Golf and related musings

I don't think anyone has started a thread relating to this (and I understand some do not like and cannot stand the sport), however I thought I'd start a thread for any golf fans. Whether it be those that follow or those that play (hackers or otherwise) would love to share thoughts.

 

For me, I'm loving following things in the US over the last couple of months and with Augusta now here and a few Aussie on show its going to be an exciting ride.

 

Matt Jones pulled off an amazing win this morning - a 46 foot putt on 18 to force a playoff and then a 38 metre chip in to win the playoff - just awesome.

Johnsons form is amazing.. landing the major would be a fairytale for him for sure.

Great 3 wood by Smith into the 18th. Scott seems a lot happier with Williams on the bag. Luckily not long till the British where Aussies seem to do really well.


Equal leader going into the final round and then having 3 finish in the top 10 and another 2 in the top 20 was a great effort at the US Open. If we outdo at The Open it will be a super effort.

Johnsons form is amazing… landing the major would be a fairytale for him for sure.

Great 3 wood by Smith into the 18th. Scott seems a lot happier with Williams on the bag. Luckily not long till the British where Aussies seem to do really well.

Smith stiffed it to about 6 inches on 18 for the easiest eagle. Great week by him.

Dusty blew another major. A bigger choke than Scott at the British a few years back.

Apart from this, maybe for those that play regularly or not, we could post something like the following:

 

Last round played:

Best score (for 9 or 18):

Handicap (ever had one?, current?):

Best moment on the course:

Your Jean van de velde moment on the course (most embarrasing):

 

For me:

 

Last round played: Christmas, Growling Frog

Best score: for 9 - 45, for 18 - 102

Handicap: never had one

Best moment on golf course: i'll come back to this one

Most embarrasing: the last I remember is taking 4 shots to chip onto the green in front of ground staff on the 18th at Yarrambat...

Last round: Last Thursday

Best score : 67 at metropolitan golf club

Handicap: got down to 2 once but mainly hovered around 3-5

Best moment on course: Nailing a 60 foot birdie put to win my match in senior pennant and sending my club to division 1 for the first time in history.

Jean van de velde moment: playing in a tournament and getting so drunk that I had a fresh airy on the first tee the next day. I sobered up quick and shot a 76 though. I did have to shout the 20+ people who saw me miss the ball though

a good walk ■■■■■■ right up

Not if you play in cart

Masters coverage on free to air.

 

 

 

Par-3 Contest  Thursday April 10 4.45am - 7am  LIVE 7mate

Round 1  Friday April 11 4.45am - 9.30am  LIVE 7mate

Round 2  Saturday April 12 4.45am - 9.30am  LIVE 7mate

Round 3  Sunday April 13 4.45am - 9am  LIVE 7mate

Round 4  Monday April 14 3.45am - 9am  LIVE 7mate

 

Looking forward to Masters over the next few days - and its on free to air which is great.

 

So Sunday evening, Paris Roubaix road race is on from 9:30 till 1:30am on sunday morning and then the golf from 4:45... not sure how this will work.

I'm a bit of a golf fan, looking forward to the Masters starting tomorrow. I play it a bit but not as much as I need to to be any good at it. The last round I played was NSW GC, I won't even mention the score, it was particularly windy that day...that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

I traveled over to the Olympic Club in 2012 for the US Open, great week in a great city.

Top of my bucket list is to play 36 at Augusta. You would need 18 holes as a sighter before trying to have a crack.

I’ve played golf for about 30 years now. Got my handicap down to a low of 12, was a member at Pittwater and Rosny Park (both southern Tas)

Unfortunately I broke my right hand quite badly 4 years ago, and am still working the kinks out: I use an interlock grip, and the amount of torque that a good swing puts on my right hand can get a little painful. And I’ve not played on a course since moving up here 18 months ago.

Best score: 68 off the stick at Rosny Park (public course, was always in a shit condition)

Best moment: driving the green on a 340m Par 4 and nailing the 4m eagle putt, then putting the ball through the green on the next Par 4 (355m)

Top of my bucket list is to play 36 at Augusta. You would need 18 holes as a sighter before trying to have a crack.
I've played golf for about 30 years now. Got my handicap down to a low of 12, was a member at Pittwater and Rosny Park (both southern Tas)
Unfortunately I broke my right hand quite badly 4 years ago, and am still working the kinks out: I use an interlock grip, and the amount of torque that a good swing puts on my right hand can get a little painful. And I've not played on a course since moving up here 18 months ago.
Best score: 68 off the stick at Rosny Park (public course, was always in a **** condition)
Best moment: driving the green on a 340m Par 4 and nailing the 4m eagle putt, then putting the ball through the green on the next Par 4 (355m)

That's second on mine, top is Pine Valley NJ, I need to see why it's number one

Mairead Bilton-Gough published on 14/04/2014

Darius Oliver, one of the world‘s most authoritative voices on golf course design and architecture, took some time out to update us on the construction progress of the Cape Wickham golf course on the picturesque King Island.

Darius said the most challenging aspect of the project so far has been the vegetation on the island. 

“A lot of golf courses measure earth moving by how many cubic metres of earth and material they move, but this one would be insignificant if it wasn‘t for the vegetation stripping,” he said. 

“It‘s a big course with lots of wide fairways; because it gets windy here the fairways are very wide, so lots of vegetation was stripped. But not a lot of earth was moved, it was the vegetation stripping that was a big job,” said Darius.

cape%201%20green%20edit.JPG


He explained that rocks were also an issue on the site,  â€œIt‘s a sandy site, so it was pretty much just strip away the vegetation, shape it up a little bit, seed it, and you‘re good to go. But there were a few areas like Hole 4 where we hit rock, so we needed to sand cap that.

