Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Mt Kum Gang NK
When is a golf tournament not just a tournament? When it's in North Korea
Mao Zedong's 'ping-pong diplomacy' thawed Chinese-US ties. Could Kim Jong-il's 'golf club diplomacy' do the same for North Korean-US relations?
Call it "golf club diplomacy." North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s latest charm offensive involves a golf tournament, open to one of his country’s rarest sights: outsiders.
Mr. Kim may well be taking a page from 1971. That's when Mao Zedong, then leader of Communist China, famously invited American table tennis players to his country for a series of matches against local stars of the game. The move, later labeled “ping-pong diplomacy,” led to a thaw in Chinese-US relations.
North Korea's latest attempt at detente – the use of golf to entice a new branch of tourists – represents a departure from decades in the shadows as a notorious recluse. Desperate for foreign currency amid a cut in aid and reportedly crippling food shortages, the unlikely quest for foreign visitors, say observers, will mean striking a balance between tapping the market of adventure tourists and ensuring the visitors gain as little access to locals as possible.
As for the kind of experience tourists can expect? Ian Garner, tournament director, paints a more surreal picture of the course environment.
“The golf course wasn't designed as well as courses on the amateur circuits in Europe and
Friday, September 30, 2011
Diaries
Wife's Diary:
Tonight, I thought my husband was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a nice restaurant for dinner. I was shopping with my friends all day long. So I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment on it. Conversation wasn't flowing, so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk. He agreed, but he didn't say much.
I asked him what was wrong; He said, 'Nothing.' I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset? He said he wasn't upset, that it had nothing to do with me, and not to worry about it. On the way home, I told him that I loved him. He smiled slightly, and kept driving. I can't explain his behavior I don't know why he didn't say, 'I love you, too.' When we got home, I felt as if I had lost him completely, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat there quietly, and watched TV. He continued to seem distant and absent. Finally, with silence all around us, I decided to go to bed. About 15 minutes later, he came to bed. But I still felt that he was distracted, and his thoughts were somewhere else. He fell asleep; I cried. I don't know what to do. I'm almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else. My life is a disaster.
Husband's Diary:
A four putt; who the hell four putts?
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Moses, Jesus, & the Old Man
Mojžíš, Ježíš a starý pán spolu hrají v nebi golf. Mojžíš zahajuje hru. Usadí míček, míří k jamce za jezírkem a odpálí. Míček letí a padá do jezírka. Mojžíš však zvedá hůl, vody se rozestupují a míček se po vodním dně dokutálí na břeh, dva metry od jamky.
Ježíš nechce zůstat pozadu. Připraví míček a střílí stejným směrem. Ale i jeho míček se pomalu snáší na hladinu jezírka. Ježíš zvedá svou hůl a míček se po dopadu na vodní hladinu, navzdory přírodním zákonům, po hladíně dokutálí ke břehu. Zastaví se metr od jamky.
Na řadě je starý pán. Ledabyle ťukne do míčku a ten se odrazí doprostřed jezírka. Tam se zázračně odrazí a letí k nebi. Letadlo nad golfovým hřištěm ho odpinkne na dálnici. Míček se zařadí do levého pruhu a předjede tirák s návěsem. Odbočí zpět k hřišti, proletí branou, po cestičce se dokutálí k jamce a spadne přímo do ní.
Mojžíš se nakloní k Ježíšovi a zašeptá: „Já opravdu nerad hraju golf s tvým taťkou!"
Moses, Jesus and the old man are playing golf in heaven. Moses startedthe game. Settle the ball goes to the hole for the pond and explodes. The ball flies and falls into the lake. Moses, however, raises the rod, the watersplits the ball after the water bottom dokutálí ashore, two feet from the hole.
Jesus wants to be left behind. Prepare the ball and shoots the same direction. But the ball slowly to the surface suffers lake. Jesus raised his stick and ball after impact on water levels, despite the laws of nature, the surface dokutálí to shore. He stops three feet from the hole.
