New Callaway Wedges

More Grooves, More Grip

Roger Cleveland is a legend in the wedge world, so when he designs new wedges, there's a good chance they're good. And these are, the new Callaway X Series Jaws CC wedges. Key feature: Callaway's Tour CC grooves found only in Callaway's forged wedges and irons. The forging process, of course, provides a softer feel around the greens, but the real deal is the 21 grooves on the wedges versus the traditional 15. The 21 grooves mean you can get more traction on the ball, which translates into more spin and control. Callaway also has new bounce options, featuring soles individually designed for maximum versatility especially in firm and tight conditions. Example: In the 58- and 60-degree wedges, options include a zero bounce (great for tight lies around the green) and an eight-degree bounce. The Jaws CC wedges ($119) also have reduced-bounce offerings at 52, 54 and 56 degrees.

First Tee Program Makes Changes To Teaching Framework

San Antonio, Texas (Feb. 17, 2011) – Today, The First Tee, a youth development organization that provides character education through golf, officially launched its five-year strategic plan at its Network Meeting. World Golf Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam attended today’s meeting and was introduced as the spokesperson for The First Tee Nine Healthy Habits, a new framework for curriculum that will be included in The First Tee programs that focuses on promoting health and wellness through golf.



Developed in partnership with the ANNIKA Foundation and Florida Hospital for Children, The First Tee Nine Healthy Habits are platforms categorized into nine pillars that children can easily remember and understand.  They include energy, play, safety, vision, mind, family, friends, school and community.


“The First Tee has always shared my passion for building awareness around the healthy aspects of golf,” said Annika. “The First Tee Nine Healthy Habits are a smart and systematic approach to reach children about health and fitness, and educate them on healthy life skills that they can integrate into their lives, even outside of golf.”

 
In addition to the Nine Healthy Habits, The First Tee’s plan also includes goals pertaining to increasing youth involvement.  Specifically, by 2015 The First Tee hopes to increase its total reach to more than eight million young people, the number of chapter program locations from 750 to 1,500, the number of elementary schools offering The First Tee National School program from 4,000 to 8,000 and the number of youth-serving program locations that offer The First Tee programs to 500. The organization will also focus on increasing the progression of teenagers through its programs and growing the number of female and ethnic diverse participants. To date, The First Tee has reached more than 4.7 million young people.


“Our plans for the next five years will further The First Tee’s relevance as an established organization that impacts today’s youth,” said Joe Louis Barrow, Jr., chief executive officer of The First Tee. “We look forward to expanding our footprint and engaging more adults—as donors, volunteers, coaches and teachers—to help reach our objectives over the coming years.”


More than 600 chapter executive directors, program directors, coaches and volunteer board members are in attendance at the Hyatt Regency San Antonio for The First Tee’s biennial Network Meeting. Today through Saturday, Feb. 19, the group will learn details about the next five-year strategic plan and have the opportunity to learn with and from each other in classes and general sessions.


For more about The First Tee, visit www.thefirsttee.org.

Tips From The Myrtle Beach Pros

Myrtle Beach Golf Tips and Instruction

Welcome to the Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday Golf Instruction page. Here you'll find video and text golf tips from Myrtle Beach golf professionals around the Grand Strand.

Within the Golf Holiday program, 6 golf academies are offered: The Chuck Wike Golf School located at the Tradition Club in Pawleys Island, The Classic Swing Golf School at Legends Golf Resort, The Grande Dunes Golf Academy at the prominent Grande Dunes Golf Course, The Nick Bradley Golf School at Barefoot Resort and Golf, the Steve Dresser Golf Academy now located at the prestigious True Blue and Caledonia golf courses on the southern end of the grand strand and finally, Champions Golf Academy at Long Bay Golf Club.

These golf academies offer some of the nation’s top golf instructors as well as some of the country’s best instruction available. Whether you are just picking up the game or have been playing for years, these golf schools can all customize a lesson plan aimed at improving your game and maximizing the benefits to your game.

