Then there was the hybrid issue. I've been watching a couple of my buddies hit their hybrids for a few months, and decided it was about time to take the plunge. I'm one of those guys who actually likes hitting the long irons, but it's something you have to do regularly or you really lose confidence in them. I suspect it is a lot easier to just pick up a 19 degree hybrid once or twice a round and hit it nice and solid.

I finally got around to assembling these two clubs before our weekend rounds last week. And then had a chance to hit them quite a bit on the weekend. I really like the look and feel of both of them, and so far they've been working really well for me.

Bulgarian villas - Bulgaria vacation property, permanent residence or just investment. New Bulgarian development The Green Valley.

Brangelina's Apt - Gorgeous family spent two months before Africa, you can spend one week. Deluxe vacation stay in Paris.

Luxury holidays - Special offers for luxury holidays and honeymoons to the Indian Ocean and Caribbean

Bulgarian golf in its developmental stages - Golf course development has essentially reached the point of saturation in North America and many of the traditional golfing countries.

Yes, there are lots of absolutely gorgeous sites that could be converted into golf courses. But who is going to play on these courses?

As a result, investors and golf course developers are looking to "underdeveloped" countries in Europe and Asia for greener pastures. There the hope is to capitalize on the thriving tourist trade as well as turn some of the largely non-golfing local population into golfing fanatics.

Bulgaria is just such a country. With its recent entry into the EU, Bulgaria's development promises to be rapid and significant in the very near future. The same will likely be true for the development of the infrastructure required for extensive travel - airports, highways, hotels, tourist destinations, and golf courses.

Currently there are only two golf courses listed on GolfEurope.com:

Ihtiman Golf Club - the original Bulgarian golf course. Ihtiman Golf Course is rated by the rating committee of USGA. 18 holes, 6345 yards, rating is 71.3 and slope 131 from the back tees.

Sliven golf course was opened on May 24th, 2004. It is a par 71, 6563 yards. It features spectacular views to the Balkan mountain.

The Bulgarian Golf Federation hopes to gradually build more golf courses throughout Bulgaria. Golf courses in Razgrad, Varna, Burgas, Plovdiv and Sofia are in the planning stages, and other developers are planning golf course developments as part of larger tourism projects.

Kamagra Generic Viagra Cialis UK >>>

Merry Christmas! In spite of it being one of the least pleasant and wettest falls I can remember, it has also been one of the warmest Decembers for a long, long time in southern Ontario. Our previous record for a legitimate round on a real course had been Dec 13, played a few years back. But this year I was out on Dec 16, and could have played on Dec 23 but felt a little bit under the weather.

In some recent years Judy and I found ourselves in Florida over the Christmas holiday and that was always the occasion for an early morning round at Port Charlotte GCC. Since the course was officially closed on Christmas there were no carts -- a pretty rare occurrence in Florida -- and nobody to take your green fees.

Maybe next year.

I've been doing the late afternoon thing for years and have played lots of 18s in the semi-darkness, so have become pretty good at controlling my swing so it is more or less straight, listening for where it lands, and then marching down the darkened fairway until the little white thing emerges from the black.

I can usually feel whether I've pulled it, pushed it or, heaven forbid, sliced it. When you play in the semi-darkness you learn that a slice or hook is usually the result of swinging too hard. So backing off on your swing is the first prerequisite for actually being able to find the ball after you hit it.

Yesterday it didn't work out for some reason. I had a pretty good round going and when we hit #17 I thought "No problem." At this course 17 is a fairly short par 5 that I've birdied a few times. It requires a drive over the main entrance roadway into the course, and when I hit my drive Joe said "It's down the middle." OK, I thought, we're in business.

But when we got out there it was nowhere to be found, and I had no idea which side it should be on. The fescue at Glencairn makes it almost impossible to find if you don't know where to look. The same thing happened with my next shot. It felt like I pulled it out of the primary rough and it went zinging across to the other side. Never to be found again. Too dark to see where it went out.

#18 worked out a bit better. My drive just cleared a sod-walled bunker and since I was still about 180 out and had to clear two "burns" to hit a green I couldn't even see, I just hit an easy 9 to plunk it between the burns. It didn't sound too good when it landed, but sure enough when we got down there it was right where I thought it should be.

A sandy to the green and I was finished. By then the sprinklers were on so we just left it there on the green for the next lucky guy...

For more funny golf videos see The WEG Funny Golf Videos

Onlinebutik med prisgaranti - Salg af styketræning- & fitnessprodukter, herunder proteindrik, energibars, kreatinpulver samt træningstilbehør så som bælter og handsker. Klik ind og se det store udvalg.

