If you logged onto the Highland Pacific Golf website in the past couple of weeks, you might have noticed the absence of the blog.

It must have been devastating to be deprived of the quality content that the blog consists of (yeah, right..) and we apologize for the downtime. Apparently we managed to pick up some kind of virus, which is strange since flu season is over already. Oh well.

Anyway, we’re back up and running again! Just don’t cough anywhere near our computers please.

Fun: Is the activity fun for your child? This one’s pretty self-explanatory. If the kids aren’t having fun, they won’t be participating for long.

Friends: Are their friends or peers involved? Are the other participants like-minded kids who they get along with? Making friends and having fun with others is a major reason kids participate.

Fit-In: Similar to the previous point, kids want to have fun with other kids, their friends. If they feel excluded or left out, the activity ceases to be fun.

Feels-Good: A somewhat abstract factor, feeling good is a combination of the first 3 factors combined with physical comfort. Example: If the first three factors are met but the activity takes place outside in January, the child will probably feel cold more than anything. That tends to take first priority.

Notice especially that competition isn’t on this list. Neither is winning. In most cases the outcomes don’t really matter to the children, more to the parent. Don’t be a “hockey dad.” Nobody likes them in hockey, and even fewer people like them in golf.

Well, in golf terms that can only be described as a pull-hook. Cundiff’s ball started left of where he wanted it, then curved to the left violently as well, missing the goalposts by a wide margin. I wouldn’t have wanted to be him in the locker room after the game!

Lets talk about what this means to you. A pull-hook in golf is caused by two issues. First, when you strike the ball the face of the club is pointed to the left of the target, which causes the golf ball to start left of its intended line. Second, the direction that the club is swinging (or “path”) is to the right of the clubface, causing the ball to curve still more to the left. The pull-hook is one of the worst shots in golf, as it often comes off low and hard into the left side gack.

So, how do you fix it? Well you have to fix one or both of the factors above. Usually its easiest to start with the face of the club. This can be a grip issue or a swing issue, but the bottom line is that you need the clubface pointing more to the right when you hit the ball. Even if your path is still too much to the right, by changing the clubface position you can turn that pull-hook into a draw. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to avoid your foursome nicknaming you after Billy Cundiff!

Side note: If you’re looking for something to do on Super Bowl Sunday, we’re hosting a 9 hole shotgun with cart and dinner for $39! Check out the details here.

In the past if you addressed your ball and it then moved for some reason (wind, rain, etc), you were subject to a penalty even if you didn’t necessarily cause the ball to move. Silly, right? This rule has been a prominent one in professional golf in recent years. Check out this video of Padraig Harrington, who was actually disqualified early last year because of this rule.

Webb Simpson also recently cost himself a tournament because of this rule. Hardly seems fair. So this rule has been amended. Players are no longer subject to a penalty “when it is known or virtually certain that they did not cause the ball to move” after address. For example, Doug Hastie our GM was playing a round recently at Victoria Golf Club in windy conditions, where this situation occurred with one of his playing partners (Mac Mcleod from Royal Colwood). The group agreed that the wind, not the player, had caused the ball to move after address. Mac finished the hole as normal without penalty.

The second change is minor as well. In the past you were prohibited from smoothing surfaces in a hazard (such as raking a bunker) even if the sole purpose was to care for the course. Camilo Villegas fell foul of this rule on the PGA Tour last year when he smoothed his divot in a bunker while his ball lay in the bunker a few feet away. This rule has been amended so that it is permissible for “a player to smooth sand or soil in a hazard at any time, including before playing from that hazard, provided it is for the sole purpose of caring for the course and Rule 13-2 (improving lie, area of intended stance or swing or line of play) is not breached.” Again, not something you would ever penalize your buddies for.

The big change (which again doesn’t really matter to us) is that for the first time in history, the R&A (governing body of golf for most of the world including Canada) and the USGA (governing body of golf for the USA) are publishing the same rule book! There have always been subtle changes between the two sets of rules, but never anything significant. The USGA’s Senior Rules Director Thomas Pagel sums it up: ““Now the book will not only have the same content, but it will also be presented in a uniform fashion with similar formatting and covers; this will truly be a single code governing the Rules of the game that reflects the strong collaboration between The R&A and USGA.” Wonderful.

Anyway, now you’re up to speed on the new rules! If you have any questions about these rules (or rules that actually matter to you) feel free to comment below or ask one of the HP pros.

Moving to Victoria has turned golf into a year-round activity for Rob Cruise.

Now the head professional at Highland Pacific golf course in View Royal/Saanich, Cruise, 33, started golfing at the age of five in Manitoba. He spent his childhood summers living in a cabin at Dauphin Lake Golf Club.

