Corporate Golf Services

Barb Hanson

There are a million excuses for not playing well. The weather was too hot. The hole locations were too hard. The course was in poor condition. You didn’t sleep well the night before. You were distracted by someone or something, etc. etc. etc. We’ve all heard something similar. Better players don’t make excuses. They focus their energy on playing the best they can under the conditions of the day. In golf, as in life, there are things you can control and things you can’t control. You can’t control the weather, the condition of the course, the hole locations, other players, the pace of play ahead of you, lies, breaks or shots you’ve already played. You can control your attitude, your temper, your diet, your warm-up, your readiness to play and your strategy. Learn the difference between these two things and then focus your energies on what you can control.

The people of Japan had no control over the earthquake or the tsunami. Nor do they have any control over the nuclear crisis. Please help!

Look ahead, not behind. This phrase applies to more than one area of golf.

First of all it’s very important in maintaining a good pace of play. The location of the group behind you is not important. The location of the group ahead of you is. You should be within a shot or two of the group ahead or YOU are playing too slowly.

Secondly, you can’t do anything about the shot you just made. The only shot that’s important is the shot you are about to make. Put the best possible swing on each shot and after that, what happens happens. Move on and look ahead.  As a friend of mine told me, “Pick up your bag and walk to your ball.” That’s all you can do.

Barb Hanson

It happened again. I played a new course that boasted “a tee for every game,” but there was no tee for me. This seems to be happening a lot especially with newer courses. There’s a forward tee somewhere between 4800 and 5000 yards. Then the tees lengthen to 5900 or 6000 yards followed by 6200, 6400, 6600 and maybe a championship tee close to 7000 yards.

I’m a 10-handicap who would like more length than 5000 yards. Something between 5400 and 5700 would be nice. But several times this summer I’ve had to “design my own course” in order to play a course that I find enjoyable.

I feel like the golf course architects are skipping a whole segment of golfers when they set up tees as described above. If men get a choice of 4 or 5 different lengths, shouldn’t women get at least 2 choices?