Golf Workouts Can Transform Your Game

by Mike Pedersen, Golf Fitness Expert

I’m sure by now you’ve heard most of the professional players; both men and women actively participate in golf workouts. It’s no secret. But why then do most amateur golfers ignore this? Is it because it seems like work? Or, does the thought of actually breaking a sweat get you tired already?

Either way…the proof is in the bag. The number one player in the world, Vijay Singh, does his golf workouts all the way through Sunday of each tournament. Does it look like it’s hurting his game? I don’t think so. Back in 1997, a young, very athletic golfer came on the professional scene and blew everyone away. I think you know who I’m talking about.

Hotels in Marbella - We are the true experts in Marbella Hotels, Apartments & Villas. Special offers. Local Service. Book online now.

Visit Marbella, in the heart of this world famous golf valley. The city of Marbella is surrounded by more than 150 of the best golf courses in the world. The region has all the facilities, hotels and services that golfers have come to expect in a top notch golf destination.

The Costa del Sol in Spain has more golf courses than anywhere else in Spain. Some of these golf courses are among the most prestigious golf courses in the world.

Every year, thousands of golfers visit Marbella for golf holidays and golf excursions. Professional golfers also compete in international tournaments hosted by the surrounding golf courses.

Marbella is truly one of the most exciting golf destinations in the world. It also boasts tremendous scenery, fantastic beaches, several museums and historical sites.

Technorati Profile

Golf Digest article looks at dominance of China in golf club manufacturing - There's an excellent article in the April 2007 issue of Golf Digest that takes a close look at the extent to which golf club design and manufacturing has be virtually taken over by the Chinese.

Although low wages and a huge, hard working work force are important factors in this incredible shift, it's much more than just cheap labour that sends these manufacturing projects to China. It's the ability of the Chinese to consolidate massive capabilities in a few large factories, most of which are located within a few hundred miles of Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In the process these companies have developed manufacturing techniques that speed up the process of going from concept to finished product. And at the same time the quality of the end product has been improved. That makes it possible for major manufacturers to bring out new products more often; and for "boutique" companies to produce their own distinctive lines of clubs. The Chinese can take a concept or rough 3D model and turn it into a finished club within days. Or a small company without its own design team can start with "open" designs and put their own distinctive graphics and colour schemes on them.

To a large extent this has happened within just a few years. For instance, a California company, Coastcast Corporation, that was making a million+ titanium heads in 2004 was out of business two years later. Virtually all that business went to China.

As a result, of the roughly 45 million golf clubs sold every year about 75% have some Chinese content.

Pretty amazing.

Well last Saturday I hit what may be the shot of the year. It was a dream scenario. We were on #7 which is a "simple" par 3 if you hit it right, but a sure double if you don't. We were hitting into a fairly brisk wind, and it's all carry over the water to a fairly steep bank. If you come up a bit short and hit that bank the ball will almost always roll into the water.

Well, that's what happened to me. I hit a pretty good six iron, but it got hung up in the wind, hit the bank and trickled down the bank into the water. I jokingly said, "Hey, I'm not dead yet that might be playable." I was only half joking because I could see the water was very low, and I knew it is quite shallow right there in front of the green.

After the other guys hit we went over to the green and I took a look at my ball. There it was about two feet out from dry land, fully submerged with the top of the ball about 1 1/2 inches below the surface.

Now Fritz will confirm that I just wait for this kind of situation to try out these "shots that can't be made". But this one didn't look too hopeful.

I know from past experience that a partially submerged ball is pretty easy to get up and out. One that is just below the surface can work too. But when it is that far below the surface you need a big swing and a lot of luck to pull it off.

The other problem was there was no place to stand. I didn't really want to do a Jean Van de Veld (take off the shoes, roll up the pants, flail away at the water). Fortunately there was a rock of just the right size sitting by the shore. I just rolled it out to where my back foot should be and tried standing on it. Perfect! "This should work" I said to myself.

About ten seconds later the SW came slicing down at the ball followed by a mighty splash (fortunately it was fairly warm) and the other guys started hooting and hollering. Of course in the great gush of water I couldn't see it, but the ball came out beautifully, rolled slowly past the hole and came to rest about five feet away.

I missed the putt of course, but that was beside the point. The shot of the day was in the books and will live in golfing lore for ever more.

If pre-setting the bat is OK for baseball players why isn't it for golfers? I think it's because golfers think there is some magic in the path of the club going back - and so many golf teachers reinforce that (erroneous?) idea.

Obviously what matters is where the club ends up at the top of the swing and how you bring it down into the ball. As Jim Suttie explains, most swing problems actually originate in the way a golfer takes the club back. Since we seem to think it is one seamless motion from beginning to end, how we take it back is directly relevant to where we end up at the top and how we bring the club down to the ball.