Other Professional Tips

A Weighty Issue Weight

Weight distribution in the setup can have a huge influence on the outcome of your shots. In this case, with a driver, I've put most of my upper body weight on my right side or "behind" the ball. Now I can easily make a full backswing turn and create a wider arc which will help me to approach the ball from a shallow angle which is ideal when the ball is on a tee. Notice my left shoulder is farther from the target than my left hip.   Don't be afraid to exaggerate the sensation of setting up more on your right side when hitting tee shots. Your body needs to turn back there anyway, so if we give ourselves a bit of a head start, it only makes the job easier.

School: Grande Dunes Golf Academy

Don't Let The Name Fool You, The Pit Now Owned By Pinehurst!

What's Next For Pinehurst And The Pit?

 

Is the Pit going to become Pinehurst No. 9? Not likely.

On Monday, the Pinehurst Resort, which has eight golf courses under its umbrella, bought the shuttered Pit Golf Links in Aberdeen, about five miles South of the Carolina Hotel.

Why? Not necessarily to add a course and satisfy a surge in demand, but more likely, it’s because the Pit was cheap, and it made sense given the layout of the Pinehurst property.

To simplify the scenario: The resort owns a doughnut-shape chunk of land; the Pit was the doughnut hole Pinehurst didn’t own. It was in the resort’s best interest to control that piece of property, and the timing and the price were right. So Robert Dedman Jr. filled in the gap by purchasing the Pit, which gives his family 925 acres of uninterrupted land.

An article in The Pilot, the local paper, addressed speculation that this was a move toward a former resort plan to develop a golf village near Aberdeen. Based on the economy, the status of the golf industry and the amount of competition in the area, don’t expect the Pit to reopen for play anytime soon. In fact, one source close to the situation that I spoke to didn’t rule out the possibility that golf at the Pit is gone forever: “It’s not exactly a great time to be opening golf courses.” 

Dedman released a statement Monday night: “Over the next several weeks we plan to evaluate the golf course, clubhouse and other facilities. Right now we’re focused on reopening Pinehurst No. 2. Once that is behind us, we'll determine the next steps.”

Pinehurst No. 2, the site of the 2014 Men’s and Women’s U.S. Opens, will reopen March 4, after a one-year restoration project by the design team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.

The Pit Golf Links, designed by Dan Maples, a Pinehurst native, opened in 1985 and eventually earned a four-and-a-half-star rating from readers in Golf Digest’s Places to Play guide. 

After a run of financial struggles and unfavorable course conditions, the Pit closed on Dec. 20 and was later purchased in a foreclosure sale by a North Carolina businessman for $1.08 million. The Pinehurst purchase price was not disclosed.

Before Dec. 20, you could’ve played the Pit for $49 on weekdays and $59 on weekends. In addition to being good value, the former sand quarry separated itself in an area loaded with great golf by being what has been described as a “tricky” layout. 

Then along came Tobacco Road in 1998, a Mike Strantz design, which, as one local avid golfer put it, “outpitted the Pit.” (Tobacco Road is bigger, better, harder and with more tricks to the layout than the Pit.)

Bill Fields, Senior Editor of Golf World, grew up in nearby Southern Pines. “There was a lot of excitement locally when the Pit was being built, because folks knew it wasn’t located on typical Sandhills terrain,” he says. “I wrote about the course and photographed it for Golf World shortly before it opened in 1985. Dan Maples created it in and around an abandoned commercial sand mine that had been dormant for a decade and was a haven for dirt bikers. Back in the day, the sand had gone a lot of places, including to the Blue Ridge Parkway when it was constructed in the 1930s. ‘When I first drove around on the property,’ Maples told me then, ‘my mind was going crazy. I had never seen anything like it. It was so beautiful--a 200-acre hole in the ground. You couldn’t create what I found here.’”

Adds Fields: “It was a cool landscape, and Maples did a nice job. It’ll be too bad if it’s closed for good, because a lot of golfers have had a lot of fun out there through the years. When I got married in 1988, a group of us played the Pit the day before the ceremony and Pinehurst No. 2 the morning of the wedding. Now No. 2’s getting restored beautifully for more glory days, and the Pit’s fate is uncertain.”

Here’s the harsh reality that we all know, but a lot of us avid golfers try to ignore: For the fifth straight year there have been more course closures than openings in the U.S. That trend will continue. Not every course is going to make it through these corrections in the economy, the game and the industry. 

--Matty G.

