Thursday, May 29, 2008 Chiongbian: Golfing in the rain By Edgar R. Chiongbian Teetime
IT’S raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring. Rain, rain, go away and come again another day, before the old man bumps his head and cannot get up in the morning.
April showers are lingering and may continue till June. And then the rainy season really comes. I guess that’s the breaks but we shouldn’t be worrying about that, as long as there are no earthquakes or tsunamis in our land, right? YEAH!
Playing golf in the rain is no fun unless you’re a kid because they certainly love to play in the rain. I know I did and so did my friends. When I was in the US, I would love to go outside when it snows and play so hard, not realizing that the featherweight snow was actually very heavy; on your arms, legs, body and would take a whole day to recuperate.
I even played winter golf in New Jersey with my diehard golfing buddies and that was the worst experience that was worth the experience. Four hundred yard drives that go everywhere because of the icy fairways and your hands feeling the ache every time you hit the golf ball because the ball becomes hard like a rock. And that is assuming you can grip the golf clubs with your frozen fingers. Chips that run over the green almost always and putts that won’t stop unless you hit the hole. Now I know from experience that I will not do it again.
This whole month has been a solid time for the youngsters who are out of school for the summer, to enjoy and learn a very balanced jungolf program under the direction of CCC jungolf chairman Jovi Neri. In this past week the Vis-Min Jungolf tournament (Visayas portion) was held at Mactan Island GC and Cebu Country Club. There were boys and girls everywhere with their nannies in tow and nervous parents eagerly watching and hoping their kids play good, if not win.
Then came the weekend that was culminated with the junior-senior golf tournament with the dads and granddads working hard on the golf course partnered with their sons, daughters or grand children. This is the sport of golf where the very young and the never old can successfully play together without prejudice. This is when the short legs of the young juniors keep pace, and in harmony with the weak legs of the older seniors, hahaha.
Eking Jereza played golf last Sunday with his son, Joe Suaco and Ariel Cruz, and obviously they did not join the junior-senior tournament. So the inevitable happened, his son made a hole-in-one on the 13th hole. No frills, no frenzy, just a nice pat in the back from dad. My problem with this is that we learned about it soon as they got to the clubhouse and I still had to pay for my own soft drinks. No small treat from Eking, the COB of USP?
Do you know when the best time is to play golf? It’s when something is bothering you so all you can think is to get a good score or a good game, and you already have a built-in excuse if you don’t. So why do golfers keep coming back when it is less than 50/50 chance of having a good game? It’s because golfers can only remember the good shots not the bad ones.
Clifford Celdran, the new CCC GM has everyone working at an even pace and in a very short time the greens are in excellent shape from whatever it was before. Areas that needed some work and clean up are being done by visually working workers. We can see and know the difference.
GOLF TIP. If you are having trouble with putting, you can try the Jack Nicklaus method. Focus directly over the target line on your address with the back of your left hand facing the hole. Swing the putter back with the right hand doing all the work and the left hand serving only as a guide.
On the forward stroke, use the hands similarly with the right hand doing most of the hitting and the left keeping the clubhead on line. It’s important that the left hand continues to guide through impact. If it stops too soon, the putt will be misdirected.
The main idea is have a nice stroke that has fluidity between the hands and the putter. Sustain a constant pace and tempo, using the length of the backswing to match the force of the stroke and length of the putt.