“On Hole 13 that we‘re doing at the moment, there was a whole bunch of rock there as well, and a couple other areas where we had to manipulate the land. But otherwise it‘s a pretty natural golf course,” he said.

Darius explained the project has only four holes left that aren‘t finished, with another two that are almost completed, but haven‘t been grassed for an interesting reason. 

“There‘s shearwater birds nesting on a few holes so we cant get in there and clear the vegetation and build the holes until those birds are gone. Holes 12 and 16 in particular, and a little bit of hole 15, we can‘t touch really, so we‘re just waiting for the birds to go before we finish them,” he said.

cape%202fway2%20edit.JPG


The Cape Wickham project began at the end of June last year, but was first approved in 2011 explained Darius. 

“We spent about 18 months going through the whole approval process and dealing with the Parks and Wildlife Department in Tasmania and the King Island Council, to get approval to build where we‘re building and do what we‘re doing,” he said.

“So when that finally came through at the end of June last year, that‘s when they finally broke ground and we‘ve sort of being going flat chat ever since then.” 

cape%2010fway2%20edit.JPG


As with any large project like this, the plans changed from what they were at the outset, however Darius said this was definitely for the best.

“We had a couple of versions of it, but the final plan that got approved is the best golf course. 

 â€œWe had a plan to start with to see if we could get a golf course on the crown land, the head land, and when it turned out we could we changed it a bit. Then we decided we would go through this routing process and now we‘ve got what we think‘s the best routing possibly on this property, and that‘s the routing that was approved.

He continued, “But even then, there have been other changes to it as there are always with projects like this, because you uncover things as you move the ground around and you move the vegetation, you find something a little bit different and something better.

“17 green in particular I think is the most noteworthy change because the green was originally going to be higher up but now it‘s down close to the water. It‘s very spectacular down near the water. And 13 green also changed and 7 green is completely different to the plan,” he said. 

%20cape%201green3%20edit.JPG


Mapping it out, Darius said that essentially there‘s three parts of the golf course.

“There‘s three different land forms and the first one is the Cape Farewell headland, which is where Holes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are. Then there‘s also the dune land to the south of Cape Farewell which is Holes 6 to 13, and then Holes 14 to 18 are in the Lighthouse/Victoria Cove area,” he said.

Work started on the Cape Farewell land, explained Darius, but with a rough winter came several setbacks.        

“We stripped and started clearing and we were working on those bunch of holes at really the wrong time. Last winter was extremely brutal here, with the wind and the rain, and those areas got hammered,” he said.

“We lost a lot of time having to redo things because of flash flooding or the wind.

“But once those first five were done, if you think about the order of the holes, it sort of went all over the shop.” 

Holes 14, 17, 18 and 8 were next in line, and were soon followed by 7, 10 and 11, he said. 

cape%207tee%20edit.JPG


Darius explained around nine full time construction workers are on site every day, both building and maintaining the golf course.

“At the moment the most important is the maintenance aspect really,” he said, “Cutting fairways, fertilizing, doing all the maintenance stuff on all the existing holes that are finished so they keep in good condition.”

With the course set for completion at the end of June or early July, Darius expressed his keenness to get out on the course.

“The whole course will be finished by mid July at the latest, and then it will just be growing in.

“It looks so magnificent at the moment, the fairways are beautiful, the greens are green, and everything looks like it‘s ready to go.

“The issue is the holes were seeded in September and they‘ve taken this long to get perfect, so we won‘t finish until everything is right, but sometime mid next year it‘ll certainly be playing,” he said.

You can check out hole by hole construction progress here, with a range of before and after photos.

http://www.turfmate.com.au/article/2097/cape-wickham-nears-completion

 

I wouldn't mind checking out this course but I'm not a fan of those small planes, especially flying over there.

I've flown direct to Barnbougle a couple of times in those little planes with no issues. It's so good rocking up to the "airport" 5 minutes before the flight and just jumping straight on the plane

finally a use for king island.

 

barnbougle is an hours drive but my golf esteem is not worth it.

Won a golf glove for nearest the pin.

Three putted.

1 Like

The Players championship is currently on with a number of Aussies playing.

With the right results up to 4 different players could take over the number one golf ranking from tiger woods. At the start of the tournament Adam Scott was in pole position to do this with him needing only a top 16 finish.

After round one he was 5 over - 14 shots off the lead and 9 shots off the top 16.

He’s now finished his second round in 5 under birdieing 3 of the last 4 holes to be even and should now make the cut. He is now only 12 shots off the leader and 5 shots off the top 16.

The Aussie to be no. 1 was Greg Norman.

The Players championship is currently on with a number of Aussies playing.

With the right results up to 4 different players could take over the number one golf ranking from tiger woods. At the start of the tournament Adam Scott was in pole position to do this with him needing only a top 16 finish.

After round one he was 5 over - 14 shots off the lead and 9 shots off the top 16.

He’s now finished his second round in 5 under birdieing 3 of the last 4 holes to be even and should now make the cut. He is now only 12 shots off the leader and 5 shots off the top 16.

The Aussie to be no. 1 was Greg Norman.

Love the game and am obsessed with it though I haven't hit a ball in. wait for it, 3 years! Am hoping my 2yo picks it up so we can spend some quality daddy-daughter time on the course. Its an incredible game to play with your kids from what I have been told.

 

NEVER broke par. Closest (and its a relative term) I came was 81 at a course in Malaysia once. Everything I hit turned to gold that day.

 

Had a fair few centuries apart from that one!

I fluked a hole in one as 12 year old playing on a course in the Canadian Rockies. It looked like golf might be my sport.

I reckon in the proceeding 20 years, I’ve barely ever made the green in one. Somehow, I was a better golfer at age 12.

Awesome game, but also a c*nt of a game.