At least, the old man. Casually taps the ball and it bounces off the middle of the lake. There is miraculously bounces and flies to heaven. Airplane over the golf course odpinkne him on the highway. The ball shall be placed inthe left lane and overtake tirák with a semitrailer. Turns back to theplayground gate flips after the dokutálí path to the hole and fall right into it.
Moses to Jesus leans and whispers: "I really do not like to play golf withyour dad!"
Sunday, September 4, 2011
The Key to Putting: Not Thinking
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904716604576544542323806566.html
Dave Stockton suddenly seems to be the "it" instructor on the subject of putting. Current or recent students include Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Matt Kuchar, Adam Scott, Yani Tseng and Suzann Pettersen. But he's actually been teaching other pros for years—just more quietly.
"In those days, I just wanted to play. I didn't want people coming up all the time and asking me questions. So when I worked with someone, I'd tell them, 'You don't owe me anything, I just want you not to tell anybody that I helped you,' " he told me this week.
He advocates minimal attention to mechanics, no practice strokes and rolling the golf ball smoothly, like an artist applying paint to a canvas. His most successful early student was Annika Sörenstam. She credits
Monday, August 15, 2011
GCP #5 new Tee
New tee at Golf Club Praha, #5 . . . it’s been there for a few years, anyway, but never used . . .
Played it first time yesterday . . . instead of a 6 or half5, I hit a full 3iron, against the wind, uphill, to an awkward angle . . .
From the normal tee, 145m, 4m higher elevation, it’s a much friendlier approach: if you land right, the slope will pitch you back onto the green, maybe . . . as before left is just death.
Apparently they’re changing the green contours, too, making it peanut shape instead of bean shape, so I was in the enlarged fringe, on the big slope leading to that back tier. Whoa!
Hole was ‘pretty’ hard before, now it’s a bear . . . and I think, design-wise, a sorta breather is a nice consideration after the Big Bear of a par 5 #4.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Prazsky Pohar - 3rd Round - Hostivar
Well, so first, I have to do a little housekeeping . . .
Round 2 at Hodkovicke was not a success for me . . . 49-49=98 in the rain, but the rain wasn’t what bothered me . . . just miserable putting . . . I wisht I could blame it on the rain and the sub-standard greens, but I tho’t the course conditions were good. Good enough to make me regret some of the harsh things I said last time about Hodkovicke . . . it’s still mostly flat, but it’s a good muni-quality course . . . there weren’t as many mosquitos this time and I was ready for ‘em anyway, so let’s just say it: Dave’s putting sucks, and when Dave’s putting sucks, he doesn’t score . . . no matter how close he gets . . . missed a 3 footer for par on #4 that told me all I needed to know . . . I didn’t really total it up, but easily 8 or 9 3putts, and a slew of missed, makeable 1 putts . . . wound up with 26 stableford points so not a total disaster, but . . .
I had my first birdie in a coon’s age on #18 . . . a 250m par 4 with a green heavily bunkered, enuff so that I don’t feel tempted to let the big dog out . . . I hit 5wood both times around . . . first time: popped it up into the right rough; caught a flyer on my approach, to the back of the green; 3putted from there . . . SOP . . . 2nd time: gravitated a 5wood high down the middle to 30m short of the green; popped a 1/3Sw onto the front of the green that rolled right by the cup . . . I tho’t it might go in; finally made that one knee-knocker (3ft) for my birdie . . . No Indignity Too Small, that’s what I always say . . . 8^D . . . I did also play the par 5 #8 perfectly the first time thru, but missed the birdie with a putt from the fringe a foot and a half to the left . . . jeebus . . .