“I was fortunate to be five cabins away from the course,” Cruise said. “It was my backyard in the summer.”

What used to be a six month season has doubled now that he is in Victoria.

Although his passion is hitting the links in the fresh air, Cruise spends a lot of time indoors working with staff. He over sees the golf shop and other golf operations.

“I’d love to sit down with anyone and talk about golf,” Cruise said. “It’s good to come to work and have a passion for the game.”

Cruise has been working at the golf course for about three years in various positions such as golf instructor and in the pro shop. In November he was promoted to head professional.

“He is the best for the job and has proved himself reliable,” said course general manager Doug  Hastie.

“He enjoys helping people and answering questions from new golfers to people who have been golfing for many, many years.”

In his golfing career Cruise has played for provincial and national teams, competing in junior and amateur events. He attended the University of North Carolina on a golf scholarship from 1998-2000 and turned pro in 2001. The first professional tournament he was the 2001 Fernie Pro-Am. The last pro tournament he won was the 2011 Pender Island Charity Pro-Am. Cruise has competed in the Vancouver Island Golf Tour and has won several times, including the 2010 Tour Championship at Bear Mountain. He has also won numerous professional events on the Okanagan PGA Tour and the Kootenay PGA Tour.

“I have been highly competitive since I started playing,” Cruise said, noting that his hometown of Dauphin, Man., had a competitive junior golf program.

Highland Pacific is working on building up its junior program and offers two levels of junior memberships and summer camps.

Previously Cruise worked as a the club professional at Trickle Creek Gold Resort from 2004 to 2007. His best ever game was at Trickle Creek where she shot 10 under par. At Highland Pacific his best game was 66 on the par 71 course.

Cruise moved to Victoria to keep the woman of his dreams, who is now his wife, Jessica Cruise.

“We are the newest golf course in Victoria. We are trying new things and look at other courses and see what has worked and what hasn’t worked for them,” Cruise said.

Aside from being an 18-hole championship course, Cruise also noted that “It’s the driest golf course in Victoria. “It wasn’t rushed when it was being built and they made good drainage where it was needed.”

sports@goldstreamgazette.com

By Charla Huber – Goldstream News Gazette
Published: January 06, 2012 1:00 PM
Updated: January 06, 2012 1:26 PM

In July, Mike Weir announced that he’d be sitting on the bench for most of this golf season due to re-aggravating his elbow injury at the Canadian Open in Vancouver. Following surgery his playing outlook is a lot healthier than it has been in quite some time. Weir noted the condition of his arm following the surgery on his blog yesterday morning:

One interesting thing I’ve noticed in the last few weeks is how much more grip strength I have. I can really feel my fingers on the club these days and that’s something that was missing the last few years. It’s one of those gradual thing that’s so subtle I guess I never really noticed it, but since the surgery, it’s evident how much I’d lost over time and how much I have back.

This bodes well for Weir, who has been plagued with injury for the last two seasons. A return to form may be imminent. Unfortunately, we won’t be watching it. Not on the PGA Tour anyway. 

After learning that major champions receive a 12 year exemption onto the European Tour, with fully exempt status. That means that Weir will play at least 12 tournaments on the European Tour, which is the tour minimum. Included in this are co-sanctioned events such as major championships and WGC’s. Time will tell if Weir manages to qualify for any of those.

While I still would like to play most of my golf in North America, I’m also kind of excited about the chance to play in Europe. I think it would be fun to tee it up in the different countries they have on their tour and I’ll likely use that to fill in when I’m unable to play over here.

Weir should recieve some PGA Tour starts as well, based on sponsors and medical exemptions. He plans to play in as many of these as possible. Read Weir’s December update in its entirety on his blog.

The following post is an excerpt from Arthur D. Little’s post on golfwithwomen.com.

How fair is a 5,600 yard course for the average woman?

What would you think if we told you that a 5,600-yard course would be equivalent to an 8,400-yard course for the average man? How about an 11,200-yard course for Matt Kuchar ? That’s how the math works if fair is defined as having to hit the same clubs to reach greens in regulation from their respective tees. This concept is what we define as the “fairness test.”

If the average woman should play from 5,600 yards, the average LPGA player should be playing a 9,600-yard course and a good male amateur should play a 10,400-yard course. Sorry, Dustin Johnson, you are at 12,320 yards based on your average drive of 308 yards.

Read the full story on the Golf With Women website to find out if you’re playing the right tees for your distance capability! Spoiler: You’re not.

Well, Tiger’s back. Again.

