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Dream Golf Weekend: A Bandon Adventure

11/02/2011 2 comments

Introduction:

A little over a month ago, I sat shirtless on a doctor’s examining room table wondering if the rest of my 2011 golf season was over, with perhaps 2012 on the brink as well. My body was crumbling faster than Tiger’s knees and personal life combined. Early in September, during a casual round with my buddy Wego at Prairie Landing, I felt something pop in my right shoulder as I pulled the club back on the par 3 12th. I took it easy for a few weeks, figured I’d be fine and eventually agreed to go to Ballyneal for a long weekend with my friend Matt and 10 others at the end of September. I thought even if I couldn’t rotate my shoulder anywhere close to parallel, I’d still be able to slap it around at Ballyneal on those firm and fast conditions. How bad could it be?

The answer: really bad. I struggled to break 100 in seven rounds over four days. Matt had organized a bunch of entertaining individual and team events each round, and my presence in a foursome was the kiss of death. I finished dead last in the running points game, and second to last in the money. I even set a dubious course record by hitting a grand total of 0-of-14 fairways (on fairways averaging 70 yards wide).

Right before that trip, two great things happened to me. First, I found out that the Walking Golfing Society had named me their 2011 Walking (Wounded) Golfer of the Year. Also, I got invited to a two-day, fourball event at Old Macdonald, the newest course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort. After I found out that Rob Rigg, the founder of the Walking Golfer Society (and president of True Linkswear shoes) had also been invited to the event at Bandon (and was to be my partner), we made plans to do our award ceremony/trophy hand-off at Bandon as well. It promised to be a dream golf weekend. Except for my mangled shoulder and what I thought could be a torn rotator cuff.

So the day after I got back from Ballyneal, for once I listened to wife’s advice, sucked it up and went to the orthopedian to get my shoulder checked out (I bet I’ve been to the doctor no more than three times in the last 15 years). He pushed, pulled, yanked and dragged my arms in various positions, some of which felt perfectly fine, others of which made my eyes water. His diagnosis was some inflammation of the rotator cuff ligament, with the potential of a slight tear. I stressed that I was a serious golfer and had one last big trip planned for the year. He gave me a cortisone shot and hoped that would be all I needed.

Days after the shot, I felt like a new man. I could do full arm circles without pain, practiced that deeply-flawed but too-late-to-teach-a-middle-aged-dog-new-tricks golf swing in the mirror and dreamed of winning the Bandon team event in a blaze of glory. Then I took my kids to the driving range one late Sunday afternoon and woke up the next morning painfully back at Square One. I spent most of the month of October in golf limbo, dragging along a bum shoulder that didn’t exactly hurt but just felt off, like it was attached to somebody else’s body. Still, even if it meant swinging the club with one arm followed by an extended trip on the disabled list, there was no way I was missing out on a trip to Bandon Dunes.

The first and only time I had been to Bandon was back in 2006. A lot had changed for me in those five years. I went from two kids to three. Seemingly overnight, I leaped from young buck to prematurely gray. At work, I had clawed my way from senior grunt to junior middle management. I went from public golfer to a private one (and maybe back to public again). And I migrated from a two-handicap with a 50/50 love-hate relationship with the game to near double-digits but loving nearly every minute of it (other than the 0-for-14 fairway bit...that did kinda suck.)

It would be hard to top 2006's motley crew of Jimbo, my father-in-law Ken and my buddy “80-grand motha*****” Charles, but this trip had promise with Rob, my good friend and bunkmate Ben (Air Force Captain by day/turfgrass student and golf course design wannabe by night), and Matt Payne and Dave Hensley (GM and Superintendent of Ballyneal, respectively) among the friendly faces in the event. Ben picked me up at the North Bend airport, and after an 11-hour door-to-door journey, we were on our way to the greatest golf resort on the planet.


