry your clubs or use a pull cart; only golf cars are allowed. So, now what do we do? The best answer is to find a course that does allowing walking. Failing that, be grateful that we live in an age that has produced some really cool laser-based measuring devices. You’ll find them in most golf catalogs and golf discount stores. Select the one you like best and learn to use it well. It really does not matter how you get the distance, just that you get it and that it is reasonably accurate and consistent. So here’s what you need to write down. Start with the date, the time, and the golf course. Write the hole number and its published length, and draw a picture of it. Now isn’t the time to become an artist. Draw an ellipse for the tee, a single line for the fairway, and a circle for the green. Note the weather conditions and the pressure on the course—for example, light, busy, or just you and the gang. Also indicate the number in your group. That’s it! Put an X on the drawing to depict the spot where your tee shot lands. Write the distance traveled and the club used next to the X. If your shot lands off the fairway, indicate bunker, trap, fringe, light rough, heavy rough, trees, or out of bounds. Golf courses aren’t tabletop flat. They roll and undulate. Be sure to jot down the conditions of your lie—downhill, uphill, sitting on top of the turf, or burrowed into it.

Bringin’ It on Down

65

Follow this procedure for each shot. When the ball reaches the green, indicate its distance from the cup. Your first putt must be within 10 feet of the cup, and the second no more than 3. Don’t worry about or note the way you think the green breaks, uphill or downhill lie, or the direction the grass grows. Do indicate whether you thought the green putted fast or slow. Write your total of your tee, fairway, and approach shots on the map of the fairway and circle this number. Record the total number of putts taken on the green and circle it as well. At the bottom of the page, write the total strokes for this hole and draw a box around it. Do this for each hole played. Linger at the clubhouse. Once everyone in your group has departed, sit down with your notebook and review the day while your memory is fresh. Relive every stroke and each hole at least once. Three times is better. During the next week, find the time to review your notebook at least twice. Before you leave for the course on Saturday morning, review it yet again. The review must be conducted using the techniques we learned in the section titled “It’s in Your Mind, Not Your Bag.” You’re mentally playing the course during each review. When you show up one week, later you will have replayed this course at least five times. It’s Saturday, and the gang’s all here. Tee it up and stroke it squarely. Use the same club as last week. Start a new chapter in your notebook. Head it “Week Two,” and do everything as before. After each stroke, compare it with your previous week’s results. You’re not just hitting it hard and hoping; you’re learning. When the balls wind up in a substantially different position, better or worse, pause and consider why. Winning weekend golf is a game requiring focus, forethought, and analysis. What am I about to do? What do I want to happen? Am I making the right decisions to achieve the desired result? Is the desired result really obtainable, or am I dreaming? Next, concentrate on executing each stroke against the plan for that stroke. Finally, consider your results. Did the ball go where you wanted it to go? Yes? Why did it? Analyze your plan and your execution. No? What went wrong? Did you stroke the ball squarely? Did it travel straight? Was your plan incorrect? Finally, record your results: X marks the spot. You’re now playing the same course six times a week: five mentally and one physically. More important, you are planning your play

66

Bringin’ It on Down

and analyzing the results. Your behavior is changing based on your measured results against a thoughtful plan for each stroke. You know exactly what you are doing and you’re achieving good results. The ball is going straight down the fairway a very high percentage of the time. Your putts are falling within the winning rings of big hole putting. After two weeks you will notice a consistency to your game, and you will be pleased to notice that you are playing double bogey golf. It is during the third physical round that something magic happens either on the green or the fairway. On many holes you’re achieving regulation results. Either you’re 2-putting the green or you’re hitting the green in regulation. It won’t be both, but it will be one or the other. Not on every hole, but on more than half of them. Add up your score. Less than 100! What to do? Simple. If your putting is doing the job for you, work on making it consistently equal to regulation. Change the size of the winning rings and change your practice-putting objective. Work on dropping the 6-footers, and shrink the magic ring from 20 to 6 feet. Do a mental workout exclusively on putting once a week. Think it, then do it. But what if the fairway is coming in for you better than the green? Then it’s time to add clubs to your bag and subtract strokes from your game. Each time you hit a club off the tee or the fairway, you should hit it exactly the same way. That’s the winning secret. Resist the temptation to choke up on the club, shorten your backswing, or hit it just a little harder. Those are the secrets of losing weekend golf. Why add clubs? If you hit properly and consistently, you will still find yourself in situations where no club in your bag meets the situation that lies ahead of you. This is particularly true with short-iron approach play. Imagine a situation where you have a bunker between you and the green. Your notes indicate that the distance to the pin or even the back edge of the green is a little shorter than what you have been getting from your 7-irons. As we have learned, a properly hit 7, while it does have good loft, produces a low enough arc for the ball’s flight to ensure that it will run after it hits the surface. This is bad news on a fast green. Imagine your next shot to be back in the trees to the rear of the green. Not a pretty situation. The alternative is no better. Your notes indicate that your well-hit 9-iron will wind up in the middle of the sand. That’s a big problem, as the loft of a 9 will bury the ball if the sand is dry and powdery.

Bringin’ It on Down

67

The solution to this dilemma is a club just between the two, an 8iron. A well-hit 8 will put you just where you want to be, on the green. While we are adding clubs to the approach end of our game, we must also add a pitching wedge. It will give us greater loft than a 9 and less distance. The nice thing about a well-played wedge is its stick. The club is designed to provide just enough backspin to cause the ball to stay within inches of where it lands. It won’t run off the green for you. A pitching wedge is also a great club to use in a sand trap, which adjoins the green. It will definitely dig a buried ball out of the powder. Wouldn’t more distance off the tee be helpful? Definitely, on a long par 4 or any par 5. Will adding a 2-iron help? Not really. It is time to introduce a wood, if your play with the 3-iron is consistently straight and the distance is good. Start with a 4-wood. It will not give you much more distance off the tee than a 3-iron. Why bother? Hitting a wood well is much more difficult than hitting an iron well. It has to do with shaft length and head weight. A 4-wood or a 5-wood plays more like a 3-iron. The 5 adds so little to your game that it isn’t worth bothering with. The 4 will add yards to your tee and fairway shots with a minimum of change to your habits of addressing the ball or swinging the club. Practice hard with the 4. When it goes as well and as consistently as your 3-iron, it will be your signal to move on to the 3-wood. Save the driver for the day you turn pro. That’s right, don’t buy one. It will add distance to your game but it is so difficult to hit properly that you will almost certainly add strokes to your game. It does no good to find your ball 300 yards into the deep rough of the trees. What fairway irons should you add? None! The 3- and 4-wood will give you plenty of distance for those long fairway lies on a par 5. Your 3- and 5-iron will do very well for shorter fairway lies or longer approach shots. A 6- or a 4-iron will only confuse the issue of club selection. When your bag is finally filled you will have a 3-, 5-, 7-, 8-, and 9irons, plus a pitching wedge and a putter. For woods, you will make friends with the 3 and 4. That’s it! No driver and no sand wedge. To have more clubs in your bag will actually hurt your game. Why? Consistent play is the goal. You can’t be consistent by decreasing the frequency with which you use each club. Our goal is to shoot below 90 consistently. For that to happen, we must putt no more than twice per green. That’s 36 strokes with one club per round.

68

Bringin’ It on Down

If you turn in an 88, there are 52 strokes remaining for the other eight clubs in your bag. If used equally, they will see service only six times per round. That’s once every three holes. More clubs equals less practice, which equals less consistency. If you have a 6-iron in your bag and hit it once every three weeks, you can’t expect good results. The last page in your notebook should list each club and note the farthest you have ever hit it, the shortest, and its normal distance. Naturally, these recordings involve only well-hit shots. The last page will be updated almost every week. Where else can you look for improvement? First look at the grips on your clubs. This is so important. Are they worn and hard to the touch or soft and supple? When grips age, the material they are made from hardens. When clubs are used frequently, the grips lose their stickiness. In an attempt to control a club with a worn or hardened grip, you will squeeze it too tightly. As you tighten your fingers and palm, your forearm muscles will contract as well. The result is an unnatural swing pattern. Have the clubs regripped. Notice how a soft, supple grip just feels better. Because you are squeezing it hard your muscles are more relaxed, all of them. Now swing the club. It feels less labored and moves naturally through the arc that you need. The goal is a consistent swing, and that begins with a consistent grip.

of Florida Crystal River, FL (Crystal River Air Terminal—CGC) 352-795-6868 352-795-1730 fax

Plantation Inn & Golf Resort 800-632-6262 352-795-4211 352-563-6315 fax [email protected] 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $48.00 http://www.plantationinn.com/

wwww

PIREP Hop a ride over to the Plantation with its two restaurants, boat rentals, and golfing. Don’t rent a canoe if it’s windy; get a flat bottom instead, and go look for manatees in the river.

69 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

70

Florida

Lake Wales, FL (Lake Wales Muni—X07) 863-678-0080 863-678-1409 fax or

Lake Wales, FL (Lake Easy—Floatplanes & Amphibious) 863-679-9478

Lekaric: A Country Inn

www

863-679-9478 18 holes At the amphibious landing 3 miles from the airport (transportation provided) Green fee $23.00 http://www.lekarica.com/golf/index.html PIREP Lekaric: A Country Inn, with its restaurant and golf course, is located on Lake Easy in Lake Wales, Florida. It sponsors several splash-ins a year for float and amphibious aircraft. Lekaric: A Country Inn is close to Lake Wales Muni (X07) (under 3 miles) and is happy to pick up golfing guests. The scenic, rolling hills of the Lake Wales Ridge provide a beautiful setting for golf. The course was designed and built by Stiles and Van Kleek in 1927. It retains its original charm, uncrowded by houses, just as its designers intended. This is golf as it was meant to be played: relaxed, uncrowded, and in dry shoes. From its rolling hills to its sweeping but tricky fairways, this course will challenge you from beginning to end, but leave you wanting another chance to tame it.

Defuniak Springs, FL (Defuniak Springs—54J) 850-892-2000 904-892-0205 fax [email protected] FBO

Defuniak Springs Country Club Adjacent to airport 850-892-3812

wwww

Florida

71

18 holes Green fee $11.00

Fort Pierce, FL (St. Lucie County International—FPR) 561-464-6687 561-462-1732 fax [email protected]

Fairwinds Golf Course

wwwww

On the airport 800-894-1781 772-462-4653 for advanced tee times 18 holes Green fees $42.00 http://www.stlucieco.gov/fairwinds PIREP

Taxi directly to this golf course designed by Jim Fazio.

Jacksonville, FL (Craig Municipal—CRG) 904-642-4001 904-645-6483 fax

Mill Cove Golf Course On the airport 904-646-4653 [email protected] 18 holes PIREP

wwwww

Mill Cove is an Arnold Palmer Signature Course.

Orlando, FL (Kissimmee Municipal—ISM) 407-847-4600 407-847-8399 fax

Kissimmee Golf Club 407-847-2816 [email protected] Green fee $49.00 Club rental $12.00 On the airport

wwwww

72

Florida

18 holes http://www.kissgolfclub.com/ PIREP

Less than 20 minutes from Walt Disney World.

Ormond Beach, FL (Ormond Beach Municipal—OMN) 888-621-5087 386-677-9575 fax [email protected] www.flysunrise.com

River Bend Golf Club 386-673-6000 800-334-8841 100 yards from airport

wwww

PIREP There is a golf course right outside the airport at Ormond Beach. Haven’t played it yet…but will soon! It is less than 100 yards from the tie-downs.

Pompano Beach, FL (Pompano Beach—PMP) 954-786-4135 954-786-4136 fax [email protected] www.ci.pompano-each.fl.us

Pompano’s Municipal Golf Course

wwwww

954-781-0426 Two 18-hole courses On the airport Green fee $23.00 Cart fee: half cart included http://www.ci.pompano-beach.fl.us/parksrec/golf/

St. Petersburg, FL (Albert Whitted Field—SPG) 727-893-7654 727-822-4767 fax

The Renaissance Vinoy Resort 727-894-1000 (hotel) 727-822-2785 fax

wwwww

Florida

73

727-896-8000 (golf course) 18 holes 1.5 miles from airport (transportation provided) Green fee: To play at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort and Golf Club, you have to either be a member of the club, or a guest of the hotel. Fear not! The hotel has many great packages available. This is truly a top of the top resort. Take your honey and celebrate life! PIREP The Renaissance Vinoy Resort is a four-star Old Florida hotel located very near Albert Whitted Field. The original hotel was built in 1925. It re-opened in 1991 after a massive restoration. If you call the hotel from SPG, they will send the hotel limousine to pick you up and will deliver you back to SPG after your round. If you want to RON, they also offer tennis and a spa.

St Petersburg, FL (St Petersburg/Clearwater Airport—PIE) 727-535-7600 727-536-3782 fax www.stpete-clwairport.com

Airco Golf Course

wwww

727-573-4653 727-573-0664 fax [email protected] 18 holes On the airport Green fee $20.00 Cart fee $8.00 Club rental $10.00 PIREP

Airco Golf Course is next to runway 4/22. Nice!

Sebastian, FL (Sebastian Municipal—X26) 561-589-5330 561-589-6209 fax [email protected] www.cityofsebastian.org

74

Florida

Sebastian Municipal Golf Course 561-589-6800 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $34.00 Cart fee included

wwww

PIREP There is a very fine golf course located at X26 (Sebastian Airport) in Sebastian Florida. Located directly next to the airport, it is a fine 18-hole course. The fairways are wide, and there is plenty of water on the course. There is also a full pro shop and restaurant. The rates are reasonable, and in the summer the fee is $10.00 after 5:00 pm for all the holes you can play (including cart). Located on this airport is Skydive Sebastian and its snack bar, which is listed on The $100.00 Hamburger website, http://www.100dollarhamburger.com.

Valkaria, FL (Valkaria—X59) 321-952-4590 321-952-4592 fax

Habitat Golf Course

wwww

321-952-4588 [email protected] 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $17.00 Cart fee $11.00 Club rental $15.00 http://www.golfspacecoast.com/brevard/habitat/index.html PIREP Adjacent to the field is a municipal golf course called The Habitat. I have not yet played this course but have heard it was very good. The golf course is a certified Audubon sanctuary.

Venice, FL (Venice Municipal—VNC) 941-486-2704 941-483-5942 fax

Florida

Lake Venice Golf Club 941-488-3948 941-488-6725 fax 9 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $28.00

75

www

PIREP I thought you might like to know, Venice (FL) Municipal Airport (VNC) (GA) is located next to a municipal golf course and on the beach. If you want more info, you can call Venice Jet Center at (941) 485-1600. PIREP Venice, Florida, is unusual in that its 5,000-ft IFR runways lie in the middle of a quaint (though up-scale) beachfront downtown atmosphere and certainly within walking/biking distance of golf, great waterfront restaurants, B&Bs, motels, and several shopping districts. Venice is known as “the shark’s tooth capital” of the world, and it boasts of over 3 miles of public beach. Several noteworthy restaurants are either in or near the airport, which is right on the Gulf of Mexico. Venice is only some 10 minutes from Sarasota, which is one of the most beautiful Gulf cities in all of southwest Florida. We recommend this area to any pilot seeking a quiet tropical getaway or someone looking for a semiregular place in the tropical sun.

Zephyrhills, FL (Zephyrhills Municipal—ZPH) 813-780-0030 813-780-0032 fax [email protected] http://www.zephyrhills-airport.com/

Zephyrhills City Golf Course 813-782-0714 18 holes On the airport Green fee $16.00 Cart fee $10.00

www

76

Florida

PIREP With any golf course, it is a good idea to call before making the trip; and with this one it is imperative. It may be a memory someday real soon. The excerpt from the local paper says it all: “For Zephyrhills golf course, this is the last chance,” council says. After approving new management for the course, one council member said: “Next time it turns into a hayfield.” (Brady Dennis, Times Staff Writer, © St. Petersburg Times, May 15, 2002.)

Get a Grip! Before you can swing a club properly, you must be able to hold on to it. If your aim is dead on, your address is perfect, and your swing is really in the groove, then why doesn’t the ball go where you intend? The reason is simple. Sometime after you addressed the ball perfectly and before the ball left the club face on its flight down the fairway, the club face moved, probably not by much, maybe only 1⁄4 inch. Doesn’t seem like much, 1⁄4 inch, does it? Try this. Aim as you normally do. Adopt your stance over the ball. Address the ball with the face of the club, and now check your aim. Everything is just fine. Purposely let the club face fall off by a 1⁄4 of an inch. Now readdress the ball with the modified club face position. Adjust your stance, to match the new address. Now check your aim. That’s right, it’s wrong. The ball can’t possibly go where you intended. Depending on the distance capability of the club you intend to hit, the miss can be huge. It can put you into the rough, in a bunker, in the water, or behind a big ugly tree.