By my count, this is about the 3rd(?) time we’ve declared that Tiger Woods is once again the master of professional golf that we remember from tournaments past. He was “back” at the Masters. He was “back again” at the Aussie Open, then the President’s Cup the following week. Now at the Chevron World Challenge he’s “back” again with his first win since the 2009 Aussie Masters, over two years ago! Now, whether you consider the 17 man field at the Chevron World Challenge a worthy proving ground or not (my opinion: it is) its undeniable that he played some great golf this past week. His birdie-birdie finish to beat Zach Johnson was one of the year’s highlights. Here’s three reasons he’s back, and back to stay.

1. He’s finally healthy! By his own admission, Tiger didn’t give himself enough time to heal from his knee surgery for his return at the Masters earlier this year. Let’s get it straight: Tiger is a guy’s guy. He’ll shrug off the opinions of the doctors and tough out his injuries, play through the pain. His amazing one-legged US Open win a couple years ago is evidence of that. But this time his layoff over the summer has given him the time to fully heal. He took the advice of his doctors this time and sat on the bench for the better part of the season, rather than risking an early return. And he’s better for it. His knee, which has plagued him his entire career, is back to full strength. Which means he can focus on the golf.

2. His life off the course is returning to normal. Whatever normal is for him anyway. The emotional trauma of Tiger’s divorce and fall from grace is starting to recede. We, the public, haven’t forgotten what he did but we’re starting to let the past be the past. Reporters are back to asking golf questions rather than questions more suited to TMZ. Sponsors are reappearing, most recently Fuse Science, a company that creates delivery systems for medicines and vitamins. He has a stable caddie on his (newly logoed) bag, veteran looper Joe Lacava, who packed Freddie Couples’ bag around for years. All the things surrounding his golf game are falling into place, which again allows him to focus on the golf.

3. He understands his golf swing better than he ever has. The changes Tiger made in his swing under Canadian coach Sean Foley are beginning to pay dividends on the course. He’s hitting fairways again. He’s hitting it a mile again. And he’s doing it in a much more sound way than he ever did. Tiger has always won tournaments in spite of his ball striking, never because of it. This week at the Chevron, the famed (and feared) club twirl was often on display. Foley has been responsible not only for these changes but for introducing Tiger to a device called Trackman, radar technology that quantifies the characteristics of the ball flight. This knowledge is helping Tiger control his ball flight better than he ever has. Which, if you play against him on the PGA Tour, is scary. Now that this piece of the puzzle is falling into place, lookout!

Let’s remember too that it isn’t a case of him being “back” or not. His game, like ours, is always a work in progress. It’s constantly in a state of change, improving (or for some of us, declining) every time he tees it up. As golf fans, all we can do is watch and enjoy the ride.

Ok gift givers, this one’s a biggie.

1. Any tees that are specialty, novelty, kitschy or “cute” should be kept out of my stocking. This includes (but is definitely not limited to) Brush-Tees, plastic figurine tees (I don’t care if they feature naked women), eco-tees, metal tees, spin-reducing slice fixing tees (what?) or any other kind. Please.
2. Any item to help me keep count of the strokes I’ve taken. Stroke calculators, abacus, beads. Beads? Really? Anyone that needs something like that to keep score probably won’t be able to find their way to a golf course anyway. Let alone remember where they hit their ball.
3. Anything golf-related you bought at Canadian Tire, Costco, Wal-Mart, or related stores. Mostly because those stores tend to do a roaring trade in the other items mentioned on this list. Combine that with the fact that the quality of any item you buy at a big box store is probably pretty low.
4. Golf balls. Unless I specify the make & model. Those little round spheres are probably the most personal part of a players game. Every golfer has a favorite type, even if they will play others. Ask the golfer on your list before you buy them! Or ask a pro like me to help get the right ones.
5. Iron headcovers. Don’t. Just don’t. No self-respecting golfer uses these. (If you consider yourself a serious player and you DO have iron covers, you and I need to have a chat. Today.)

Despite the emotional trauma that comes with the chili-dip, the league is actually really fun. You can play whenever you like, there’ s no set day or time. The key is that it’s not really competitive. Each week there will be prizes for league members based on your net scores (don’t worry if you don’t have a handicap, Rob will help you establish one), and then combined with a sports event result. For example, your net score plus Tiger’s net score that week. The sports event changes every week. Check out the details of the league here.

The best part is that the league is totally FREE! Well, if you’re an HP Club member that is. If you’re not, the damage is forty bucks, which gets you the HP Club discount on green fees thru the winter. Well worth it.

So, next time you play, make sure to turn in your card at the golf shop. Embrace your inner Chilly-Dipper, it could be worth some great prizes!

-Matt