My 2011 Walking Golfer of the Year Victory Speech Dilemma

10/15/2011 1 comments
Check out this e-mail that just came across my shiny new iPhone 4S from Rob Rigg, founder of The Walking Golfer Society and co-founder of TRUE Linkswear (I tried to get Siri to read it to me, but apparently she doesn't do that yet):

SATURDAY 15 , OCTOBER 2011

2011 Walking Golfer of the Year and TWGS Event at Pasatiempo


Hello Society Members,
I am excited to announce Jim Colton as our 2011 Walking Golfer of the Year.
When I requested nominations for the award there was a resounding response that only one person was the logical choice and that was Jim. There was literally nobody else nominated and for good reason.
This summer Jim walked 155 holes in one day at Ballyneal Golf & Hunt Club in Colorado, and raised over $100k for Ben Cox and his family. Jim's incredible feat is an inspiration for us all and the money raised for injured caddie Ben and his family has been incredibly helpful in their time of need. Jim has been a passionate walking golfer for many years and his love for the game is infectious. Since writing "One Divot at a Time: Diary of a Full Fledged Golf Addict" , Jim has started to focus a little less on a score and a bit more on enjoying being on the course with friends and family. He wanted to turn his passion for walking Ballyneal into a way to help others and it has been an brilliant success. Jim will be taking the Ben Cox 155 to another level in 2012, stay tuned for details.
Congratulations Jim! It will be an honor to present you with The 2011 Walking Golfer of the Year award at Bandon Dunes at the end of October.
Keep enjoying the walk,
Rob
Founder - The Walking Golfers Society

Hey, I know that dude! What an honor it is to win the Walking Golfer of the Year award. What a perfect way to cap the golf season.

As the e-mail mentioned, Rob is planning to present the award to me at Bandon Dunes at the end of this month. I'm not sure what the format of the presentation will be like. As my lifetime record in Ballynizzle Cups probably indicates, victory speeches are not something that I have a whole lot of experience with.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned this year is this: anything that one could possibly want to learn about can be learned from YouTube. Back in March, I bought an electric guitar and just seven months later, I can butcher a Top 40 song or 90's rock tune with the best of them. So after giving one victory speech a shot, I then turned to YouTube to help come up with a second version. And I figured what better place to start than to watch victory and acceptance speeches from some of the best athletes of my generation. I've had such a stellar track record of following athletes who are not only superstars but great people (Michael Jordan, Barry Bonds, Tiger Woods), I knew this plan would be full-proof. I spent hours pouring over videos from them and others such as Rickey Henderson, Alex Rodriguez and Mark McGwire.

The problem is I'm now stuck with two versions. Which should I use in Bandon in two weeks? Check them out below and let me know what you think.



Ballyneal: Somewhere Only We Know

9/30/2011 0 comments
My buddy Matt put together this slideshow highlight some of the great times at Ballyneal over the past couple years. Nice work, Matty!

The Wegoblogger Man Cave

9/16/2011 0 comments
Here are some pics from the newly renovated Wegoblogger World Headquarters, a.k.a. Ballymancave. Enjoy!

I think I have another piece of hardware coming in October, so I need to find room for it. More on that when the time comes...

The Eighth at Ballyneal by Joshua C.F. Smith on the left; a wind-tattered old Ballyneal flag on the right

Flags left to right: Olympia Fields, PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, The Players Championship, Masters, Riviera Country Club, World Woods and Friars Head

Ballyneal photos on canvas by canvasondemand.com ($45 via group on)

Flags left to right: Bethpage Black U.S. Open, Black Sheep, Pebble Beach, National Golf Links, Ballyneal, Shinnecock Hills, Kingsley Club, Sand Hills, Harbour Town

Guide to Chicago Public Golf Courses - 2011 Update

9/06/2011 0 comments


We've updated the Definitive Guide to Chicago's Best Public Courses by soliciting the input of an expert panel of fellow Windy City golf-crazed lunatics. Bowes Creek, The Highlands of Elgin and Ravisloe Country Club are new entrants to the list, which was last published in 2007 but continues to be the most requested web page on my site. Cog Hill #4 (pictured above) still holds the top spot. Click on the link below to view the updated rankings.

http://www.wegoblogger31.com/2007/05/chicago-golf-definitive-guide-to.html

Natty Twice!

8/19/2011 2 comments
 I never thought I'd see the day...I get to play National Golf Links of  America twice in one summer.