77 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

78

Get a Grip!

The impact of a moving club face is really much worse. In actual play, you don’t adjust your stance to a new aiming point and then hit the ball squarely; what actually happens is that the ball is hooked or sliced, compromising distance, direction, and loft. The correction is simple and inexpensive. Notice the grip on your club. It should be supple, allowing your hands to melt into the club and become one with it. If your grip is more than a year or two old, it has hardened and can no longer accommodate a proper grasp. Without realizing it, you compensate for this worn-out piece of equipment by gripping the club even tighter. That is precisely what you must never do. The club should be held in a relaxed fashion; you must have authority over the club, but your body must flow rhythmically as you move through the backswing, impact, and followthrough. Overgripping will throw your cadence out of whack. The club and grip can be brand new with very supple material and still be defeating you. The grip must also fit your hand. Remember the last time you were fitted for a set of clubs? The pro probably paid plenty of attention to club length. Rightfully so. Club length is extremely important. One size doesn’t fit all. Too short, and you’ll hook ’em, too long and you’ll slice ’em. Do you remember how he fitted the grips? No? That’s because he didn’t. He probably paid some attention to grip texture. Soft, firm, medium— sort of like a mattress salesman, but he said nothing at all about the outer circumference of the grip. One size fits all? Seems odd, as hands come in decidedly different sizes. That’s why golf gloves come in different sizes: small, medium, large, extra large, extra small. Here’s a secret—so do grips. Search for a good shop that repairs and restores golf clubs, and ask the salesperson if they can get different size grips for you. They probably have them in stock. Typically they’ll know how to fit you, but be sure to try different sizes because only you can determine the comfort and feel. Try different sizes and different materials until your hands tell you, “This is it!” Have two of your clubs refitted. I suggest the 7-iron and the 3-wood. Next to the putter, these two get the most work in a round. You’ll notice the difference immediately. Swinging a properly gripped club is a real pleasure. You can’t be consistent with improper grips because your grasp of the club varies with each shot. With good grips you hold ’em the same way each and every time.

Get a Grip!

79

How long will a set of grips last? Approximately one year, two at the absolute max. I am amazed at the number of dollars spent on new clubs when a fresh set of grips would be cheaper and yield more beneficial results.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Georgia Alma, GA (Bacon County—AMG) 912-632-7915

Blueberry Plantation Golf Course Adjacent to airport 18 holes Green fee $25.00

wwww

Jekyll Island, GA (Jekyll Island—09J) 912-635-2236

Jekyll Island Golf Club

wwwww

912-635-2368 [email protected] Green fee $35.00 Cart rental $29.00 Club rental $7.00 http://www.jekyllisland.com/golfcenter.phtml 81 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

82

Georgia

PIREP Our favorite getaway is Jekyll Island, GA (Jekyll Island—09J). The airport is unattended, but fuel can be obtained at nearby St. Simons Island. The Jekyll Island Club Hotel is absolutely wonderful, a true gem. It was built about 1890 as a winter hunting retreat for millionaires such as the Astors and Rockefellers. The Grand Dining Room is excellent and features gourmet continental cuisine. It’s great for a special occasion and also reasonably priced (by Florida standards). Recently, we took our three- and four-year-old sons with us. They still ask when we are going back to the “Castle on the Beach.” My wife and I played golf at the Jekyll Island Golf Club. It was just south of fabulous. Occasionally, the hotel can arrange for a golf outing to White Oak Plantation. It is about 50 miles away. Everything is provided. The tab, including golf, lunch, and unlimited drinks, is $200. PIREP There are several good to very good courses on the Island. I have played them all and have never been anything but pleased. The only drawback to this stop is the airport. There is no FBO—no fuel. So a stop at St. Simons Island on the way out is generally necessary for me.

Lafayette, GA (Barwick Lafayette—9A5) 706-638-7071 706-638-7166 fax

Lafayette Municipal Golf Course Adjacent to airport 706-638-0220 18 holes Green fee $15.00

www

McRae, GA (Telfair-Wheeler—MQW) 912-868-6917

Little Ocmulgee State Park 800-864-7275 18 holes On the airport Green fee $17.00

wwww

Georgia

83

Cart fee $9.00 http://naturallybusiness.com/ocmulgee/ PIREP The McRae Airport (MQW) is located on site at the Little Ocmulgee State Park in McRae, GA. The park features a 30-room lodge with a restaurant, an 18-hole golf course, and tennis, camping, and fishing. I can personally testify that it is 4⁄10 of a mile (statute) and takes about 10–15 minutes to walk. If you prefer, you may pick up the phone in the FBO; it automatically dials the front desk at the park. They will run over and pick you and your gear up.

Pine Mountain, GA (Callaway Gardens–Harris County—PIM) 706-663-5055

Callaway Gardens

wwww

800-CALL-AWAY 63 holes On the airport Green fee $75.00 Cart fee included Club rental $48.00 (Callaway) http://www.callawaygardens.com/ PIREP This southern resort, with one of the world’s most beautiful gardens, is located just 75 miles southwest of Atlanta. Pine Mountain (PIM) airport is a short drive away. If you call on 122.8 about 10 minutes before you arrive, the resort will have a van ready and waiting; or you can use the phone on the pole next to the airport office. It connects directly to Callaway Gardens. They will take you to the main hotel, where a great brunch is served on Sundays. Use caution on entering the traffic pattern, because lots of planes arrive and depart on the weekends. Callaway is a Mobil 4-Star resort. It includes a horticultural center, butterfly center, 63 holes of golf, 17 tennis courts, racquetball courts, nature trails, boating, fishing, fly fishing, biking, and more. Callaway Gardens has a variety of accommodations (inn, cottages, and villas), seven restaurants, 40,000 square feet of meeting space, and many gift shops.

84

Georgia

Annual special events include Fantasy In Lights®, Spring Celebration, Masters Water Ski Tournament, Summer Family Adventure, PGA Tour®’s Buick Challenge, the Steeplechase at Callaway Gardens, and Autumn Adventure. This is a great getaway for a round of golf, brunch, a weekend, or longer!

St. Mary’s, GA (4J6) 912-882-4359

Osprey Cove

wwww

800-352-5575 18 holes 3 miles from airport Green fee $70.00 Cart fee included

PIREP St. Mary’s, GA, on the coast just north of the Florida state line, has been named by USA Today as the number one small town in America. The 4J6 airport is more than adequate and is in a spectacular setting near the canals and inlets that surround the big submarine base there as well as the Georgia barrier islands, including Cumberland Island. The old downtown is a collection of antebellum-style homes, shops, cottage-style restaurants, and B&Bs. You’ll need transportation from the airport into town and Osprey Cove, but it’s just a short distance. Osprey Cove is the natural choice for a round of golf. It is like a walk through a preserve. Golf Digest has said, “If you’re within a hundred miles, play it!” It is a wonderful outing. I have been lucky enough to have had them pick me up at the airport. My favorite place to stay is the award-winning Spencer House B&B, located downtown. They’re happy to come and pick you up at the airport. The house is beautiful and wonderfully decorated. The service is fantastic, and the breakfast would feed a company of marines. The price? Around 70 dollars a night for a couple. The ideal next-day activity is a trip to Cumberland Island, a federally protected parkland that features the ruins of estates once belonging to some of the richest families in America and wild horses. The beach is spectacular. You’ll do a lot of walking; no motor vehicles allowed,

Georgia

85

and it’s only accessible by ferry. The Spencer House folks are happy to arrange ferry reservations for you, as well as a boxed lunch in a handy carrier pack. Have dinner in downtown St. Mary’s that night, wander the Spanish-moss draped streets that evening, and enjoy the flight back the next day.

St. Simon Island, GA (Malcolm McKinnon—SSI) 912-638-8617 912-638-2928 fax

Lodge At Sea Island Golf Club

wwww

866-Golf-Lodge 800-Sea-Island Green fee $165.00 per day (amenities included) PIREP Lodge at Sea Island Golf Club 100 Retreat Ave. St. Simons Island, GA 31522 I stopped there on the way down to Florida. Absolutely fantastic! The people are super friendly, courtesy cars are readily available to go into town (about a 6-min drive), and the golf course is fantastic. The weather is absolutely the best!

Swainsboro, GA (Emanuel County—SBO) 478-237-5882 478-237-3358 fax

Swainsboro Golf & Country Club 478-237-6116 478-237-9240 fax 18 holes Adjacent to airport

wwww

This page intentionally left blank.

Take a Stand! Much has been written about the proper golf stance. I won’t repeat any of it, other than to state the obvious: Your stance is important. The one thing that is never mentioned, I have noticed, is that people come in all shapes and sizes. One stance can’t fit all. Soon after we married, Renee was with child. She was happy, I was proud, and we were both thankful. You see, I was 54 by then, and Renee, though younger, was past 35. But that’s another book and not about golf. The point for this book is that her slim anatomy changed quickly, along with her center of gravity. Imagine strapping a 30-pound fanny pack onto your waist and then swinging your driver or pitching wedge. Think it would make a difference? You bet it would! Renee didn’t stop playing, she just adjusted and compensated and learned. After Jillian was born and Renee’s body returned to normal, she adjusted again. The important thing to remember about stance is that it must be comfortable and it must conform to your body. Don’t try to make your

87 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

88

Take a Stand!

stance like Tiger’s. He’s a pretty skinny guy. If, for instance, you’re a well-endowed woman, it just won’t work. Know the basics and then adjust. The whole idea is to maintain balance throughout the golf swing. This is more easily done if you put your weight on the balls of your feet rather than your heels. The former allows your weight to easily shift as you move.

of Hawaii Hilo, HI (Hilo International—ITO) 808-934-5801 808-934-5808 fax

Hilo Municipal Golf Course 808-959-9601 808-959-1388 fax 18 holes 3 miles from the airport Green fee $25.00 Cart fee $14.50

ww

PIREP If you’re on vacation if Hawaii, rent a plane and fly into Hilo—you’ll be glad you did. The Muni course is one of the best anywhere.

89 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

90

Hawaii

Kahului, HI (Kahului—OGG) 808-872-3830 808-872-3829 fax

Wailea Golf Club

www

800-332-1614 [email protected] Green fee $160.00 www.waileagolf.com

PIREP I played the Blue Course for the first time in 1978. Once a year, I experience it again. This is truly one of the great golf courses of all times. The flight from Honolulu to Maui is short and exciting. You’re over the blue Pacific just long enough to know that this is really different. I always pick up a car, although there are many, many ground transportation alternatives available.

Waimea, HI (Waimea–Kohala Airport—MUE) 808-329-2484

Waimea Country Club 808-885-8053 808-885-3517 fax 18 hole 2 miles from airport Green fee $50.00

www

PIREP This is not your typical Hawaii tourist course or location. It is up country and wide open. You’ll love it! The airport is certainly not the one most Hawaii-bound tourists will ever see. Play here once, and Hawaii will be your personal paradise forever.

The Eyes Have It To aim, you must first see your target. To find your ball you must see where it went. You must keep your head down during your golf swing and follow through. If your vision is weak and you aren’t wearing corrective lenses, you will tend to raise your head quickly to have a look. It actually makes sense to do so as a lost ball is a lost stroke. Naturally, this technique will ruin your consistency, and without consistency there can be no improvement. If you need corrective lenses, wear them when you’re playing golf. Easier said than done! A golf course is not a contact-lens-friendly environment. Wind, dust, grass clippings, and sand—they’re all present and ready to slip under your lens. Ouch! One solution is to wear your glasses. That works well if your prescription is current and they’re tinted. Yes, polarized glasses are an absolute must if you want to avoid eye strain and find your ball. Why then do so few pros wear them?

91 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

92

The Eyes Have It

Eyeglasses are normally not fitted well enough to be worn during any athletic activity. As your head swings quickly, they can come off. As you sweat, they will slip down your nose at just the wrong time. Worst of all, they give inconsistent data as sunlight comes around their edges. Your forward vision is tinted and polarized, but your peripheral vision is subjected to full-on sunlight. The combination can really throw you off. But that’s yesterday’s problem. It has been fixed by advancing technology. Check out Dave Duval’s eyewear. These are not your father’s Polaroids. They are tight fitting and wrap around his whole face—no irritating slippage and no light leakage. Oakley’s the name for whatever game—in this case, golf. Yes, other companies make similar products, and yes, they are available with prescription lens. Get a pair, wear them once, and thank me for the rest of your life.

of Idaho Emmett, ID (Chuck Sawyer Airfield—S78) 208-365-4598 208-365-2987 fax

Emmett City Golf Course

wwww

208-365-2675 208-365-4598 [email protected] 9 holes On the airport Green fee $12.60 Cart fee $10.00 Club rental $5.00 http://www.emmettgolf.com/

PIREP This is a super fun fly-in as Emmett’s has its runway right down the center of the course.

93 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

94

Idaho

PIREP Emmett’s FBO doesn’t use golf carts to tow aircraft; these belong to the golf course whose office is located in what you would expect to be the terminal. Emmett Municipal Golf Course 2102 W Salesyard Rd. Emmett, ID 83617

McCall, ID (MYL) 208-634-1488 208-634-3038 fax [email protected] http://www.mccall.id.us/services/airport.html

McCall Municipal Golf Course

www

208-634-7200 27 holes 5 miles from airport (courtesy cars available) Green fee inexpensive http://www.mccall.id.us/services/golf_course.html PIREP McCall, ID (MYL) has a great golf course with three 9-hole courses all together. It is approximately 5 miles from the airport, but courtesy cars are available. Remember, it snows from November to May.

Payette, ID (Payette Municipal—S75) 208-642-3377

Scotch Pines Golf Course 208-642-1829 208-642-1892 fax 18 holes On the airport Green fee $18.00

wwwww

PIREP There is a great golf course called Scotch Pines in Payette, ID. Airport is in the middle of the course. It’s reasonably priced, at $18.00 to $25.00 for 18 holes. S75’s runway is 3,000 ft long, runways 13 and 31.

A T ip of the Hat I can’t think of one contemporary winning pro who doesn’t wear a hat. Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia, David Duval, and Ernie Ells all wear hats. The list goes on. A number of the legends do as well. Why? A variety of reasons. Let’s explore just two. First, it keeps the sun off your head and face and prevents heat stroke, sunburn, and sweating, resulting in a more enjoyable day. It’s hard to putt when your eyes are burning. That alone is a pretty good reason to wear a hat. The more important reason is the tactical use of the hat. Watch Tiger on the green. When he’s studying a 60 footer, he’ll reach up with both hands and squeeze the bill of his cap. At first I thought it was simply a tic, a nervous habit, or a superstition. Then I tried it myself, and I hate wearing hats. Wow! Did I learn something wonderful! This procedure forms an almost perfect tunnel with which to observe the undulations of the green. The way it breaks, if you will. Ernie Ells does the same thing. So do many, many others. Now I do, too. Give it a try. You’ll see things in a golf green that you never knew were there. 95 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Illinois Champagne, IL (University of Illinois–Willard—CMI) 217-244-8604 217-244-8644 fax

University of Illinois

wwww

217-359-5613 217-244-9261 fax 36 holes Immediately adjacent to airport Green fee $15.00

PIREP The University of Illinois has a 36-hole golf course next to the runway at the CMI airport. The FBO will drive you there, but you can walk back after you know the way. The courses are flat; one is challenging, and the other average. Both are well maintained.

97 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

98

Illinois

Dupage, IL (Dupage—DPA) 630-584-2211 630-584-3022 fax [email protected] www.dupageairport.com

Prairie Landing Golf Course On the airport 630-208-7600 Green fee $90.00 Cart fee included www.prairielanding.com/

wwwww

PIREP A golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones on the airport property. This may be the finest fly-in golf experience in America.

DuPage, IL (DuPage Airport—DPA) 630-584-2211 630-584-3022 fax [email protected] www.dupageairport.com

Pheasant Run Resort

wwww

630-584-6300 800-4PHEASANT (474-3272) 630-584-4914 fax [email protected] 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee http://www.pheasantrun.com/golf/index.cfm PIREP Pheasant Run Resort adjoins the airport property northwest of the field. The signature hole, the par 5 first hole, is recognized as among the most challenging in the Midwest.

West Monmouth, IL (Monmouth Airport—C66) 309-734-4026 309-734-4943 fax

Illinois

Gibson Woods Golf Course 309-734-9968 18 holes Across the street Green fee $15.00

99

www

PIREP Monmouth Airport in Monmouth, IL, has a great 18-hole golf course within walking distance from the airport, Gibson Woods Golf Course. It’s one of the nicest courses around and always in great shape.

This page intentionally left blank.