Rick Bidnick Taking Over For Jamie Smith

Rick Bidnick, PGA GOLF PROFESSIONAL

Hello everyone.

I just wanted to send out a email to  all of you to let you know my plans for taking over for Jamie. Before I do that I want to echo what all you had to say to Jamie in your messages. It has also  for me been a pleasure working with Jamie over the past year and I also hate to see him go. He has become a good friend of mine over the past year and I am proud to call him a fellow PGA Golf Professional.

I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself, though i have met many of you already, im sure there are many of you i have yet to meet. My name is Rick Bidnick, I am 46 years old. I have been a member of the PGA of America since October of 1998. Although I have only been a PGA Professional for 12 years I have worked in the golf business since I was 14 years old. I am currently enrolled with The PGA of America to become a CERTIFIED PGA PROFESSIONAL in the area of TEACHING. All members of The PGA of America are trained in the area of teaching, but being a certified PGA Professional in this area indicates dedication to the area of teaching.

Since I have been a PGA Professional I have been head professional at The Carolina Club, Bide-A-Wee Golf Club, Sleepy Hole Golf Course, Stumpy Lake Golf Course and was a Assistant Golf Professional at Kingsmill Resort and Spa.I was also the Teaching Professional at Suffolk Golf Course for the last two years. I played College golf at Christopher Newport University and was selected to the Division III All American Golf Team. I was the first golfer chosen from CNU to play in the National Championship for Div III schools. I finished 18th in the nation in that event to earn The All American Team recognition. I was also the first golfer elected into the CNU Hall of Fame in 1988.

My teaching philosophy is simple. I believe in working within the limits and capabilities of each golfer. My goal is to keep things simple and make sure the golfer understands what we are trying to accomplish as a team and my main goal for my golf lessons is to make it fun for the student and help them enjoy the game of golf as much as possible. For those of you more talented golfers, I like to become a bit more detail oriented, a lot more specific lesson is given that hopefully will help the golfer reach the next level in his or her game.

Finally, A lot of you have asked if I will honor lessons already paid for through Jamie. I will gladly do that, I would like if possible to finish these lessons off by June 30 so that I can have a clean slate for my new year which begins July 1. I plan to start the Saturday clinics again possibly March 13th. (Weather permitting) I will start the first few sessions at 11am-1230pm so that if the weather is cooler, we will have a chance to warm up. As was last year, the first few classes there will be $10 per person, once we get to the range it is $15 per person. For those of you who do not know, here is a break down of the clinic structure.

Class runs every Saturday at Bow Creek- You do not have to attend all classes

Week 1   Putting

Week 2   Chipping

Week 3   Pitching/Bunker

Week 4  Short irons

Week 5  Mid irons

Week 6  Hybrids and fairway woods

Week 7  Driver

I am still working on Smarter Lessons  to get my schedule set up. If anyone wants to get started for the year as of March 1, I will be available. To schedule a appointment please call me at 335-2774. I will honor the same rates Jamie offered last year. I will also offer playing lessons, ask if your interested in that. Thank you, Rick Bidnick, PGA Professional

Pawley's Island Southern Myrtle's Best

Top Golf Courses in Pawleys Island

By

Chris King

  on February 16, 2011 1:58 PM | Comments (0)

River Club is one of many outstanding golf courses in Pawleys Island.

The top golf courses in Pawleys Island are as good as any in America.

Tucked away on the South Strand, golf courses in Pawleys Island offer a respite from the hustle of Myrtle Beach. Rollicking nights give way to casual charm and one of the nation’s highest concentrations of elite layouts.

Three golf courses in Pawleys Island have earned a spot on Golf Digest’s list of America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses and all 10 are 4-star courses.

Without further ado, here is a look at golf courses in Pawleys Island:

Caledonia Golf & Fish Club – Mike Strantz’s first solo design is a classic. Caledonia is, arguably, Myrtle Beach’s most popular course, and it’s certainly among the most scenic. Caledonia is ranked among America’s Top 100 by Golf Digest, Golf Magazine and Golfweek.

Founders Club – Myrtle Beach’s newest course, Founders Club is defined by waste bunkers that run alongside side practically every fairway. The bunkers also double as cart paths, meaning the only pavement on the course is around the greens and tee boxes.

