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2 Jul 2014 Corina Pelloni

PINEHURST PROVES LUSH IS NOT A NECESSITY

There was a lot of brown showing in the recent U.S. Opens hosted at Pinehurst #2, along with several weeds around the edges of the course. On television, it looked a little ragged compared to most American golf courses that host tournaments on a weekly basis. In reality, most municipal courses in the country look more like Pinehurst than Augusta, and experience unfair criticism as a result. It takes a lot of water to keep grass green on the fairways, and water is becoming more and more a commodity we should not waste. Pinehurst now uses 70 percent less water per year, and from what I could see, the course played very well and was enjoyed by all the participants. The golf courses I grew up on did not get irrigation systems until the late ‘60s, and it was common for the fairways to turn brown during hot, dry summers. No one complained as long as the greens were good. Oftentimes, we looked forward to the browning, because 230-yard drives were rolling out to 260 or more. In 1968, the primary course I grew up on got a new watering system. After all, back then everything was cheap. Hershey bars were a nickel. Water was free, or at least we thought so. Within a few years, if so much as a brown spot showed up on the course, the members were screaming. The term “dirt track” became the tag on any course that did not drown their fairways with liquid refreshment. We got spoiled and failed to think of the future. Even now, very few want to bite the bullet and step back a bit. Maybe it will take something like a brown U.S. Open to open our eyes.

ELABORATING YOUR PLAN AND ORGANIZING YOUR TOURNAMENT STAFF

By Marc Gelbke As a continuation from my last editorial, “Developing a Tournament Plan,” I would like to stay along this topic and discuss another couple of important factors when considering organizing a tournament at your facility. Now that we have a general idea of what type of tournament we want to organize, it is time to elaborate your plan and possibly sell your concept for approval to, for example, the board of directors, tournament committee, members, or facility owner. Furthermore, elaborating your plan simply means spelling out the financial and logistical details to gain approval and help organize your event. It is a good idea to prepare a proposal that establishes cost, schedule, profitability, benefits to the community, and benefits to the facility. Your proposal should always included the “four W’s” and the “two H’s” (who, what, when, why, and how and how much). In addition, list all of your specific elements such as type of event, cost per person, number of players, cart requirements, schedule of activities, food and beverage requirements, and staff requirements. The most important element for gaining approval is, of course, your profitability, so carefully consider all expenses, and as a rule of thumb, use 10% for gifts and awards from your initial intake. Once your plan and proposals are complete, start organizing your staff requirements to make preparations and help run the tournament. Consider first what positions need staffing and then find people to fill those positions (employees, club members, volunteers, etc). Be sure to identify all the functions and assign responsibility for each function to a specific person, and assign people to functions you feel comfortable they can handle. Use a checklist to help in planning, and you will improve your chances for a smooth operation. The more you prepare and cover all angles before the tournament, the more you can enjoy your hard labor and feel good about your success come tournament day.

Lowering Your Score is Sometimes more Mental than Physical

By: Arlen Bento, WGCA contributing writer

As we reach the full start of the summer golf season, I wanted to write about how important it is to understand that lowering your score in golf is sometimes a lot more mental the physical.

I work with a lot of junior players over the summer months preparing players for the high school golf season in Florida and summer junior golf events. For the advanced junior players that have good swings and control of the golf ball, the biggest hurdle for lowering scores is the mental side of the game. I have always coached my players with the idea that every miss in golf has a reason. I have devised a simple way for my players to identify the reason the miss happened, based on assigning a “miss idea,” to show them how and why they miss on the course.

The first miss that we identify is a physical miss. This is a miss caused by a bad swing or a physical error. The second miss that we identify is an intellectual miss. This is a miss caused by a player trying to hit a shot that just was not possible. An example of this would be trying to hit a soft flop shot off or hard pan or firm uncovered ground, or flying through a gap in the trees off of pebbles or unstable ground.

The third miss that we identify is the mental miss. This is a miss caused by a player who did not commit to a shot, and the player is making a swing with indecision or a bad idea in their head. This could be as simple as letting a noise or sound distract them as they swing, or letting the thought of a bad shot from the previous hole cause a lack of focus and a swing error.

I ask all my players at the end of their rounds to count how many times they missed in their round and to identify the miss. In almost all cases, the miss is caused my mental error. Because the mental error is so prominent, we are always working at improving our technique to eliminate mental errors. One of the best ways to eliminate mental errors is to really focus on the mental checklist of a shot before a player makes a swing. I always tell my players that every shot you will ever hit has a value. That value is the yardage plus the calculations of the particulars like lie, wind, and miss zone. By focusing on the value of the shot, then applying a club selection and swing thought to match the value of the shot, players can all but eliminate mental errors on their score cards, thus lowering their scores.

Master Teaching Professional Arlen Bento Jr. is a golf coach, golf sales business owner, golf product developer, and golf writer living in Jensen Beach, Florida. He is a former professional tournament player and is a national award-winning head golf professional at the PGA Country Club at PGA Village in Port St. Lucie, FL. He can be reached via Facebook at www.facebook.com/arlenbentojr or on his blog http://arlenbentojr.blogspot.com or on his business website, www.abjgolfsales.com.

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