Two for the Money An essential part of your golf grip is your golf glove. It does so much more than prevent blisters and look good. A well-fitting, properly designed glove provides more adhesion with the club’s grip than the skin on your hand. Once the sun gets blazing and you begin to sweat, the benefit of the glove becomes even more apparent. A good golf glove is the best investment in your bag. Buy a new one often. It must be supple. If you’re right-handed, and most people are, you wear a golf glove on your left hand. Ever wonder why you don’t also wear one on your right hand? I did, too. No one had a reasonable explanation. So I did the logical thing and bought myself a golf glove for my right hand. I figured that it would at least prevent blisters and keep sweat off my grips. That it does, but it also helps you to hold the golf club with greater fidelity to your address. It provides the adhesion your right hand needs to do the same job your gloved left hand has been doing all along. With both hands gloved you are for the first time really controlling the golf club. It isn’t slipping and sliding around. Try it, and you’ll wonder why you weren’t using two gloves years ago. 101 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

102

Two for the Money

Many people don’t know about the hidden benefit of a golf glove. I’ll bet you do, but what the heck, I’ll tell you anyway. The extra button is designed to serve as a pretty darn good ball marker on the putting green. It’s right there, seldom lost, and it won’t jab you through your pants pocket! Cool!

of Indiana French Lick, IN (French Lick Municipal—FRH) 812-936-2222

French Lick Springs Resort and Spa 800-960-3577 812-936-9300 812-936-2100 fax http://www.frenchlick.com/index.cfm

wwwww

Valley Golf Links Course [email protected] Dave Harner, Director of Golf 18 holes 4 miles from the airport (transportation provided) Green fee $66.00 http://www.frenchlick.com/index.cfm/name-golfrates PIREP The hotel will dispatch a vehicle to pick you up at the wellmaintained airport, which is about 10 minutes away. The town itself has a resort atmosphere. 103 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

104

Indiana

A group of Comanche owners (and one Cherokee owner), including myself, made an impromptu visit to French Lick early this spring. We all had a really great time and vowed to repeat the visit again. The resurfaced airport has a number of tie-downs and a lot of space on the ramp. I would suggest that you bring your own ropes. The operation is run by the local EAA chapter, and it appeared that there were no services other than fuel (they took credit cards). The EAA people were very friendly and a pleasure to deal with. The airport has a nonprecision approach. If the weather is really bad you can go to Jeffersonville, which has an ILS (45 miles away), but who would want to go to a resort in bad weather anyway? We flew our Skylane down for a round of golf and an overnight stay at the French Lick Springs Resort and Spa. We had a wonderful time and will be going back. The hotel has weekend specials (e.g., Valentine’s Day) and is doing weekend mystery dinner theatre package performances through May 2003. The airport is a picture perfect approach in the National Forest. The airport managers, Nick and Christy, live almost on the airport and keep a close eye on everything 24/7, so we really felt safe leaving the plane tied down there. There is a very friendly airport bum-cat there who will come out and greet you. Somehow during preflight to leave, he got in our plane and we almost had a stowaway as we didn’t see him in the back until we were strapped in and leaving.

Greensburg, IN (Greensburg–Decatur County—I34) 812-663-5733

Greensburg Country Club

www

812-663-2229 pro shop 1 ⁄2 mile from airport 18 holes Green fee $25.00 Cart fee $12.00 http://www.greensburgcountryclub.com/ PIREP The Greensburg Country Club opened in 1926, making it one of the oldest courses in southeastern Indiana.

Indiana

105

North Vernon, IN (North Vernon—OVO) 812-346-5223

St. Anne’s Golf Course 812-326-0066 18 holes On the airfield Green fee $19.00 Cart fee $10.00

wwwww

Plymouth, IN (Plymouth Municipal—C65) 219-935-5152 219-936-9892 fax [email protected]

Plymouth Rock Golf Course 219-936-4405 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $15.00

wwww

PIREP Plymouth Rock Golf Course is adjacent to the airport. There are five golf courses within 5 miles of the airport. The U.S. Golf Academy is 14 miles from C65.

Terre Haute, IN (Terre Haute International–Hulman Field—HUF) 812-877-2252 812-877-3853 fax [email protected] www.huf.com

Hulman Golf Course 812-877-2096 812-877-2096 fax 18 holes 1 ⁄2 mile from airport Green fee $25.00

wwww

106

Indiana

PIREP Hulman Golf Course in Terre Haute, IN, is a Professional Rated course and one of the top 10 in Indiana. It is about 1⁄2 mile North of Hulman Field Airport. Excellent fairways and greens.

Blue Suede Shoes Every golfer wears a special set of shoes when playing. I loved ’em more during the steel cleat days. They sounded so cool when you walked up the steps to the pro shop or down the concrete path to pick up your cart. Anyone with ears could tell from six blocks away that you were a golfer. Soft cleats just don’t get my motor runnin’. I never played golf barefoot but I always wanted to. The fairways and the greens look so comfortable to walk on. Probably I’d stub my toe on a sprinkler head and bleed to death before I got back to the clubhouse. The principal reason to wear shoes on a golf course is to protect your feet, same reason we wear them everywhere else. After protection comes comfort. Can you imagine walking 11 of the 18 holes with a blister? Your score would suffer. “If the shoes don’t fit, you may as well quit!” That’s what shoes are supposed to do, protect your feet and feel comfortable. With golf there is one more requirement: They must hold your feet secure. That’s what the noisemakers on the bottom are

107 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

108

Blue Suede Shoes

all about. The cleats dig into the turf or sand and prevent your feet from slipping during execution of the stroke. That’s good, but please don’t stop there. It is more important that your golf shoes fit than your après golf loafers. If the cleated ones are just a little big, your foot will move inside the shoe. The shoe won’t move because it’s anchored to the turf with those funny rubber cleats, but your foot can and will move within the shoe. The result? Bad shots and blisters. No two feet are the same size. One of your feet is a little longer or a little wider than the other. It’s true! You’ve been buying ill-fitting shoes your whole life. Me, too. It’s a compromise in favor of the biggest foot. Don’t do this with your golf shoes. The truth is that you won’t live long enough to wear them out. Heck, you don’t walk on them that much. Most of the time that they’re on your feet, you’re in the cart. Golf shoes are cheap compared to golf clubs and green fees. It just doesn’t make sense to spend a $100 to round-trip your plane to a club, spend $150.00 on green fees, and let a pair of lifelong $75.00 shoes ruin the trip. There are two solutions. Buy custom! Go ahead—you deserve ’em, and be sure to have the saddle built of some premium alligator hide. I live in Florida and I assure you that we can spare a gator or two to build you a set of premium shoes. If custom is outside your sensibilities or budget, do this: Buy two sets of those $75.00 tundra crawlers and throw one shoe away from each box. Buy one pair based on its fit to your right foot and the other for its caress of your left clodhopper. You’re in for 150 bucks, one week’s green fee at a good course, no hill for a climber. If the shoes don’t fit…it could be the socks!

of Iowa Laurens, IA (Laurens Skyways Airport—PVT) 712-845-2287 (call for clearance prior to trip)

Laurens Golf & Country Club 712-845-2287 9 holes On the airport Green fee $10.00 (all-day play)

wwwww

PIREP For the true pilot–golfer. Fly into Laurens, IA (5K5— Laurens Skyways Airport). But beware! The runway is actually one of the golf course fairways, so you may have to dodge some of your compatriots on landing. But for the purist, it can’t get any better than this.

109 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

110

Iowa

Onawa, IA (Onawa Municipal—K36) 712-423-1762 712-423-3103 fax

Onawa Country Club Golf Course 712-423-1712 9 holes On the airport Green fee $12.00 Cart fee included

wwwww

Paullina, IA (Paullina Municipal—1Y9) 712-448-2522 712-448-3499 fax

Paullina Golf Club

www

712-448-3477 http://www.paullinaiowa.com/golf.htm 9 holes 1 ⁄2 mile from airport Green fee $8.00 Cart fee $10.00

Pocahontas, IA (Pocahontas Municipal—POH) 712-335-4677 712-335-4319 fax

Pocahontas Golf Course 712-335-4375 9 holes On the airport Green fee $12.00

wwwww

Rock Rapids, IA (Rock Rapids Municipal—RRQ) 712-472-2521 712-472-3332 fax [email protected]

Iowa

Rock River Golf & Country Club 712-472-3168 9 holes 1 ⁄16 mile from airport

111

wwwww

This page intentionally left blank.

Never on a Sunday Practice is good. Actually, it is a must. That is why it is imperative that you never go to a driving range. Did I say you should practice but that you should never go to a driving range? Yes, that is precisely what I said, and it is absolutely correct. The circumstances at a driving range are different enough from the golf course as to make the time spent at a driving range not only irrelevant but perhaps even detrimental. I have never been to a golf course that provides a rubber mat with a plastic ball holder at its tee boxes. At a golf course you place a tee into the turf and mount your ball on top of the tee. The placement of the tee and the depth of its penetration will be key to the success of your shot. The mat and plastic holder approach raises your ball to an unrealistic height. Many driving ranges do allow you to hit off of the dirt, and usually the turf has long ago been plowed away as divots by previous practice sessions. So you will practice hitting your ball from a divot. That’s certainly not mirroring play conditions.

113 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

114

Never on a Sunday

There are several yardage markers in the landing area of the diving range. Mostly they are inaccurately placed by omission or commission. It makes no difference what the reason, the outcome is that you will delude yourself into believing that you actually hit a 9-iron 200 yards. Trust me, you didn’t! At busy times, every lane will be occupied. If you want to know the direction and distance of your hit, you will practice raising your head really quickly after each swing. That’s a helpful reinforcer. If you don’t go to a driving range to practice your skills, where do you do it? The answer is the golf course. Practicing golf is a lot like practicing medicine or law. Surgery can only be practiced in an operating room and law in a courtroom. Often a surgeon, even a skilled one with many years experience, will ask for an assist from another surgeon more familiar (practiced) with the procedure to be performed on that day. That is a very normal and a very correct way to proceed. Practice is meant to be carried out on the line of fire with a skilled mentor in attendance who can demonstrate a skill and check the acolyte’s adoption of its intricacies. Does that sound like a playing lesson with a skilled pro? I hope so, because that is what you should do now and again. Once you know what to do with each club, set up situations to overuse that club during a round.

of Kansas Greensburg, KS (Paul Windle—8K7) 316-723-2691 316-723-2644 fax

Cannonball Golf Course 316-723-2261 9 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee inexpensive

www

PIREP Greensburg, KS, has one of the nicest grass strips to be found anywhere! The golf course is immediately adjacent to the airport. Greensburg is also home of the “World’s Largest Hand Dug Well,” which is well worth the extra walk downtown.

115 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Kentucky Cadiz, KY (Lake Barkley Airport—1M9) 270-924-1131 270-924-0013 fax www.kystateparks.com/agencies/parks/lakebark.htm

Boots Randolph Golf Course

www

800-295-1878 [email protected] 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $25.00 http://www.kystateparks.com/agencies/parks/lakebark.htm PIREP Boots Randolph Golf Course adjoins Lake Barkley Airport (1M9) in Kentucky. The course is part of a state park that also features a lodge with good food, boating, hiking, and the like. A state park van will pick you up at the airport and take you anywhere in the park you want to go. The golf course is a little flat, but fun. 117 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

118

Kentucky

Falls of Rough, KY (Rough River State Park—213) Rough River Dam State Resort Park Golf Course 270-257-2311 [email protected] 9 holes On the airport Green fee $9.00 www.state.ky.us/agencies/parks/roughrv2.htm

www

PIREP We stayed there and it’s fantastic. All the rooms have an excellent view of the lake. The restaurant is open for all three meals, and you can’t beat the food—it’s great! They have a beautiful golf course, too. Best of all they have a 3,800-ft runway within short walking distance of the lodge and restaurant! It’s a wonderful place.

Sturgis, KY (Sturgis Municipal—I05) 270-333-4487 270-333-9359 fax

Elkwood Golf Course 502-333-2299 9 holes Adjacent to airport

www

Columbia, KY (Columbia–Adair County—I96) 270-384-6020

Pinewood Country Club 270-384-3613 9 holes Adjacent to airport

wwww

of Louisiana Arcadia, LA (Arcadia–Bienville Parish—5F0) 318-263-2916 318-263-8456 [email protected]

The Trails End Golf Course

wwww

318-263-7420 18 holes Immediately adjacent to the airport Green fee $15.00

PIREP The Trails End Golf Course is adjacent to airport. I have played here many times and always enjoy it.

Franklinton, LA (2R7) 504-839-9155

Franklinton Golf Club 504-839-4195 504-839-4402 fax

wwww 119

Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

120

Louisiana

18 holes On the airport Green fee $18.00 Cart fee $10.00 PIREP Franklinton Golf Club is right across the runway from the terminal, within walking distance. The price is very reasonable.

Lake Charles, LA (Chennault International—CWF) 337-491-9961 337-491-9972 fax [email protected]

Mallard Cove Golf Course 318-491-1204 318-491-1208 fax 18 holes On the airport Green fee $11.50

wwwww

of Maine Bethel, ME (Col. Dyke Field—0B1) 207-824-4321 207-824-3355 fax

The Bethel Inn & Country Club

www

207-824-2175 800-654-0125 [email protected] http://www.bethelinn.com/frames.html 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $50.00 Cart fee $14.00

PIREP The Bethel Inn & Country Club offers free pickup for guests and has A+ and reasonably priced accommodations, with a shuttle to their nice golf course. If it gets any better than this, I swear I don’t know where. 121 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Maryland Easton, MD (Easton–Newnam Field—ESM) 410-770-8055 410-822-8694 fax [email protected] http://www.talbgov.org/airport/airport.html

Hog Neck Golf Course

www

410-822-6079 800-280-1790 27 holes 11⁄2 miles from airport Green fee $55.00 http://www.hogneck.com/

123 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

124

Maryland

Oakland, MD (Garrett County—2G4) 301-387-4100

The Golf Club at Wisp

ww

301-387-4911 301-387-4797 fax [email protected] 18 holes 2+ miles from the airport Green fee $58.00 Cart fee included http://www.skiwisp.com/golf/index.html

Ocean City, MD (OXB) 410-213-1980 410-213-7198 fax

The Bay Club

www

800-BAY-CLUB 410-641-4081 410-641-9955 fax [email protected] 36 holes 15 minutes from the airport by cab Green fee $72.00 Cart fee included www.thebayclub.com PIREP The day before Memorial Day weekend, my Dad and I flew into Ocean City, MD, to play golf. Everything worked out perfectly. We called OXB’s Unicom when we entered the pattern and asked them to have a taxi cab standing by to get us to the golf course. OXB charges $8 per day to park the airplane if you stay longer than two hours. We played golf at The Bay Club in Berlin, MD. The taxi ride cost $12.50 (not including tip) each way, and the ride took about 15 minutes to get to the course. The greens fees for the course were $65 per person (including cart). The course was not busy at all. We arrived an hour before our tee time, and they were able to get us right

Maryland

125

out. We played the east course, which is newer than the west but less challenging. The course was in good shape. After the round, we called the same taxi service and they came by and picked us up. The whole day turned out to be an excellent trip!

This page intentionally left blank.

of Massachusetts Marston Mills, MA (2B1) 508-428-8732

Olde Barnstable Fairgrounds GC 508-420-1141 508-420-1142 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $55

www

PIREP There is a golf course across the street. They open at 7 A.M. You can park your plane and walk across the street. The airport is a turf strip with long lumpy runways.

127 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Michigan Cheboygan, MI (Cheboygan County—Y15) 231-627-5571 231-627-3864 fax [email protected]

Cheboygan Golf & Country Club 231-627-4264 Adjacent to airport Green fee $24.00

wwww

Gaylord, MI (Lakes of the North—4Y4) 616-585-6000 616-585-6229 fax

Hidden Valley Resort 1-888-U-PLAY-54 18 holes Adjacent to airport PIREP

wwww

Gaylord is truly the Golf Mecca of the Midwest. 129

Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

130

Michigan

Kalamazoo, MI (Newman’s Airport—4N0) 616-375-0691

The Prairies Golf Club 1-888-461-7012 Adjacent to airport Green fee $39.00

www

Lewiston, MI (Garland—8M8) 517-786-2211 517-786-2254 fax

Garland Resort

wwwww

517-786-2211 517-786-7878 fax [email protected] 72 holes On the airport Green fee $120.00 Cart fee included http://www.garlandusa.com/page/25-679.htm PIREP Garland, in Lewiston, is the best fly-in place in Michigan, in my opinion. They have their own strip; just radio 10 minutes out, and when you land and taxi to the parking area, there’ll be a van waiting for you. They recently added a 12-ft tall fence all the way around the runway to keep the deer off. The inn is the largest log structure in the world. They have four golf courses, a good restaurant, and a nice pub with music on the weekends. You can stay in the lodge, or in some of the many condos and villas scattered around the property. They also do special events like a fly-in pheasant hunt in the fall, and Dr. Zhivago night in the winter, complete with sleigh rides through the woods at night and a special dinner prepared at a small log house out in the woods. This place is one of my wife’s and my favorites. Contact the Lodge @ 517-786-2211.