Okay, the lyrics need work. But that doesn't change the fact that I got another chance to play the National this past week, a.k.a. the greatest golf course that I've ever played. After a second go 'round, I can't help but think of the words of the great KRS-One: "I'm still #1!" Those lyrics work just fine.

Looking back now...it's crazy to think that I'm almost passed on the opportunity to play CB Macdonald's masterpiece again. For most of the latter half of July and beginning of August, I sat in my home office wallowing in self-pity and was stuck in a existential (my favorite word in the English language, although I'm still not exactly sure what it means), post-marathon and post-Ballynizzle Cup defeat funk. I was done for the year, by far the earliest in the season that I had hung 'em up. When my good buddy Matt mentioned that there might be an opportunity to fill out the foursome at NGLA, I initially passed.

But in the words of John Popper (with creative license), "The Alps brings you baaaack!"

A few weeks back, my friend and golf writer Tom innocently asked me a question about the playing characteristics of the famed 3rd Hole at National for a piece that he was working on. I was slightly perplexed and deeply perturbed that I couldn't give him a good answer, largely because the first time I played the hole back in June, I hit my drive about 50 yards left of left, and had to play the hole up the hill from near the 4th green.

That darn 3rd hole stuck in my craw for days. As did many of the other wonderful template holes - Redan, Road, Bottle, Punchbowl, etc. I thought to myself, "How many times are you going to play this course in your lifetime? Strap on a sack and get back out there, you idiot!" I went crawling back to Matt and a couple e-mails later, I was confirmed in. Natty twice!

Check out the pictures below.  What a perfect way to cap off what has been the best golfing year of my life. Unless, of course, there's a Natty Thrice sometime in September or October (anybody?)

Here's the bell behind the Alps green. Matt should've been the one to gong it, as he birdied the hole. Wow, what a hole to birdie. I did successfully hit it in the right side of the fairway, but hit a low skunky approach shot out to the left (a common theme on this day) and made bogey.


The greatest Redan hole in the world. What did I say my lifetime record is on redans last time? 0-for-102? Well, it's 0-for-103 now.


From Bad to Far Worse

7/14/2011 3 comments
Let me just start off by saying this: losing the Ballynizzle Cup sucks. I probably wanted to win it back a little too much, to the detriment of my golf game and my team's chances. That said, there is absolutely no way I'd want to trade places with Jefe right now. In fact, I'm not sure anybody would.

The day after the Nizzle started innocently enough. The plan was to play two rounds of golf in the Denver area before taking a late-night flight home. Everything was going along swimmingly until the second round ended four holes early due to thunderstorms. A minor setback in an otherwise great golf trip.

Suddenly, we were faced with almost six hours to kill before our scheduled 9:44 PM flight. Luckily, we spotted our ol' friend Chili's (a golf-trip staple) on the way back to the Interstate and figured a bowl or three of bottomless chips and salsa would be a good way to kill time. Even if none of us were all that hungry. That morning, we met the "Milkshake Lady" at Castle Pines and had to try one of her world-famous milkshakes . It was one of those rare cases in today's world where something actually lives up to the hype. In fact, I ended up having two milkshakes (one chocolate after the round and one strawberry for the road). I felt like a lead balloon during the second round and really paid the price later that night (two milkshakes and Chili's...not a winning combination), but I will go on record that the second milkshake was worth it. It was that good.

We pulled up to the airport around 6:30 PM, over three hours ahead of time. At least that's what we thought. As we reached the kiosk to check our clubs, I received the first of seven text messages telling us that the departure time had been pushed back. From 9:44 to 10:15. then 10:30. 10:47. 11:15. 11:30. 11:50. Then ultimately 12:10 AM. Our flight didn't leave until 12:30 in the morning. We didn't land at O'Hare until 3:45 AM, sort of an unplanned red-eye flight.

I consider myself to be an extremely patient air traveler. Years of flying in and out of LaGuardia for work have conditioned me to hope for the best and expect the worst. But six hours at Denver International late at night has to be something similar to the survival training that our buddy Ben told us about from his days at the Air Force Academy. In the war for airport supremacy, the man with the most power outlets and gummy worms wins. I managed the battery-life remaining percentage on my iPhone like it was a ticking timebomb. If it had gone down to zero, I would've certainly gone insane. Poor Jimbo was losing that battle - he spent his time trying to be the first person to discover how to comfortably sit in those blue vinyl and metal airport chairs. He gave that up and switched to the rock-hard floor. I knew his brain was turning to mush when he said, "If I ever build my own airport, the floors will be made entirely out of mattresses." It was getting ugly.