Heritage Club – The 33rd ranked public course in America, Heritage Club is a perfect combination of natural beauty and great golf course architecture. Hundreds of soaring oak trees create visual appeal, and the layout has some of the area’s largest and most undulating greens.

Litchfield Country Club – One of the area’s original courses, Litchfield provides a country club experience. The layout, which received 4.5 stars from Golf Digest, is a traditional design that rewards precision and creativity.

Pawleys Plantation – A Jack Nicklaus design, Pawleys Plantation offers one of the area’s most memorable rounds. Several holes on the back nine play along the marsh and it’s a spectacular setting.

River Club – Yet another 4.5-star Golf Digest course, River Club is true to its name, featuring water on 15 of 18 holes and over 100 bunkers.

Tradition Club - Set amidst property that was home to a plantation centuries ago, Tradition Club lets players test their power off the tee. Combined with exceptional beauty, it's a course that is as enjoyable to play as it is challenging.

True Blue – The Mike Strantz design has been ranked among America’s Top 100 and it’s one of the area’s most visually dramatic layouts. The rolling terrain and native vegetation of the once thriving indigo and rice plantation makes for a spectacular round of golf.

Willbrook Plantation – One of Myrtle Beach’s most underrated layouts, Willbrook is among the top golf courses in Pawleys Island and the entire Grand Strand. Carved from the site of two Carolina plantations, Willbrook offers a tranquil blend of golf and wildlife.

Local Cleveland Golf Demo/Fitting Day

	Dear Avid Golfer: Visit the Cleveland Golf Fitting Day and try out the latest products! Just look at the information below to see where you will find it next. PLACE: International Golf Virginia Beach, Virginia WHEN: 19th of February 2011 10:00 am - 2:00 pm PHONE: (757) 313-9334 Note: Please call event prior to visit as schedules are subject to change. Cleveland Golf understands the importance of finding golf equipment that fits you perfectly. This dedication to customer satisfaction prompted us to launch the most extensive demo day program in the industry. Here are a few reasons why you should visit a Fitting Day near you: Try the new CG16 Wedges and CG16 Irons with Laser Milled Technology Find your Rightweight with the New Launcher Ultralite Series Try all of our latest products from Cleveland Golf, Srixon and Never Compromise CLICK HERE to view the complete Fitting Days Schedule.

Hireko Golf Brings Out New Product At A Great Price

Acer XF Leggera Driver Acer XF Standard Driver Acer XF Draw Driver Acer XF Pro Irons Right Hand Acer XF HT Irons Right Hand Acer XF Standard Irons Left Hand Power Play System Q Adrenaline Driver Ferrule Block What Is Shaft Torque? By Technical Director Jeff Summitt Torque is the simply the amount a shaft (shown in blue) twists when subjected to a known amount of force (usually one foot-pound of force is applied) and the torque value is always expressed in degrees. It is a term commonly associated with composite or graphite shafts, but steel shafts have a certain degree of torque too. > Continue with rest of article New Apollo Acculite Graphite Shafts Arrive In One Week! New Apollo Shafts in stock February 21, 2011 The Acculite Graphite is a comprehensive, premium shaft series designed to fit a wide array of golfers and clubhead designs. Weights range from sub 50-grams for ultra-light and ultra-long drivers for increased distance to progressively heavier weight models designed for stronger golfers or those seeking more control in the fairway woods and irons. > Shop Apollo Acculite Graphite Shafts Now New Tacki-Mac Itomic iT2 Grips In Stock! What's all the buzz about these new Tacki-Mac grips? Equipped with negative ions and a velvet surface, combined with a new proprietary, ultra tacki, ultra lightweight (44 grams) compound for a very unique look and feel for golfers. Itomic it2 grips maintain their tacky feel and clean easily. In Stock! Tacki-Mac Itomic iT2 Grips 60% Off The Power Play System Q2 12 Degree Preassembled Driver Brand new Power Play System Q2 12d Driver, fully assembled with Powerflex graphite shafts in S flex and Karma Black velvet grip. Extremely limited qty on hand! ON SALE FOR ONLY $39.95 each! Reg. $99.95 60% Off! Hireko Golf 16185 Stephens St. City of Industry, CA 91745 800 367-8912 Remove me from this list