Mackinac Island, MI (Mackinac Island—MCD) 906-847-3231

Michigan

The Jewel at The Grand Hotel

131

wwwww

800-334-7263 906-847-3331 906-847-3259 fax 18 holes 1 mile from airport transportation (unique and available) Green fee $100.00 PIREP Mackinac Island in upper Michigan is a fantastic fly-in destination with an excellent airport. No automobiles are allowed on the Island, so the only ways to get around are by bike, by horse & carriage, or by walking. You can call from the terminal for a ride in a horsedrawn carriage into town. There is a great variety of places to stay, from the historic Grand Hotel to charming B&Bs. This is a great destination for couples as well as families. Activities include golf, bicycling, touring Fort Mackinac, boating, golf, and shopping. There are many restaurants in the town, from casual to formal. I highly recommend this destination. I am a golfer, for me The Jewel at the Grand Hotel made the trip. The Grand Nine was built in 1901. PIREP I’ve visited Mackinac (MAC-i-naw) Island with my family every summer for 17 years; the last three via light plane. It is, indeed, the ideal fly-in destination. First, it is remote and isolated by water, so flying in truly is more convenient than the long drive and ferry boat. Ninety percent of the visitors are day trippers, called “fudgies” by the locals, (as everyone takes a box of their famous fudge home), so if you stay overnight, you will have the island to yourselves. We traditionally rent bikes (there are hundreds for rent) and pedal the 6.6 miles around the perimeter of the island on the wide, paved bikepath. If you venture inland, be prepared to push your bike up some steep hills! This would be obvious from your horse-drawn taxi you took from the airport into town. Be sure to ask the Park Ranger who answers the Unicom to kindly call for a taxi as you are approaching the airport, or you will have to wait up to an hour for your ride. After you get into town, call the taxi company on the phone at the central taxi-stand to reserve a return trip to the airport, or…you know the rest. It’s about a 2-mile walk. Tour the restored old

132

Michigan

fort on the top of the bluff, complete with cannon firings and costumed soldiers. After lunch (everything from burgers to prime rib is available), take a nap on the village green overlooking the harbor, grab an ice cream, buy your fudge, and take a sunset flight over the Great Lakes. It’s great to be a flying fudgie!! If you stay overnight, be sure to play a round at The Grand Hotel. They actually have two courses. Most prefer to play The Jewel for its historic value. It was started over 100 years ago.

Marquette, MI (Sawyer International—SAW) 906-346-3308 906-346-3309 fax www.sawyerairport.com

Red Fox Run Golf Course 906-346-7010 [email protected] 18 holes On the airport Green fee $30.00 Cart fee $13.00 http://www.redfoxrun.com

wwwww

Mount Pleasant, MI (Mount Pleasant Municipal—MOP) 517-775-3515 [email protected]

PohlCat Golf Course

wwww

1-989-773-4221 Adjacent to airport Green fee $75.00 Cart fee included [email protected] http://www.pohlcat.net/

Rothbury, MI (Double JJ Resort Ranch—42N) 800-368-2535 [email protected] www.doublejj.com

Michigan

133

The Thoroughbred @ Double JJ Resort Ranch 231-894-3939 18 holes On the airport Green fee $75.00

www

PIREP We found an outstanding place in Rothbury, MI, called the Double JJ Resort Ranch. It is a 1,000-acre resort, that has a 3,600-ft private grass airstrip. If you call ahead, a shuttle will pick you up and take you a mile down the road to their golf course called The Thoroughbred. The golf was wonderful. We had nine planes and 22 people. They were very friendly and took us on a tour of the grounds. The service was great. The man who gave us a ride back told us they close the strip for the winter in November.

Traverse City, MI (Sugar Loaf Village—Y04) 616-228-5461 616-228-6545 fax [email protected]

Sugar Loaf Village Resort 231-228-7400 231-228-7321 fax [email protected] 36 holes On the airport Green fee $72.00 Cart fee included www.kingschallenge.com

www

PIREP This is primarily a ski resort but it is great in the summer, too. The ski hill is immediately adjacent to the airport. PIREP The Sugar Loaf Resort is on the airport, so there is no problem getting there. This is a truly beautiful resort. PIREP Sugarloaf Village has closed up again. Only the golf courses remain open. Supposedly will be sold and reopened. Stay tuned.

134

Michigan

Village of Lake Isabella, MI (Lake Isabella Airpark—D15) 517-644-3039 517-644-3039 fax [email protected]

The Pines at Lake Isabella 517-644-2300 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $26.00 Cart fee $14.00 www.thepinesgolfcourse.com

www

PIREP A golf course designed by Bruce Matthews. Complete with clubhouse, bar and grill, and driving and practice greens.

of Minnesota Albert Lea, MN (Albert Lea Municipal—AEL) 507-373-0608 507-373-0639 fax

Albert Lea Golf Club 507-377-1683 507-377-0340 fax 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $25.00

wwww

Alexandria, MN (AXN) 320-762-2111 320-762-2112 fax

Arrowwood, a Radisson Resort

wwww

320-762-1124 18 holes 4 miles from the airport—call in advance to arrange for pickup 135 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

136

Minnesota

PIREP Alexandria, MN (AXN) is located in the far west central part of Minnesota. It is the jumping off spot for much of the Minnesota Lake country. Named one of America’s top family resorts, Arrowwood, a Radisson Resort, has 450 acres on Lake Darling with horseback riding, indoor and outdoor tennis, golf, marina, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, sauna, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, skating, and over 15,000 square feet of meeting space. Just 4 miles from the airport, they have a beautiful dining room and deck that overlooks the lake. They will pick you up and drop you off at the airport. Alexandria is also the manufacturing site for Bellanca Aircraft, which is on the airport premises.

Breezy Point, MN (Private) Breezy Point Resort

wwwww

800-950-4960 36 holes Adjacent to airport (free pickup) Green fee $34 Cart fee $32 Club rental $20 http://www.breezypointresort.com/ PIREP Breezy Point, MN, is one of the Midwest’s premier resorts. They feature a beautiful golf course that I believe was just featured in Golf Digest. Breezy Point is 15 miles north of Brainerd (BRD) and is actually a private field, but they encourage vacation-goers for a $10 landing fee. They have tie-downs. It lies right on a beautiful lake that has great fishing and boat and Jetski rentals. They have cabins for rent and very nice suites. It’s a fairly big resort and has two restaurants. The field is 2,500-ft paved (36–18). It is just outside the gates of Breezy Point Resort, and they will pick you up. Just call from the gas station next to the field. If you are looking for good entertainment and a fun time at night, the Commander Bar has great bands Friday and Saturday as well as super food. PIREP My wife and I just discovered a wonderful new resort just ⁄2-mile west of the Breezy Point Resort airfield. We arrived by car this

1

Minnesota

137

time but will fly in the future. The name of the restaurant is Antlers, and it is the clubhouse for the Breezy Point Resorts golf course. The restaurant manager, Sharon Phelps (218-562-7162), indicated that a radio-dispatched resort van is always available if you do not wish to take the short walk. The restaurant had four specials the evening we were there: prime rib, duck, snow crab legs, and mahi mahi. Our meals were excellent as was the service. I would rate it as good as any restaurant and golf club we have flown to, five hamburgers.

East Gull Lake, MN (East Gull Lake Airport—9Y2) 218-828-9279 218-825-8422 fax or

East Gull Lake, MN (Breezy Point—PVT) Legacy Courses at Craguns

wwwww

800-272-4867 218-825-8275 fax [email protected] 45 holes Near the airport (call golf course for transportation) Green fee $105.00 Cart fee included Rental clubs are available www.craguns.com PIREP The private airport is Breezy Point, 14 miles North of Brainerd (BRD) on the Twin Cities Sectional. I can’t wait to play golf here. The course looks excellent and uncrowded. PIREP We have 36 holes and a 9-hole par 3 course. Among our holes are the newest in Brainerd. For arrangements to play our course and to arrange rides you can dial 1-800-CRAGUNS (272-4867). We have GPS units on each of our golf carts and a brand new fleet this year.

138

Minnesota

PIREP East Gull Lake Airport ( 9Y2) in Minnesota is very close to several golf courses. The airport is a grass strip 2,618 feet long with no services. The airport manager is Wendy Brusseau; call her at 218-828-9279. The Classic Legacy Courses at Craguns, designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., is just a few miles away and is an excellent course.

East Gull Lake, MN (East Gull Lake Airport—9Y2) 218-828-9279 218-825-8422 fax or

East Gull Lake, MN (Breezy Point—PVT) Madden’s on Gull Lake 218-829-2811 218-829-6583 fax [email protected] 63 holes Two blocks from airport Green fee $35.00 Cart fee $30.00 (per cart) www.maddens.com

wwww

PIREP East Gull Lake Airport (9Y2) in Minnesota is very close to several golf courses. The airport is a grass strip 2,618 feet long with no services. The airport manager is Wendy Brusseau; call her at 218-828-9279. Maddens on Gull Lake, the west course is about 2 blocks away and is a very nice 18 hole course.

Karlstad, MN (Karlstad Municipal—23D) 218-436-2178 218-436-4791 fax

Karlstad Country Club 218-436-4653 9 holes 11⁄2 miles from airport Green fees $10.00

ww

Minnesota

139

Mahnomen, MN (Mahnomen County Airport—3N8) 218-935-9933 218-935-5076

Mahnomen Country Club

www

218-935-5188 9 holes 5 miles away, transportation provided

Mecosta, MN (Mecosta Morton—27C) 231-972-2054

St. Ives Resort

ww

800-972-4837 36 holes 8 miles from airport Green fee $90.00 Cart fee included [email protected] www.stivesgolf.com

Tyler, MN (Tyler Municipal—63Y) 507-247-5556 507-247-5557 fax Closed winters, call in advance for status

Tyler Golf Club

wwww

507-247-3242 Immediately adjacent to the airport Play 18 any weekday for $16.00 (Keep sunflower seeds away from greens) http://www.mnns.com/~tylergolf/

This page intentionally left blank.

of Mississippi Hattiesburg, MS (Hattiesburg–Laurel Regional—PIB) 601-545-3111 601-545-3155 fax [email protected] www.airportcity.com

Pine Belt National Golf Club 888-492-2308 18 holes On the airport Green fee $27.00

wwwww

141 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Missouri Excelsior Springs, MO (Excelsior Springs Memorial Airport—3EX) 816-630-2369 816-630-3413 fax

Excelsior Springs Golf Club 816-630-3731 18 holes On the airfield Green fee $24.00 Cart fee $23.00

wwwww

PIREP There is a very nice course owned and operated by the city of Excelsior Springs, MO (20 mi east of Kansas City). The airport, 3EX, is also operated by the city and is on the same property, and it is a short walk to either. No driving range, but tough 18-hole, hilly course.

143 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

144

Missouri

Kennett, MO (Kennett Memorial—TKX) 573-888-1339

Kennett Country Club 573-888-9945 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $18.00 Cart fee $15.00

wwww

PIREP The airport abuts a municipal golf course. I’ve seen people walking across the runway carrying their golf clubs and hopping in their plane after playing.

Shell Knob, MO (Table Rock Lake—40M) Cedar Creek Country Club 417-858-6461 9 holes On the airport Green fee $12.00 Cart fee $11.00

wwww

PIREP There’s a very good grass field, long and smooth, with a golf course (9 holes) right beside it. It’s on Table Rock Lake, at Shell Knob, MO. If you drive, it’s on Lake Road 39-5 where it deadends on the lake. A restaurant at the clubhouse serves sandwiches and specials. No fuel is available here, but it is at Cassville airport. PIREP Nice, quiet, 3,900-ft grass strip on Table Rock Lake, airport (40M), has a 9-hole golf course, swimming pool, and a recently reopened grill right on the runway. The lake is a short walk to the south. The people are friendly, and the hamburgers are good. It was great to have a nice cool place to relax for a few minutes before getting airborne again.

Sikeston, MO (Sikeston Memorial Municipal—SIK) 573-471-9056 573-471-7929 fax

Missouri

Sikeston Country Club 573-472-4225 573-472-0656 fax 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $28.00 Cart fee $16.00

145

wwww

PIREP There are two golf courses adjacent to the Sikeston, MO, airport (SIK). One is within walking distance, and the other requires an airport car to get to the clubhouse, although one of the holes parallels the runway. Both courses are well maintained and are under $50 for 18 holes. Neither course has a restaurant, but both have a snack bar.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Montana Fort Benton, MT (Fort Benton—79S) 406-622-3221 406-622-5249

Signal Point Golf Club 406-622-3666 9 holes On the airport Green fee $10.00

wwwww

Opheim, MT (Opheim—S00) 406-762-3355 6 holes On the airport

Opheim Municipal Golf Course Contact airport office for details.

wwww

147 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

148

Montana

Polson, MT (Polson Airport—8S1) 406-883-9391 406-883-9390 fax

Polson Country Club 406-883-8230 406-883-8237 fax [email protected]

wwww

PIREP Close to the airport on the shores of Flathead Lake, beautiful 18-hole course, transportation (Rent-a-Wreck), good food and motels with golf packages.

of Nebraska Alliance, NE (Alliance Municipal—AIA) 308-762-4512 308-762-7848 fax

Sky View Golf Course 308-762-1446 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $17.00 Cart fee $12.00 Rental clubs available

www

Cozad, NE (Cozad Municipal—CZD) 308-784-3868 308-784-2528 fax

Cozad Country Club 308-784-2585 18 holes

wwww 149

Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

150

Nebraska

On the airfield Green fee $22.00 Cart fee $20.00 per cart

Sidney, NE (Sidney Municipal—SNY) 308-254-5668 308-254-2535 fax

Hillside Golf Club 308-254-2311 308-254-5104 fax 18 holes 2 miles from airport Green fee $15.00

www

of Nevada Carson City, NV (Dayton Valley Airpark—A34) 775-246-7369 775-246-7369 fax

Dayton Valley Golf Course 775-246-7888 800-644-3822 775-246-7894 fax [email protected] Adjacent to airport Free pickup Green fee $65.00 Cart fee included

wwww

151 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

152

Nevada

Laughlin, NV (Laughlin/Bullhead International—IFP) 520-754-3922 520-754-5156 fax www.laughlinbullintl.com

Emerald River Golf Course 702-298-0061 702-298-2564 fax 18 holes Near airport Green fee $70.00 Cart fee included

wwww

PIREP On June 25–27, 10 planes, including two Harmon Rockets and one RV6, ventured out across the desert to Laughlin, NV, from Sierra Sky Park in Fresno, CA. I found a great special on the Internet which included three days at the Colorado Belle at only $119 per couple. The special included two nights, a bottle of champagne in our room, a ride down the river on a paddlewheel boat, a five-course gourmet dinner with wine and a round of golf! We all had a great time: Some golfed, some sun bathed, some gambled, and some took extended naps. We had smooth air coming and going, and we all highly recommend this terrific fly-away!

Round Mountain, NV (Hadley—A36) 775-377-2366 775-377-3324 fax

Round Mountain Golf Club 775-377-2880 9 holes 1 ⁄2 mile away from airport Green fee $15.00

wwww

Mesquite, NV (Mesquite—67L) 702-346-2841 702-346-5340 fax

Nevada

Wolf Creek Golf Course

153

wwww

866-252-4653 702-346-3331 fax [email protected] 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $250.00 Cart fee $40.00 per cart www.playthewolf.com

PIREP Recently, a new golf resort called Wolf Creek opened, next to the airport, within walking distance. On approach, you can’t miss it! Wolf Creek has received awards for its new golf course and was ranked number three in the “Best New Upscale Courses” in the January 2002 issue of Golf Digest magazine. I have seen it myself, and it is a great course. Additionally, their restaurant has great food (I recommend the peach melba for dessert). A fine dining, dinner-only restaurant will be opening in the spring.

This page intentionally left blank.

of New Hampshire Goffstown, NH (Country Club Air Park—5D4) 603-774-5030 603-774-5070 fax Turf 1275 ft ⫻ 75 ft

Driving Range On the airfield. PIREP

ww

Runway 36 is used as golf driving range.

155 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

of New Jersey Lumberton, NJ (Flying W—N14) 609-267-7673 609-267-5610 fax [email protected] www.flyingwairport.com

Golden Pheasant Golf Course

wwwww

609-267-4276 On the airfield Green fees $49.00 Cart fee included http://www.golfgoldenpheasant.com/

Ocean City, NJ (Ocean City Municipal—26N) 609-525-9223 609-399-7828 fax

Ocean City Golf Course 609-399-1315 18 holes

www 157

Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

158

New Jersey

On the airport Green fee $9.00 Cart fee none available Rental clubs available PIREP I highly recommend Ocean City, NJ. It is a great place to fly in if you like a par 3 course! The FBO is actually one building, which also contains a coffee shop (good food) and the golf pro shop. You literally don’t have to leave the airport to tee off!

