I Should Have Stayed in Seattle.


Nice weather we're having in the Great Frozen North. Just think: Two days ago I was in Seattle, it was not raining and the temperature was around 50 degree's. Golf weather if I have ever seen it. For February at least.

But I had to come back to New England, where today my driveway is under 6 inches of snow and the forecast is for freezing rain the rest of the day.


I'm worried about the greens.


My golfing buddy is still in Miami, where it's in the 80's or something, playing golf every day and complaining that the MGA is forcing him to put his scores in for handicap purposes when he hasn't played in 3 month's.

I can't listen to that. I'm sitting here freezing to death, hitting three foot putts on a piece of Astroturf, and listening to him whine about how his game is rusty, and his handicap is going up.

God hates a whiner.

I can put up with them, though.

After all if I didn't, who would put up with me?

Didn't See Me at the Gym?

Things didn't go well at the gym this week.

Starting off with good intentions, I showed up on Monday. I did 45 minutes on the tread mill at Level 16 (out of 20), at 3.6 miles per hour, and burned up just over 600 calories. Pretty steep inclines at level 16, lowest is 6.5 degrees and the highest is 12 in a random pattern, and after taking a few month's to get to this point, I feel like it's a pretty good workout.

I had tried running some time back, and though I got to the point that I could run 5 k's in about a half an hour, the pounding on this overweight 50-something got to be too much.

So a good start to the week went downhill immediately.

Tuesday was the Primary and so I skipped the Gym so I could vote. Yesterday my excuse was that I had to pack for my trip to Seattle this weekend. Tonight we're taking our Niece and her daughter out to celebrate the daughters birthday, so there will be no gym today either. Tomorrow I'm off to Seattle.

And I'm not even bringing my clubs. I never liked to play in the rain anyway, and it is, after all, Seattle.

Lets hope things will go better next week.

100 Putts a Day

Ok Maybe 50

The point is to start working on the things we can work on. Pretty hard to do when you live in the Great Frozen North.

Last year I bought a putting machine. You know, one of those 8 foot long pieces of Astroturf with a hole on one end, and a ball return. I spent last winter putting in the spare bedroom upstairs and I'm convinced it made a difference. The three-putt almost disappeared from my arsenal of "ways to blow up the score", and I made a lot more short putts than I used to.

So this winter I'm thinking that if I can make 50 3-footers a day, and increase the distance every week, by the time Spring shows up I'll be making 50 6-8 footers every day and my confidence will be UNBELIEVABLE!

Either that or it will be completely shattered.

Off to the gym later today. I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh yeah...Did you see that Woods fella in Dubai yesterday?

A page from Tigers Book?


Where do we begin.

After long deliberation, I've decided that if I'm going to drop a few shots this year I need to get started. So where do I start?

By dropping a few pounds.

Getting in better shape, losing some weight, and especially, getting stronger is something I can do now, while I wait for better weather. I've been going to the gym off and on (mostly off)for a few years now, but I have decided to get there for an hour or so at least four times a week between now and the start of the season. Once the season starts I intend to get there at least a couple of times a week. If I can drop 10-15 pounds of fat and put on a few pounds of muscle it has to improve my chances. I'm not talking about making the David Duval change, (though I see lately that he looks more like the guy who shot 59 than the guy who couldn't make a cut shortly after) I'm talking about losing a bit of the belly and maybe tightening up what's left behind.

I really hate sit-ups.

Maybe I'll get to like them? Probably not, but when Spring finally gets here and I'm walking down the first fairway with my bag on my shoulder, I'll appreciate the work.