Everything you need to know about Ballynizzle 2011

7/11/2011 0 comments
The next two years will be one, long continuous Climb.


Congrats to Team Jefenator and especially captain Jefe, who was so focused on keeping it under 1,000 total strokes on this golf trip, he left the Ballynizzle Cup at the club.

"Colorado Man" in Golf World

7/08/2011 1 comments
Check out the latest edition of Golf World. My ugly mug in print! More on this later, but I do enjoy how they are foreshadowing my eventual move to Colorado. And thanks again to Brian Carruthers for the unintentional sand-bag. 7-capper.

Golf World is personally significant for me as it reminds me of my late grandparents, who are the reason that I play this great game. They had gotten a free subscription to Golf World from a Florida car dealership back when they bought a Buick probably in 1988. They kept getting the magazine long after that car was long gone, past when my grandpa died in 1996 and right up until my Nana died 18 months ago. When I would visit my Nana after college, I would pour through old GolfWorld's about 8-10 at a time.

I spoke during my Nana's funeral service and talked about these visits, where I would come down with my friends and play nearby World Woods for 3-4 days straight. These trips were really the genesis for every far-flung golf buddy trip since. My Nana lovingly whipped up a meal that undoubtedly included a huge bowl of mashed potatoes and her awesome homemade apple sauce. We'd golf all day, eat at 8 and we konked out by 9:30. What great guests! The price for all of this hospitality was occasionally getting on the roof to clean out the gutters, where one false move might leave you impaled by a lightning rod.

I also spoke about how trying to make my grandparents proud of me was a motivating factor growing up. It kept me on the straight and narrow in school and kept my grades up in college. The mantra "Make Nana Proud" has kept me striving to be a generally decent guy ever since, even now after they are gone (maybe even more so). I can't help but think they'd be proud seeing this "Colorado man" in their free subscription of Golf World this week, once the "our grandson is crazy...but I guess we already knew that" eventually wore off.


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What's the Story, Rory? Glory! Ben Cox 108/155 hits 100k!

7/05/2011 0 comments


One quick post to announce that the Ben Cox golf marathon has reached the $100,000 mark in pledges today. What can I say...simply unbelievable. When I hatched this crazy idea to walk 108 holes in a day, my hopes were to literally raise $2,500 for the Cox family by e-mailing a group of my golf buddies. Three months later, here we are at FORTY times that amount and still going (still time to get in the golf raffle if you hurry.)

Of course, none of this would've been possible if it weren't for the support of hundreds of friends and fellow golf addicts who read about Ben, were inspired by his story and wanted to help him and his family. It was truly a grassroots effort that climbed to $100,000 by $50 or $100 at a time. Many donated money. Others donated raffle items. Others helped spread the word by e-mailing their friends or by harassing PGA Tour pros on Twitter...

...my buddy Tim Bert deserves a special shout-out for cyberstalking Rory McIlroy on Twitter the last couple of weeks, trying desperately to get a "RT" of one of the many links and stories that has come out about this event. I believe Tim has made it his life's mission to get a nod from the reigning U.S. Open champ by any means necessary. I joked that by time Rory actually does respond, Tim won't be able to get within 500 feet to personally thank him.

So if you're on Twitter, hit the tweet button at the end up this post and send @McIlroyRory a note asking for a RT on the #bencox155 raffle. Feel free to use this post's URL or any of the links below. Tell him @FiveClubWind sent you. Whomever gets Rory to finally respond gets a Ballyneal golf shirt (Tim will get one also).



[p.s. special thanks for Brian Carruthers for telling Golf World that I'm a 7 handicap. Now that the story has made the most recent print version of the magazine, tens of thousands of people think that I'm a 7 capper. At first I was upset about this, but now I've come to realize that this unintentional sand-bagging should improve my chances of winning the Ballynizzle Cup back from Jefe this weekend. Either way, Brian is not going to hear the end of it.]

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