Manville, NJ (Central Jersey Regional—47N) 908-526-2822 908-707-1196 fax [email protected] www.centraljerseyairport.com

Royce Brook Golf Club

wwwww

888-434-FORE (3673) [email protected] 36 holes On the airport Green fee $80.00 (Internet special) http://www.roycebrook.com

PIREP Great golf course at the end of one of the runways. Course is called Royce Brook Golf Club, has 36 holes, and is very nicely kept up and challenging. You’d best have a good sand game. The course also has nice driving range, practice facility, and a great clubhouse. I believe you can also call the course ahead of time and tell them what time you are coming in, and they will send someone over to pick you up.

Trenton, NJ (Trenton–Robbinsville—N87) 609-259-1059 609-259-2232 fax

Miry Run Country Club 609-259-1010 18 holes Green fees $22.00 Cart fees $15.00

wwww

New Jersey

159

PIREP Miry Run Golf Course surrounds Robbinsville Runways 29 and 11. This is a good place to enjoy a discount round of golf for parties flying in and a meal afterward. Call from the Kenmarson AeroClub, and if available, they will even send a golf cart down to the airport to pick you up, although it is an easy walk.

This page intentionally left blank.

of New Mexico Eunice, NM (Eunice—E04) 505-476-0930 505-476-0942 fax

Eunice Municipal Golf Course 505-394-2881 9 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $8.00 Cart fee $4.00

www

161 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

of New York Gansevoort, NY (Heber Airpark—K30) 518-793-8983 518-792-6365 fax

Airway Meadows Saratoga Golf Course 518-792-4144 [email protected] 18 holes On the airport Green fee $24 Cart fee $12 www.airwaymeadowsgolf.com

wwwww

PIREP You are welcome to call in for your tee time reservation and advise them at that time that you will be flying in. They can place a golf car at the airport for you so that you can drive over. You can see the pro shop from the airport.

163 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

164

New York

PIREP Fly to Heber Airpark and land in the center of a golf course. K30 is about 2200 ft and slopes uphill to the west. It is situated about 25 miles north northeast of Albany, New York.

Findley Lake, NY (Corry–Lawrence Airport—8G2) 814-664-7111 814-664-7078 fax www.corrypa.com/airport

Peek ’N Peak Resort and Conference Center 716-355-4141 716-355-4141, ext. 7426 (tee times) 716-355-4542 fax [email protected] 36 holes 15 miles from airport Green fee $85.00 Cart fee included http://www.pknpk.com/

ww

PIREP Just 15 miles from Corry Airport is Peek ’N Peak Resort and Conference Center in Findley Lake, NY. A four-season resort offering two 18-hole golf courses—an upper course and a lower course. The upper course is rated 4-star by Golf Digest and was host to the Buy.Com tour in June 2002. Indoor tennis and swimming, as well as many other activities, are available year-round. In winter skiing is offered on 25 slopes for various ski levels; snowboarding and tubing areas are also available. A variety of menu choices including fine dining are available at various restaurants throughout the resort complex.

Hudson, NY (Columbia County—1B1) 518-828-9461 518-828-1303 fax

Meadowgreens Restaurant and Golf Course 518-828-0663 518-828-0666 fax [email protected]

www

New York

165

9 holes 1 ⁄2 mile from the airport Green fees inexpensive http://www.meadowgreens.micronpcweb.com/ PIREP

Not just a burger place, there’s a 9-hole golf course there, too.

PIREP There is a golf course adjacent to the field with very good food. You can park on the grass at the north end of the taxi-way, and it is a very short walk to the restaurant. PIREP Great for anyone looking for a quick 9 holes of golf. Golf course is next to airport.

Saratoga Springs, NY (Saratoga County—5B2) 518-885-5354 518-885-7298 fax

Saratoga Spa State Park 518-584-3137 518-584-2007 27 holes 3 miles from the airport Green fee $25.00 Cart fee $16.00

wwww

PIREP We flew from Long island to Saratoga Springs (5B2) last weekend. It is a pretty flight, and the airport is just northwest and outside of Albany Class C airspace. It has two decent paved runways and a very friendly staff at Richmoor Aviation who man (woman actually) the Unicom. Tie-down was $5 per day for our Tiger, and fuel, about $2.00 per gallon. A short (3-mile) cab ride took us to the town of Saratoga Springs, famous for its raceway and its springs. There is a state park bordering the town, which has two spas where one can “take the waters.” These are full spas with baths, massage, and so forth. There is a golf course and a beautiful hotel (Gideon Putnum) in the park as well. The town has great restaurants, bistros, pastry shops, jazz clubs, and the like. There are several B&Bs and inns to choose from. (We stayed

166

New York

at the Batcheller Mansion Inn.) There is also a performing arts center— the summer home of the NYC ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra. I recommend a visit to the nearby Racing Museum.

of North Carolina Fayetteville, NC (Grays Creek—2GC) 888-745-7655 910-483-4114 fax

Cypress Lakes Golf Course 910-483-0359 800-789-0793 18 holes 11⁄2 miles from airport Green fee $39.00

ww

Mountain Air, NC (Private) 336-877-4716 (call for permission before landing!)

Mountain Aire Golf Club 336-877-4716 [email protected] 18 holes

wwww

167 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

168

North Carolina

On the airport Green fee $36.00 www.mountainaire.com PIREP Mountain Aire is the most beautiful, picture-perfect country club. They have a runway 4,700-ft high on Slickrock Mountain (north of Asheville), but you need prior permission to land. The homes, condos, and land are selling fast, but they are worth every cent as the views are spectacular. The golf course was named “The Best New Private Course” in 1995 by the North Carolina Golf Association.

Ocean Isle, NC (Ocean Isle Beach, NC—60J) 910-579-2166 910-579-8804 fax

Ocean Isle Beach Golf Course 910-579-2610 910-575-2561 fax 18 holes Adjacent to airport www.oibgolf.com

wwww

PIREP There is an adjacent golf course that will pick up fly-in golfers. It’s a good course well worth playing. PIREP It is located adjacent to the airport (unattended); call from any of the nearby stores for transport, or walk over east of the runway. Several good restaurants are nearby (within walking distance).

Pinehurst, NC (Moore County—SOP) 910-692-3212 910-692-8216 fax

Legacy Golf Course

wwww

888-287-2199 5 miles from airport (transportation provided) Green fee $85.00 Cart fee $20.00 http://www.legacypinehurst.com

North Carolina

169

PIREP Pinehurst, NC, is thought by many to be the “Golf Capital of the World.” I agree. With careful planning, you can play them all in a week or a lifetime!

Sylva, NC (Jackson County—24A) 828-586-1911 828-293-3410 fax

High Hampton Inn & Country Club 828-743-2450 828-743-5991 fax 18 holes 9 miles from airport Green fee $35.00 http://www.highhamptoninn.com/

ww

PIREP This is a truly impressive resort in the mountains of North Carolina. It is a distance from the airport, but a call to the club will have transportation waiting upon your arrival.

This page intentionally left blank.

of North Dakota Milnor, ND (Milnor Municipal—4R6) 701-427-5578

Lakeview Golf Course 701-427-9359 9 holes 1 ⁄2 mile from the field

www

171 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Ohio Cincinnati, OH (Cincinnati Municipal Airport Lunken–Field—LUK) 513-321-5361 513-871-6801 fax [email protected] www.flylunken.com

Reeves Golf Course

wwwww

513-321-1433 513-651-GOLF (for tee times) 18 holes On the airport Green fee $31.00 Cart fee included

173 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

174

Ohio

Harrison, OH (Cincinnati West—I67) 513-367-0231 513-367-4222 fax

Circling Hills Golf Course 513-367-5858 [email protected] 18 holes On the airport Green fee $23.00 Cart fee $12.00 http://www.circlinghills.com

wwwww

Ravenna, OH (Portage County—29G) 330-298-3277 330-298-3288 fax

Windmill Lakes Golf Club

www

330-297-0440 330-297-0313 fax [email protected] 18 holes Less than 3 miles from the airport Green fee $51.00 Cart fee included http://www.windmill-lakes-golf.com/

Willoughby, OH (Willoughby Lost Nation Municipal—LNN) 440-953-4372 440-953-4375 fax

Airport Greens Golf Course 440-944-6164 440-944-4006 fax 18 holes On the airport Green fee $20.00 Cart fee $18.00

wwwww

of Oklahoma Afton, OK (Grand Lake Municipal—3O9) 918-257-8602 918-257-8672 fax

Shangri-La Resort

wwww

800-331-4060 36 holes Two miles from airport (free transportation) Green fee $90.00 Cart fee included http://www.shangrilaok.com/ PIREP My wife and I spent a weekend at the Shangri-La Resort on Grand Lake just northeast of Tulsa, OK. The airport identifier is 3O9 and is called Grand Lake Muni. They have a limo and will take you 2 miles to the resort for free. The resort has a spa, 36 holes of excellent first-class golf, a complete 5-star restaurant bar, and entertainment. 175 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

176

Oklahoma

Cleveland, OK (Cleveland Municipal—95F) 918-865-8075

Keystone Golf Course 9 holes, semiprivate On the airport Green fee $7.00

www

Clinton, OK (Clinton–Sherman Airpark—CSM) 580-562-4526 580-562-4527 fax

Greens Golf & Country Club 580-562-4354 9 holes On the airport Green fee $8.00

wwww

Kingston, OK (Kingston Airpark—F31) 580-564-2311 580-564-2262 fax

Lake Texoma State Park

wwwww

580-564-3333 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $25.00 Cart fee $10.00 Club rental $11.00 http://www.touroklahoma.com/Pages/golf6.html PIREP Lake Texoma on the Oklahoma side has an airstrip right in the park. It is the Kingston Airpark (F31); a 3,000-ft asphalt runway, no fuel, but a deli right up the hill from where you tie down. The strip is located 4 miles east of Kingston, OK. My husband and I flew down there from OKC for the day, rented some bikes at the recreation building, hit a few buckets of balls at the driving range, and just relaxed and enjoyed the cool breeze coming off the lake. Most things are within walking distance, and there is a beautiful 18-hole course,

Oklahoma

177

and a second 18-hole course opening in the summer of 2003. There are an abundance of cabins and a lodge as well.

Medford, OK (Medford Municipal—O53) 580-395-3176 [email protected]

Medford Municipal Golf Course Adjacent to the airport 9 holes

www

Okeene, OK (Okeene Municipal—O65) 580-822-3031 580-822-3034 fax 9 holes Adjacent to the airport

Okeene Municipal Golf Course 580-822-3435 18 holes

www

Overbrook, OK (Lake Murray State Park—1F1) 580-223-6613

Lake Murray State Park

wwww

580-223-6613 (pro shop) 580-223-4044 (park office) 580-223-6600 (resort inn) 580-223-6601 (lodge) 18 holes On the airport Green fee $27.00 Cart fee $10.00 Club rental $11.00 http://www.touroklahoma.com/Pages/golf10.html PIREP A popular getaway from the Dallas–Fort Worth area is Lake Murray, OK (1F1, listed under “Overbrook, OK” in the AFD), located about 4 miles from the Ardmore, OK Vortac off the 152 radial.

178

Oklahoma

Runway is 2,500 ⫻ 50 paved, with trees, but no gas, as I recall. About 45 min. to an hour from DFW area. An 18-hole golf course is next to the runway. I haven’t played it, so I can’t give you details. It is inexpensive to play at less than $30 a round. Lake Murray Lodge is about 1 mile down the road. A van will pick you up if you call from the pro shop. The Lodge has rooms, cabins, camping, and the like. About a mile and a half further are horseback riding stables. The lake is a favorite location for boating, fishing, and scuba diving. The scuba diving location is a bit further down the lake. PIREP The golf course at Lake Murray State Park is indeed wonderful! The 16th hole has been featured on many magazine covers. It is not a long hole but tricky, as the hole is on a small green at the top of a waterfall. It’s beautiful, but accuracy is important. If you miss even a little, the waterfall gets your ball.

Purcell, OK (Purcell Municipal Airport—3O3) 405-527-6561 405-527-2820 fax

Brent Bruehl Memorial GC 405-527-5114 18 holes Adjacent to airport

www

of Oregon Ashland, OR (Ashland Municipal–Sumner Parker Field—S03) 541-488-5587 541-488-6006 fax [email protected]

Oak Knoll Golf Course

www

541-482-4311 9 holes 1 ⁄2 mile from airport Green fee $27.00 Cart fee $14.00 http://www.ashland.or.us/Page.asp?NavID=239

179 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

180

Oregon

Bandon, OR (Bandon State—S05) 503-378-4880 503-373-1688 fax

Bandon Dunes

wwwww

888-345-6008 541-347-4380 541-347-8161 fax [email protected] 36 holes 15 minutes from the airport (free shuttle) Green fee $175.00 Caddie fee $35.00 www.bandondunesgolf.com PIREP Bandon State (S05) is just south of town. If that’s fogged in, people can land at North Bend, 10–15 miles to the north, but the free shuttle isn’t free anymore. This is one of the premier courses in the country (top 20 public courses according to Golf Digest). The airport is 5 minutes south of town; the golf resort is 10 minutes to the north. They have a free shuttle if you call ahead. Otherwise, call Frank Crook at Frank’s Flight Service 541-347-2022—there is a cheap rental available. Golf is expensive here—$150 a round.

Gleneden, OR (Siletz Bay State—S45) 503-378-4880 503-373-1688 fax

Westin Salishan Golf Links 541-764-3632 541-764-2264 [email protected] 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $95.00 Cart fee $20.00 Club rentals available www.salishan.com

wwwww

Oregon

181

PIREP This is truly one of the West’s great resorts. The course is built in the rugged Scottish tradition. Drop in, play a round, and stay a while. You’ll be very glad you did!

Sun River, OR (S21) 541-593-4603 541-593-5714 fax

Sun River Resort

wwwww

800-801-8765 541-593-5458 fax [email protected] 54 holes 1 ⁄2 mile from airport Green fee $75.00 Cart fee $15.00 (per person) http://sunriver-resort.com/

PIREP This popular upscale community is the Northwest’s premier destination resort. Good food, reasonable prices, and you will be treated like royalty. Free van service from the airport to the lodge/ restaurant. Sun River offers 54 holes of outstanding championship golf including Crosswater, chosen by Golf Digest as “America’s Best New Resort Course.” Its unique location, between the towering Cascade Mountains and the high desert, produces 300 days of sunshine per year. If you prefer, world-class downhill skiing is available at nearby Mt. Bachelor. Check noise abatement procedures.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Pennsylvania Bally, PA (Butter Valley Golf Port—7N8) 610-845-2491 610-845-3001 fax

Butter Valley

wwwww

610-845-2491 610-845-3001 fax [email protected] 18 holes On the airport Green fee $38.00 www.buttervalley.com

PIREP Besides the very short, narrow runway, Butter Valley is a nice place to visit. The golf shop was friendly and courteous. They loaned us a golf cart to go out to the airplane parking area to meet others in our group as they flew in, making the transportation of golf clubs and people to the clubhouse a breeze. 183 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

184

Pennsylvania

Through the course of introductions and the process of transporting everyone to the clubhouse, two of our group thought we had paid for their golf and didn’t realize no one had paid for them until we stopped at the turn to get a sandwich. They immediately went into the clubhouse to rectify the situation. Instead of being angry with us, the fine folks in the clubhouse rewarded our two players with a discount because of their honesty. The course itself is a fine little course, which was a pleasure to play. The restaurant could have been a little friendlier, but it was also OK. The food was served hot and quickly. As a group, we would rate Butter Valley Golf Port as an excellent place to stop for a hamburger and a round of golf and a place worthy of pilots’ support. PIREP For anybody who wants to combine their aviation and golfing passions, Butter Valley Golf Port is for you. Located just east of Reading, PA, the course is actually divided into two sections by the airstrip. The first 14 holes are on the northeast side, and the last 4 are on the southwest side. The strip is interesting. The paved section is only 24-ft wide, and the usable length is less than 1400 ft. Brush up on your crosswind and short-field techniques. The runway also rolls enough to make the departure interesting as well. The course is well designed and manicured. Even with a harsh drought, the greens and tee boxes were well tended. The fairways, like most in the Northeast, were burnt beyond recognition, but not much could be done about that. Maybe some rain will help us all out. The scenery around the course adds to the general effect. Very nice. The staff was courteous and helpful and the restaurant gets an OK—typical golf course fare, burgers and dogs. $29 bought 18 holes and a cart (shared) on a weekday. PIREP Butter Valley Golfport (7N8) has a runway right in the middle of the golf course. What a beautiful spot to fly to! The restaurant is open from 0700 to 1345 weekdays and 0630 to 1345 weekends. After hours, you can still get sandwiches, burgers, and ice cream. I landed the Lancair on runway 34 and was stopped before the end of the pavement with only moderate braking. There is plenty more runway (manicured turf) beyond the pavement. Highly recommended for breakfast or lunch, or just to stop in for a Coke.