The "no swing backswing" tries to get rid of the variables at the beginning of the swing and get you ready to swing from the common position that (almost) everybody agrees you should be in - the 9 o'clock position (to use Dave Pelz's terminology).

This "no swing" approach also shortens the total length of the backswing by encouraging you to hit from about a 10:30 position. "Just pump and hit" as Suttie tells his demo-guy Scott Sanderson.

The problem - and you can see it with Sanderson - is that until you're really used to doing this you're not quite sure how to get the swing going. You can see him hesitate as though he's trying to figure out how to start.

There was an article in Golf Digest by David Leadbetter about a year ago proposing a similar routine. But that seemed to get little response and seems to have been forgotten by Leadbetter.

You can see more articles and commentary about the "no backswing backswing" here.

This was the first time we'd all been golfing together in quite a few years. And it was definitely the first time we'd played with Peter's kids, Alex, Amanda, and Nicole. So it was a special day in more ways than one.

In fact it was the first time on a real course for Amanda and Nicole. They've both been taking lessons at the local "golf academy", so this was a chance to see how they would do.

We split up into three groups (we were playing the 9 hole par 3 course) and I was with Amanda and Scott.

The first thing I noticed about Amanda's swing is that she could actually hit the ball. Wow! That's quite an accomplishment. Of course she'd learned that big John Daly like swing that instructors like to encourage kids to use. But she was actually hitting the ball with it - something that always amazes me about kids and golf balls.

Of course it didn't take long before I felt I should show her the little partial pitch swing. "Just take it back about here, and hit the ball...'poop' like that..."

My choice of words maybe wasn't the best, but it stuck. The next time I said "you should probably use that little 'poop' swing here..." Amanda cracked "Ok, but do I have to say 'poop'...?"

Of course. It wouldn't be a 'poop' swing if you didn't.

Magic Hands of Mystery Video - New Magic Video teaches you how to do easy magic tricks that will impress people.

World of Warcraft gold seller reviews - Check out the top rated WoW gold sellers here. Don't spend your hard earned money on WoW gold until you check this out.

Now that spring has arrived in southern Ontario the clubs have already been dusted off for another season.

Actually Fritz, Sean and I did a five day trip to Dallas last month for some power golf -- 8 rounds in 5 days. But that doesn't count. The real golf around here is about to begin over the next couple of weeks.

Well, that's not true either. Fritz and I were out last Friday (March 30) for a round at Carlisle near Burlington. It was a balmy 10C, and apart from being dead tired from the walk (after a very unathletic winter) it was great to be out again hacking the ball around.

As I said, the real season begins over the next couple of weeks. Most of the courses around here will be open by April 15. I even went out and bought one of those collapsible practise nets so I could hit balls in the back yard. My basement range had to be dismantled a couple weeks ago because I needed the drop sheet for a reno project we're doing. So I've actually hit very few balls over the winter.

But that's about to change. After a couple of years of very little practice time -- either at the range or in the back yard -- I've decided to get a new net (my old one seems to have disappeared), and make a concerted effort to work on my swing.

We'll see how it goes.

OK, I'll admit it. There have been a couple of occasions in my golfing life when I've been frustrated enough to actually throw a club.

I know. You're not supposed to do it. While club throwing was a common occurrence 50, 30, 20 or maybe even 10 years ago, it is definitely not acceptable now - although I did hear some geezers talking about it on a recent visit to an old established private club. (Note: a "golf geezer" is anybody who either is, acts, or looks more than a couple years older than me.)

Anyway, to get back to the point. I was having a particularly bad few holes during a round a couple of weeks ago. And there I was, about 20 yards from the hole with my lob wedge in hand. Predictably I pitched it short ...or maybe it was long (I can't really remember)... and I ended up in the gnarly rough above the hole.

Since I was already looking at double bogey there was no way I was going to walk all the way over to the cart to get a different club. So I tried chipping with the LB.

One double-hit later I was steamed enough to let it fly.

Yes, that's right. I'm sorry to say I actually threw the thing. It was quite a calculated throw of course, well away from any of my fellow golfers. But en route it wrapped around a tree and snapped in half.

I can't say I was sorry it broke. I've never had much luck with the LB anyway, and am quite content to just open up my sand wedge when I need more loft. But I'm not proud about getting angry like that, and I've promised myself never to let it happen again.

As luck would have it, on the next hole - a medium length par 3 over water - I hit my tee shot into the pond. And then proceeded to chip it in from the drop area with my sand wedge.

That's right - a par. I don't think my broken lob wedge liked that one little bit.