Anyway . . . today . . . took two busses to get to Hostivar . . . the change didn’t go well . . . first bus was late or something, so I calculated that the next bus would get me there with minutes to spare, so still ok, that’s the margin I had allowed for . . . unfortunately . . . I had selected the wrong stop . . . I jumped off according to my plan, but quickly recognized that I was not at the right place, from the prior visits . . . so I desperately hoofed it down the street to the next busstop, hoping it would be where I wanted to be . . . so I had a nice warmup of a 1 klic hike before my round . . . 8^) . . .paid for the tournaj expeditiously, tended to Nature’s Call, stripped off my rain suit, since the sun was coming out, and huffed up to the first tee, Howdied everbody, the starter said ‘You go first, and I was ready . . . but as I headed to the tee, the punk starter said, “And next time, please come earlier!” . . . .
I didn’t turn around, just went ahead, but I said, “Dude, I missed my bus.” Then hit a jaw-dropping majestic drive down the left side . . . didn’t bother me . . . and he STFU . . . I was partnered with a couple of Czech natives and another woman . . . couldn’t have been better company . . . they spoke very good English (even if somewhat limited), and were just very amiable. On the second hole, after I blasted another drive 50m past the pack, the other woman Anna told me, “You must be a very good golfer!”
“Well,” I demurred, “I play sort of an American Game, you know, long on power and short on strategy” . . . 8^) . . . “If I could putt,” I added, ‘I *would* be dangerous!”
“Dangerous?” she guffawed . . . hadn’t heard that sorta English afore, I guess . . . 8^) . . .
And that was the story of this round, Big Drives Down The Middle, pretty good Approaches, miserable short game & putting . . . wound up with a 41-43=84, and I *know* I had 4 3putts a side . . . I don’t think I had any 1putt pars (and no birdies) . . . so this duffer cain’t complain about 84 . . . but D-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-d-e, I’d had a 37 on the front without those 3putts, and on the back, I finished double-bogey, par, and quadruple-bogey in a flurry of bad-putting and club-throwing-temptations . . .
This lowered my handicap to 14.7, which means I am gonna have to fix that putting our I’m gonna be a perpetual also-ran . . . .and now that I’ve won 3 of the last 4 tournaj I’ve entered, I kinda got usta winning, if you see how I mean . . .
My prizes for this tournaj win were a cute little trophy, a blotto of slivovice, a coupon for a couples treatment at a beer spa (if you’ve ever heard of such a thing), a book of golf tips (in czech, natch), and, OH! a sleeve of golf balls . . . I put ém with my other balls in my bag and forgot . . .
Now comes the weird part . . . I won the B-flight first leg of the Prazsky Pohar, because my dilatory play over the last year-and-a-half had raised me to 18.1, and the cut-off for A-group was 18 . . . I knew this was gonna cause problems . . . 8^D. . . so after that round (81 strokes / 46 stableford points ) my handicap was lowered safely into the A-flight to 15.1 . . .so I was competing in the A group for the next two rounds, and they award the Prague Cup based on the total number of stableford points *in your flight* . . . even after the scores were in, they didn’t make any announcements for over an hour, and I figger it was me causing the consternation . . . I do feel kinda robbed . .. cuz all I got was a 2nd place cup for B-Flight, because there was some sand-bagger that did the same thing from C to B that I had done from B to A, if you see how I mean . . . 8^D . . . another weird thing is he sits about 10 feet away from me in my office, in different groups, so I didn’t know him, never talked to him, but he got the giant 1st place trophy for B-Flight, while some young flatbelly I know from Motol got the 1st place in A-Flight . . . 8^D . . . my prize for that is the very nice smaller sized cup and some coupons for free rounds at the 3 courses of the Prazsky Pohar. . . .aint’ that sumthin’ . . .
Then on #6, I just wanted to point out the only major change I had seen on the course... they've converted that bunker on the right side of the green from a very unusual feature that I liked: an outcrop of stone . . . if you miss that green right, that's a devil of a bunker they tell me, but if you had hit that stone work your ball might've caromed any direction 50 m . . . I know mine did . . . 8^D
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