Pennsylvania

185

Corry, PA (Corry–Lawrence Airport—8G2) 814-664-7111 814-664-7078 fax www.corrypa.com/airport

North Hills Golf Club 814-664-4477 18 holes On the airport Green fee $18.00

www

PIREP Just 2.5 miles north of Corry–Lawrence Airport (8G2) in Corry, PA, and 30 miles southeast of Erie, PA, is North Hills Golf Course. North Hills is one of the finest municipal golf courses in the tristate area. The 18-hole course offers pleasant scenery of hills and valleys in all directions. Greens fees are about $20 with a cart on weekdays and higher on weekends and holidays. I always enjoy golfing there. Cab service is available for a very reasonable price.

Dubois, PA (Du Bois-Jefferson County—DUJ) 814-328-5311 814-328-5312 fax [email protected] www.dujairport.com

Beechwood Golf Course 814-371-7611 5 miles from airport 18 holes Green fee $17.00 Cart fee $10.00

www

Farmington, PA (Nemacolin Woodlands Resort—PVT) 800-422-2736 724-329-8555 [email protected] For airfield reservations or more information, please call Nemacolin Woodlands Security Department. Please identify yourself by contacting Nemacolin Unicom on 123.0 MHz prior to landing or departure.

186

Pennsylvania

Nemacolin Woodlands Resort 800-422-2736 724-329-8555 [email protected]. 36 holes On the airport Green fee $150.00 Cart fee included Club rental $45.00 http://www.nemacolin.com/

wwwww

PIREP Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Farmington, PA, operates a private, restricted-use airstrip (hard surface, 3900 ft ⫻ 50 ft) located on the resort property. Prior approval for landing is required. Call and ask for security for landing permission. The identifier is 9G7, lat 39.48.40 lon 79.32.36, IHD R-227, 13 dme. No fuel or services. CTAF 123.0. A courtesy vehicle will pick you up at your plane and transport you to the pro shop or any other resort destination. There are two courses on the property—The Links at Nemacolin and Mystic Rock Lodge—a spa, and several restaurants as well.

Monroeville, PA (Pittsburgh–Monroeville Airport—4G0) 412-372-7342

Maple Crest

www

412-372-7770 9 holes On the airport Green fee $10.00 Cart fee $5.00

PIREP Not a particularly good course, nevertheless Maple Crest is 9 holes of inexpensive golf adjacent to the Monroeville Airport (4G0). You can taxi onto the grass adjacent to the pro shop, and you are within a few footsteps of your round. The single 2280-ft runway is at best in fair condition. Cracks and crumbled hardtop are typical conditions. No fuel. Within Pittsburgh Class B airspace.

Pennsylvania

187

Seven Springs, PA (Seven Springs—7SP) 814-352-7777 814-352-7911 fax [email protected] www.7springs.com

Seven Springs

wwwww

800-452-2223 ext. 4000 18 holes On the airport Green fee $72.00

PIREP Seven Springs has golf and an airport 7SP in southwestern Pennsylvania. This is a truly fantastic resort. Best of all, you can buy a golf season pass for as little as $250!

This page intentionally left blank.

of Rhode Island Westerly, RI (Westerly State—WST) 401-295-5020 401-294-6967 fax

Winnapaug Golf Course 401-596-1237 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $30.00

www

North Kingstown, RI (Quonset State—OQU) 401-295-5020 401-294-6957 fax

North Kingstown Municipal Golf Club 401-294-4051 18 holes

www

189 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

190

Immediately adjacent to airport Green fee $31.00 Cart fee $24.00 per cart

Rhode Island

of South Carolina Manning, SC (Santee Cooper Regional Airport—MNI) 803-478-5965 803-478-4760 fax

The Player’s Course at Wyboo Plantation 803-478-2500 803-478-2716 fax 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $30.00 Cart fee included

wwww

PIREP Located adjacent to the airport; call for transport. It’s a challenging course that only has two or three sand traps on the whole 18.

191 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

192

South Carolina

Manning, SC (Santee Cooper Regional Airport—MNI) 803-478-5965 803-478-4760 fax

Royal Oakes Golf Club 803-478-7272 18 holes 2 miles from the airport Green fee $34.00

www

PIREP Located approximately 1–2 miles; call for transport. It’s also a good course, but has more sand than The Player’s Course at Wyboo Plantation.

of South Dakota Rapid City, SD (Rapid City Regional—RAP) 605-394-4195 605-394-6190 fax [email protected] www.rapairport.org

Rapid City Elks Golf Course 605-393-0522 18 holes 4 miles from airport Green fee $21.50 Cart fee $20.00

www

193 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Tennessee Cadiz, TN (Lake Barkley Airport—1M9) 270-924-1131

Boots Randolph Golf Course

wwww

800-295-1878 18 holes On the airport Green fee $25.00 Cart fee $11.00 www.kystateparks.com/agencies/parks/lakebark.htm PIREP Boots Randolph Golf Course adjoins the Lake Barkley Airport (1M9) in Tennessee. The course is part of a state park that also features a lodge with good food, boating, hiking and so forth. A state park van will pick you up at the airport and take you anywhere in the park you want to go. The golf course is a little flat, but fun.

195 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

196

Tennessee

Deerfield, TN (Deerfield—TN44) 423-566-0040

The Greens at Deerfield

www

800-458-8455 18 holes On the airport Green fee $35.00 http://www.deerfieldresort.com/website/homepage.nsf PIREP The Deerfield Resort is 8 miles east of JAX Jacksboro, TN. It has an outstanding 18-hole course that winds through the resort and mountains. Beautiful views and good food await while playing this very tough course. If you call ahead, they will pick you up in golf carts at the airport. Call them at 800-325-2788.

Mountain City, TN (Johnson County Airport—6A4) 423-727-1223 423-727-0194 fax

Roan Valley Golf Estates 423-727-7931 18 holes 2 miles from the airport Green fee $41.00

ww

PIREP Roan Valley Aviation, Inc., is the FBO at beautiful Johnson County Airport (6A4) in Mountain City, TN. A fabulous mountain course is only minutes away by courtesy car or other transportation, which will be arranged by FBO or pro shop. Base turn for rwy 24 is over the 7th hole! You will not be disappointed, and you will come back time after time. Excellent restaurant for sit-down dining (Suba’s) or super pork BBQ (Mike’s) between airport and course. Day’s Inn, too. Friendliest FBO and cheapest 100LL in East Tennessee.

Sevierville, TN (Gatlinburg–Pigeon Forge—GKT) 865-453-8393 865-453-8399 fax

Tennessee

Bent Creek Golf Course

197

ww

423-436-3947 800-251-9336 423-430-4361 fax [email protected] 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $54.00 Cart fee included http://www.sunterra.com/resorts/regions/resort.asp?resort_code= BCG®ion=Midsouth PIREP The Gatlinburg–Pigeon Forge airport is also a good location to fly in and fly out for a round of golf at Bent Creek Golf Course.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Texas Carrizo Springs, TX (Dimmit County—CZT) 830-876-9339 830-876-2967 830-876-5377 fax [email protected]

Carrizo Springs Municipal Golf Course 830-876-2596 9 holes On the airport Green fee $14.00 Rental clubs are available

www

Cuero, TX (Cuero Municipal—T71) 512-275-2607 512-275-5655 fax

Cuero Park Municipal Golf Course 512-275-3233

www 199

Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

200

Texas

9 holes Immediately adjacent to airport Green fee $7.50 Cart fee $7.50 Rental clubs are available PIREP Cuero Municipal Golf Course is right next to the airport. Walk over, pick up a cart, and drive it back for your clubs.

Decatur, TX (Decatur Municipal—8F7) 817-627-2855 817-627-1822 fax

Decatur Country Club 817-627-3789 9 holes semiprivate 1 mile away Green fee $15.00 Cart fee $15.00

ww

Dennison, TX (Grayson County—F39) 903-786-2904 903-786-9185 fax [email protected]

Grayson County College Golf Course 903-786-9719 903-463-5284 fax 18 holes On the airport Green fee $14.00

wwww

PIREP Our Golf Course is Grayson County College Golf Course, located at 56 Golf Drive, Dennison, TX 75020. Green fees: Regular: $10.00 weekdays & $14.00 on weekends and holidays Twilight: $7.00 weekdays & $9.00 on weekends and holidays Student: $7.00 weekdays & $9.00 on weekends and holidays Student twilight: $5.00 weekdays & $7.00 on weekends and holidays

Texas

201

Cart rental $9.00 per 9 holes Trail fee $7.44 daily Pull cart rental $2.00 Club rental $7.50 Range Small: 22 balls $2.00 Medium: 50 balls $3.50 Large: 70 balls $5.00 (report by Mike Shahan, Airport Director)

Gainesville, TX (GLE) 940-668-3755 940-665-6884 fax [email protected]

Gainesville Municipal Golf Course 940-668-4560 18 holes Across the street from airport Green fee $15.00 Cart fee $16.00 Rental clubs available

wwww

PIREP Just flew into Gainesville, TX and enjoyed some old-fashioned fly-in municipal golf. The city-operated FBO at GLE is clean. Gas is usually low priced. Just across the street, about one block, is the cityrun municipal golf course. Just walk across. Arriving late on two Sunday afternoons (after 6 PM CST) we had the course basically to ourselves both times with no tee times. The green fee was around $20 and included a cart. The course is a simple municipal style layout but definitely not just a links course. There is some character with the mature trees, and the greens are deceptively tough. Small and undulated, they make for accurate shots on approach. Bring your driver, because there are five par 5s and you can “let the big dog eat” with the wide-open fairways. Nice and rural. Upon leaving, GLE takeoff is no problem with the flat 100 ⫻ 5K runway on 17/35 with lights and good approaches; but check it out for yourself before TO/landing as any good pilot should.

202

Texas

Hilltop Lakes, TX (Hilltop Lakes—PVT) http://www.hilltoplakes.com/Airport.htm

Hilltop Lakes Resort

wwww

936-855-2100 18 holes On the airport Green fee $25.00 Cart fee $20.00 http://www.hilltoplakes.com/Golf%20Course.htm PIREP Hilltop Lakes Resort is part of the Golf Card International. You get two for the price of one on green fees. There is a well-stocked pro shop offering men’s and women’s clothing, caps, hats, visors, belts, and accessories, as well as balls gloves, clubs, bags, towels, and much more. Enjoy hot dogs on the patio overlooking the new putting green, fountain, and 9th hole. For more information, call Mona or Ruthie at the resort.

Horseshoe Bay, TX (4XS7) Landings are by reservation only. Please phone ahead. 830-598-6386 830-598-7798 [email protected]

Horseshoe Bay Resort Golf Course

wwwww

830-598-5541 54 holes On the airport Green fee expensive (and worth every penny) http://www.horseshoebaytexas.com/index.htm

PIREP This airport is private, with an NDB approach (Identifier 4XS7) and is northwest of Austin, TX. My wife and I flew in one Saturday. This is a very first-class place—we were picked up and taken to the marina restaurant, where we had a lovely meal. The country club has just about any activity: golf, sailing, water-skiing, and so on. There are three restaurants that are part of the resort complex. It’s fairly high dollar, though; lunch for two was about 30 bucks, and 18 holes of golf were $125 or so. Very nice amenities, and the airport is first rate.

Texas

203

PIREP Bring your golf clubs! Horseshoe Bay Resort is home to three Robert Trent Jones, Sr., golf courses, all distinctively different in style and degree of difficulty. So whether you’re a weekend warrior or among the few touring professionals, these courses will exceed your expectations.

Jayton, TX (Kent County—22F) 806-237-3373 806-237-2632 fax

Kent County Golf Course 806-237-4970 9 holes 5 miles from airport Green fee $7.00

w

Laredo, TX (Laredo International—LRD) 956-795-2000 956-795-2572 fax [email protected]

Casa Blanca Golf Course 956-724-1899 956-724-6460 fax Adjacent to airport

wwww

Lajitas, TX (17XS) 915-424-3471

Lajitas Resort and Golf Club 877-525-4827 [email protected] 18 holes www.lajitas.com

ww

PIREP Looking for something “different” for a fly-in? Try Lajitas On The Rio Grande. It’s located about 50 miles east of Presidio and about 20 miles west of Terlingua. It sits right next to the river. The main street has been constructed to look just like an old West town complete with hitching posts for your horse. There is an

204

Texas

old-time soda fountain and an assortment of clothing shops and art galleries. The hotel complex is called the Badlands. Accommodations range from replicas of the Calvary Post at Fort Davis to Town Houses. The pool has some of the coldest water in Texas, but when it’s afternoon in the desert in summertime, it feels wonderful. There are also raft trips along the river, some going all the way through Big Bend National Park. These trips can be arranged with one of the outfitters located on the edge of town. The scenery is rugged desert mountain, and the sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking. There are rental vehicles if you want to explore Terlingua ghost town or Big Bend Park. ANY trip to Lajitas MUST include the Old Lajitas Trading Post and Clay Henry. Clay is the famous beer drinking goat and former Mayor of the town. Go into the trading post and buy a long neck beer, hold it over the fence, and Clay will take it in his teeth and turn his head back and drink it down. Then he drops the empty and looks for the next customer. Make sure you take along a camera because your friends back home may not believe the story. The airstrip (17XS) is paved with a little loose gravel, about 4800 ft. in length. The owner of the property has a large open-sided hangar you can park under if he isn’t there. Check with the folks at the Badlands when you check in. There are plenty of tie-downs available, but no fuel. You can walk the short distance to the hotel, or a quick call on the unicom will bring someone to pick you up. Closest fuel is in Presidio at Lely International (TX07). The following URL will take you to a page with airport information and a couple of pictures of the area and the hangar http://www.eden.com/⬃tomzap/lajitas2.html. Our club, The West Texas Flyers, makes at least two trips there a year. It’s a great place; give the folks a call and set up your reservation for a most memorable trip. PIREP I would like to add that there is a very nice 9-hole golf course just over the hill from the main street in Lajitas. So bring your clubs if you get out that way. PIREP This course has a 4,777-ft paved private strip, which is affiliated with the Badlands Hotel, located 500 yards to the west.

Texas

205

Unicom 122.9, no VOR, no fuel, but has tiedowns. Latitude 29 degrees, 15 minutes, Longitude 103 degrees, 46 minutes. Hotel reservations 1-800-944-9907—they monitor Unicom and will send a car to pick you up. Good jumping off point for Rio Grande river tours.

Lakeway, Texas (Lakeway Airpark—3R9) 512-261-4385 for info (recording) http://www.3r9.org

Lakeway Inn & Resort

wwwww

512-261-6600 800-LAKEWAY 36 holes Adjacent to airport http://www.dolce.com/lakeway/lakeway_golf.html Green fee: This is a full-service resort. Check the website for packages. PIREP Lakeway is a community located 14 miles west of Austin in the gorgeous Hill Country of Texas. Activities abound year round including three golf courses at Lakeway Inn, fabulous tennis at The World of Tennis, and boating at Lakeway Marina. The inn has two dining rooms and facilities for conferences and individual retreats. They will pick you up at the Lakeway Airpark and drop you back off when you’re ready to leave. The golf courses and marina are open to the public, and rentals are available. Austin, the capital of Texas, is a short 15 miles to the west, although no rentals are available at the Airpark. Lakeway Airpark is a nonprofit, unmanned facility open from sunrise to sunset. 100LL self-serve fuel at $1.85 per gallon (selfserve credit card only) is available. There is a pay phone to call for transportation.

Navasota, TX (Navasota Municipal—60R) 409-825-7284

Navasota Municipal Golf Course 936-825-6410 936-825-6450 fax

www

206

Texas

Immediately adjacent 9 holes Green fees weekends $10.00; weekdays $12.00

Palacios, TX (Palacios Municipal—PSX) 512-972-2400 512-972-6555 fax

Palacios Golf Club

www

361-972-5947 Green fee $8.00 Cart fee $16.00 for two

PIREP They don’t get any closer to the tie-downs than this one. You’ll walk less than 50 feet. This is a long way from the best course you’ll ever play, but it is super convenient. Palacios Municipal Golf Course is a 9-hole executive (read par 3) setup, so you’ll be through in a hurry. Watch out for snakes—this is rattler country.

Spicewood, TX (Spicewood Airport—88R) 830-693-7707

Barton Creek Resort

wwwww

800-336-6158 512-329-4000 512-329-4597 fax [email protected] 72 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $125.00 http://www.bartoncreek.com/

PIREP Fly into Spicewood Airport 88R (formally Austin Air Ranch). Stay at one of several cottages at Barton Creek Lakeside, and play the 18-hole championship “Arnold Palmer” course (CCA). Call Kyle Day (830) 693-7101, for details.

Waller, TX (Skydive Houston Airport—3XS7) 409-931-1600

Texas

Waller Country Club 936-931-3335 936-931-3447 fax [email protected] 9 holes On the airport Green fee $10.00

207

www

PIREP There are two landing strips, one blacktop and one grass (the grass is better than 3,000 ft). It is located 30 DME west of Houston’s IAH outside of the Class B airspace. If you like golf, a 9-hole course is next to the runway, and membership is not required.

Weatherford, TX (Horseshoe Bend—F78) 817-594-6454

Horseshoe Bend Country Club 817-594-6454 9 holes On the airport Green fee $7.00 Cart fee $8.00

www

PIREP Horseshoe Bend Country Club Estates is mostly a weekend retreat and retirement community of mobile homes located 12 NM SW of Weatherford on the Brazos River. The FAA designator is F78. Latitude/Longitude: 32-22.48 N / 097-52-21.122 W, elevation 715, CTAF 122.9. I own a lot with a mobile home near the north end of the airstrip. The strip is mostly gravel with some grass. The club is about a quarter of a mile west of the airstrip. The airport is unattended; however, usually there is someone around the north end of the strip who will give visitors a ride to the club. The club also has a 9-hole golf course that is right off the north end of the airstrip. There is a large pecan tree on final approach to runway 17 as well as a TV antenna. On the south end is a rather large hill, but the runway is approximately 3500-ft long, so no problem. The club house restaurant opens at 7:00 AM and closes around dark. The menu

208

Texas

includes the normal things that golfers like: breakfast food, burgers, fries, club sandwiches, and the like. Horseshoe Bend is sometimes confused with Horseshoe Bay, which is located near Marble Falls, TX, in the hill country. The name is the only thing they have in common.

G-2 As you former military types know, G-2 is the intelligence section. No military operation can begin without some G-2, hopefully a lot of good, high quality info. Remember, situation is a key part of all preengagement five paragraph orders. Don’t start a golf round without gathering some intelligence, either. When you check in, pick up a score card immediately. Study it! A real CIA type will go online and pick up the score card there. With it you’ll learn about each hole, par 3, 4, or 5. Is it well trapped? Where are the traps? Sand or water? Is a dogleg involved? At what distance from the tee does the dogleg begin? Visit with the pro. He or she can tell you about pin placement. Is the course set up to play the exact distances shown on the score card? Probably not. Many clubs will provide you with a plus-minus list for each hole. The pins are moved at least once a week. Great scorecards will depict the green. The pro can clue you as to current pin placement. Discuss course conditions with him or her as well. When did it last rain? How much? Are the greens cut fast or slow?

209 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

210

G-2

What is the general course condition? Are there any course improvement or irrigation projects underway that will affect play? Are there any special club rules? Next stop is the practice putting green. Typically it will play faster than the greens on the course. The reason? It is constantly walked on, all over. This beats the turf down and lets the ball roll faster. Practice putting on real grass whenever you can. Never go to the driving range; you can learn nothing there. Next stop, the starter. The big question for him or her is how busy is the course and how speedy is the play? Are there plenty of marshals around to keep things moving? What if you get stuck behind a really rude, really slow foursome or are constantly being hit into by an overanxious following twosome? Is there a special number for the marshal, or do I use my cell to call the pro shop? The idea is to know what to expect. Is play going to be speedy, slow, or fast? You can easily adjust your attitude for any situation or be totally frustrated and unfocused by extremely slow play. Forewarned is forearmed! Many golf courses now have websites. You will find score cards, history of the club, photographs, and all kinds of other info. One of the things you will often find is a description of each hole written by the pro. These write-ups can be very helpful. With them, the scorecard, and the photograph, a course you have never played becomes an old friend by the time you get there. For pilots there are many other benefits from a website visit. Do they rent clubs? What kind? What sort of gear do they stock in the pro shop? You may decide to buy balls. Then all you need is your hat, your gloves, and your shoes. That makes the load even lighter.

of Utah Richfield, UT (Richfield Municipal—RIF) 435-896-8918 435-896-3053 fax [email protected]

Coveview Golf Course 435-896-9987 1 ⁄8 mile from the airport Green fee $6.50 Cart fee $7.00 Rental clubs available

wwww

211 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

Practice Session #1 If you have accepted the double bogey challenge, it’s time to get started. Find a far-off course, phone a golfing buddy, and fire up your ship. Weight and balance won’t be a problem for you because you will only be taking three clubs! Naturally the putter is coming along. Remember, half of the strokes on a regulation round are taken with the putter. The putter has a permanent place in your bag. I hope you’ve adopted the big hole putting techniques. They really will work for you. Bring your 7-iron and your 3-wood. That’s it. A 7-iron, 3-wood, and your putter. Keep track of how many times you use each on every hole. You can do it by making simple notations on your scorecard. At the end of the day you will notice that you used each club about one-third of the time, approximately 36 strokes, if you hit double bogey (108) on the nose. That’s a lot of practice with your 7-iron under varying conditions. Fairway shots, approach shots, chip shots, and probably a tee shot or two. That’s why we choose the 7 for this outing. It works well in a

213 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

214

Practice Session #1

variety of conditions and provides acceptable distance. Same for the 3-wood. It is a pleasure to hit off the tee or the fairway, yet it gives up only 15 yards to a driver hit, which can’t really be hit from a fairway. My game won’t notice that 15 yards—how about yours? Let’s spend a moment looking at average yardage for men’s clubs. This is based on the manufacturer’s design and years of field evidence: Driver 2-Wood 3-Wood 4-Wood 2-Iron 3-Iron 4-Iron 5-Iron 6-Iron 7-Iron 8-Iron 9-Iron

225 215 210 190 190 180 170 160 150 140 130 120

Those yardages are about 10 to 15 yards longer than I generally hit the clubs. It doesn’t matter; they are good averages for a proud range of players. The approximate distance and the relative information are the real keys to our tale. For the moment, let’s just use these numbers. Imagine a 400-yard par 4 that doglegs to the right someplace around the 150-yard marker. Tee off with the 3-wood. We’re using the above numbers as gospel, and we hit it straight, leaving 185 yards to the cup and 35 yards to the midpoint of the dogleg. Pull out the 7, and it goes 140 yards straight. The ball is now 45 yards from the cup, laying to the left of the fairway centerline but well inside the fairway. A decent 30-yard chip with the 7-iron, something that it can easily do, and we lay on the green 45 feet from the cup in three shots. Our intention is to be on the green in one over regulation. For this hole that would be two, so our three is perfect. Now we must sink the ball in three attempts from a starting point of 45 feet. Easily done using the big hole putting techniques. A par 5 would play out about the same way except we’d add a fairway wood shot. Let’s say the distance is 565 yards and doglegs to left near the 150-yard marker. A tee shot of 215 yards followed by a

Practice Session #1

215

fairway wood shot of an equal distance would leave us slightly to the right of the fairway centerline with 135 yards remaining. The trap pattern on this green won’t allow us to hit the 7-iron and let it simply run unto the green. The distance is right, the club length could handle it, but the loft is wrong for the trap. A 7-iron shot from the fairway can’t hold the green if it clears the trap in the air. So we will aim to the left of the green and chip on with our second 7-iron shot. A par 3 will be handled by our 3-wood or 7-iron from the tee, depending on the distance and trap pattern. Three clubs are an easy match for any course, if your goal is practice, consistency, and you have accepted the double bogey challenge. At the end of this day, you will have had plenty of practice with these three clubs. Your notebook should have noted a problem or two and the corrections you applied. You also had fun. The most controllable wood in any bag is the 3. The most versatile iron is the 7. The major problem that we encountered today was the loft of the 7. It won’t really hold a green if it hits it on the fly. For that we need a more lofted iron, the wedge or the 9. What’s your pick? A minor problem cropped up a time our two with distance. We really could have used something between the 215 yards of the 3-wood and the 140 yards of the 7-iron. The 180-yard distance of the 3-iron would be just about right. It fits in almost halfway between our two clubs. But what if you could only add one more club: would it be the wedge, the 9, or the 3? Each has its advantages. The 9 has wonderful loft and will hold a green. The wedge has excellent loft and will get you out of a sand trap or over a tree. It will stop almost where it lands yet within 10 yards of the 9’s distance. The 3 is a wonderful iron that will reach the green on the other side of the pond, which a 3-wood will overrun and a 7-iron will come up short and in the water. The 3-iron will come out of the short rough so much better than a 3-wood and can be a pleasure to hit out of a fairway bunker. Think it over. In Practice Session #2, I’ll fill you in on my pick.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Vermont Basin Harbor (Basin Harbor Airport—B06) 802-475-2311

Basin Harbor Resort

wwwww

800-622-4000 [email protected] 18 holes 200 yards from airport Green fee $42.00 http://www.basinharbor.com/index.shtml PIREP Another beautiful golf course that plays right off of Lake Champlain. Fly into Basin Harbor (grass strip), with a super landing coming in right over the lake. A quick 200-yard walk puts you right on a super 18-hole course with all the challenges a golfer would like. I flew up one Saturday around 12:00 PM, and I was one of the only people on the course. A hidden gem.

217 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

218

Vermont

Londonderry, VT (North Windham—3N3) 802-875-2517 802-875-2738 fax

Tater Hill Country Club

wwwww

802-875-2517 18-hole championship golf course, with pool, tennis, restaurant On the airport Green fee $72.00 Cart fee included Club rental $20.00

Practice Session #2 The idea of these practice sessions is to take as few clubs as possible so we maximize our practice experience with each during round of golf. In Practice Session #1, it was the 7-iron, 3-wood and, naturally, the putter. Each club was used 36 times for a total of 108 strokes. Once or twice, we came up lacking during our last round and wished for another club. The 3-iron, 9-iron, and pitching wedge were our choices. Which did you decide to add for this round? I mentioned earlier that my all-time favorite club is the 9-iron, but I didn’t choose it. The wedge looks right to me. When hit full-swing from the fairway, it will go 110 yards. That’s only 30 yards short of the 7 and 10 yards short of the 9. The wedge produces incredible backspin and will therefore stop almost where it lands. This, my friend, is a terrific benefit when coming over a sand trap to a landing on the narrow part of the green. It will stop where you aim it. Naturally, it will come out of the sand much better than a 9 and get you over those tall trees. For my money, it’s the wedge.

219 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

220

Practice Session #2

On a 185-yard par 3 guarded by a pond, the idea is to lag up close to the pond’s edge with your 7-iron rather than pop over the water with the wedge. Use the wedge to your advantage this round. If you are buried in the long stuff, this is the club to get you out. When I was a boy, my first set of clubs was sparse. It contained nowhere near the 14-club limit. I had the 3-, 5-, 7-, and 9-irons, a driver, and 3-wood, plus a putter. They did the job. If I had chosen, I would have gladly traded my trusted 9 for a wedge. At the end of today’s round, you’ll agree. Please make those notations and keep your scorecard. You’ll want to review it later to see what you might have done differently. Have you noticed how important your putter is? When you reviewed last session’s scorecard, did you notice that you did not hit each of the three clubs 36 times? Indeed, you used 54 of those 108 strokes with the putter alone, leaving 27 strokes apiece for the other two clubs. I hope your results were consistent with this double bogey challenge goal. Our new goal this week is to begin our march toward putting in regulation, two putts per green. Our wedge can help with this, as the closer we leave the ball to the cup from a pitch or approach shot, the less work for the putter. In big hole putting the objective with our first putt is to leave the ball within the imaginary 20-ft cup. That’s 10 ft from the hole— behind it, in front of it, to the left, or the right: it doesn’t matter because what’s important is that our first goal was to be left no more than 10 ft from the cup. If the chip or approach shot can handle that for us, then one putt has been saved. The objective for our next putt is still to end up within the 4-ft imaginary cup. That leaves only 1 ft for the final putt, on average, and no more than 2 ft. All that practice you have been doing in your office will start to pay off, not by making longer putts—that was never the goal—but by consistently sinking the short ones. The reason for choosing the wedge is to assist the putter. Naturally, you won’t get the ball within that magic 20-ft imaginary cup on every hole, but you will on some, thanks to the wedge. When chipping with a wedge, aim for the cup, and adjust your swing to loft it within 10 ft of it. Practice will get you to this result soon enough. The nice thing about the wedge is the backspin; it will stop where you drop it, well within a foot or two, anyway.

Practice Session #2

221

The 7-iron chips differently. Aim for a spot one-third of the way to the cup, and provide enough oomph to get it there and run the rest of the way. That’s the thing about chipping with the 7; once it starts running, it will brake just like a putt and will be very affected by the speed of the green. It’s not in the air but on the ground. Also, judging just the right amount of swing for the shot is difficult. Lots of practice is required to be a great 7-iron chipper. Be grateful you have a wedge.

This page intentionally left blank.

of Virginia Basye, VA (Bryce Mountain Resort Airport—W92) 540-856-2121

Bryce Mountain Resort

wwww

800-821-1444 18 holes On the airport Green fee $50.00 http://www.bryceresort.com/

PIREP Bryce Mountain Resort in Basye, VA, has a wonderful, public 18-hole golf course sitting right next to the airport (2400-ft strip, day operations only, no gas). They also have a ski slope right next to the airport, as well as restaurants and shops. It is pretty neat to fly in and then walk to everything on the resort. The private airstrip is open to visitors. Please call prior to landing at Bryce Airport. 223 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

224

Virginia

The information center located in the airport building has a telephone and restroom facilities. Someone will be on hand during regular business hours to help you with dining and activities information, golf tee times, and accommodations. It is an easy 250-yard walk to dining, skiing, golf course, and tennis. Location N38 degrees 48.957 W78 degrees 46.218 Radil 274 DME 26.6NM from LDN VOR Elevation 1263 ft Runway 05/23, 2240 ft ⫻ 50 ft, asphalt Pattern left, 2400 ft MSL Charts Cincinnati and Washington Information Daylight operations only VFR only No student solo No touch & go No fuel

Quinton, VA (New Kent County—W96) 804-932-3984 www.w96.org

The Golf Club at Brickshire 888-655-5263 [email protected] 18 holes 3 miles from airport Green fees $50.00 www.brickshire.com

www

Practice Session #3 For Practice Session #2 the choice of which club to add was difficult. The wedge won out as it was the optimum short iron to help our putting. This time we can choose either the 9 or the 3. The 9 will further help our short game, but the 3 will fill in the fairway options and give us a better second choice on the par 3s. Also, the 3 would let us take advantage of the fairway placement techniques we learned in the G-2 chapter. So that’s it. We’ll choose the 3-iron this time and add the 9 for Practice Session #4. Both will help our putting game but from different ends. The 3 will help us get closer to the green, so we can make more precision chips and fewer long and short approach shots. Later the 9 will add a third chipping alternative, and it will solve the short approach shot problem. The 7 has too little loft to hold the green; it hits and runs. The wedge is best for short approaches where a dead stop is desirable. Later the 9 will give us the loft of the wedge without the backspin landing. There are times when we need the ball to hit and roll forward a short way.

225 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

226

Practice Session #3

The 3-iron fixes the fairway bunker problem for us. It is rare that a ball will get buried in a fairway bunker. To get buried in a trap, a ball needs to be coming down from great loft, but teed clubs and long fairway clubs don’t provide it. Generally the ball will simply roll into the trap and sit on top of the sand. A 3-wood just doesn’t have the loft or weight to deal with sand. The moment a wood makes contact with sand it stops dead! The 3-iron continues to move, picking up the ball with it, just as it should. Problem solved. Off the tee the 3-iron is wonderful. It stays low initially rather like a wood, but then shows its iron heritage by attaining good loft. The arc on either side of its apex is similar, which provides acceptable run length after landing. It is truly a fairway iron, and that is its best venue. When the grass is cut just a little long or the dew is a little heavy, you’ll want the heft of the iron rather than the wood. The distance you lose will be given back with accuracy. It is so much easier to control an iron than a wood. Let’s now imagine a straight-ahead 420-yard par 4. Come off the tee with a 3-wood. It goes the prescribed 215 yards. If you hit the 3-wood again, you’ll run off the backside of the green. Go with the 7-iron, and you’ll be way short. The 3-iron will put you just in front of the green at 395 yards total for the two shots, with 25 yards to go, a perfect position for a precision chip. The 3-iron is just the ticket to set up the last iron shot to the green and lower the putter’s wall. What we’re really about now is holding our tee-to-green shots to one over regulation and reducing our putts to regulation. Two putts on each green moves you from double bogey to bogey golf. Getting to two putts per green from any point on the green will take years and years of experience and practice. Two putts from 10 ft away is already doable for those of us who putt with our feet up and our eyes closed at least once a day. Visualization actually works. Practice Session #4 will be more about precision chips and tactical approach shots. Practice Session #5 is about survival from the rough. In Practice Session #6 we’ll deal with filling out your bag and deciding which of the 14 clubs to use when.

of W ashington Bremerton, WA (Bremerton National Airport—KPWT) 360-674-2381 360-674-2807 fax www.portofbremerton.org

Gold Mountain Golf Complex 360-415-5432 360-415-6880 fax [email protected] 36 holes 5 minutes from airport Green fee $36.00

www

PIREP Probably the best fly-in golf course in western Washington is Gold Mountain with its two beautiful 18-hole championship courses just 5 minutes from Bremerton National Airport (see Bremerton on The $100 Hamburger website, http://www.100dollarhamburger.com, for its fly-in restaurant). 227 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

228

Washington

Although notifying them ahead of time is suggested, simply call the course from the airport and they’ll send someone over to pick you up for a ride directly to the clubhouse and your awaiting cart (360-415-5432; 206-464-1175, Seattle; 253-627-8904, Tacoma). Usually this ride entails entering the course through the back service entrance and taking the scenic route down the cart paths. When you’re done with your round, let them know and you’ll be whisked back to your awaiting chariot for the flight back home. Personally, I think the Olympic Course is one of the best courses in the state, especially for the price. Flying there just makes it all the more enjoyable.

Eastsound, WA (Orcas Island—ORS) Orcas Island Country Club 360-376-4400 360-376-7100 fax 9 holes A short cab ride away Green fee $22.00

www

PIREP Eastsound is in the beautiful San Juan Islands about 70 NM northwest of Seattle (more north than west) and 5 NM from the Canadian border. A 10-minute walk from the airport takes you to town, or you can call a taxi from the pay phone at the terminal. The number (376-TAXI) is posted in the pay phone, and I have heard they charge $3.00. For the golfers out there, the taxi service mentioned above is just as happy to take you to the Orcas Island Country Club. Reserve a tee time by calling ahead to 360-376-4400. The course is fairly close to the airport, and the owner may give you a ride from the airport if he’s not too busy. The cab ride is around $8.00. Say hello to Blacktop, the airport cat, before departing the Eastsound airport. Ensure that he hasn’t crawled into your plane when departing, as he has hitched more than one ride with unsuspecting pilots.

Washington

229

Chehalis, WA (Chehalis–Centralia—CLS) 360-748-1230 360-740-0954 fax

Riverside Golf & Country Club 206-748-8182 18 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $23.00

www

PIREP Riverside Golf & Country Club is west of airport. Within walking distance, very easy to play and walk.

Chelan, WA (Chelan Municipal—S10) 509-682-5976

Desert Canyon

www

509-784-1111 800-258-4173 509-784-2701 fax [email protected] 36 holes A few miles from the airport Green fee $85.00 http://www.desertcanyon.com/ PIREP Chelan, WA, in the eastern part of the state has a great little municipal course just a few miles from the airport. To get from the airport to the course, call 687-TAXI, and for just $5.00 you can get a ride. PIREP Another great golf outing at this airport is to drive 20 minutes south of the airport to Desert Canyon. It’s one of the top 10 (my opinion) courses in the state, on a hillside overlooking the Columbia. An added bonus—the pro is a pilot! Give him a call, he may be able to suggest transportation to the course and back.

230

Washington

Lopez, WA (Lopez Island—S31) 360-468-2131 360-468-4431 fax

Lopez Island Golf Club 360-468-2679 9 holes Adjacent to the airport Green fee $14.00

www

PIREP The municipal airport sits adjacent to a very nice-looking course. Although I did not play it, the distance from the transient ramp to the clubhouse is only a couple of hundred yards. The people in the clubhouse were very friendly when we asked them for directions to a Shark Reef Park, which is on the water about 3 miles south of the airport. The airport is a nice facility with tie-downs provided on a paved apron.

Lynden, WA (Lynden—38W) 360-354-5033 360-354-1460 fax

Homestead Golf & Country Club On the airport 800-354-1196 18 holes Green fee $40.00

wwwww

PIREP The signature 18th hole at Homestead is the Northwest’s only par 5 with an approach shot to an island green. PIREP Walk just 5 minutes north of Transient Parking, and you are at the Homestead Golf and Country Club (public welcome).

Mattawa, WA (Desert Aire—M94) 509-932-5403 509-932-5844 fax [email protected]

Washington

231

Desert Aire Golf Course

wwww

509-932-4439 509-932-5844 fax [email protected] 18 holes 1 ⁄4 mile from the airport Green fee $24.00 Cart fee $24.00 http://www.desertairegolf.com/ PIREP

Open year round with driving range and tennis courts.

PIREP I stopped at this well-maintained airport last Saturday after turbulence at 4,000 feet from 100° temperatures woke me up. Great golf course, 18 holes, near Columbia river with camping on river available. Restaurant is a 1⁄2-hour walk for great food, motel, and a Texaco station.

Olympia, WA (Olympia—OLM) 360-528-8079 [email protected] www.portolympia.com

Airport Golf Center

www

360-786-8626 [email protected] 9 holes On the airport Green fees $10.00 http://www.portolympia.com/airport_golf_entry.asp

This page intentionally left blank.

Practice Session #4 Precision chips and tactical approach shots go hand and hand. Think about the game of billiards. Each shot sets up the next shot. Golf is not a game of disconnected strokes either, when it is played thoughtfully. An approach shot is what the name implies, a shot taken to approach but not land on the green. It is by its nature a tactical shot. There will be one more iron shot to the green before the putting can begin. It is important to consider that precision chip shot before taking the approach stroke. If you could walk toward the green, reach in your pants pocket, pull out a ball, and place it in position for the chip shot, where exactly would you place that ball? Don’t start thinking about the approach shot until you can answer that question. Half the battle of making a great approach shot is knowing where you want it to land. Naturally, it is best to find the widest apron of the green that has no traps between you and the pin; no serious mounds, hills, or valley on the green between you and the pin; and is the shortest possible distance

233 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

234

Practice Session #4

between the ball and the pin. This is the spot you are looking for. But it must be reachable from your current fairway position. There are three clubs that work well to chip with: the 7-iron, the 9-iron, and the wedge. Actually, any iron in your bag will execute a chip shot, but one of these three will do it best. The wedge leaves little to chance if you judge the distance properly and hit it well. The ball will stop where it lands. But it can be an awful choice if the green slopes quickly away from the pin toward you. The tremendous backspin of the wedge can cause it to bite and roll back down the slope. No bueno! If the area between you and the pin is flat to uphill with no huge breaks, the 7 can be an excellent choice. It will land and run about twice as far as it has flown. For an uphill situation, I prefer the 7. The 9 offers a compromise between the two. Good loft to get you over any problem spots and a roll forward about equal to the flight distance. In other words, it provides loft without backspin and acceptable follow on roll distance. The tactical approach shot will be hit with the 7, 9, or wedge. The outcome of the shot is less certain with the 7 or 9 than with the wedge because of the roll after landing. If distance requires the 7, hit it. What else can you do? Simply bear in mind that some control will be lost. If there is a possibility of an unfavorable outcome, it maybe better to hit a shorter club like the 9 and rethink your chip position. Sometimes you just can’t get to the ideal spot for a precision chip. Life is filed with compromise. At least be aware that you are making one. Be in control!

of W est Virginia Davis, WV (Windwood Fly-In Resort Airport—WV62) 304-866-2142

Windwood Fly-In Resort

wwww

888-359-4667 18 holes On the airport Green fee inexpensive http://www.windwoodresort.com/ PIREP ally.

The resort has an 18-hole golf course that is available season-

235 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

This page intentionally left blank.

Practice Session #5 There are times to make a strategic retreat in order to attain final victory. I learned that many years ago in the Marine Corps. I don’t think my Marine instructors used the term retreat, though; I recall them saying an “advance to the rear.” Oh well, “a rose by any other name.…” In golf that pesky ball will sometimes find its way into the deep rough, behind a stand of scrub oaks. No way over them and little chance to get around them. Some players will perceive an opening, and hit it hard and hope. I am not one of those. You’re not in control at that point. Luck is! What’s the alternative? Easy, get back to the center of the fairway. How? Pull a long iron from your bag and use a quarter-swing “punch” shot to get there. Aim the ball in any direction that will keep you out of trouble, even if it must result in an “advance to the rear.” Be certain to hit the ball just enough to get you to the center of the fairway. It will be a tragedy to simply cross the fairway and be in the opposite rough!

237 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

238

Practice Session #5

Don’t let one bad shot result in two or more bad shots. Leave nothing to chance. Accept that you hit a bad tee shot and correct it. The easiest part of your recovery is lagging the ball back to the center of the fairway. That you can do. The hardest part is quickly adjusting your attitude. Don’t let one bad shot ruin this hole or, even worse, the entire round. Focus on the shots to come, not the ones already made. My advice is to make a quick note in your pocket golf journal or on the scorecard. Writing it down has a way of releasing me from having to recall the details of the unfortunate hit.

of W isconsin Beloit, WI (Beloit Airport—44C) 608-365-1971 608-365-2019 fax

Driving Range 608-365-1971 On the airport

ww

Delavan, WI (Lake Lawn—C59) 262-728-7900 800-338-5253

Lake Lawn Resort

wwww

800-338-LAKE [email protected] [email protected] 18 holes On the airport 239 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

240

Wisconsin

Green fee $32.00 Cart fee included www.lakelawnresort.com PIREP I am an Air Force pilot by occupation but most of my most memorable flights have been in search of those “$100 Hamburgers”! Lake Lawn Lodge in Wisconsin is listed in The $100 Hamburger, but what a great place for a romantic getaway. In fact, it was one of the first dates a girl and I went on when we just met. We rented a plane and flew into the airstrip, which is just across the street from the lodge. We had some wonderful ice cream, and played some mini-golf and even a sand volleyball game with another couple. They also have what looks to be a very fancy restaurant and hotel and a very nice golf course. I believe they also have boat and jet ski rentals, as the lodge is on a beautiful lake. I really think that girl must have liked that getaway because she married me not too long after that. I would recommend this getaway to all.

Grand Geneva Resort & Spa, WI (Grand Geneva—C02) 262-248-8811 800-558-3417

Grand Geneva Resort and Spa

wwwww

262-248-8811 800-558-3417 262-249-4763 fax [email protected] 36 holes On the airport Green fee $115.00 www.grandgeneva.com

PIREP Took my wife to Grand Geneva Resort and Spa (the former Playboy Club) for Valentines Weekend 1999. The strip (Grand Geneva C02, UNICOM 122.8, runway 2-22) is about 4100 ft and recently repaved and extended. FBO is 2 years old and offers free tiedown and shuttle to the resort (only about 300 yds away, though). The facility has everything for a great getaway weekend year round.

Wisconsin

241

During the summer, there are two golf courses—The Brute, which is 7200 yds long, and the Highlands, a links-style course. They look great but are pricey ($115 and $100, respectively, with cart) The resort also offers horseback riding, hiking, and mountain bike rentals. Winter offers a tiny downhill ski hill (hey, it’s the Midwest!) and cross-country skiing. There’s always a short trip into the town of Lake Geneva, with its shops and restaurants. Rooms at the resort start around $150, off-season. Suites are nice but considerably more. There are four good restaurants in the resort including Italian, steaks, seafood, and American café. The Red Geranium is within a mile of the resort and is good, too. They have a great spa facility with swimming, racquetball, tennis, basketball, weights and cardio, sauna and whirlpool, as well as massage and aerobics. Daycare and babysitting are available if you need to get away from the kids. We had a great (but expensive) time.

Park Falls, WI (Park Falls Municipal—PKF) 715-762-3971 [email protected]

Park Falls Country Club 715-762-4396 [email protected] 9 holes On the airport Green fee $14.00 Cart fee $12.00

www

Wisconsin Rapids, WI (Alexander Field South Wood County—ISW) 715-424-3737 715-424-3737 fax [email protected]

Newman’s Miniature Golf 715-421-1180 1 ⁄4 mile from airport

ww

This page intentionally left blank.

Practice Session #6 I once stood on the first tee box of a fashionable Country Club in Los Angeles and watched my cart partner for the round pull out his 3-iron. The hole was a 436-yard par 4 with a hard dogleg to the right just 80 yds before the green. In other words, it was a perfect situation to hit the longest club in your bag as best you could. A wood was indicated, but this man pulled out not even the longest iron in his bag. If the shot was hit very well, the result would be no better than 180 yards. He hit it. A near perfect 3-iron, beautiful to watch in flight. It landed exactly in the center of the fairway and rolled to a stop about 180 yards from the tee box. “Well done! But why that club,” I asked? The reply was perfect and very thoughtful. “I can hit that club consistently well. But my woods—sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.” The essence of club selection is just that: hit the clubs that work for you. In Practice Session #1 you carried just three clubs and got around the course perfectly well. Now you have 14 clubs in your bag. Some

243 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

244

Practice Session #6

work for you, and some don’t. Some are like your favorite pair of shoes—a pleasure to put on. Others are like shoes that are new to you and untried. They won’t cause blisters like new shoes, but they can ruin a round. But how will you ever master every club in the bag if you only use a few? Good question. Here’s the secret. Every now and then you get in a situation where you can hit your favorite club, in my case the 9-iron, but the distance away actually favors the 8. Bring out the 8. Take your time, focus, take a full practice swing. If it feels right, hit the 8. If it’s awkward, sleeve it and go with the 9. Try it again later. If the course isn’t crowded, place another ball and hit the 8-iron with it. Play the 9-iron shot, but gain practice with 8. Carry a club average distance sheet with you. Don’t try to memorize it. Later you will just know the information, but for now just carry the spec sheet. It’s in this book. Think about using the correct club for each shot. There really isn’t that much difference between hitting your 9-iron and your 8-iron. If you can hit the 7 and 9, you CAN hit the 8. Woods are different. The driver will bite you. It is a very difficult club. Yes, most of us can eventually really pound it. Every now and then we can make it go straight. Sometimes we will actually pound it and make it go straight at the same time, but not very often! Why bother with it? It will only carry 15 yards further than your 3-wood. That is a lot of risk for only 45 ft of extra distance. I truly advocate not even carrying a driver in your bag. I don’t. Instead, I carry an extra putter. Sometimes one of my putters works, and sometimes the other. Because half of my strokes will be putts, I’d rather be fully equipped. If that means not owning a driver, I’m in! For a similar reason I leave my 2-iron at home. Instead I carry a 5-wood. I am in love with that club. My 14? 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-Irons Wedge Sand wedge Putter #1 Putter #2 3-, 4-, 5-Woods These are the clubs that do it for me, day in and day out. Do I use them all constantly? Absolutely not! I use the 3-, 5-, and 7-irons; the

Practice Session #6

245

wedge; the 3-wood; and the putter. They’re my family. I play consistent bogey golf and am very happy with that. After all, in a great month I’ll play four times, maybe five. What does all this mean? For me it breaks down this way. Each time I go out I’ll hit the putter 36 times—not quite half the total strokes. Bogey golf is about regulation putting and one over getting to the green. Does it always work out that way? No! Often I am on a 3 par green in one. Do I then get a par? Sometimes, but often that shot that went on from the tee is a long, long way from the pin decidedly out of the 10-ft zone. So the chip shot that I didn’t use becomes an approach putt. If outside the 10-ft putting zone, my putting goal is to first get inside the zone. Once there I NEVER use more than two putts. I NEVER do! So that’s it, the end of the Practice Sessions. We leave them, having proven what we presupposed, straight shooting and consistent putting lead to golfing enjoyment. It really is an easy game. Turn off the TV. Stop watching Tiger and start playing the game!

This page intentionally left blank.

of W yoming Afton, WY (Afton Municipal—AF0) 307-886-3245

Valli Vu Municipal Golf Course

ww

307-885-3338 [email protected] 9 holes Adjacent to airport Green fee $9.00 Cart fee $8.00 http://dns1.silverstar.com/⬃vallivu/

Thayne, WY (Star Valley Ranch—PVT) Seasonal airstrip

Star Valley Ranch Golf Course 307-883-2669 [email protected]

wwww

247 Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

248

27 holes On the airport Green fee $40.00 Cart fee $18.00 http://www.starvalleywy.com/svra/golf.htm

Wyoming

About the Author John F. Purner (Longwood, FL) is an avid pilot, aircraft owner, and golfer. His $100 Hamburger web site, the origin of this book, was awarded the top rating from Plane & Pilot magazine.

Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.